Good-Bye Mr. Yenny

There’s a very small glass shop located not far from my house that I drive past everyday. Yenny’s Glass is anything but bustling; in fact, I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone go in or out. I’d gone by there once, but it was closed. In fact, it was closed for business a lot.
Today as I drove past it I saw auction signs all around it, saying the building and all of its contents will be auctioned off.

I got home and started thinking how much I regretted never getting back over to that store. Wanting to try and find out a bit more, I Googled it and found that Heiny Yenny, who had owned the store, died a few months ago. I never knew Mr. Yenny, but I felt sad and remorseful that I never made it back to his store when it was open.

I read his obituary and it said he was born in Biel, Switzerland on March 24, 1926. The glass shop he owned was founded by his father, and according to a company profile I found online Heiny Yenny was currently its only employee. As you might imagine, with such a small business there was not a lot of information available about it online. There was no website, but I did find it in an area business guide that said in addition to glass it sold paint and wallpaper.

I wanted to find out a bit more about Mr. Yenny and his work with glass. I read the guestbook on his obituary page and saw that several people had fond memories of him, thanks to his glass work.

One person wrote, “…We have some lovely glass pieces to remember him by.” Another said, “We have mirrors all over our house to remind us.” Another talked about having shared a hospital room with Mr. Yenny who had tried to show him how easy it was to cut glass.

There are glass shops, small and large, everywhere. Sometimes, though, they go unnoticed--especially the tiny ones. When I told my husband that Mr. Yenny, owner of Yenny’s Glass, had died, he had no idea there was even a glass shop in town. Made me wonder, what if Yenny's Glass had been consolidated as part of one of the big chains? It certainly happens often enough.

Earlier this week on the USGlass message forum (visit http://www.usgnn.com/ and click the Forum link) Paul Bieber wrote the following:
“We all know the independent auto glass shop is in steep decline. The nation-wide chains have been gobbling them up for years, forming national installation chains. Will this happen to flat glass, too? Will there be a consolidation of glaziers and glass shops? Would you join such a consolidation if the payment for your shop was adequate?”

It’s an interesting discussion topic and one on which your opinion is important. Let us know what you think.