Oct 22, 2011

Nielsens Gifts Prepares for a CelebrationBy David JonesGTRNews.com

Tulsa, OK – Nielsens has gone full circle just in time for a major anniversary. The legendary gift shop, which started as a mom and pop operation in the living room of a private home in Brookside in 1946, is returning to that home as it opens a second location in Tulsa. It is a culmination of almost miraculous coincidences.

It all started with a dinner in Wisconsin in 1940. A gentleman named Gayle Jensen was dating Dorothy Verheyden, a student studying speech therapy who had a yearning to start an upscale gift shop. Jensen had a friend, Arthur Nielsen, who had expressed a desire to also start a gift shop. Jensen thought it would be a good idea to get the two people together over dinner so he arranged for Nielsen and his fiancee to meet with himself and Verheyven on a double date.

As the couples sat down for dinner, Nielsen and Verheyden began discussing their dreams of a gift shop. Their ideas meshed. According to family lore, the other members of the dinner party hardly got a word in. By the time the dinner was over, the significant others had become relatively insignificant.

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