Not About Food: The Passing of Wally Bronner

Posted on 2 April 2008 under Notes

I just found out Wally Bronner, founder of the massive Bronner’s Christmas Wonderland in Frankenmuth, Michigan, passed away yesterday at the tender age of 81. 

When Aaron, aka Teen Tech, was just over a year old I was shopping at Bronner’s and had parked the stroller at the end of an aisle. Suddenly the stroller moved forward out of my sight. I flew around that corner to catch whomever was stealing my son … and there was Mr. Bronner, sitting on the floor, chatting with Aaron. Knowing Aaron was in good hands, I went back to shopping. After a while the stroller went back to where it was and Mr. Bronner was gone. It seems to me that, once I went back to Aaron, there was a bit of candy in the stroller …

Just a few years ago my kids and I got to the store rather late in the evening, about 8:30. Knowing the store closed at 9 I told the kids we could browse but, at over 250,000 square feet, any real shopping would have to wait for another visit. The store was almost empty of customers as we walked through all the displays from around the world. About halfway through, Mr. Bronner walked up to say hello. I told the kids who he was and that he owned the store. They all had a nice chat, asking all kinds of impromptu questions. The kids thought it was great that such a man would be at his store that late in the evening, still working, still walking up to people just to chat. As Mr. Bronner walked away one of the kids askd, “Dad, did we just meet a millionaire???”

Mr. Bronner will be sorely missed by all his customers and fans alike. But as he is quoted as saying, he’ll go ahead to heaven “to make sure the decorative touches are in place.”

Post Comments






XHTML allowed: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>

* Required. Your email will never be displayed in public.