Or Do You Say "Smythe"?

A quiet farewell to a Chicago icon.

John M. Smyth To Close Its Stores
By Sandra Guy, Chicago Sun-Times
July 21, 2005

Chicago's 140-year-old John M. Smyth's Homemakers furniture stores are going out of business at month's end, doomed by fierce competition and a series of struggling owners.

(Full story)

I remember my Mom dragging my sister and me to the old John M. Smyth store in the Loop, just after we had been to the eye doctor. My sister and I both had drops put in our eyes by the doctor, diluting our pupils and making us both functionally blind. But there we were at Smyth, with my mom having forgotten her glasses and asking us to read price tags for her. The three blind mice, as it were.

My first apartment was outfitted with a genuinely ugly end table that I bought in the "bruised and reduced" section of Homemakers' megastore just off North Avenue. As soon as refined aesthetic tastes arrived on the scene (i.e., I started dating Julie), the table quickly found itself in a garage sale.