[Scan-DC] Had anybody heard of Joe's Radio Shop?

[Alan Henney]

The Morgan Messenger (Berkeley Springs, West Virginia)

July 15, 2015

Joe's Radio Shop closes after 67 years

BYLINE: Kate Shunney

SECTION: FRONT PAGE

LENGTH: 571 words

Devin Myer, left, stands with Cecelia "Sis" Youngblood as the pair takes a break from packing up equipment from Joe's Radio Shop last week. Most of the stuff still left in the back room of Joe's Radio Shop last week could have been called "obsolete" by modern standards.

Before an auctioneer hauled their last load away and the Youngblood family settled on the sale of the shop Friday, that workshop still had remnants of more than six decades of radio and TV repair work. 

Roger Youngblood joked that it was just a bunch of old junk nobody knew how to use anymore. But, in truth, the collection of his father's repair equipment -- left over from 67 years in business as Joe's Radio Shop - would excite just about anyone interested in the history of electronics.

Joe Youngblood and his wife Cecilia "Sis" Youngblood opened their first radio shop in the top floor of Nolan's Store in Great Cacapon around 1958. They ran the business there for a year and a half, with their son Roger spending naptime in empty boxes.

The couple moved the shop to the storefront where Tari's Café now operates in downtown Berkeley Springs, and spent five years there. They operated for the next 20 years in the building that houses Connie Perry's realty firm -- selling white goods, televisions, Brothers sewing machines and radios, of course.

In 1974, Joe's Radio Shop moved to its final location - along the Warm Springs Run on Congress Street. The short brick building had previously been the Town of Bath office, the police department and home of the Berkeley Springs Volunteer Fire Company.

Over the years, Joe Youngblood - who passed away in 2011 at the age of 90 -- serviced all sorts of radios, televisions, satellites, scanners, household machines and antennae. Roger Youngblood has been working in the business full time since 1984, with help from his wife Mary.

Customers of Joe's Radio Shop also turned to Cecilia Youngblood for their sewing projects. She once worked at the Berkeley Shop - a dress shop in town - and picked up some of her skills there.

"When you worked for a dress shop, you had to do alterations and all that," she said. People still come to her with their sewing projects - everything from repairs to hemming and such.

Youngblood, who is just about to turn 91, said she'll still do a little bit of sewing for her regular customers, even though the radio shop is now closed.

Gareth and Gale Foulds of Berkeley Springs became the new owners of the Congress Street building on Friday, July 10.

The Foulds don't have specific plans for the 1909 building beyond stabilizing and renovating it to preserve its history, said Gale Foulds. The couple hopes to work with the town and bring some "new energy" to the block.

Closing a chapter

Family members of the Youngbloods have helped sort through more than half a century's worth of equipment and supplies at the shop as they prepared to turn it over to the Foulds.

Joe Youngblood's great grandsons, Devin and Alexander Myer, have been introduced to a few treasures during the process. One such item was a gold Volkswagon bus model that doubled, in its day, as a record-player needle.

The closure of the shop has been taxing and physically demanding, but one particular box drove home the idea that the family was closing a long chapter in their history.

Inside the box were three cowboy hats set aside by Joe Youngblood - the tall, handy, hat-wearing namesake of Joe's Radio Shop.