Morrell Floor Covering

2404

Morrell Floor Covering

MorrellAMPS: How long have you been in business?

Morrell: 53 years.

AMPS: What made you start this business?

Morrell: I was born into it really. My father did it when I was a kid in school.  Me and my wife started this business in 1966.

AMPS: So all those years what would you say is the defining thing that keeps you doing this every day?

Morrell: I’d have to say that my faith in the lord. Because Marion is really not a big city and it’s pretty easy to go past all of the people, but when you’re in Marion, when you’re in a city with 30,000 people in it that’s repeated business over and over and over and over and over. So we’ve seen many recessions and we’ve come through it all simply because the lord really is running the business. It’s not my expertise or anything although we have plenty of expertise in the business, my wife she’s a graduate, my daughter she’s got a master’s degree and she’s got a doctor degree. We all bind together. My two boys they work in the store and we go everywhere. We work all over the state of Indiana and out of Indiana, we always have. Because I think if you get to the point to where you don’t want to travel then you’re definitely going to go out of business. So I always say when the going gets tough, the tough get going and a little money pays some bills and no money pays no bills.

So we’ve just been going along, we built a brand new store in 1967 and then we built another store in 1978, and we’ve been here ever since. We just keep right on going.

AMPS: You know, there are so many stories out there, especially on television of course, where the kids don’t want to do what the family does.

Morrell: I didn’t have no choice, they don’t neither. I had my daughter working when she was probably 1, 2 or 3 and everybody used to say man I’ll be glad when that man gets himself a son so he can quit dragging that girl around with him. And so then I got two boys and they don’t have no choice they was born working and I taught them how to work when they was 5 and they said he’s infringing on the child labor law and I didn’t pay no attention to nothing that they had to say like no, no, no. And then I got grandsons and they’re doing the same thing. So they learned at a young age. And I had 2 brothers, 3 brothers, one is dead right now, taught them how. They say you not my dad, I say yeah but you’re going to learn how to do this. So it’s been in the family for a long time.

My dad said all the time, he said a lot of things, but my dad said you all learn to do as much as you know how to. You can and when the going gets tough you’ll never be without a job. That’s true. We’ve never been without a job. I enjoy doing what I’m doing. I mean it’s not, all of my life I’ve said it was never a job, it’s always been a hobby. But now I’m 70 years old and I don’t love it as much as I used to. I can’t stand the stress of the job, I still love the job, but I don’t like the stress of the job.

AMPS: What else, if you have time, do you do other than run this business?

Morrell: I’m a full time pastor. I’m a pastor of the Living Water Apostolic Church, we built it brand new from scratch. It’s just in the corner of Highway 18 and Pennsylvania Avenue on eight and two thirds acre. We built a church on two words. It’s time, and we’ve been pastor to the church since about 2004 so it’s been 10 years. And god has been a blessing in that thing. The lord is doing a real work over there on that corner. Touching a lot of people, helping a lot of people, we’ve got a food pantry that people just come, 150 cars and once a month, it’s just so amazing. And it’s a small church as far as membership is concerned, but we do a lot in this community. A lot.

AMPS: Any words of advice for our readers that may want to start a business?

Morrell: Don’t be afraid. You know, you got to do something before you can fail or succeed. You just can’t have an idea and die with the idea, you’ve got to implement it. And all I have to say is that I was just 2, I don’t know, we were talking, it’s funny because I think the word they were using, my grandson and my daughter they were using the word ordinary. And when they was talking about it my brother said I’ve never been ordinary. And I’m like well that’s really the truth because she was always in Project Up. She went to college and Indiana University, when she graduated from high school a year early, never graduated with her high school class, at the Indiana University she graduated with a master’s degree, she graduated with a doctor degree. And when she was 21 years old she had a 944 Porsche and about 7 houses with no co-signer. So that’s never been ordinary you know. So I said well, so then when somebody tells you that, then you start to flashing back to see if you’re an ordinary person. And I think that’s the word that they were using, but to build a brand new store when you were 25 years old and then all the things that we done, that I done that I accomplished, it was never, the word they used was, what was the word they used, it wasn’t ordinary what was it? Average, that’s what it was, average. So I told my grandson this morning I said do you know what average means? He said, what grandpa? I said, a C, a C. And he said *****(09:00) I’ve never been a C. I’ve never been average. You got to step out by faith and implement your idea, your vision. The bible said without a vision the people perish. You’ve got to do something before you can succeed or fail. And god never let me fail in anything that I’ve ever done.  I give all the glory to Jesus Christ for my life, he definitely is in everything I say and do. People in the town know me they all know me so it’s just good enough. I just enjoy doing what I’m doing. I enjoy pasturing, I enjoy floor covering store, I meet a lot of people. A lot of people come into the store and they come in the store not to buy a thing, they come in and they give prayer, it’s just amazing. They come in the store and give prayer, they come in and vent and talk, it’s just been a lifelong crusade you might say.