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Partly cloudy skies early will give way to cloudy skies late. Low 56F. Winds light and variable.
Updated: October 10, 2024 @ 6:53 pm
AJ’s Maytag owner Steve Amundson, right, his wife, Cynthia, left, and office manager Jill Miller pose for a photo at the main desk of the Prairie Farm business on Monday, Sept. 16, 2024. The business is expected to close at the end of October 2024.
AJ’s Maytag owner Steve Amundson, right, his wife, Cynthia, left, and office manager Jill Miller pose for a photo at the main desk of the Prairie Farm business on Monday, Sept. 16, 2024. The business is expected to close at the end of October 2024.
By mid-September, within a week after it ran a newspaper advertisement that it was ceasing operations, AJ’s Maytag had already sold three fourths of its inventory, according to owners Steve and Cynthia Amundson.
That should make things easier as the business – which goes back 85 years into Prairie Farm history – gets ready to close the doors.
Nov. 1, 2024, is the tentative last day in business, Steve Amundson said during an interview on Wednesday, Sept. 16.
The Amundsons have lived in Prairie Farm for 51 years.
“We’ve been talking about retirement,” Cynthia said. “The business was listed for sale last fall. Several (potential buyers) have taken a look, but it’s still unsold at this time.”
For more than 60 of the years that the business has operated, Steve Amundson has been part of it.
“I started sweeping floors here when I was 8, and never left,” said Steve, who turned 71 last month. “I bought the business from my father (in 2001). I guess I knew back in high school that I was going to be working here.”
“It’s been a way of life for him – since he was a little boy,” Cynthia added.
The business has undergone many changes in the past eight and one-half decades.
The Amundsons began selling appliances in the 1970s, as well as operating a garage, service station and a small convenience store. But Cynthia remembers advising Steve that “the time has come to pick your poison.”
Appliance sales and servicing was it, they decided.
The Amundsons both made several trips to Amana, Iowa, then the home of the Maytag manufacturing line, for tours and training.
“Then I went to Greenville, Mich., for refrigeration school,” Steve added. “And I have attended many seminars over the years, learning how to ‘tear it apart and put it back together again.’ Now, though, it’s all online.”
As they paused to count all the people who have worked for them, the Amundsons guessed that they have employed something like two dozen people including relatives, spouses of relatives, significant others and regular employees.
“As you keep thinking, the list gets longer — 20-plus, I am guessing,” Cynthia said. “They treated the business like their own.”
What’s going to happen next?
“No real plans,” Steve said. “Maybe some travel, more time with the grand kids.”
“Our son (Chetek resort and dock owner Aaron Amundson) wants his dad to work part-time for him,” Cynthia said.
Other current employees at AJ’s Maytag include service technician Landen Hanson, and office manager Jill Miller.
Deep roots in Prairie Farm past
More than 15 years ago, in March 2009, AJ’s Maytag earned the Barron County Economic Development Corporation’s “Longevity Award” for its long record of success in the community.
According to an account appearing in the News-Shield, Otto Amundson, Steve’s grandfather, opened a Standard Service Station in 1939. Otto and his wife, Anna, had five children: Gerald, Vern, Ozzie, Delores and Ardella, some of whom later worked at the business.
“Otto and his three sons used horses and scrapers to move dirt into a low spot in a field on their farm, bordering the main street of the village,” the newspaper story said.
“The new business was located just north of the former Oscar Broten’s Feed Mill, which later became the Old Mill Inn Tavern. Otto saw this as a good location to start a business to sell gasoline, since Prairie Farm Creamery was located close by.”
In 1947, Otto sold the business to his two sons, Gerald and Vern, who added a garage to the service station.
In 1970, Gerald and his wife, Josie, bought Vern’s share of the business and added the portion the building that includes the appliance showroom.
Steve joined the business in 1978 and created a partnership. A remodeling project took place in 1998 to create the convenience store. The auto repair business was discontinued in 2006.
There are at least two artifacts at AJ’s Maytag that date back to the very beginning, Steve and Cynthia noted.
One of them is a Regulator clock that dates back to the 1930s. It hangs on the wall behind the main desk (see photo accompanying this story).
The other is an ancient fan back office chair that’s still in use in the business office.
“Grandpa was demolishing a schoolhouse when he asked for the clock,” Steve remembered.
As for the chair – “Grandpa sat in that for many years, even after retirement,” Steve added. “I can still remember him getting up and saying, ‘well, I think I’ll go home and start an argument with grandma.’”
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