THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, May 11, 1996 TAG: 9605100064
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Larry Maddry
LENGTH: Medium: 72 lines
WHENEVER GOODWILL Industries makes news, as it did Friday with the grand opening of its Great Bridge store, I'm reminded of the late A.J. Hollingsworth and the rented false teeth.
Hollingsworth and his friends at Epworth Methodist Church in Norfolk founded the first Goodwill store in Hampton Roads in 1925. Their aim was to give employment to disabled folks - and to provide clothes and other goods for poor people who could not afford new ones.
A gentle man with a flair for showmanship, Hollingsworth believed any woman or man could - with training - do a job. And that any discarded item could be put to good use.
In the early days of the store, he put false teeth in the window of the store and a sign saying the rental price per pair was 25 cents a month.
``A lot of people rented them,'' Hollingsworth recalled during an interview before his death. ``The Associated Press picked up the story and sent it all over the country. People from everywhere sent in false teeth.
``I remember a woman from Washington sent in some teeth, and I rented them to a policeman. He wore them until the day he died.''
I once asked Hollingsworth if he ever sanitized the teeth.
``Nope,'' he said. ``I'd just flap a dust cloth over them from time to time.''
I guess the moral to the story is that you can find about anything in a Goodwill store. And the Great Bridge store - at 300 Battlefield Blvd. - is no exception.
Like the six other stores in Hampton Roads, it will offer clothing, books, records, housewares and furniture for sale.
Over the years, some truly remarkable items have been donated to Goodwill Industries. Hollingsworth had a reputation for never rejecting a donation. However, a prominent Norfolk woman stumped him when she sent him her appendix in a bottle of formaldehyde.
He sold it for fish bait.
A woman once placed a frantic call to the Norfolk store to report she had left her jewels in the post of an old brass bed she had donated. Unfortunately, the bed had been sold for cash and carted off by an unremembered customer.
As far as anyone at Goodwill knows, someone in Hampton Roads may still be sleeping in the bed without knowing of the treasure hidden in one of its posts.
If the donated items could talk, many would have interesting stories to tell. For instance, the Norfolk store was once given an expensive bridal gown by a local socialite who changed her mind about the wedding at the last minute.
Former Goodwill director Gene Adair used to tell the story of a family squabble. It developed when Goodwill was listed as the beneficiary of personal belongings in the will of a local man.
The relatives of the man descended on the warehouse where the goods were stored, arguing and snatching at the items they wished to purchase like customers at a Macy's basement sale, he reported.
Goodwill's Great Bridge store opened a few days before the grand opening, and Nathaniel Taylor, the manager, said a couple of unusual donations have already been offered for sale there.
``We were given a pair of unusual boots,'' he explained. They seem to be made of animal fur and looked like something that might be worn by Big Foot - the legendary critter said to be stalking the Northwest.
A youngster bought them. A steal at $15, Taylor said. ILLUSTRATION: Color photo by Richard L. Dunston\The Virginian-Pilot
Nathaniel Taylor manages the new Goodwill store on Battlefield
Boulevard in Chesapeake. by CNB