Jul 14, 2009

New face on old businessBy Susan MeekerColusa-Sun-Herald.com

Pam “Garrison” Stadick is her father’s son.

It was a joke Stadick shared with William Garrison at his Army-Navy store in Williams for many years, where she grew up stocking shelves and keeping things in order.

“Dad didn’t like me saying that,” Stadick said. “He had four daughters.”

Stadick is back in Williams after being gone for 20 years, following in the footsteps of her father and making a go at a retail business at the location of her father’s E Street store.

Garrison’s Army-Navy Surplus has been closed for several years, although the floor-to-ceiling inventory remains almost the same as the day Garrison shut his doors.

Stadick opened Garrison’s Vestiges — a 550-square-foot gift, antique and collectibles shop — in a portion of the once-sprawling surplus store in June. She hopes to expand to 2,000 square feet by next summer.

“I love being back,” said Stadick, who was born and raised in Colusa. “It really feels good.”

Stadick, who closed her Portland, Ore., store to bring her inventory to Williams, is hopeful that Garrison’s Vestiges will be a positive addition to city’s business district. She eventually plans to incorporate more of the World War I, World War II and Korean War surplus products that belonged to her father, which are now in high demand.

“Collectors have been very honest with me,” Stadick said. “Something that may have cost 59 cents in 1952 now sells for $45. There is just so little military surplus from those days left in the retail world.”

Stadick and her two surviving sisters inherited the store and inventory when Garrison died in 2006 at age 86. He started in the surplus business in Oakland in 1947 before moving to Colusa County. He opened Garrison’s in Williams in 1964.

“I remember people stopping in who came from all over — places like New Zealand and Africa,” Stadick said. “Even before Granzella’s, travelers would come into town and into the store.”

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