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Ruth got his start 70 years back driving a delivery truck and receiving his neighborhood friends to help him haul mattresses. Health issues are currently forcing him to close down his Gerard's Furniture shop.

"I am going to continue functioning. I must deliver all this furniture"

This is actually the second time that Ruth has had a going-out-of-business sale. Twenty-two years back, when he turned 65, Ruth brought to help him sell the stock off.

"I went home, and after about 10 days, I went stir crazy," he said.

Ironically, the same firm that assisted him with the retirement sale back in 1996 is helping him with this going-out-of-business sale.

Ruth, 87, still does business like he did. His shop doesn't have a site. "I really don't text and I do not email," he explained. "Only been a couple of years ago we have a computer for accounting."

Gerard's includes a focus on high-end, American-made furniture created out of premium leather.

"All that stuff on the world wide web, it's like going into the ships. It is gambling. You don't know exactly what you going to have," he explained. "Some of the leather is seconds, some of it's rejects."

Ruth started working in the furniture business during his senior year in Baton Rouge High in Lloyd Furniture Co., at 1126 North Blvd.. After graduation, he attended LSU, then joined the Coast Guard.

Back in 1953, he returned to Baton Rouge and also to his occupation.



During that time he had been a salesman at Hemenway's, Ruth got into racing. He was a catalyst for the Tom Cat Baby, a boat with a Corvette engine that won the most prestigious and dangerous Pan American race on Lake Pontchartrain.

Through the ship races, Ruth became friends with Lewis Gottlieb. Gottlieb backed some teams that were rushing.

Ruth got a call, 1 afternoon. The proprietor of Simon Furniture Co. had expired and his children weren't interested in taking over the business. Would Ruth be interested in owning a furniture store?

Gottlieb advised him to check the store out, and he would help him finance the offer if he had been interested.

"It was a great shop, and that I knew I could do some good on the market," Ruth explained. The problem was money. His wife and ruth, Selma, had just had their second child, and that he just needed a couple hundred dollars after paying the hospital bill. However he'd have a life insurance coverage he purchased from a fellow member of the Red Stick Kiwanis Club.

"Mr. Gottlieb advised me to deliver him that insurance coverage to the bank," Ruth said. "He told me'You are going to create it."

Gerard's Furniture opened in 1966. There were three employees: a bookkeeper and the Ruths. At the shop, Ruth sold furniture during the day. In the evenings, he also delivered the things he offered.

At that moment, the trend in furniture was Mediterranean- and Spanish-style furniture. An effective Atlanta furniture salesman detected Gerard's Furniture and advised Ruth he needed to get some of those things in the store. Ruth told the man he did not have the money to buy the furniture, so that he called a Virginia maker and got them to send three suites of Mediterranean-style furniture on credit to Gerard's. "That really cranked up business," Ruth explained. "We sold the hell check out of that furniture."

A couple of years later, Ruth discovered about a shop. Ruth checked the construction at 7330 Florida Blvd. and decided to purchase it and fix it up.



Gerard's Furniture's Florida Boulevard place opened around 1975. The store won national acclaim for the completeness of the choice, which included fabrics, art, furniture, rugs and accessories. 1 area is filled with George Rodrigue prints. His son Larry has a gallery of original Louisiana art and prints in another part of the store.

Ruth visits the furniture markets in North Carolina to round out the selection in Gerard's.

"Baton Rouge has always been interested in great taste and standard furniture," he explained. "The people who purchase nice furniture want to take a seat inside, want to feel it, and when they have any knowledge in any way, unzip it and see what is inside ."

He had been why not try here diagnosed with lung disease. That led him to close the shop after meeting with four kids and his wife.

Because his children have professional jobs, the choice was made to liquidate the business.

"I never got rich, but I was able to raise four children, send them off to school -- and not need to pay any institutions or attorneys to get them from trouble," he explained.

Despite his years in business, Ruth said he decided to shut the shop.

"My family would go crazy trying to figure out everything in the furniture store," he said.

He also made a point of helping his children and eight grandchildren find items in the shop to help decorate their homes.

Plans are to spend promoting off of the inventory in Gerard's. The shop will close when everything is gone.

Since announcing he was shutting down his organization, Ruth said he's seen a boost in customers. The day after it was announced he closed, 500 people showed up at the store. The next day about 400 people were there.

"We had them come from 20, 30, 40, even 50 years ago to purchase things on our economy," he explained. "It's been rewarding."