Rhodes, 77, passed away in a California hospital on June 13 after a short illness. He and his wife lived for many years in West Seattle, but they also had a second home in Desert Hot Springs, Calif.
However, his legacy will continue to live on in Queen Anne and the rest of Seattle. One reason for that is Rhodes spearheaded the formation of five Helplines in the city.
The Queen Anne Helpline was the first, said Pat Sobeck, longtime director of the charitable neighborhood organization. As the story goes, Rhodes was spurred to action when he noticed some of his elderly customers were buying a lot of cat and dog food at the Queen Anne Thriftway. "And he knew they didn't have pets," Sobeck said.
Terry Halverson, a longtime employee and current owner of the Queen Anne Thriftway, remembers another factor. Halverson said Rhodes was inspired to form the Queen Anne Helpline after the two attended a Seattle Chamber of Commerce luncheon at which the Rev. Billy Graham spoke of the need for corporate leaders to give something back to their communities. Whatever the reason, Rhodes initially hooked up with former 36th District State Sen. Ray Moore, former Bethany Presbyterian Pastor Dick Denham and Robert Cussman, a Fremont printer, Sobeck remembered.
"And they decided to open a social-services agency in 1981," she said, adding that all the neighborhood churches were also involved in operating the Queen Anne Helpline. "He was elected president at that time." The biggest fundraiser for the Queen Anne Helpline is the yearly dinner and auction at the downtown Sheraton Hotel, an event Rhodes was still very much involved in, Sobeck said. "Thriftway started the whole thing off at the Banquet Hall," she said of a location that used to be a bowling alley on upper Queen Anne Avenue. That was in 1983, and the event featured wine tasting and hors d'oeuvres.
"His dream was to set up Helplines in every community," Sobeck added. That didn't happen, but Rhodes did manage to help set up additional, independent Helplines in Magnolia, West Seattle, Lake City and White Center, she said.
The Helplines over the years have helped tens of thousands of people who were too proud to ask the government for help, said Gregg Hersholt at the memorial service. Rhodes had hired Hersholt's wife, Maureen, to handle public affairs for the grocery, and he had her work on forming the Helpline as part of her duties at the store, he said.
Rhodes' daughter, Magnolian Melinda Wilker, said her father liked to work behind the scenes to help people, and his motivation was based on a sense of fairness. "He always felt like everyone deserved a chance, even if they fell on hard times," she said.
Queen Anne businessman Chris Bihary, who worked with Rhodes on charitable activities, said there are always a few special people in the neighborhood, but Rhodes was special. "He was an original," Bihary said. His originality was especially evident in the way he ran the Queen Anne Thiftway, said Wilker, who worked at her father's store for 30 years before becoming a part-owner with Halverson when Rhodes retired in 1992.
"He started bringing in the fresh concept," she said, mentioning fish and cut flowers as examples. Rhodes was constantly coming up with new ideas for the grocery, Wilker said. "Some worked; some didn't." Her father was willing to let other people try out new ideas, too. One of them was a portable car wash that was set up for a time in the Thriftway parking lot, she said.
Halverson said he was already working at the Queen Anne grocery when Rhodes bought the business in 1971 and took him under his wing. "He put me in charge of the store when I was 21," said Halverson, who bought out Wilker's interest in the business a couple of years ago. "That took an awful lot of trust."
Sometimes that trust was put to the test. Rhodes traveled the world with his staff in search of new product lines, and Halverson remembers one trip to Holland in particular. Rhodes assigned him the job of buying fresh flowers from the largest wholesale flower market in the world.
Before then, the store was buying 50 bundles of fresh-cut flowers at a time, but Rhodes wanted to expand on the concept, Halverson said. "So I ordered a pallet of flowers."
Halverson said he thought he was ordering a grocery-store-size pallet of flowers, an order that typically fills a space of 4 by 4 by 4 feet. What he got instead was a load of flowers on an airline pallet, an order that measured 10 by 10 by 10 feet, Halverson said.
Halverson said he first scoured all the Ernst Hardware stores in town for the hundreds of buckets needed to hold the huge amount of cut flowers, and he also called Rhodes asking if he had any friends in the grocery business who might be interested in some flowers. "By the end of the day, he was able to move about 5 percent of them," Halverson recalled. That still left a bunch of bunches, and the display practically covered the store's parking lot, he said.
"We had sold about $5,000 worth of cut flowers in a few days," said Halverson, who added that the invoice actually came to $15,000. The loss to the store was close to his annual salary at that point, Halverson winced, but Rhodes was more than understanding. "He never mentioned the loss. He was excited about selling $5,000 worth of flowers."
Born in 1926 in Fresno, Calif., Rhodes moved to Seattle in his teens and graduated from Queen Anne High School in 1943. He also received a business degree from the University of Washington in 1950 after serving a short stint in the Navy at the end of World War II. Reg Rhodes, Dick's younger brother by 15 years, remembers going to the train station when Dick was shipping out at one point. Speaking at the memorial service, Reg said he was holding his older brother's hand at the station and was fascinated by the sight of gun-toting MPs.
Dick noticed Reg's interest, excused himself, and came back with the MPs, who asked Reg what his name was and told him to stick out his hands after he answered. "Before I knew it, I was handcuffed and led away," he said.
It was his first introduction to his brother's love of practical jokes, Reg said with a smile. The practical jokes continued over the years, Reg added, but he doesn't hold a grudge. Instead, he has the greatest admiration for his brother.
"He was the most humble and proud man I've ever known," the younger Rhodes said. But Rhodes' pride was always in the accomplishments of others, especially his employees. He never mentioned his own accomplishments, and Reg said he didn't know about most of them until he started working on his brother's obituary.
The honors included the Washington State Food Dealers Association Grocer of the Year in 1983, the Mayor's Small Business Award in 1986, the National Grocers Association "Spirit of American" award in 1989, and a 1989 Asparagus Club award for his work promoting the National Grocers Association and the food industry.
Rhodes got his start in the grocery business working as director of retail operations for Associated Grocers, a cooperative founded by his great-grandfather, J.B. Rhodes. He formed Food Markets Northwest when he bought the Queen Anne Thriftway, and the company later grew to include the Admiral Thriftway in West Seattle and the Queen Anne Thriftway at Proctor in Tacoma.
Rhodes sold his interest in all three stores when he retired in 1992, but he still kept his hand in, Halverson said. "He and I would continually get together, and he would always be interested in what we were doing."
Like many, many others, Halverson will miss Rhodes. "He was a real innovative visionary regarding the best products he could find," Halverson said.
Rhodes, divorced from his first wife, is survived by Joni, his wife of 21 years; his sister Barbara Frederick, of Seattle; brother Reg, of Cumming, Ga.; daughter Melinda, son Brian, three stepchildren, 10 grandchildren and numerous nieces and nephews.
Remembrances may be made to the Queen Anne Helpline at P.O. Box 9697, Seattle 98109; the West Seattle Helpline at 4517 California Ave. S.W., Seattle 98116; or Cancer Lifeline at 6522 Fremont Ave. N., Seattle 98103.
Staff reporter Russ Zabel can be reached at rzabel@nwlink.com. [[In-content Ad]]
