A true helpful hardware man, county loses a national icon

By Mike Weland

The United States and Boundary County both lost a bit of Americana Thursday. A real hardware man who ran a real hardware store … not with low lying shelves of washers and seals, gears and elbows and spacers and fuses and switches in row after row of plasticized cards in displays that assumed the customer knew the proper widget to fit the specific doohicky so as to adapt to this configuration. Lindsay Helmer Hardware had ground shelving stocked with goods … but customers didn’t paw through the real hardware at Lindsay Helmers.

Owner Don Lindsay, 95, passed away February 27. A gathering of memories will be held from 1 to 4 p.m. Saturday, March 15, at the Boundary County Fairgrounds. All who knew him are invited. In lieu of flowers, the family requests donations in his memory be made to the Kootenai Valley Rifle and Pistol Club, P.O. Box 111, Bonners Ferry, ID 83805, designated to the Juniors to assist with equipment and travel expenses, or to the Boundary County Historical Society, P.O. Box 808, Bonners Ferry, ID, 83805.

When I arrived in Bonners Ferry to report for the Herald, I saw three places right off that told me Bonners Ferry was something special. The first, coming into view as you started down the bypass, were the Bonners Ferry Grain elevators towering over the highway, incredibly old, weathered. Next was Lee’s Meat Market on Kootenai Street. And then Lindsay Helmer’s Hardware Store, those wooden shelves, cupboards and bins towering up nearly to the ceiling on both sides, running pretty near the length of the store, a wheeled ladder descending from a rail on the ceiling.

And Don Lindsay, seldom without a smile, would talk you through what you were needing, even if you didn’t quite know. It would go a little quicker if you brought in the fitting or gizmo needing replaced, as he seemed to know every part manufactured in the U.S. or Canada, but he seldom let a chance at conversation go by. If it was a fairly common item, he’d head for the lower bins and bring you just what you asked for, and possibly an alternative that might work a little bit better. The more rare items sent him to one of the ladders, the rarer the item the higher he’d climb.

Don’s dad, Boyd, bought Kemp-Cleveland Hardware in 1945 and formed Lindsay-Helmer Hardware with partner Ted Helmer in 1946. and Don began working there while still in high school. He retired in 1999.

He sold…
Nuts and bolts
Pots and pans,
Outboard motors and garbage cans!

“Dad’s little jingle of what he had at the store,” his daughter Shellye wrote. She and her brother Scot grew up knowing that dad could fix anything with Seal All Glue and neither was overly impressed with Google. “As an adult, I could call Dad and ask his advice on appliances, automobiles, or how to fix something before Google existed.”

“Dad worked six days at week in Lindsay Helmer and he was on call 24/7,” she wrote. “If someone’s pump stopped working for their well after 5 p.m., he was available to get the part needed. When the BFHS locks were filled with Superglue, he answered the early morning call to use the antidote in the locks. When someone needed a heating element in a hot water heater or oven, he was available to rescue their holiday meal. No service charge added. Dad was the recorder for Lindsay Helmer Hardware’s inventory during the flood of 1948. He kept track of whose garage stored shovels, pipe fittings and tarps and more in order to help fix the natural disaster in Boundary County.

“As a kids, Scot and I never let our RN mom take out our slivers with a needle. Dad did it best with his jack knife! Dad supported the BFHS band boosters. Though he could not chaperone band trips, he made a blue and white percussion box for triangles and cymbals to stay safe. Dad never chose to join service clubs like Lions or JayCees. He chose to support all citizens through his problem solving issues effecting their everyday life with his ‘fix-it’ abilities.

“He refused to run for government offices because he had customers from all political parties and religions. Many times he was excused from jury duty because he knew the people involved. Thank you, Dad, for your acceptance and welcoming smile!”

Don was born January 20, 1930, in Hamilton, Montana, and within days he was bundled aboard a westbound train with a stop to drop him off at the Spokane Salvation Army Hospital. It was so cold a well-meaning Samaritan tucked a hot water bottle on his behind. It was so hot he bore the burn scars for life.

He was soon adopted by Boyd and Evalda Lindsay in Spokane and northbound for Bonners Ferry.

Amazingly, the man whose encyclopedic knowledge prompted comparisons to a search engine that went on-line in his 68th year was voted, along with Lee Morse, Most Absent Minded of their Bonners Ferry High School Class of 1948.

Don Laughable Loveable Lindsay went off to the University of Idaho, but kept working with his dad through college. He earned a bachelor of science degree in merchandising and advertising, along with an Army ROTC commission as a first lieutenant and passage to Korea.

The war ended by the time his ship reached Japan, and he returned home.

He and Veryl Gloria Moore were married August 3, 1952, at Trinity Lutheran Church, then located downtown. Shellye was born in 1956, Scot arrived in 1958.

At Lindsay Helmer, you could buy one nail or a keg. Downstairs, his plumber’s mule threaded pipe used in homes, drainage ditch pumping stations and dams. He adapted to countless changes in technology, from lead wipe plumbing to copper and PVC, knob and tube electrical to rag wire to copper and conduit.

But with the coming of Walmart and Home Depot, offering prices he couldn’t hope to compete with, he and other hardware store owners made the hard decision to shut off the lights. Seemingly overnight, the character of Boundary County changed.

Don stayed active, working in his shop at his South Hill home, flying, shooting with the Kootenai Valley Rifle and Pistol Club. Shellye and Scot stayed close, especially after their beloved Veryl passed March 23, 2016.

“How do you say goodbye to a person who personified an entire generation?” former Bonners Ferry Mayor Darrell Kerby asks. “If you lived in Bonners Ferry, Idaho, sometime between, say, 1955 and 2005, you undoubtedly have been personally helped by a gentleman by the name of Don Lindsay.

I can never remember a time when Don was asked by someone to search out for something they needed or needed help and advice on how to fix or repair something that Don wasn’t able to help in some way or another even if the help offered ended up just being moral support.

“Don was always ready with a smile and an upbeat voice to greet customers as they walked into his iconic hardware store, Lindsay-Helmer Hardware, a mainstay of Bonners Ferry’s Main Street for seemingly forever. I use the term customer but actually to Don each and every one was a friend.

“Don’s intellect and keen recall of history was limitless, and the knowledge he imparted never ending. The word ‘Icon’ may seem trite to use to describe Don, but more appropriate words have yet to be invented. I will take the liberty for all of you who knew Don to say on all of our behalf, Thank you, Don, for all you did for a grateful community.

“I know if the Gates of Heaven had a slight squeak by now he would have already taken care of it. Rest in Peace my friend.”