HAGUE, Sask. – The piercing sounds of breaking glass silence the chatter in the hardware store on a fall morning.
A clerk scurries across the freshly washed tile to clear away the debris with a broom and dust pan, while customers amble through the store’s cramped aisles in search of nails, pipes and screws.
Terry and Sheldon Thiessen manage the Hague Pro Hardware store, following in the footsteps of their late father Peter. Their mother Bertha remains a silent partner.
Peter came here in 1955 to work for then owner Peter Schellenberg before taking over the business in the 1970s.
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Peter liked to be known for his customer service and entrepreneurship. He sold carpets after the shop closed by driving around the countryside and knocking on doors.
When electricity came to rural Saskatchewan, he ordered electric appliances for the store. Peter sold furniture and also stayed open on Saturday night.
He had an uncanny memory for names and family connections, said Terry.
The boom years of the 1970s were followed by changes in shopping brought on by big box outlets like the Great Canadian Superstore.
“The perception of the consumer is that the bigger you are, the better the place to shop,” said Terry.
His shop’s competitive advantage draws on its small town roots.
“We offer personalized service our competition can’t or doesn’t offer,” he said, citing his delivery of large appliances to customers as one example.
The local community has shifted in recent decades from an area of mixed family farms to larger automated livestock operations.
The store has responded by dropping bagged feed from its inventory.
Hague Pro Hardware has sprouted new wings over the years but still needs more space to display its large and varied inventory properly, said Terry.
That stock ranges from large appliances and mattresses to giftware and paint to toys and gardening tools.
The help-wanted sign in the front window points to an ongoing problem in accessing experienced hardware workers in a region within a hour’s drive of Saskatoon.
Terry oversees the management of the store, while his younger brother Sheldon focuses on troubleshooting.
“I deal with the problems,” said Sheldon, whose cell phone is always within reach. “I inherited Dad’s fix-it attitude. When we sell, it’s not the end of the sale,” he said.
Sheldon helps customers access warranty help lines or arranges for servicing. That’s especially important to an aging base of customers.
He and Terry both worked with their father as boys before starting in the business full time. Today they live within a short commute of the store, as do the other three Thiessen siblings.
The store employs a handful of staff from the area and remains in business largely due to loyal customers in the 1,000-resident Hague and surrounding agricultural community.
Both men agree Peter cultivated much of their business.
“Dad said ‘if you ask for it, we should consider getting it’, ” Terry said.
The Hague store affiliated with the Pro Hardware chain in 1988, ordering supplies from there and using the larger business’s advertising campaigns and sales flyers.
While Sheldon noted the store can no longer afford to let people run a tab as in his father’s day, they remain focused on their customers’ needs in everything they do from promotions to schedules to purchases.
“I think we’re trying to keep up the things that he did well,” said Sheldon.
As Sheldon takes a phone call about ordering a special plumbing pipe for an in-concrete heating system under construction, Terry explains how important it is for his staff to know what is needed for a job and to help those who need it.
Wilbert Fehr of Hague pops in to the store for some nails and electrical supplies.
“They have just about anything a person needs,” he said, citing how handy it is to have such a shop in town. “It’s good to support local business. They got to eat too.”
Like their father, the Thiessens are always looking for new sales and have added giftware and hard to find pieces like flour bins and kneading pans.
Unlike his father, whose heart attack shut down his career at the store in 1993, Terry is careful to keep stress at a manageable level.
He works six days a week and was only able to get two days at his cottage this summer but makes time for his wife, a school teacher, and university-aged sons.
He is active in the local gospel church and enjoys golfing, water sports and tropical fish.
“Maintaining some balance away from the business is important,” he said. He recalled his father working 20-hour days, Saturday nights or often returning after supper.
He would start by six in the morning and begin serving customers immediately even though it didn’t open until eight, said Terry.
“I don’t know when he ever slept,” he said.
For the future, the Thiessens look optimistically to the twinning of the main north-south highway passing their town.
They say it could improve access to town, create a housing boom similar to those communities closer to Sask-atoon and toss some business their way.
Regardless of what happens, Sheldon and Terry plan to put their heads down and work hard.
“We just try to do our best and hopefully that’s enough,” Sheldon said.
