Patrick Furniture may be a relatively new name to the Paducah business community but this family is definitely not new to the furniture business. In fact, they can trace their family business back to the beginning of the 20th century. Speaking with Laura Young Eck about her family’s business feels like sitting down to her kitchen table to get a family genealogy lesson. She recounts the people and events seamlessly like the thread of a fabric woven together.
Peyton Oliver Patrick was born into a family furniture business named Townsend Furniture. Peyton’s grandfather opened the store in 1914 in Cape Girardeau, Missouri. After Peyton graduated high school in Southeast Missouri, he moved to California and got a job upholstering airplane seats for North American Airlines. He learned the art of upholstery from working at the furniture store back home. He eventually saved up enough money to send his girlfriend back home so she could move to California and they could get married. They were married at a church in Los Angeles and started their family. Peyton served in World War II and when he returned home from the war, he wanted to be closer to his family in Missouri so he, his wife Katy, and their children moved back home. Peyton’s cousin and uncle who owned the family furniture business offered him the chance to buy in, and so he did. At the time, Townsend Furniture had two locations: Cape Girardeau and New Madrid, Missouri. Peyton was the manager of the New Madrid location. Then in 1946, he bought out his family members from the business, closed the New Madrid location, and changed the name to Patrick Furniture. Laura’s parents, Tim and Carolyn Young, lived in St. Louis where Laura was born, but when her grandfather Peyton Patrick expressed his intent to retire in 1977, he asked Laura’s parents to move back to Cape Girardeau to take over the business. Her parents ran the business until their recent retirement. Her brothers, Patrick and Mike Young, have managed the store since the early 1990’s and now Laura has joined them in managing the Paducah location along with Mike’s son, Cy Young, the 6th generation.
The Cape Girardeau store is still in business today and Laura has always thought that adding a Paducah store would be a good move. She made her dream a reality and the Paducah location of Patrick Furniture opened in June 2022. Laura says since opening their Paducah store, business has been great. They’ve even seen people from Cape Girardeau visit their Paducah store because they carry different brands than the store in Cape. Some of the main brands carried at the Paducah location are Bernhardt, Smith Brothers, La-Z-Boy, and Mavin (an American Amish made line of dining and bedroom furniture). Patrick Furniture has something for every area of your home and they also have a full mattress department within their store as they own an America’s Mattress franchise. They even offer free design services when you shop with them. Laura has an interior design degree from Murray State University and she loves spending time with clients to figure out what their needs are and how she can make their spaces more beautiful and functional.
As Laura recounts the rich history of her family’s business, she reflects on how she came into the business herself. She stayed home to raise her children for 25 years, but now has found herself doing the same work as her great-great-great-grandfather. There’s something nostalgic about working the same trade as the generations that came before you, and with 19 children between Laura and her two brothers, the business is sure to be passed on again. If this family business is like a fabric being woven together by each generation, then it’s long from being completed.
