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Loading his 70-year-old hand-carved bedroom into his truck and driving it nearly 100 miles was a nerve-wracking experience for Michael Toohey.
A four-poster bed frame and two dressers were the first pieces of furniture my grandfather ordered in 1953. It was a simple transaction with the buyer, Leon Joyce of Rochester.
But for Joseph Toohey, a Chatfield, Minn., resident who had been carving wood since he was a teenager, the deal launched what would become today’s international, multimillion-dollar furniture manufacturer.
Michael Toohey, Joseph’s grandson and executive director of Toohey Furniture, recently posted a photo of the dresser on the company’s history page and received a phone call from Anne Christiansen of Golden Valley, one of Leon Joyce’s daughters. Ta.
It turns out that the Joyce family kept all the parts of their first bedroom set together and took great care of it. Christiansen said she would like to see the bed frame and dresser displayed where they belong: at Toohey Furniture’s headquarters in Chatfield, a city of 3,000 people southeast of Rochester. More than five generations of the Toohey family have lived there. So her family decided to return the furniture to the company.
Having the work displayed in corporate offices is a great reminder of what small beginnings can grow into with hard work and a little luck, Toohi said. “Over time, you can expect things to shift between family members and eventually be forgotten or gone,” he said.
After their parents passed away, Christiansen and her sister Bernie Joyce, who lives in Eagan, focused on taking care of the bedroom set, planning to take it on themselves every 10 years. But after seeing the work done to move it to Barney’s home, Christiansen decided to see if the Tuohy family would be interested in displaying her work instead this year.
The sisters hypothesized that their father might have surprised their mother with hand-carved furniture just days before their eldest daughter’s wedding. “I remember everyone getting this bedroom set brought in during the pre-wedding chaos. … It was almost a nightmare,” Christiansen said.
Christiansen said the Joyce and Tuohy families met when Joseph Tuohy’s sister married Leon Joyce’s brother. At the time, Toohey was the area’s go-to woodworker for making church furniture, she said.
Christiansen said the Joyces learned that Tuohy was serious about his woodworking business, so they gave him “financial help” to get started and asked him to build a three-piece bedroom set.
“My mother and father were modest people in so many ways,” said Christiansen, who said they had nothing but praise for Joseph Toohey and his work. He said he heard it. She was told that it took her 14 days to carve her one of the bedposts.
Joseph’s son Mike took over the company from his father and expanded into the New York, Chicago, and Washington DC markets. Today, Toohey Furniture manufactures office desks, conference tables, and chairs under the direction of Mike’s son, CEO Daniel, and COO. Michael.
Last month, Michael Toohey and two employees carefully disassembled the furniture and loaded it into a truck for the move from Eagan to Chatfield. For Christiansen, it felt like “letting go of so much of my family, even though my parents were long gone.”
After posting the photo on the company’s website, Toohey asked her father, Mike, now 86, about the bedroom set. When Mike was a teenager, he helped carve this piece.
After moving the parts to the company’s front office, Michael Toohey invited his father to take a look. “He just stopped and stared at it,” he said, explaining each detail and carving to his son.
“I saw my memory coming back,” Michael Toohey said.
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