John Nordstrom was only 16 when left his home and traveled to New York with about $5 in his pocket. He was born February 15, 1871 in Alvik Neder Lulea, Sweden and was traveling in hopes to make it rich. Unfortunately for him; he could not speak a word of English. He left Sweden with 2 friends and traveled to many different places getting money from various odd jobs. And eventually found himself gold-mining in Alaska. He returned to Seattle with $13,000 and decided the best thing to do was to go back to Seattle. He went to business school for a couple of years and in May of 1900 Nordstrom married a woman named Hilda Carlson and the two began raising a family together and eventually had five children. A man named Carl F. Wallin who he had met earlier in Alaska offered him a partnership in a little Seattle shoe repair shop.
In 1901 the two as business partners opened Wallin & Nordstrom. At last Nordstrom had begun to invest in the business that would lead him to success. But by the year of 1928 after opening another store and working together for more than 20 years, the two were arguing and disagreeing about the way to run their business. Nordstrom would have left the business but his son, Everett, was still extremely interested in the shoe business. So Wallin sold his part of the business to Nordstrom and eventually John sold it to his two sons in 1930. And so the business was carried throughout the family. Unfortunately, On October 11, 1963, John Nordstrom died in Seattle, Washington of a cerebral hemorrhage, at the age of 92. Nordstrom’s was passed along from his son’s to his grandsons and on and on until today. Now Nordstrom’s is a nation-wide fashionably consistent store with many locations and hundreds of loyal customers.
- Edie Dean
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