[Congressional Record Volume 158, Number 101 (Monday, July 9, 2012)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4786-S4788]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       TRIBUTE TO MRS. TONI RYSER

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I rise today in recognition of Mrs. 
Toni Ryser of Laurel County, KY, a businesswoman who is a pillar of her 
town, East Bernstadt. Mrs. Ryser's entrepreneurial spirit caused her to 
open a furniture store in East Bernstadt, KY, in 1969 that continues to 
thrive and service the people of Kentucky and other States in the 
region. She is a shining example of a Kentuckian who has established a 
successful business while maintaining an important role in her 
community.
  The daughter of Chester and Carrie Bales, Mrs. Ryser grew up in East 
Bernstadt. Despite hard financial times during the Great Depression, 
she grew up as a happy child. Her father was a truck driver and 
delivered groceries around Laurel County for Laurel Grocery, and her 
mother worked in the home. Her mother used to joke with family members 
that of the four children, Mrs. Ryser was the most difficult child 
because she always did what she wanted and had a mind of her own.
  Mrs. Ryser graduated high school at age 16 and worked for Aetna Oil 
Company. In a bold move encouraged by her then-boss, Mrs. Ryser asked 
her would-be husband, R.D. Ryser, out to the movies for their first 
date. The couple married in June of 1947 and at age 20, Toni had their 
first child, Kandy. The Rysers had two more children, Bo and Kim, over 
the course of the next 5 years.
  Though Mrs. Ryser always wanted to be a mother, she decided she 
wanted to do more than keep the house during the day. Remembering the 
skill her mother taught her as a child, she began sewing and selling 
drapes. Soon Mrs. Ryser's drapery business grew and she could not 
complete orders as quickly as they arrived. As business increased, she 
decided to expand and not only sell draperies but also upscale 
furniture.
  In 1969, Mrs. Ryser approached a furniture retailer that was hesitant 
to do business with her because of the rural nature of East Bernstadt. 
However, despite the concerns of the retailer, Mrs. Ryser decided she 
was going to sell furniture and was not dissuaded by the larger 
company's misgivings. She never doubted her ability to sell the 
furniture and make a profit. So in September of 1969, when Toni was 39,

[[Page S4787]]

Ryser's Inc. was officially open for business.
  Despite the continued success of the drapery business, Ryser's Inc. 
furniture sales did not really take off until 1972, when the Kentucky 
coal industry experienced a boom. The extra cash flow in the area 
caused the furniture business to flourish in East Bernstadt and the 
surrounding region. Before long, the entire family worked for the 
company: taking orders, making deliveries, and even offering advice on 
interior design.
  Ryser's Inc. quickly became a premier name in furniture in Kentucky, 
Tennessee, and Florida. The store in East Bernstadt evolved into a 
warehouse, and Mrs. Ryser spent her time in the Laurel County area and 
the greater region bringing upscale furniture to the people. The 
reputation of the family business continued to grow over the years 
throughout the region and State and caused Mrs. Ryser to be named a 
Kentucky retailer of the year in the 1990s.
  A long standing member of East Bernstadt Baptist Church, a dedicated 
wife and mother, and a successful business woman, Mrs. Toni Ryser is 
most deserving of recognition for her contributions to the greater 
Laurel County community and economy. Mrs. Ryser never hesitated in her 
journey to establish a fine furnishings store in a rural area some 40 
years ago. It was her belief in herself, her family, and most 
importantly her fellow Kentuckians that allowed her dream to become an 
enduring reality.
  I am honored to recognize Mrs. Toni Ryser's admirable commitment to 
building a successful family business in East Bernstadt, KY. I ask my 
colleagues in the U.S. Senate to join with me in celebrating Mrs. 
Ryser's entrepreneurial spirit and tenacity and her important 
contributions to the greater Laurel County community. A recent article 
published in the Sentinel-Echo, a Laurel County publication, 
highlighted Mrs. Ryser's accomplishments. Mr. President, I ask 
unanimous consent that said article appear in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                 [From the Sentinel-Echo, May 30, 2012]

            Faith and Family Helped Build Furniture Business

                           (By Tara Kaprowy)

       As Toni Ryser sits down to talk about her life, she is the 
     picture of elegance. With soft, silver hair that frames her 
     face and several long necklaces offsetting a black blouse, 
     she sinks into an overstuffed chair whose arm a cat casually 
     uses as leverage to stretch its back.
       The room itself can only be described as magnificent, with 
     ochre tomes toppled against each other on grand bookshelves, 
     drapes embroidered with the most delicate flowers, and a 
     giant, opulent mirror standing sentinel on the far wall. Yet, 
     despite the beauty, the room is comforting and unpretentious, 
     much like Ryser herself.
       She was born in Harlan County on Valentine's Day 1931, the 
     daughter of Chester and Carrie Bales. While Ryser was still 
     very young, the family moved to Livingston before settling in 
     Laurel County when she was 7. Chester ``bought a truck and 
     started hauling groceries for Laurel Grocery,'' Ryser said, 
     while Carrie got to work making her home in East Bernstadt, 
     something she was particularly gifted at doing.
       ``Mother could do anything,'' Ryser said. ``We had 
     beautiful clothes, we had wonderful food, we had a house that 
     was spotless.''
       Though money was tight and the Great Depression was raging, 
     there were always fresh-cut flowers in the house and ``I 
     always felt rich because mother knew how to sew so I always 
     looked the part,'' she said.
       Ryser was the second-born of four children, and though 
     Carrie was a strict disciplinarian, Ryser had a ``way of 
     finagling and not doing any work so I was a very happy 
     child,'' she said.
       And a precocious one. At the age of 4, she was getting paid 
     a quarter to dance on the tables and, throughout her 
     childhood, she said she broke her nose once playing baseball 
     and four more times doing ``whatever else I could get 
     children to play with me.''
       She recalled one occasion when an aunt, ``who thought she 
     was an aristocrat out of Louisville,'' came to visit.
       ``People used to discuss dying earlier than they do now,'' 
     she remembered. ``She said, `Why Carrie, if something happens 
     to you, who's going to take care of these children?' Mother 
     said, `Well, so-and-so would take Sara Lee. So-and-so would 
     take Mikey. But I don't know who would want Toni.' I was 
     really lazy.''
       Carrie was not, however, and when Ryser started attending 
     East Bernstadt School, she was one of the best-dressed girls 
     in her class.
       ``I went to school in starched pinafores every day,'' she 
     said. ``In fact, they often made a joke about how my butt had 
     to be cold--I sat right on the seat because my dress went 
     straight out.''
       Though she looked like she could be a city girl, her life 
     was firmly planted in East Bernstadt, which ``was a little 
     more town than it is now,'' she said.
       ``We had a hotel, we bought groceries in East Bernstadt, we 
     went to church in East Bernstadt, we went to the movies in 
     East Bernstadt,'' she said. ``Sometimes, when we got a little 
     older, we would ride the train to London and see an afternoon 
     movie and ride the train back, but we had pretty much what we 
     needed right here in East Bernstadt.''
       Ryser was a good student but having fun was still her major 
     goal, and she ``liked to see what I could get away with,'' 
     she said. She became fast friends with Betty Marie Muster and 
     Pat Finney. Together, they were cheerleaders, with a photo 
     still hanging at Weaver's of Ryser wearing her uniform. 
     ``Every Friday night, there was a dance at the Swiss Lodge,'' 
     she remembered. ``That was our big thing as we were going 
     through high school. We did a lot of dancing.''
       She graduated from high school at 16 and ``immediately got 
     married.'' During her final semester, she'd gotten a job at 
     Aetna Oil Company and her boss Mr. Miller looked over at 
     Hunt's Cafe one day, saw R.D. Ryser, and said, ``Go over, get 
     a Coke, and ask R.D. out.'' She did, passing ``Colonel'' 
     Harland David Sanders who was eating with Mr. Hunt along the 
     way, and asked him.
       ``I said, `Why don't we go to the movies tonight?' He said, 
     `No, I don't think so.' I said, `I would like to go with you 
     tonight. I'll be expecting you; I'll be ready at 7:30.' He 
     says, `I don't think so,' but at 7:30 he showed up. That was 
     the end of him, we got married.''
       The wedding was in the afternoon of June 14, 1947.
       ``The thing I regret the most about it is my mother had 
     made me the most beautiful wedding dress,'' she said. ``You 
     can't even imagine in your wildest dreams what a pretty dress 
     I had. I was so foolish; I never even saved it. It was 
     organdy and it was white and it had a full skirt and sleeves 
     to my elbows and it had the most gorgeous appliqued pink 
     flowers and leaves all the way around the skirt that you've 
     ever seen. Her work was beautiful. I mean, nothing today 
     could compare with it. Now I'd give anything to have that 
     dress.''
       Ryser and R.D. moved into the two-room washhouse in the 
     back of her parent's house--``I don't know where mother did 
     her laundry after that''--and in 1949 moved into a home they 
     built together.
       At the age of 20, she had her first child, Kandy, followed 
     by Bo three years later and Kim two years after that.
       ``I had always wanted to be a mother, very definitely,'' 
     she said. ``I just thought it was wonderful.'' Like her 
     father, R.D. was a truck driver, hauling coal to Louisville 
     three times a week--a five hour trek--and returning that day 
     with groceries for Laurel Grocery. Ryser stayed home to raise 
     her children, which she loved doing.
       By the time Kim was in sixth grade, though, ``I got to 
     thinking I didn't want to spend my time doing nothing, so I 
     decided to start making draperies.'' She'd been taught to sew 
     by her mother and deeply enjoyed the meticulous work. Asking 
     her friend Ruth Gabbard to help, she went into business and 
     soon had so many orders they could hardly keep up.
       ``We'd stay backed up. Generally when we'd take an order, 
     we'd tell them it would be two to three months,'' she said.
       Eventually, the pressure to couple her drapery business 
     with a furniture store grew.
       ``What changed things is I would go out to hang drapes and 
     would spend maybe half a day with someone telling them what 
     kind of sofa to go buy or where should they set their bed and 
     wouldn't it be good to hang lights on the wall, that kind of 
     conversation,'' she said. ``I saw I was spending an awful lot 
     of time, so I said if I'm going to spend my time with 
     furniture, I'm going to be selling furniture.''
       Opening up a furniture store--which she decided from the 
     beginning would be very high end--in the middle of East 
     Bernstadt was risky. But she had the full support of her 
     husband--``He was enough Swiss that if it was making money, 
     he was for it,'' she joked--and so headed to market in High 
     Point, N.C. She approached the big, upscale furniture lines, 
     one of the only women there who was the main buyer.
       ``I went to Henredon and they didn't much want to open an 
     account with me,'' she said. ``They'd looked at East 
     Bernstadt on a map. They said, `Here's what we'll do: You 
     place an order for $20,000. We won't say we'll let you have 
     an account, but we'll come by and see your place, and then 
     we'll know if we want to take you on as a customer.' So he 
     comes by, there's cows on this side, cows on the other side 
     of the store, and he says, `I want to know: Who in the world 
     do you hope to sell furniture to?' I said, `I'm not a bit 
     worried about it, you just better believe I'll sell it.' So 
     he opened up an account that day, and there never was any 
     confusion after that.''
       Having put up everything she and her husband owned as 
     collateral, Ryser's Inc. opened in September 1969. Ryser was 
     39.
       She was soon working around the clock, keeping her focus by 
     reminding herself, ``All we have to lose is everything R.D. 
     has ever worked for since he was 17.''
       The drapery business continued to flourish, but it wasn't 
     until the coal boom in 1972 that furniture sales truly took 
     off.
       ``Over night, many coal companies large and small hit the 
     big time and there was lots

[[Page S4788]]

     of extra money in circulation,'' she said. ``We happened to 
     be in the right place at the right time. We had a large 
     inventory and were willing to work night and day to help with 
     their furniture needs. The bottom line was business was 
     good.''
       Gabbard and two other women continued making draperies, and 
     Ryser hired her family to do everything else.
       ``It wasn't too long before Kandy was at the store,'' she 
     said. ``Bo was helping. I'd go out to the high school and 
     Harold Storm was the principal. I'd say, `Can Bo go with us?' 
     And he'd say, `How many do you want, Toni?' He'd give me two 
     or three boys and so off we'd go with a truck full of 
     furniture and drapes to hang.''
       Once arriving at their destination, Ryser would work her 
     magic, attending to every last detail in a room.
       ``We did everything,'' she said. ``We moved their old 
     furniture until it looked nice, we put the new pieces in that 
     they really needed. You set up and then you don't want to see 
     a little lamp on the floor, you don't want to leave a picture 
     hanging over here when it should have gone over there, so you 
     just start doing it.''
       Once the home owner arrived home, the room would be 
     completely transformed, with the pieces they knew they were 
     buying accompanied by their existing furniture and a few 
     extras that rounded out the space. The effect was enchanting, 
     with all the parts seamlessly coming together to make the 
     whole.
       Her eye for design was flawless, with one customer who 
     dealt in antiques asking her what she thought about his plan 
     to mass produce the look of an antique table. Her opinion was 
     so valuable to him that he called it the Mrs. Ryser table, 
     which to this day is still being sold.
       Word traveled fast, with the Rysers name soon extending 
     throughout Kentucky and spreading down into Tennessee and 
     Florida.
       Ryser was having a ball and was on the road every day, 
     telling her children, ``If we are in the store, we aren't 
     making money.'' Indeed, given its remote location, the store 
     was always meant to be more of a warehouse than a space for 
     customers to shop.
       When Bo was in college, she said she ``saw she had too much 
     to handle'' and the flooring side of the business was getting 
     neglected, ``so I told my son, `If you want to buy the 
     business, it's here for you.' ''
       He did. Kandy, meanwhile, had her own set of customers, and 
     Kim, after graduating from Eastern Kentucky University's 
     school of design, joined her siblings. Even her mother Carrie 
     had a hand in things.
       ``Mother would come down and would tell them a thing or two 
     about drapes. It was her way or no way,'' she laughed. ``But 
     Ruth, she never one time get upset that mother tried to boss. 
     Ruth is a wonderful person, that was her nature.''
       Business continued to grow, with customers by now all over 
     the country. In the 1990s, Ryser was named Kentucky's 
     retailer of the year.
       Though she stayed constantly busy, ``thinking nothing of 
     going in at midnight or one in the morning,'' Sundays were 
     reserved for church and family.
       To this day, she remains one of the most faithful members 
     of East Bernstadt Baptist Church, with Pastor Norm Brock 
     joking the only way to keep Ryser at home on a snowy, icy 
     Sunday morning is to cancel church.
       ``I feel like God has walked beside me my whole life, my 
     whole life,'' she said. ``I like to give credit where it's 
     due and it's definitely not due me.''
       Every Sunday evening, she would cook a sprawling family 
     dinner.
       ``We had a ball,'' she said. ``They would bring their 
     dates, their friends and this house would fill up from that 
     end to this end. We'd all settle down in my kitchen and there 
     weren't enough seats and all we'd do is discuss all the fun 
     we'd had all week.''
       In 1992, she and R.D. decided to build a new house on the 
     land on which he was born and, since they'd enjoyed their 
     first home so much, decided to replicate the floor plan to 
     the letter. She continues to live there.
       In 2003, R.D. suffered a stroke and Ryser left the store to 
     take care of him. She returned to work after he died a year 
     later, but in 2006 Ryser also had a stroke. She's taken a 
     back seat to the business for the past five years. But she 
     continues to be active and last spring took a few months off 
     from her regular Body Recall aerobics class to redecorate for 
     a friend who was wintering in Florida but needed her 
     Lexington home completely redone in time for Derby. She only 
     trusted Ryser to do it.
       Looking back, Ryser's eyes light up while talking about the 
     excitement of the business and become moist when talking 
     about her faith and family. When asked if she's proud of what 
     she's accomplished, she shakes her head and sits up in her 
     overstuffed chair.
       ``I'm proud of my family,'' she said. ``I don't feel proud 
     of myself. I've enjoyed it. I enjoyed it a lot.''

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