SIOUX CENTER -- John Vander Stelt Sr., the youngest son among 13 children, emigrated from Holland to Sioux Center, Iowa, in 1920 and went to work as a handyman. In the wintertime he helped at a local furniture store, repairing things. When a local upholsterer decided to open a larger shop elsewhere, he offered to sell the business to Vander Stelt for $250.

"He didn't have $2.50!" his son John Vander Stelt Jr. exclaimed recently. But a local banker believed in him, giving Vander Stelt the $250 loan and pulling $25 out of his own pocket for the young entrepreneur to buy start-up supplies. That was in 1941.

"I was Dad's pet. I was always with him," Vander Stelt Jr. said, pointing out the "John & Son" label stitched into each sofa he is building. "My grandsons insisted I put a label on the sofas. My dad had them. They're old -- he died in 1972."

John Sr. and John Vander Stelt Jr., who went to work full time after the eighth grade, worked together in the shop for nearly 10 years. John Jr. entered the Army for a two-year hitch in 1958. When he came home, his father turned the business over to him.

Vander Stelt remembers his father as the best teacher in the world.

"I started with small chairs," he said. "He's working right beside you but he wouldn't say anything until it was done. I had to take my own work apart and start over many times."

Today, John Jr. said, he's not unhappy that his sons, Michael and John Evan Vander Stelt, didn't follow him into the business.

"It's pretty much down the tubes" in a throw-away society, he said. Although he's retired, he's never closed his shop. He just started turning down some work, letting the business fade, except for an occasional project. He was pestered a few years ago into reupholstering a '57 Buick but vows he won't crawl into another car. And he repaired torn canvas on a combine for a desperate farmer recently.

So, there still is some demand for upholstery on occasion. Or on special occasions.