STILL ROCKIN’: Hughes Chair Co. handed down to 2nd generation
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But that’s exactly the situation at Hughes Chair Company, where the local business started by Jim Hughes, who passed away in November, has been taken over by Jim’s son, Roy, who is carrying on a family tradition begun more than 40 years ago.
Roy’s mother, Mazel, who still helps out in the shop, recalled how her husband Jim got involved in the business.
“He farmed a lot,” she said, “but he got sick and had to have gallbladder surgery. He had it in March I believe, and by the time he got over that it was too late to farm. So he decided he’d make chairs.”
Jim teamed up with Mazel’s father, Shelah Thomas, who had some experience in the trade.
“He and my daddy started out together,” Mazel said. “I guess daddy knew a little more about it than he did.”
But after a year or so Jim’s father-in-law returned to his home in Cannon County and started his own shop.
“That left Jim down here by himself,” Mazel said, “and that was in ’65.”
Jim continued to do some farming on the side, but mostly concentrated on making chairs.
The elder Hughes retired in 1984, but continued to make chairs until 1995 when he finally closed the shop due to ill health. But the closure turned out to be short-lived.
“It wasn’t closed that long,” Roy said, noting he and his wife Tamara reopened the business in 1996. “It just kind of sat idle there for a while.”
The couple spent several years employed at Outboard Marine Corporation in Murfreesboro, both working in management positions. But Roy said the sheer amount of time involved in those jobs eventually led them to consider a career change.
“We left so we could work at home,” Roy said. The couple decided they wanted to spend more time with their children, something their fast-paced and time-consuming jobs prevented.
“We were driving to work one morning,” Roy said, “and we just kind of looked at each other and said, ‘What are we doing?'”
Soon after they quit their jobs and began building chairs in earnest.
Like his father, Roy maintains side jobs to cover lean times in the chair-making business. He currently works part-time delivering and marketing mini-barns and metal storage buildings for a company located in Sparta, and does some carpentry work as well.
Mazel said the reason Jim stayed with the business for so long was his customers.
“He enjoyed the people,” Mazel said. Both Mazel and Roy said Jim got his customers mainly by word-of-mouth and his location.
“The old shop sat down there right next to the highway,” Roy said. “People would pass by and stop,” Mazel added, noting many would return just to socialize. “He was a big talker,” she said.
Roy says the shop is capable of turning out around 50 rockers a week with two people working, but the production varies according to season. Prices range from $40 to $70, and though he does use other woods on occasion, he mainly works with oak, since that is what most of his customers prefer.
The older two of the couple’s four children, daughters Alex, 15, and Sam, 11, help in the shop, while the younger two, daughter Jessie, 4, and son Jed, 2, aren’t quite ready to join the family business as yet.
Roy says he’s not sure if a third generation will be involved in the business.
“They’re to young to know what they want to do,” he said, pointing out he wanted nothing to do with the business himself when he was younger.
“When I got out of high school I didn’t want to do this,” he said. “I didn’t want any part of it.”
But the years changed that.
“It took a while to realize I should have been here doing this instead of other places,” he said.
Anyone interested in purchasing Hughes’s handmade chairs can find the shop near Centertown at 11391 Nashville Highway or call for information at 939-2651.