Some years ago, Hans Hüettlinger hand-carved a headstone for one of his son's friends who had killed himself.
"But when the eyes are blind, one must see with one's heart," the words said.
"I've remembered those words. They've affected my life," Hüettlinger said.
Hans Hüettlinger, 62, figures the words have helped smooth the rough edges, helping him see with an appreciative eye the soothing satisfactions of building his Hans Monument Co. stone-carving business in Salt Lake City since 1958, while slowly melding it into the hands of his son, John, 36.
"I'm more temperamental than John. We may have butted heads when he was in his 20s, but I can think of nothing more joyful than creating a business with your son. I am not a bad artist, but I can honestly say John has an eye that won't quit and a very rare ability as an artist," Hans said, beaming with pride that he's passing along Salt Lake's only pure hand stone-carving business, as he received it from ancestors in Germany.
Is Hans a good or tough boss?
"He has been a good, tough boss," John Hüettlinger said, laughing.
Noting Hans has been saying he's "retired" since January but coming in every day nonetheless, John added, "And now he's the best darned employee I've got."
Life with father is one thing. Life with father most of your waking hours, side by side in business, is another.
Though father-son/father-daughter businesses may be decreasing as mom-and-poppers — themselves traditional settings for such enterprises — go by the wayside, some classic combinations remain in this area.
On this Father's Day, here are glimpses of three.
Jim and Matthew Savas, Grove Market and Deli
Jim Savas has lived on the same street corner in Salt Lake City, 1900 South and Main, all his 59 years. His daughter, Gena, her husband, Steve, and their daughter, Breanna, live in a house right behind.
Next door, 1906 S. Main, is Grove Market, owned by the Savas family.
It has seen houses rise and fall, other stores come and go, friends live and die, but its place as a loved neighborhood institution has become more cemented than the sidewalks where patrons daily queue out the door for Grove's "world's best and biggest sandwiches."
Jim was the youngest of nine kids and 11 years old when his father, Pete Savas, died. Just before he turned 19, right after graduating from South High School, Jim Savas took over the store from a brother.
"Concern for my mom (Christine Savas). She was a widow . . . you know," Jim spread his hands, shrugged and smiled matter-of-factly.
He was making "62 bucks a week" delivering produce at the time. His kind-hearted boss gave him an extra week's pay. He sold his baby, his '58 Chevy Impala, salmon-colored with a white top, because it cost him 61 bucks a week.
"That's the part that really hurt," he said, grinning.
That's the capital he took into the business.
A couple weeks ago, his wife, Patsy, threw a party celebrating his 40th year running the market/deli.
"I see a lot of people put up a deli, and I'm not sure they realize how much work it is," Jim Savas said.
How much?
"Average about 12 hours a day, usually 10 to 10," he said, nodding affectionately toward Patsy. "Until she made us cut back."
One thing has only gone forward: The famous Grove's sandwiches.
Imagine dislocating your jaw, python-like, and working it around a meaty mountain of Dagwoodian proportions, that is like picking up two hubcaps with fixins' shoveled between. That's the signature Grove sandwich on an "ambassador roll" and customers usually must carry it out in a box. A simple wrapper won't do.
Savas did it to make Grove different.
"With all the 7-Elevens starting to offer sandwiches, we needed something to set us apart." Jim said. "Patsy thought of it on vacation in Sun Valley. We'd make a sandwich out of the best ingredients and give you more than anyone."
Patsy said she was talking to a girl who works at a chain sandwich shop the other day, "literally counting out pickles."
Patsy laughed.
"We just pile on a handful of meat until it feels right," she said.
Consistency is the heartbeat of the Savas business savvy. Bread always from Curtell's Bakery. Meat from Hi-Grade Meats Inc., "oh, about 30 years." Produce from A & Z Produce "about 25 years," Jim Savas says.
"I buy avocados at 40 bucks a lug. I could get 'em for 15. But they don't have the oil content," he said.
Theresa Torres and her son, Jacob, have worked behind the deli counter 10 years.
If you scrimp or change?
"People notice. We've had customers come back after 10 years and say, 'You know, it's the same.' "
Matthew Savas, 15, walks up to join his father. Is he listening to all this?
"Oh, he already knows," Jim said.
Matthew straightens aisles, cleans up, works the till and deli. Though still at Judge Memorial High, he says his mind already is made up to follow his father into the business.
"It's just the idea of keeping a tradition going. And I don't think anything beats working with your family. They may demand you be the best, but they're also patient and understanding," Matthew said.
Born with a club foot, Matthew has undergone many surgeries and now plays sports, makes straight A's and pounds the drums in a band. It's made him think of studying orthopedics in college, but it won't keep him from running the store, he said.
Business classes?
"I really don't know," Matthew said. "I'm not ready to look all the way into the future, you know? I don't want to be an adult yet. But when the time comes I will be, and Grove's Market will always be right here on this same corner."
Hans and John Hüettlinger, Hans Monument Co.
Gervasius Mussle answered a newspaper ad in the Black Forest community of Kenzingen, Germany.
Stone-cutter's apprentice wanted, it said.
"Marriage possible," it added.
So it was that Mussle entered into the trade, keeping alive a tradition that would stretch to six generations, while marrying Hans Hüettlinger's grandmother in the bargain.
Hans followed Gervasius' footsteps, and those of Hans' father, Johannes, beginning his apprenticeship at age 13 1/2.
At 16, Hans was an accredited stone-carver. His mother, Maria Mathilde, joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and, at age, 19, Hans was on his way to Salt Lake City.
Three years later, he started his own business, living and working in a house at 1555 E. 3300 South, while he and his wife, Ursula, began rearing five children.
"I loved it, but it was tough getting kids to come over to play — especially at night. Something about all those gravestones," John Hüettlinger said with a laugh.
John loved art and music, tried the rock musician thing in Los Angeles for a year, went to Utah State University three years, thinking of becoming an advertising illustrator.
"Gradually, I began to see this business as more and more intriguing," he said.
After nearly 50 years in the business, having learned techniques passed down from hundreds of years of old-world craftsmen, what's the No. 1 trade secret Hans hands John?
"Don't hit too hard," Hans said.
"You'll knock off a nose or a finger from your sculpture," John said.
"He also told me, 'You won't be a real stonecutter until you've scraped enough skin off yourself to make an apron,' " John said.
The business requires toughness with its artistic touch.
"You're always applying leverage. Your forearms, hands, stomach muscles take a beating," John said.
That goes, even in the area of new technology, with air hammers somewhat replacing the ancient chisel-and-hammer.
"I bet Michelangelo wished he had an air hammer," John said.
Some old methodology applies, such as the pointer tool, used to lay out a sculpture from a block of stone.
"It's mathematics, as well as art," John said. "First you envision. Then you plan. Pretty soon a hand emerges. Then an arm."
One particular old-world trick impressing John is Hans' way of removing tiny rocks that may ricochet into the eye. You pluck a single strand from a horsehair brush, make a loop and drag the rock out.
Honest?
"It works. I've seen him do it," John said.
The business is not just about Hans and John. Ursula, with whom Hans celebrates 42 years of marriage this month, draws layouts. Daughters Monica and Debbie do everything from accounting to computer programming.
Only Hans and John share another love: performing. John's a drummer with the band, the Disco Drippers, long popular at several local nightspots. Hans sings everyone from Sinatra to Humperdinck to Elvis at weddings and parties and even had a short Vegas stint.
But stones represent the real rock music to their ears. John and his wife, Marion, have two children, Liliana, 4, and Gunther Wolfgang, 5 months. Already, it doesn't seem too early to contemplate passing stonecarving on to the kids.
"Like my father I won't force them, but I really don't see why I shouldn't be thinking about it right now," John said.
Dale and Michelle Zabriskie, Zabriskie and Associates.
When 10-year-old Michelle Zabriskie came home from school one day, she already knew what occupation she wanted to enter.
Her fourth-grade teacher, Mrs. Hall, had asked students to write a paper about it.
"I want to help companies promote themselves," Michelle wrote.
Reading the paper, her mother smiled and said she must tell daddy about that when he came home.
"But why?" Michelle wanted to know.
It was only then that Mom explained what Dad, Dale Zabriskie, did for a living.
"All I knew was that he went to work and came home," Michelle said.
She didn't know when Dale went to his office, it was to build his own public relations firm.
"I guess you could say I honestly have this PR thing in my blood," Michelle said.
It's been in there pretty thick the past 19 years, working side-by-side to help Dale run one of the Salt Lake area's tiny dynamos, a purposely small, yet enduring and thriving, full-services public relations firm.
"At first I didn't take a paycheck," Michelle said. "I said, 'OK, I'll work X-many hours for that pair of shoes.' "
After graduating from the University of Utah, she's gone on to secure her own place as a respected professional, serving as past president of the local chapter of the Public Relations Society of America. Dale is a charter member of that group and past president.
"I'm the first to admit I was harder on Michelle than my other employees, wanting to bend over backward not to show favoritism," Dale said.
"I appreciate he respected me enough not to silver-platter me," Michelle said.
Pop long ago earned his own chops before giving Michelle her props.
Also a graduate of the U., Dale worked a year at the Deseret News, served as press secretary for former Utah Sen. Frank E. Moss and did PR at Park City Mountain Resort and Mountain Fuel Supply.
"Then I decided to jump off the cliff," he said.
Once on his own, he didn't take a paycheck the first two months, lost money the first year and broke even the second. It's been profitable since, he said, and he's especially proud Zabriskie and Associates has never advertised.
"All word of mouth, right up to this week," he said.
The Zabriskies once tried to get bigger, with a staff of 12.
"But we learned it's best to work with clients who fit your personality," Michelle said.
"We don't sign you to a big contract, then turn you over to a first-year employee. Go with us, you get us," Dale said.
When they discuss their brand of teamwork, it's something in the vein of rat-a-tat-tat riffs of a comedy team.
"He's Dad at home, but Dale at work. It used to drive my mom nuts at family dinners. I'd be saying, 'You know, Dale, we have that deal at the office, and, Dad, please pass the potatoes.' Finally she got used to it," Michelle said.
How do they work out potential differences?
"Wel-l-l, he usually admits I'm right," Michelle said with a grin.
"Wait, now," Dale said, forming the "time-out" sign with his hands.
"We don't let things fester. We get it out in the open," Michelle said.
"Not that he doesn't keep up on changing times, but I may bring a fresher look at something," she said.
"Been there, done that has its value, too," he said, noting he's one of approximately 300 fellows of the Public Relations Society of America.
"That," Michelle said, "means he's getting grayer."
"I quit having personal birthdays years ago, only corporate birthdays. I've just turned 19," he said.
"Um-hmm, still a teenager, I see," she said. "I'm 37 years young and don't mind admitting it."
His office looks like a cyclone hit. Hers is tidy.
"I couldn't function in that mess, but it works for him," she said.
"My philosophy is, hey, if it's on my desk, I'll find it," he said
"People sometimes say, 'So, still working with your Dad?' And I say, 'Someone has to stick around and pick up the pieces.' "
She smiled at him, knowing she'd get that pleased taught-her-she's-my-daughter chuckle in return.
E-mail: gtwyman@desnews.com