Walter E. Smithe Jr., founder of Walter E. Smithe Furniture & Design and patriarch of the extended Smithe family, has died at age 86. - Original Credit: Colleen Smithe
In 1967, Smithe joined the family business, which his father had co-founded in 1945 with Bill Shanahan under the name “Tone Appliance,” according to an interview he gave to the Daily Herald newspaper in 2016. They soon changed the name of their single appliance store, which was at 5500 W. Belmont Avenue on Chicago’s Northwest Side, to “Smithe & Shanahan,” and they eventually moved the store to the corner of Belmont and Central Avenues.
“We looked at a map of the Chicago area and realized it formed a crescent. So we decided to open stores throughout that crescent, from north to south, so that all the stores were within a half-hour of each other and located in communities with name appeal,” Smithe told the Daily Herald in 2016. “We opened a store in Schaumburg, followed by one in Arlington Heights, and on and on — up until the recession.
Outside of work, Smithe enjoyed studying antiquity and culture, and in 1980, he earned a master’s degree in anthropology from Loyola University of Chicago. He wrote a thesis based on archeological sites that he had observed on land that he and his wife had owned in Ireland, according to a company biography.
Rest In Peace.
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