LEHI — Like most Mormon emigrants, Joseph and Sarah Broadbent arrived in the Salt Lake Valley with little more than the clothes on their backs, the knowledge in their heads and the skills at their fingertips.
Settling in Lehi, the Broadbents looked for ways to make a living. Sarah was a fine seamstress, so she obtained a sewing machine and some bolts of denim fabric and made work overalls and jumpers. Joseph added the copper rivets to reinforce the seams.
A watchmaker by training, Joseph also traveled around the territory in the summer, picking up watches and clocks that he could repair in the winter and return in the spring.
These homespun industries served them well, and in 1882, Sarah suggested they build a small shop onto their home. That year, Broadbent's was issued its first business license as a general store.
It has been there ever since, a fixture at 128 N. 100 East in downtown Lehi.
It's one of the oldest businesses still operating in Lehi and the state. Certainly, it is one of the very few that has been located in the same place and owned and operated by the same family for 128 years, say Nann Broadbent Frandsen and Betty Broadbent Anderson, who now own and operate the store.
They are great-granddaughters of Joseph and Sarah. Their grandfather, Joseph S., took over the store when his father died in 1920. Their father, John S., and mother, Alice Broadbent, acquired the store in 1937.
Those were tough times, in the heart of the Great Depression. "Mom and Daddy did a lot of hard work. Mom always said Dad never learned to play, but he was happy when he was working," Betty says.
"He felt it was a honor to work, a way to honor his family," Nann adds. "And that's just how we feel."
The sisters laugh about how they were "born behind the counter. This is all we know. Our life has always been like this," Betty says. "When that's all you know, that's what you think life is. Our family vacations were spent at Market in Los Angeles; we thought that's what every family did. We didn't know there were places like Disneyland and Yellowstone. We only found that out later."
They did get to those other places eventually, and fondly remember a trip to Knott's Berry Farm, but for the most part, life revolved around the store.
For about a decade, the family lived in an apartment above the store. In fact, tucked into one corner of Broadbent's is an old, white, metallic stove. "Dad bought it from a neighbor for $5. I don't know how they ever got it upstairs; it weights 2,000 pounds," Betty says. "But it still works."
In those days, being a general store meant carrying everything from groceries and dry goods to fabric, dishes and tools and what their Dad called "bric-a-brac." "He'd always say we had too much bric-a-brac," Nann says.
In earlier years, there had been a photography studio on the upper floor, as well as a millinery corner, where hats were made and sold. There was also a jewelry and watch-repair corner.
As young girls, they remember having to sweep and dust the floors. One particular chore was straightening the shelves in the grocery section. "Every can had to be turned out right and they all had to be lined up just so," Betty says. "We also sold clarinet reeds, BB guns, shotgun shells, everything. And it all had to be neat and perfect."
Over the years, some additions were made to the building; wares came and went with changing times. Grocery items were eventually phased out; fabrics and quilting supplies have taken over an increasingly larger portion. But they try to retain a lot of the early flavor and character of the store, Nann says. "So many people come in and say, 'Oh, this reminds me of when I used to come here with my grandmother,' or 'This tea set reminds me of my grandmother's house.' "
A lot of people "think our store is better than Prozac," Betty jokes. "They just want to wander around and say how nice and peaceful it is. Of course, we're running around, ready to pull our hair out, trying to keep up with everything."
The store still sells everything from furniture to toys, books, jewelry, cosmetics, kitchenware, bulk seeds, gift items and more. Every room has a name: Dish Room, Oak Room, Men's Room, Merle Norman Room, Middle Room, Top Room. "Those names have been used forever," Nann says.
They credit their parents with teaching them a lot, not only about managing the store, but about life. "We like to say that Dad taught us to work hard, and Mom gave us the creativity," says Nann.
"Daddy taught us that we had to be fair in our dealings, to always pay our bills, and to do things the long, hard way," Betty adds. "Every time we do something, we think: What would Mom and Dad do?"
She remembers the time in 2003 when they remodeled and added more to the fabric room — the Top Room. "We brought Dad down in a wheelchair to see it. He sat there smiling and with tears running down his cheeks. We figured that was a thumbs up!"
Their father died soon after, at age 86. Their mother died in January 2010, at age 91. "We joke about how it took Dad that long to get heaven ready for her. You had to know our mother; she always had to have things just so."
She remembers when they got the sign that still graces the front of the store. "Mom's the one that told the painter to put in some red and blue, because she thought it needed some patriotic colors. Dad was so mad."
"If it was up to him, everything would be pea green; that was his favorite color," Nann adds.
Look around the store today, and you see a lot of hard work and heritage.
But "it's not just us," Betty says. "We've got the best help in the world. They all have their niche. They are just tremendous."
Over the years, Broadbent's "hasn't hired a lot of people. The ones we hire just stay a long time," Nann says. "Some jobs go from mothers to daughters or someone else in the family."
They do wonder a bit about the future. "Our kids got educations and real jobs with vacations and insurance," Nann says.
The economy has also been rough, for Broadbent's as for everyone else. "But we're getting by," Betty says. "We just have to be careful not to overbuy. And thank goodness for quilters — they just keep on buying."
For their 125th anniversary in 2007, they came up with the phrase that "Broadbent's unlocks memories from the past and will be a treasure for the future."
Those are the words to live by, say the Broadbent sisters, who learned long ago that the "tradition of hard work, service and dedication to our customers that began with Joseph Broadbent in 1882" has carried the store through wars, depressions, and more than a century of growth and change.
They may be in the mercantile trade, they say, but it's really a "people business."
e-mail: carma@desnews.com