Keeping it in the family

On Valentines Day 1984, Bob Guikema bought his wife, Jean, a lumberyard.

While it’s funny to say, and it’s true, 36 years later, what is more serious is that Greenfield Lumber is still a mainstay in the Greenfield and greater Adair County communities.

As of the beginning of 2020, however, the Guikemas took a back seat in the business and handed daily management and ownership of the store to Jimmy and Rena Freeland, their daughter and son-in-law.

“They’ve been here four years, I thought it was about time they start running it and I’ll be around to help them,” Bob said, adding he’ll be able to come in and help if the Freelands need time off or a weekend off periodically.

“This was kind of the plan when they came back, to see if Jimmy would like this kind of a business,” Jean said. “We wanted to make sure this was what he wanted to do. We didn’t want him to feel like he had to do it. Our son Ryan, it isn’t his thing, so we wanted to make sure Jimmy and Rena wanted to do this. It takes a lot of hours.”

Upon graduating from high school, Guikema moved to Des Moines, where he worked for a large lumberyard and was transferred to various places. While he and Jean were in California, their first son was born, and they decided they’d like to move back to a small town.

The Guikemas ran a grocery store in Corydon for a time before an opportunity opened for Bob to work for Greenfield Municipal Utilities, where he would eventually be promoted to superintendent.

Clure Lumber became available for purchase in the early 80s, and knowing he had enjoyed working in that industry, he and Jean bought the lumber yard.

“With the farm crisis and high interest, I felt like if I could survive that, I could survive,” Bob said. “We survived thanks to our customers and some really good help over the last 36 years.”

After they had been open seven years, Greenfield Lumber moved all of its hardware to the square from the lumberyard that was just west of the square by the present day Fox Welding. The lumberyard had a Radio Shack franchise for awhile and was one of the first places you could buy a cell phone in Greenfield when bag phones very first came out.

From a former grocery store on the square the lumberyard moved to another former grocery store, this time in 1998 to its current location at 107 NE Sixth St.

From the beginning, Greenfield Lumber has arguably been the place to find just about anything.

“It was kind of unique the day we moved. My dad (Burl Klinger) had a heart attack and was going to have heart surgery, so the day we moved I was in Des Moines. With the town’s help, our church, our family and friends, we moved it all in one day, lumber and all,” Jean said. “In one weekend everything got moved in and was mostly on shelves.”

Jimmy and Rena faced a similar situation early in their marriage. They were living in Winterset and were commuting separately to Des Moines everyday knowing they’d someday like to get back to Rena’s hometown but things just hadn’t worked out. Jimmy called that stage of life the “rat race.”

Four years ago, the Freelands were able to move back to Greenfield and began working at Greenfield Lumber, learning together how things go.

“It’s something you can’t turn down. Bob and Jean have been so good to us and the community’s been so great to us. It’s a great community,” Jimmy said.

When asked what a few things are that have stuck out to Jimmy in working with Bob and Jean, he said Bob and Jean’s “go with the flow” mentality helps things go smoothly around the workplace.

“They don’t get worked up. If something doesn’t go the way you think it should go, they kind of just go with it. They’ve been even keeled,” Jimmy said. “That’s the way things have been at Greenfield Lumber. We try not to get worked up about anything and take care of people.”

Rena said she’s excited that she and Jimmy, who have two children named Oliver and Amelia, are taking over the family business, however she admits it’s a little daunting as well.

“For a long time, we had looked for a way to get back to Greenfield but there weren’t a lot of [career options] for what we wanted. When this came about, everything went really quick. We sold our house really quick, we moved over here really quick,” Rena said. “It seemed like God was leading us in this direction and this is where we needed to be. We were at a point where we either needed to move to Des Moines or find something completely different and that was pretty much the exact moment this opportunity came about. It really was the start of everything falling into place.”