"Fearless Freddie" Warder and This Jewelry Store Provides More Value Than Just Jewelry

On this episode of Our American Stories, we learn how America won the Second World War because of men like Rear Admiral “Fearless” Freddie Warder. 4th-generation jeweler, John Henne, in Pittsburgh tells the story of how his family's shop, Henne Jeweler, has grown since 1887, how it's seeking to impact the marriages it furnishes, and how it has shaped his philosophy on job satisfaction.

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Time Codes:

00:00 - "Fearless Freddie" Warder

37:00 - This Jewelry Store Provides More Value Than Just Jewelry

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:10):
This is Lei Habib, and this is our American Stories,
and we tell stories about everything here on this show,
from the arts to sports, and from business to history
and everything in between, including your story. Send them to
our American Stories dot com. There's some of our favorites.
This next story is a war story America. Well, it's

(00:31):
made up of great men and women, and we are
as good as the people in our country. And America
won the Second World War because of men like fearless
Freddie Warder, whose story we're about to hear. Here's Greg Hangler.
There are many incredible stories of courageous men, incredible battles

(00:53):
and heroes during World War Two. Rear Admiral Fred Warder
a submarine skipper whose exploits in World War Two one
him a Navy Cross and a nickname he detested. Was
average sized, possessed firm lips, a determined chin, with piercing
blue eyes under narrowed lids, and a smooth face. Warder

(01:16):
graduated from the US Naval Academy at Annapolis class of
nineteen twenty five, received his master's in Marine engineering at
University cal Berkeley in nineteen thirty four. Was married and
the father of four children. Having narrowly avoided the attack
on Pearl Harbor, Rear Admiral Warder took charge of the

(01:36):
USS Sea Wolf and set out for the seas of
the Pacific to wreck havoc on Japanese shipping and quickly
became known as the Artist of submarining. Warder fought his
enemy hard, but he also respected and loved him. Let's
begin our deep dive into this story with Submarine warfare

(01:57):
Guru John Gorham. I attend a church here in Baltimore,
Grace Bible Baptist Church, and one of our church members
mentioned that she had an uncle named Freddie Warder. And
I said, I said, did you see Freddie Warder? And
she said yes. I said, you mean like us submarine

(02:17):
Captain Freddie Warder, and she says, yes, how'd you know
nobody knows that. I said, oh no. To the contrary,
he's the ultimate submarine warrior from World War Two. He's
just it. Most people don't know this, but the vast
majority of tonnage that was sunk during World War two
enemy Japanese tonnage was done by the submarine fleet, what's

(02:39):
known as the Silent Service. These men paid the ultimate
price but something like fifty five percent of all surface
supply shipping to the Japanese post war shipping and merchant
marine were sunk specifically by submarines. So these guys, to
me are the heroes. They were very small, efficient crew

(02:59):
that punched way beyond their weight. Fred Ward really did
punch way beyond his weight, even at family gatherings. Here's
Fearless Freddie's cousin Anne water Lynn. I just know that
if there was going to be a brawl, Fred was gonna,
you know, punch out the biggest man in the room,
and he was gonna ghit him good the first time,

(03:22):
so we didn't have to go back. Fred wasn't that big,
you know, and his brother Frank was big, and I
had broad shoulders, and he was, you know, it looked
to me like he was at least a foot or
maybe more taller than Fred. And Frank was an FBI agent.
Fred just knocked him out. He got to that first

(03:43):
punch and that was it. And Fred was gone and
Frank was down and out. And my mother said to
my father, John, why do your relatives always have to
pass out in our room? And my father said, pass
out nothing, that's a ko from Fred, it was he
knocked ye out. So it seemed to me that Fred
fought with men the way he fought the war. You know.

(04:05):
He was the little guy that had to get the
big guy, and he had to get him with one
punch and knockout. He's another one of Fred's cousins, Hugh
four dice. Freddie was the oldest of my uncle Hugh's family.
They had eight children and he was the oldest. And
Freddie was Valdatorian. In his high school graduating class, I remember,

(04:27):
was always had having a big smile away. He had
a quick wit about him. His mother was Irish, you know,
and he would make jokes about Catholics. And even though
he was Catholic him job. No one in our family
ever called Uncle Fred fearless or Freddie. He was known

(04:49):
as the Admiral Uncle Fred Fred. And when my grandmother
was feeling particularly stern, Frederick, especially when he was teasing
her about drinking or about being Catholic or something. Yesterday,
the Sumba nineteen forty one, a date which will live

(05:14):
in infamy, the United States of America was suddenly and
deliberately attacked my naval of the forces of the Empire
of Japan. Here's former aide of Rear Admiral Fred Warder
don Almer. All the instructions that came out from the

(05:38):
Commander of the Pacific Fleet was first off, it was
the announcement that the Japanese had attacked Pearl Harbor, and
the only instructions they gave was conduct yourself accordingly. And
then shortly after a message came out saying engage attack
and sink all enemies shipping encountered. That was very simple.

(06:01):
Back in those days. The United States had already tried
to stop the Japanese from colonizing and invading the mainland
of China and Korea. A lot of misbehavior by the
Japanese Empire in these areas that they quote unquote colonized,
They basically invaded them and abused the citizens of the

(06:22):
nations of Korea and China. And you've been listening to
the story of Fearless Freddie Water and it's just underappreciated
the role that the submarine played in World War two
and beyond, and the risks these guys, mostly guys, took.
It was all volunteer, always was and is because it

(06:44):
is unique duty, submarine duty and it's dangerous and well,
only certain types need apply. If you're claustrophobic, it is
not a job for you. When we come back, more
of the life of fearless Freddie Water, and we already
the guy, don't we. But wait till you hear the
rest of this story. Here on our American Stories. Here

(07:30):
are our American Stories. We bring you inspiring stories of history, sports, business,
faith and love. Stories from a great and beautiful country
that need to be told. But we can't do it
without you. Our stories are free to listen to, but
they're not free to make. If you love our stories
in America like we do, please go to our American
Stories dot com and click the donate button. Give a little,

(07:53):
give a lot, help us keep the great American stories coming.
That's our American Stories dot Com. And we continue with
our American Stories and the remarkable story of fearless Freddy Water.

(08:17):
Let's return to the story. Unto Greg England, here's Stephen
Trent Smith, author of Wolfpack, the American submarine strategy that
helped defeat Japan. In the late nineteen twenties, fred went
to the Submarine School in New London, Connecticut, and after
that he was junior officer on a number of US
Navy submarines, and in nineteen thirty nine he was the

(08:40):
commanding officer at the commissioning of the USSC Wolf and
remained commanding officer of the boat until nineteen forty three.
War clouds started gathering around nineteen forty and his submarine
was sent to the Pacific and eventually to the Philippines

(09:01):
along with a number of other US submarines. His submarine
was at the Cavetian Naval Yard in Manila Bay in
the Philippines. On December eight, nineteen forty one, when the
Japanese attacked the Philippines, they destroyed a couple of submarines
not too far away from him. He got her underway

(09:21):
and left Manilla Bay and was sent on patrol in
the Northern Philippines off the coast of Luzon. The east
coast of Luzon, near a town called a Pari. He
saw a destroyer outside of Pari the harbor there and
he went to attack it. But then he stumbled on
a seaplane tender that was in the harbor, and he

(09:42):
decided to attack that and he got a really good
He made a really good approach. He had everything all
set up. He fired four torpedoes from his forward tubes
and none of them exploded, so he turned tail because
the destroyer was going to come after him. But they
set up for stern tubes to fire at the seaplane tender,

(10:05):
and they fired those and none of those exploded. And
the only thing I've exploded that day was Fred Warder,
who was furious about the bad torpedoes, and that became
a scandal during World War two that for the first
couple of years of the war, the torpedoes did not
work reliably, and he was just fit to be tired

(10:25):
about that. Here is Rear Admiral Fred Warder. If we'd
had torpedoes, we could have made a damned flying effort,
but we did not have a good torpedo. Here again
is former aid of Rear Admiral Fred Warder, don Almer.

(10:48):
So Admiral Warder knew that the torpedoes were not working well,
so he actually went into a place called a devout
golf and there was a ship that was anchored there,
but he was firing torpedoes at this ship. So one
of the herpedoes went under the ship. Okay, went up
on the beach and exploded. So that was one. You see,
it's something I fault at the starpeedo's fall. And then

(11:09):
he fired two more and it was but against the
side of the ship and they didn't explode, so that
that that kind of confirmed that. And then another when
he fired and it was an erratic run called a
circular run. The ruter is going to lock over in
win position, it makes a circular run, and the circle
run would bring it right back to about where the

(11:32):
machinery compartment is. That the ship up. We did lose
a couple of submarines, by the way, but but not
to seawallf When Water anticipated this and he had his
sooner people listening, he knew it was a circle run.
He went down, so the torpedo passed overhead and came
back up again and he fired a couple more torpedoes
and he finished the ship off. Here again is Submarine

(11:55):
warfare Guru John Gorham. What they did was the Japanese
pre set. If you've seen in the movies, they look
like fifty five gallon drums being rolled off the back
of the tail of a corvette or a destroyer, and
they were just basically loaded up with TNT. They would
drop to a certain predetermined level based on and the

(12:18):
sensor that was used was a depth sensor based on
water pressure, and then they would just blow up. And
if you had, if your submarine vessel was nearby, when
one of those blew up, the shock was such that
it could break open the hull or weaken it, or
wrinkle the skin and do all kinds of damage. The
vast majority of anyone's submarines that were lost during the

(12:40):
war were lost to depth charges. He talked to me
one to him about the depth charge evasion, and the
way he put it to me is that, well, you've
got to understand that what this Japanese destroyer, the enemy
destroyers doing is he's making a noise and he's listening
to the echo. Well, the more aspect that you show

(13:03):
that ship, the stronger the echo. So basically, what he
would always do is to turn and point directly toward
the ship, and that gave him the most narrow aspect.
And even though it meant that he was going right
towards this guy that was trying to get him, the
echoes were just coming back strong. They would come back week,

(13:26):
which would indicate that the submarine was much further away.
So the guy would go overhead, and he'd go racing
out there and bang bang bang, the charges would go off,
and and that was the time. Then he would make
his course change or maneuver in order to put distance
between him and that destroyer. The strategy of the United

(13:47):
States Navy had with our submarine service was to go
after the merchant rain because they were easy targets. They
were soft targets. We could sink them, they couldn't fight back.
It allowed our American submarine fleet to last a little longer.
It's a little more dangerous when you go after a
Japanese warship because they can fight back. And the most

(14:08):
deadly warships were corvettes and destroyers because the destroyers are
very shallow draft vessels. If you attempt to fire at
a torpedo at it, at least at a corvette. A
corvette is even smaller than a destroyer. Corvettes are so
shallow that torpedoes go underneath, and you have to be
a very good shot to take out a destroyer with

(14:31):
a torpedo. The vast majority of American submarine commanders wouldn't
tangle with the destroyer, but that's not the case with
frennye order. Submarine commanders were a breed apart. A lot
of them had a strong streak of independence. They didn't
like being pushed around by admirals and captains, you know,

(14:52):
and the Submarine Service gave them that kind of freedom
because when a submarine left port, they had virtually no
contact with the admirals and the captains. It was all
up to the submarine commander. They didn't have anybody breathing
down their necks. Everybody was required to go on seven patrols,
and generally the custom was for a captain not to

(15:14):
press his luck. Just like in Vietnam when a guy
was down to his last month, they didn't go out
on any scary patrols. You don't want to risk a
guy's life if he's made it through a whole year
and Nam, you don't want to push your luck at
the last minute. But Warder is Warder, and he's determined
to make this very last of his patrol's count. He

(15:37):
was on his way back from the Palau Islands and
he discovered another anchorage or an area where there was
tremendous amount of activity. He sailed in a torpedo and
he was able to sink a three thousand ton ship.
Then he sank a transport. This is very valuable because
not only is a tonage, but it's Japanese fighting troops
men that will never make it to shore and in

(16:00):
and threatened American lives. A seven thousand ton transport. That
was a tremendous prize that he got. Then again he
was able to torpedo again. On his way coming home,
he was able to torpedo another ship to the tune
of three thousand tons. So that means he sank thirteen
thousand tons in one patrol. That's more than the majority

(16:23):
of sub captains ever sank in their entire career of
seven patrols in the South Pacific. How Freddie Warder got
that name Fearless Freddy. He was the last boat out
on patrol, leaving the Java Sea area, very low on fuel,
very low on food provisions. The men were smoking coffee

(16:48):
grounds rolled in toilet paper because they'd been out of
cigarettes for a while. They're low on torpedoes. But Freddie
Warder wasn't about to go back to his base with
unspent torpedoes. Ridiculous. He'd never do that. He found out
that the Japanese had invaded the Christmas Islands about two
hundred miles south of Java, and he took his boat
down in that way. He decided he just patrolled the area,

(17:10):
cruise around, see what's going on. As he approached Flying
Fish Cove, that's the one where the Japanese had their anchorage.
It was an absolute submariner's dream. Four cruisers lined up
in a row, lined up in a row. And when
we come back, we're going to hear the rest of
this remarkable story. Thirteen thousand tons in one patrol, the

(17:34):
artist of submarine, the ultimate submarine warrior. And we're talking
about Fearless Freddie Warder. Again. This is our American stories,
always telling the stories of our fighting men and women.
More after these messages and we continue here with our

(18:09):
American stories, and let's return to Greg Hangler and his
story about Rear Admiral Fearless Freddie Warder here again his
submarine warfare guru, John Gorham. He found out that the
Japanese had invaded the Christmas Islands about two hundred miles
south of Java, and he took his boat down in
that way. He decided he just patrolled the area, cruise

(18:30):
around see what's going on. As he approached Flying Fish Cove,
it was an absolute submarner's dream. Four cruisers lined up
in a row, lined up in a row. He got
in close and destroyers recognized him right away. He heard
the painting. But he fired off four torpedoes at a

(18:51):
cruiser that was about a thousand yards away, and that's
about as close as a submarner will ever want to
get to his target. So he fired the four torpedoes.
As soon as he was convinced that he had sunk
that ship. He dove low, and his law book reports
that the Japanese were very effective in placing their depth charges.

(19:13):
So he stayed low, and he waited overnight the next
day and he slipped out of the cove. The next day,
he slipped back in, and the Japanese, of course were
alerted to him. They were on patrol. But he was
able to maneuver in again and nail a second cruiser,
and again he was depth charged, fled the area, waited

(19:38):
until later on that afternoon he came back in and
he struck a cruiser a third time. Captain Water comes
in the very next day again because he wants to
finish off this juicy collection. He's down to just two
torpedoes left. They're on attack mode now because they're just

(19:59):
absolutely patrolling the area. The water's boiling with ships going
back and forth looking for him. He slips in because
he's determined to use up his last torpedoes. There's one
more cruiser left. It's flying the dependent of the admiral
of the squadron, and he says, I'm gonna take this
guy out. So he fires his last two torpedoes at
the cruiser and he hits them, but in the meantime,

(20:21):
the destroyers got perilously close to him. He dove down
deep and he endured nine hours of depth charge from
multiple patrol boats, corvettes, destroyers. Unbelievable. That may be the
record for the United States Navy for this submarine fleet.
And during nine hours of well placed depth charging, and

(20:45):
he says in his log book, he says, my men
were really at the end of their rope, and he
realized he had to go and there's no point in
staying around. He had no more torpedoes. He's already taken
out all four of the Capitol ships that were anchored
at Flying Fish Cove, and he returned home in victory,
and on the way the men said, I'm gonna call

(21:06):
you fearless Freddie from now on after what we saw
you do here again his former aid of Rear, Admiral
Fred Warner don Almer. He later came back. That's what
they call a division commander or a wolfpack commander, and
that was after he was relieved by Lieutenant Commander Royce Gross.
He went into Christens Island because they knew the Japanese

(21:28):
were going to come there in order to, you know,
take advantage of the potassium. At the time, they were
nothing but abridge and all the people that were there.
To give you some feel for aber Warder, he got
there before the Japanese did, and there were facilities there,
dock and that sort of thing, and someone suggested that,

(21:48):
well maybe it's a good idea if we wouldn't here
and blow all that up. Well, now you got to
understand these this is a war going on, and these
are just Aboriginal people. You would think that you who
really cares about them. Wardered it and he said no,
he said, we're not going to go in there and
blow anything up. He says, because these people need to
make a living there, and we don't want to hurt him.

(22:09):
I guess later on I learned from the person who
succeeded him in command of the Sea, Wolf Royce Gross,
that he sent a Japanese merchant ship not far from
that that place it went down. There were two survivors
in the water, and the water wanted to bring him
one board, and one of them blew himself up with
a hem grenade, and the other was he just refused

(22:31):
to come because the Japanese culture to time you do
a surrender, you died for the emperor. And the wards
figured he needed something, so he actually tossed him a
life jacket and a fifth of bourbon. The Japanese acknowledged
within but from what water could tell that he was,
you know, carried out to sea and ultimately was lost.

(22:52):
Here again is Stephen Trent Smith, author of Wolfpack, the
American submarine strategy that helped the feet Japan. When he
was patrolling down in the Java Sea area, he sunk
a Japanese ship and he surfaced and discovered a lot
of Japanese just floating in the water without life jackets.

(23:12):
So he had the crew his crew throw as many
life jackets as they could to help the surviving sailors.
He saw them as an enemy. I mean, the Japanese
is truly an enemy because of what they had done,
particularly Pearl Harmor. But he believed that your enemy is
also your brother. To be a successful captain, you have

(23:33):
to have a crew that will obey you, and you
have to have a crew that respects you enough to
risk their lives. Because he isn't called fearless Freddie for nothing.
He would take risks that almost no other submarine captain didn't. Well,
some of them took risks and they just didn't live
to tell about it, which is understandable. That's what they
called a risk. But Freddie absolutely earned that title being

(23:56):
called fearless. He absolutely was fearless, and his men would
go to the gates of hell and back for him.
He had their utmost respect. Here again is Fearless Freddie's
cousin and ward Lynn. He really did believe in a
hard war and an easy peace. He wanted the war

(24:16):
to be fought hard and fast and be over with
so that humanity could get back to being humanity. Because
I never really heard him say an ugly thing about anyone.
I never heard anyone say he said an ugly thing
about another person. If you were with him, you just
felt like you were the only person on earth. He
really made people feel his warmth idea. I mean, you

(24:41):
just fairly wanted him to be proud of you. You
were proud to be with him, and you wanted him
to be proud of you. And he's one of my
fondest childhood memories. Actually, he went on to earn two
Navy crosses, of course, a legion and hurt. He got
those Navy Commendation Medal, Navy Achievement Medal than the usual ones,

(25:05):
the Victory Medal, Philippine Service Medal, and the Agietic Pacific Medal.
From what I've read in his obituary and been told
by my father, Uncle Fred really didn't like the name
fearless Freddie because he was just as afraid as anybody
else on the submarine and his crew. And his crew
were as heroes whom he fondly referred to as his

(25:28):
beloved sons of you know what, And he felt and
said that the real heroes and war are those that
give their lives. Here again is Rear Admiral fred Water
said you the name fearless, Well, I know I did

(25:52):
are one. I'm scared to row, I mean RAI shooge gated.
I'm scared. Fred Warder became Assistant Chief of Naval Operations
for Undersea Warfare in nineteen fifty five. He commanded the
Submarine Force Atlantic Fleet in nineteen fifty seven and retired

(26:13):
in nineteen sixty two after two years as Commandant of
the eighth Naval District in New Orleans. He retired in
nineteen sixty two and died at his home on February first,
two thousand. He was ninety five years old. I'm Greg
Hengler and this is our American stories and great job

(26:38):
is always to Greg Hengler and special thanks to dang
Lynn Productions for allowing us access to the one of
a kind interviews from their documentary Fearless Freddie. Checked out
the trailer and the film at Fearless Freddie movie dot com.
That's Fearless freddiemovie dot com. And what a story we heard. Indeed,
this Annapolis grad class of nineteen twenty five, married, father

(27:00):
of four and a leader and in the end a
soldier underground. He rose above his fear and led anyway.
And that's why he was the man. He was the
artist of submarine in the Ultimate Submarine Warrior, Freddie Water Fearless.
Freddie Water his story here on our American Stories, and

(27:37):
we returned to our American stories, and today we bring
you the story of Henny Jewelers, a fourth generation family
owned jewelry shop with a heck of a story in Pittsburgh, PA.

(28:00):
Story of Henny Jewelers began in eighteen eighty seven by
my great grandfather, Rudolph Joseph Henny, who was a watchmaker
by trade, and he decided to start his own business.
So he bought a building in the east end of
Pittsburgh with a five dollars down payment and he and
his wife moved upstairs and then operated the business sound

(28:21):
below and there they serviced railroad pocket watches for the
railroad right around the corner, and began to sell jewelry,
engagement rings, wedding bands, and did just about any type
of service that could be done. He continued to operate
that business into the early nineteen hundreds. His son, his

(28:42):
only child, was born above the store in eighteen ninety nine.
Rudolph Gerard Henny or Jerry, was the next generation to
come into the family business, and he carried that business
through the Great Depression, which we actually have the original
accounting ledger from the nineteen twenties and nineteen thirties. The

(29:03):
Great Depression saw Henny Jeweler's sales drop seventy two from
nineteen twenty six to nineteen thirty four. Despite the toll
that the Great Depression took on the Hennies, they still
managed to make it through with a little thriftiness and ingenuity.
They were true entrepreneurs because back then while sales were declining,

(29:27):
they actually tripled their marketing budget. I think also being
able to have the store fully paid for so they
really didn't have rent and at that time they still
may have been living above the store. At least one
of the generations was so they were able to get
through the Great Depression and carry on the business. Eventually,

(29:52):
the business was passed on to my father. So during
the nineteen sixties, the area where the store was located
in the East End of Pittsburgh, they did some urban
development that changed things which significantly declined the commercial viability
of the area and we saw crime go up in

(30:13):
My dad finally in the nineteen seventies nineteen seventy eight
decided to move the store. It was a very difficult
move because they had been in the previous location for
ninety one years. It was the store where my grandfather,
his father was actually born, and it was a real change,
a real risk for him of it. It turned out
to be a great move and he continued to operate

(30:36):
that to the nineteen nineties. I came in the business
in nineteen ninety two. My dad was very sincere when
he mentioned to me about the opportunity to come into
the business. There was no pressure that he really felt.

(30:56):
It was a business that he enjoyed, but one of
us should choose something that we really enjoy and love.
I had my own desire to come into the business.
I saw my dad, I saw what he got to do.
I started working in the business when I was twelve,
and I would come in and run the vacuum and
clean toilets and wrap packages. We used to actually make

(31:19):
our own bows in the basement. There's a little machine
that you would twist these bows up, and I would
sit there for hours and make bows. And you know, frankly,
my dad is one of my heroes, and if I
could be like him, that would be a very successful life.
So I had a desire to come in and do
what he did. When I joined the business, we were

(31:39):
doing less than two percent bridal engagement rings and wedding bands,
and now it accounts for about thirty five percent of
our business, and frankly, it's some of the most exciting
things that we get to do. It's really fun for
me to get to meet these young couples who are
planning the next stage of life, planning to get engaged
and then get married, and some of them I've gotten

(32:02):
to see through it now in my twenty six years
in the business, I now get to see the children
who are graduated from high school and college. When I
sold the original engagement ring and wedding band years ago.
My Christian faith is very important to me. This goes
all the way back to my great grandfather. In fact,

(32:23):
right now on the credenza behind me is a little
trial that was given to my great grandfather and recognition
of his help to lay the cornerstone in the new
church that was built down the street, Sacred Heart Catholic Church,
which coincidentally is where my sister was married and where
my grandparents they were the very first couple married in

(32:44):
that church. My faith has played an important part in
how we operate the business, in what we do here.
It was discouraging to see young couples getting engaged in
getting married and see the love that they have for
each other, and then encountering them five or seven or
ten years later when they're coming back to sell the

(33:06):
engagement ring and wedding bands because things didn't work out
so well. Marriage and relationships can be challenging, and sometimes
people don't prepare as well as they might need to.
As my dad said, often he and my mother counsel
young couples through their church as they prepare for marriage,
and he was getting the impression that many of the

(33:27):
young couples today were more interested in preparing for the
wedding ceremony than for the relationship. And so we developed
a program we call it to Having to Hold program
where we give a financial incentive to couples to seek
pre marriage counseling through their synagogue, their church, through any
type of counselor, and we will give them a discount

(33:50):
on their wedding bands if they show us that they
have received pre marriage counseling. In addition to that, we
do give out a book to every couple who comes
in to look at an engageing It is written by
Gary Chapman, who is pretty famous for a book he
wrote called The Five Love Languages. And this book is
the Things I Wish I knew before I got married.

(34:10):
And it's a great practical guide to help prepare young
couples for getting married. And we have given it to
thousands of couples now, and some of them have come
back and told us what an impact has had and
how helpful it was. I know that many have taken
it and read it and given it to their friends
to read as they prepare it for marriage. I generally

(34:33):
tell people that I have never had an innovative thought.
That I'm really good at paying attention to what other
people do in picking out what has been successful in
trying to emulate it, maybe tweak it. But that was
one that we did come up with on our own
through a leader's collaborative that I went through about eleven

(34:56):
years ago. And at the end of this leader's collaborative,
they asked everyone to come up with a breakthrough goal
where they, in their position, wherever they are, could have
an impact on the world. And I thought to myself,
what in the world is a little dinky retail jeweler
going to do to have an impact on the world.

(35:16):
How can I really impact our community? How can a
jewelry store really do something that would have a meaningful impact.
At that exact time, very close friend of mine from
college was going through a real challenge in his marriage,
and that's what gave me the inspiration to see if
there was a way that we could use our unique
position in dealing with couples as they're preparing for marriage

(35:38):
to help them better prepare for marriage. Because it is
neat when you are selling an engagement ring, you tend
to hear their story, You get connected to these couples,
and you get to know them in a way that
most people in a retail environment don't get to know people.
And we felt that through that we might be able
to speak into their lives and give them some resources

(36:00):
that could be beneficial and helpful. And so that's our desire.
Our hope is that there are marriages that are slightly
better than they would have been if they hadn't read
the book or done the pre marriage counseling, and maybe
we're really even making an impact that there are marriages
that are saved that wouldn't have been because of the
resources that we've given them. I have four boys, the

(36:22):
oldest is sixteen, down to ten, and they have all
worked in the business in minor ways, and one of
them has come in and actually gets behind the sales
counter and is really quite good at it. We will
see if any of them do choose to come into
the business. Just like my father said to me, I
intend to say to them that it is an opportunity,

(36:42):
a means to make a living and provide for your
family if you're interested. It's frankly one that I enjoy tremendously.
But there's no obligation to come into this business. There's
no tradition that needs to be carried on, and they
should pursue their dreams and do whatever they feel called to,
to do something that they really enjoy. That's certainly one

(37:03):
of the things that I feel strongly about, and I
talked to our team. We have a staff of about
thirty here. Then we spend too much time at work.
In fact, we oftentimes spend more time at work than
we do with our families. So we should find something
that we really enjoy. And I like to say, you
should enjoy what you do. You should like what you

(37:24):
do sixty to eighty percent of the time. I'm well
aware that there are bad days and not all things
go smoothly and easily. There are times that you're not
going to love what happened that day. But for the
most part, you should be excited to go to work
and enjoy what you're doing. And thanks to Robbie for
his work on that piece, and so thanks to John
Henny for doing all the things he does. A family

(37:45):
serving Pittsburgh for many, many, many decades. John Henney's story,
his family's story of Pittsburgh story here on our American
Story