History Hotdish Ep. 44 - The Thompson Family

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to History Hot Dish, a casual conversation about the
historic people and events that give Bismarket's unique flavor. History
Hot Dish is brought to you by the Bismarck Historical Society,
a local nonprofit whose mission is to learn, preserve, and
promote the history of Bismarck. Sit back, turn up the
volume and enjoy another helping of History Hot Dish.

Speaker 2 (00:23):
Welcome to another episode of History Hot Dish. I'm your
host Kate Waldera, a member of the Bismarck Historical Society's
Board of Directors. Today's episode is a special version of
History Hot Dish where we feature another important project of
the Bismarck Historical Society, the Prairie Pioneers Early Families of

(00:44):
Bismarck Programs. The Prairie Pioneers Project is a video collection
of twenty interviews with current family members from some of
Bismarck's early and influential families and residents. The Prairie Pioneer's
Early Family Only's a Bismarck project was funded through a
donation by Chad and Stacy Walker of Bismarck, a Cultural

(01:07):
Heritage grant through the State Historical Society of North Dakota
and donations from local history enthusiasts. The project was done
in collaboration with Matt Fern and his team at the
Creative Treatment. Matt is joining me today in the studio
to help bring you another tasty helping of history hot dish,

(01:29):
and of course, another wonderful partner in this project has
been the Dakota Media Access, where you can find each
of The Prairie Pioneer's original ten episodes, along with ten
new families and their stories of Bismarck that began airing
on Community Access in December. Matt, thank you for joining

(01:49):
me today to share some of your work with our audience.
For your listeners, please take a moment to introduce yourself
from the role that you played in this wonderful collection
of interviews and videos.

Speaker 3 (02:00):
Thanks for having me, Kate. I'm Matt Fern. I'm born
and raised here in Bismarck. It's my favorite city in
the whole world, and I've been running the Creative Treatment
for about fifteen years here in Bismarck. We do a
lot of ads across the state and across the country,
as well as podcasts and documentaries. My main my main

(02:24):
passion has always been telling the stories of North Dakota.
I did a docuseries called Daily to Codin that kind
of started out my whole my whole filmmaking career, and
so when the opportunity to do Prey Pioneers came up,
I jumped on it. A lot of these names Walked
or Woodman, See, they have been around, you know, the

(02:46):
Bismarck community, my whole life, and so to put a
face to the name, to humanize and to actually hear
the story behind those names was really exciting, and so
I'm very grateful to be part of the project. And
it wasn't just me. I have a great team working
with me as well as the Bismarck Historical Society and
Dakota Media Access. But this has been just a really

(03:09):
awesome project where the Bismarck community has come together and
some of the histories.

Speaker 2 (03:15):
Of these families have just been very unique, very interesting,
and as always, everyone learns a lot of about the
families and their important part that they played. Today's episode
of History Hot Dish will highlight the family of Henry
Abbott Thompson, a name many will recognize as a successful

(03:38):
plumbing and heating business H. A. Thompson and Sons, which
is still in business today, celebrating well over one hundred
years and Bismarck's first full time fire chief. Sharing those
memories and tributes will be his grandson, Mark Thompson, and
Mark's wife Claudia, and the current generation of H. Thompson

(04:00):
and Sons, their daughters Tracy and Jennifer. So what stands
out with this particular family interview.

Speaker 3 (04:10):
I think what stands out is is just kind of
the story the stories that Mark and his wife's share
of the father kind of teaching them the business. I
have a son. The idea of a generational businesses is
is it's hard to de you know. The idea that
you can build something and pass along to your children

(04:33):
is really impactful, and I think this family has really
done it right. It's it's a service that we see
all over everyone needs he needs their help with eating
and cooling. That they've really adapted with the times. But
the one thing that stands out is just that that
they really transitioned well. It seemed like Mark was the

(04:54):
great fit to take over that business. I remember he
had some great stories of his military service and initially
didn't want to come back to the business, but eventually
was able to come and it was a great fit
for him. And then same with the daughters, if I
remember correctly, they again didn't want to go part of it,
and eventually they came back. But it seemed like a

(05:16):
great fit and it seemed like a really strong culture
within that company. And you see their name all over
the community. They really give back. They walk the walk.
They also helped support this program as well. But just
the generational aspect of that business really stood out to me,
and also just how much they give back to the community.

(05:38):
Not a lot of families give as much as they do.

Speaker 2 (05:42):
Yeah, and I and as you said, being a it's
a multi generational family business. It's was very unique and
to hear the story about all of that and the
fact that they've expanded, you know, so they've got offices
in Bismarck, Fargo, Mina newtown, Garrison, and then another town
that's very close to where I grew up, Gwinner, And

(06:05):
like you said, you know, they see a need and
they fit that into their business and they've moved with
the times and adapted to the times. But what I
really love is the fact that it's a multi generational
family business. There's been no outside owner. It's always been
a member of H. A. Thompson, Henry Abbott Thompson's family.

Speaker 3 (06:25):
And from I can tell, they all seem like they
still get along a work well too.

Speaker 2 (06:31):
They seem like a great family and they are. Yeah,
Claudia and Mark are fantastic supporters not only of the
Prairie Pioneers, but also just of the Bismarck Historical Society.

Speaker 3 (06:43):
Yeah, because many times these family businesses I remember interviewing
and there was some tension or oh he took over,
they had a falling out. But to see it for
over one hundred years just stay within the family, I
think that's a testament to who they are and kind
of what their grandfather started.

Speaker 2 (07:00):
Well, and I did the math, and this year will
be their one hundred and seventeenth year in business. Well,
not many in the area can claim that.

Speaker 3 (07:08):
Yeah, that's incredible.

Speaker 2 (07:10):
And on that note, stay tuned, folks and listen to
the wonderful history of the Thompson family and Prairie Pioneers.

Speaker 4 (07:19):
Dad said, come back, we need you help run the business.
And he took me down to the office the first
day and he sat behind his desk for forty five
minutes with a cardboard box on top of his desk,
going through all the drawers and picking pieces of memorabilia.
And when he got done, he picked up the box,

(07:41):
walked over to the door, stopped, looked back at me
and gave a sweeping motion with his arm and said
it's all yours. And he left and he never came back.

Speaker 5 (08:32):
The Thompson family arrived in Bismarck in eighteen ninety five.
After working in a local hardware store, Harry Abbot Thompson
started his own plumbing and heating business, H A. Thompson
and Sons. In nineteen eight. Along with owning his own business,
Harry served as a city commissioner and was Bismarck's first
full time fire chief. His son, Harry Abbot Thompson the Second,

(08:57):
took over the business after his father's death in nineteen
thirty five and also served as a state legislator. The
family legacy continued when Harry Tom Abbott Thompson the Third
became the president of the family business in nineteen seventy five.
Over the years, the Thompson family has played a major
role in the construction of countless homes and many iconic

(09:20):
buildings throughout Bismarck.

Speaker 4 (09:24):
Isaac Woodman Thompson, my great great grandfather. He brought his
family here in eighteen eighty three, and my grandfather moved
to Bismarck in eighteen ninety four, but he had been
working in Bismarck before then. He had been working at
a hardware store. And in eighteen ninety five he met

(09:45):
my grandmother and they got married and they started their family,
and I guess it was eighteen ninety seven. He became
the first paid fire chief in Bismarck in nineteen He
was the fire chief when the state capitol burned in

(10:05):
December twenty eighth of nineteen thirty. When he first became
fire chief, they had no motorized firetruck. It was a
wagon pulled by horses, a pumper wagon that guys had
to manually pump. There were no pumps that you turned
on and they spread the water. So it was some

(10:28):
very meager. Some of the photos that we have, that
one photo he's standing on the running boards of one
of the first fire trucks, trucks that the city of
Bismarck had. So it was I always heard that my
grandfather's first love was being fire chief. And you know, yes,

(10:50):
did he start a business. Was he a businessman in Bismarck, Yes,
he was, but he still loved being fire chief, probably
above anything else. He was in that position when he
died in nineteen thirty five, but he had to give
that position up for an eight year stint in the
middle of that from nineteen nineteen to nineteen twenty seven,

(11:13):
because he served on the City Commission of Bismarck during
that period of time. And he didn't start the plumbing
and heating business until nineteen oh eight, near my father
was born. Because of the fact that he grew up
working in a hardware store. I'm sure they had customers
coming in buying things to either put in plumbing equipment

(11:37):
or heating equipment in their homes or repairing it whatever,
and he started thinking, Hey, there's a lot of people
that need this kind of help. Matter of fact, he
was probably giving them advice like guys in hardware stores
or minards do today, and he said, you know, we
could probably make a living out of this. And I
I can't confirm that that's my belief, but that's probably

(11:59):
why he started plumbing and heating firm. There was no
air conditioning until the fifties, but plumbing and heating they
certainly did. And again they when they started in nineteen
oh eight, they used horses and wagons to go to
their jobs. They didn't My father remembers that it was

(12:22):
nineteen fourteen when they got their first car. That would
have been in nineteen thirty five. And the business was
located on North third Street when it first opened in
nineteen oh eight, but in nineteen twenty five it moved

(12:44):
to its current or to two five South seventh Street,
and we were there for fifty two years, So in
nineteen thirty five when he took over, we would have
been in that building. And that's the building that when
I started sweeping floors as a kid right out of
Graide School. That's the building that we were in. Well
that's also the same building. When I came back in

(13:06):
nineteen seventy five to help manage the company, we were
still there. And I don't think it was a whole
lot different in all those years, because in all the
years that I was alive, from going down there as
a little boy and coming back to help run the business,

(13:27):
it hadn't changed at all. It was I mean may
have been. When I came back in seventy five, there
was a fax machine or a photocopier. There was some
new equipment, but the shop was the same, the pipe
racks were the same, everything was the same, so I
assume it was much the same that whole period of time.

(13:50):
When I came back in nineteen seventy five, there were
I became the twenty third employee of the company. There's
an ad in nineteen sixty one in a paper that
it talks about the fact that H. A. Thompson and
Sons had grown to ten trucks. So if he had

(14:13):
ten trucks, I assumed that he had double digit employees
in nineteen sixty one too. So many of the years
of the when we did the Prominent Life building, I'm
sure we had double digit employees, maybe twenty five employees
doing that whole building and stuff like that. So it's
been up and down, But it was twenty three when

(14:34):
I came back, and today we have one hundred in
those five locations. I graduated in mechanical engineering from UNDA
in nineteen seventy one, but I also got a commission
in the Air Force that day, and so I went
and flew in the Air Force four years. When I

(14:55):
came back in seventy five, it was really interesting because
Dad said, come back, we need you help run the business.
And he took me down to the office the first
day and he sat behind his desk for forty five
minutes with a cardboard box on top of his desk,

(15:16):
going through all the drawers and picking pieces of memorabilia.
And when he got done, he picked up the box,
walked over to the door, stopped, looked back at me
and gave a sweeping motion with his arm and said
it's all yours. And he left and he never came back.
It was I was expecting this period of mentorship, but

(15:40):
that didn't happen. So, you know, I was like every kid.
My dad worked and we had this business, and you
didn't realize how long you'd had the business, or and
you didn't care. You were a kid. Who were we
playing in baseball tomorrow? You know, stuff like that. When
I came back out of the Air Force that first

(16:01):
day and my dad spent forty five minutes with me
and left, I thought, wow. The first thing I thought
I was, okay, I better set some goals. And there
was a pen on the desk and it said serving
the region for sixty seven years. And that's when I

(16:24):
really first started thinking about this thing as a legacy, because, wow,
sixty seven years. I thought of that. We'd been in
business through a lot of very difficult times, a couple
of world wars and the Depression and all that kind
of stuff, and we're still here. And I thought, that's
that's quite an achievement. I had first thought, if we've

(16:44):
been in business for sixty seven years, let's not make
too many big changes right away, because maybe you're going
to upset the balance that kept it in business for
sixty seven years. But that, you know, just saying I'm
not going to screw things up was not a very
high bar to set. So I started thinking of other things,
and I thought, Okay, let's get this business to be

(17:05):
one hundred years old, run by the same family. So
that gave me a goal of I have to run
this for thirty three more years. And that's really when
I started thinking about this is being a legacy and
not just I came back out of the Air Force
into a job. No, I came back in. This is
my family's legacy. You have to do this and it's

(17:34):
when we reached one hundred years that's when I really
thought about it. When I had to sit down and
write the history of the business, and you really started
to think about how it became a legacy and not
just a business or a job. And ever since then,
it's been a very important part of my feeling about

(17:56):
coming in every day. It's not just to do my job,
it's to perpetuate this legacy.

Speaker 6 (18:02):
A reminder for our guests that have joined us, you're
listening to a special serving of History Hot Dish on
Radio Access one or two point five FM. I'm Matt Fern,
a producer of Prairie Pioneers, and I have joined the
host of History Hot Dish, Kate Wildera in the studio
here at Dakota Media Access to discuss the Bismarck Historical

(18:23):
Societies video series titled Prairie Pioneers.

Speaker 7 (18:27):
As you know, it was a very different company at
the time that we moved back in nineteen seventy five.
There were twenty three twenty four people that we're working
in the company at that time, and over the years,
I have to say that I am just so proud

(18:49):
under his leadership, the company has grown to the point
now where we have one hundred employees and we do
work all over not just the date of North Dakota,
but the surrounding states. But it wasn't something that just happened.
He worked really hard at it. One of those dads

(19:10):
that was very involved with our daughters growing up and
never missed any of their activities or anything. But after
working all day, after dinner oftentimes he would go back
down to the office because at that time he was
trying to bid the job, you know, secure the jobs,

(19:32):
bid the jobs, and do all of the things that
were involved with you know, procuring the work to running
the job, and so there were many nights that you know,
were very late for him. It wasn't without risk to

(19:53):
grow the company in a lot of ways, but it
was also really exciting to grow into the kind of
work that we do today because it's expanded well beyond
what it was when he first came back, and it
has just it's been a lot of fun watching all
of this take place.

Speaker 8 (20:13):
We wanted to make sure that the family business stayed
within the family. We couldn't necessarily see somebody outside the
family running the business, and it had to be something
that Jennifer and I both wanted to do together. So
we made that decision several years before we decided to

(20:33):
actually come back. It had to be the right time
in our personal lives for us to transition jobs and back.

Speaker 4 (20:41):
Into the business.

Speaker 8 (20:43):
But we knew quite a while before we came back
that that was what we were going to do.

Speaker 9 (20:48):
In two thousand and six, my dad faced a health
crisis and ultimately it turned into him having open heart surgery.
And I would say probably six months after he had
had that surgery, my sister and I were both in
Bismarck at the time. She had come back from Chaska,

(21:09):
and we were visiting with our parents, and she and
I had an opportunity to go out and with our
by ourselves, and we were just talking about our dad,
and you know what, had something happened and he wouldn't
have survived the surgery, you know what would have happened

(21:30):
to the company. We knew that our mom would probably
not be real interested in continuing on with the company
because at the time she was near the end of
her career with being a school counselor in the Bismarck
public school system. And we talked a little bit more,
and we knew how strongly our dad felt about the company.

(21:52):
It's I mean, it's his life. He's growing up with it,
He's lived and breathed it for so many years. And
we could tell that after he got through the surgery
that it was weighing on him. What ultimately am I
going to do with this company? Because my sister and
I were clearly in our careers at that time. I

(22:14):
was working at Takota Medical Foundation and she was managing
a very successful optical store down in Chasca.

Speaker 4 (22:22):
We produced a video for one hundredth anniversary in two
thousand and eight, and I think there were some heartstrings
that got pulled there because they realized it wasn't just
a job running the company, the family's business. It was
our family's legacy. And when they put together the heart

(22:45):
problems that I had had, and gee, what if Dad
were to die, Who's going to run the family business?
And they talked it over a lot amongst themselves. We
didn't even know about this because when they were growing up,
I never pushed them. They never worked in the company
at all, and not sweeping floors or anything like that,

(23:07):
and I'd never pushed them to come back because I
didn't want them feel to feel pressure. I had already
bought both my brothers, my two former sisters in law,
and their children out, so the only people who had
stock in the company now were Claudie and myself and

(23:27):
our two daughters. And we had a board meeting one
summer and I said, well, mom really doesn't want to
run the business if something should happen to me, and
Jennifer said, Tracy and I have talked about this. We're
going to come back and run the business. So, you know,

(23:48):
it's very unique to have a multi generational family business.
You not only have to have people who want to,
who are willing to, but who are capable of doing it.
And there's a lot of times when things are tough
because business is very cyclical. There are a lot of

(24:11):
the tough times that people give up because they say
that this is too hard. I could work for somebody
else and make more money and spend less hours working,
and that happens in every generation. Fortunately, even though it's happened,
we've never had anybody give up.

Speaker 8 (24:29):
I think it has been great that we have been
able to work with our dad. There's sometimes decisions that
she and I want to make that we want to
make sure, well, what would dad do and get some
ideas from him, And you know he was used to
before making all the decisions, and it was sometimes it's

(24:51):
easier when you're the only one making all the decisions.
Now all three of us want to weigh in on things,
sometimes my mom as well, depending on what the decision is.
But you know, there's some every day we're learning from
from our dad. He's a wealth of knowledge and it's

(25:13):
great that he's willing to share that all with us.

Speaker 4 (25:25):
The impact Ha's had is it's probably not something that
I can tell you because that's felt by other people.
But I know that we've been involved in the construction
of the giving life, the mechanical systems, heating, cooling, plumbing

(25:45):
in many iconic buildings in Bismarck, and you know, from
from that standpoint, we've we've affected a lot of people
over the years. Since we've always done service, we've we've
been in thousands of buildings. We didn't we've never done

(26:07):
construction much outside the Bismarck region. Within thirty forty miles
of Bismarck. We've done some, but not a lot, and
for most of that time until nineteen ninety two, we
can find our service work to mostly Bismarck. Two And

(26:28):
in nineteen ninety two we changed our mode of operation
and we started doing HVAC service work all over the state.
So we do it throughout North Dakota, in the northwestern Minnesota,
northern South Dakota, and we have five offices. We not

(26:50):
only have the office here in Bismarck, but we have
an office in Fargo, an office in may Not, an
office in Gwynner, Newtown, and Garrison, and we have people
spread out all over the state to service commercial buildings.
We do no residential service outside of Bismarck. We've been

(27:11):
real citizens of Bismarck. Okay, Like we've already said, my
grandfather not only was the fire chief from nineteen oh
one to nineteen thirty five, he was also a city
commissioner from nineteen nineteen to nineteen twenty seven. My father

(27:31):
served in the North Dakota State Legislature in nineteen fifty five,
and I believe the reason he didn't run for reelection
was because it wasn't until he got in the legislature
that he found out that as a business he couldn't
do business with the state well being in Bismarck. With
the Capital campus and the State Penitentiary, you're lopping off

(27:56):
a fair chunk of potential business. I think he decided
not to run again. He entered politics one more time.
He was Harold Schaefer's treasure for his campaign when he
ran for governor. And besides that, we've all been in

(28:17):
leadership roles in fraternal organizations, educational organizations, philanthropic organizations, vocational
organizations in the community throughout the time that we've been
in business.

Speaker 2 (28:54):
Matt, thank you again for joining me today. Please tell
our audience where they can find the videovers of each
of the Prairie Pioneer programs.

Speaker 3 (29:04):
Yeah, everyone can. The best place to go is going
to be Bismarkhistory dot org, the Bismark Historical Society's website.
There you'll have a link to the YouTube page, which
is Bismarck Historical Society, and there you can watch all
the past episodes of Preye Pioneers, as well as other
programs produced by the Bismarck Historical Society.

Speaker 1 (29:25):
Thank you for listening to History Hot Dish. If you
like what you heard. The Bismark Historical Society hosts programs
and events throughout the year. We welcome all those with
an interest in local history to join us. For more
information about programs or membership, visit our website Bismarkhistory dot
org or find us on Facebook. You can find History
Hot Dish on one o two point five FM, Radioaccess

(29:46):
dot org, and anywhere you find great podcasts. History Hot
Dish is produced by the Bismark Historical Society in partnership
with Dakoda Media Access