For 102 years, City Floral has been a fixture in downtown Everett. For 40 years, Ralph Quaas has owned the shop.
Selling flowers, he’s seen cultural shifts in the ways we celebrate joyous times and mark sad occasions. He’s seen a good bit of Everett history. He’s seen lavish weddings and stately funerals.
At the end of the month, Quaas, 71, will say goodbye to City Floral. The shop will continue at 2802 Colby Ave. with a new owner, Jane Davis. Quaas doesn’t own the building, but in selling the business he’s selling the City Floral name.
Michael O’Leary / The Herald
On Saturday, the store will host a “garage sale” from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., followed by a party for employees. Three floral designers and two drivers will stay with the business after the change, Quaas said.
He’s selling the business, but keeping a lifetime of memories. On March 27, 2004, City Floral threw a 100th anniversary party at the Historic Everett Theatre. A program from that evening has vintage pictures. One, from 1936, shows 2-year-old Ralph Quaas in short pants and oxford shoes. He is standing on the running board of a City Floral truck holding a flower box nearly as big as he is.
His father, J. Herbert Quaas, had owned City Floral in partnership with Gretchen Meyer since 1933. The business was started in 1904 by Jennie and William Wallmark, who also owned a greenhouse in Lowell. Back then, the shop was at 1916 Hewitt Ave. and was called City Floral &Seed Co.
Through the years, City Floral acquired other florists and had shops in Marysville, Snohomish, south Everett and the Everett Mall. In the 1970s, the economy wilted and the Hewitt property was sold. City Floral moved to 2715 Colby Ave., then to its current spot in 1990 to make way for the Everett Mutual Tower.
Customer tastes changed, too. Quaas said a funeral in the 1940s was one of the largest events City Floral was involved in during his father’s ownership. A prominent local fisherman had died. Hundreds attended the funeral in the old Carnegie Library building. There were huge floral displays in the shape of anchors and crosses.
Back then, funerals accounted for about 80 percent of florists’ business, Quaas said. “Now it’s about 15 percent funerals and 85 percent everything else.”
Requests that donations be made to charities in lieu of flowers, starting in the 1970s, “were good for the world, but not the floral industry,” Quaas said.
Starting in 1980 and for eight years, City Floral was Everett’s Western Union agent. When Sen. Henry M. “Scoop” Jackson died in Everett in 1983, condolence telegrams came in from national and world leaders, Quaas said.
He has seen families in happy and sorrowful times. Once, he said, a bride fainted before her wedding, and the church had to be aired out because the gardenia scent was so strong.
Floral fashions have changed with the times. White roses – “for purity,” Quaas said – were once de rigueur for weddings. Many brides now opt for “lots of color,” he said. And instead of red roses, a multicolored bouquet is a popular gift choice.
Quaas spent his life in a flower shop, but business has never been his whole life. Community service has been intertwined with career. Quaas joked that City Floral has been “like a bookie joint,” a small business allowing the freedom to immerse himself in volunteerism.
A longtime member of the Rotary Club of Everett, Quaas and his wife, Kathleen, also volunteer with Providence Hospice &Home Care of Snohomish County.
He provides respite care, easing the burden on families going through the terminal illnesses of loved ones. “Time is short,” he said, a lesson learned in service to the dying.
Quaas has worked with the Interfaith Association of Snohomish County helping with its shelters, with the YMCA of Snohomish County, with kindergarten science programs in the Everett School District, Junior Achievement, the Everett Symphony and the Snohomish County Human Services Council.
He was active in the Parent Teacher Association and was a PTA president at Whittier Elementary School, North Middle School and Everett High School.
On April 1, 1966, two weeks after his father’s death, Quaas took ownership of City Floral. On April 1, the business will be in new hands.
For Quaas, it’s not retirement from his life’s work. A member of many organizations, he borrows words to live by from the Jaycees’ creed: “Service to humanity is the best work of life,” Quaas said.
Columnist Julie Muhlstein: 425-339-3460 or muhlsteinjulie@heraldnet.com.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
