Long Time Furniture Store Owner Passes Away

Practically every old time Franklin County Family has made a trip to Giroux's Furniture Store & come out with what they felt was a good deal. What a fine gentleman he was & he knew so many people. Really missed the store when he closed.

Lionel P. Giroux
(October 10, 1924 - May 19, 2014)
Mr. Lionel P. Giroux passed away peacefully at Northwestern Medical on May 19, 2014. He was the son of P.F. Giroux who immigrated to Georgia, Vermont from Quebec, Canada with his parents and seven siblings in 1912, and Phyllis Sholan, whose family were long-time farmers residing in St. Albans Town. Born on October 10, 1924, he attended first grade in the one-room school house on the Sheldon Road. “Panny”, as he was affectionately called by his family because he enjoyed the finger play “Panny Cake, Panny Cake, Baker’s Man”, as a baby, volunteered to serve in the US Navy during World War II, leaving St. Mary’s High School at the end of his junior year. He returned home from the European front in the spring of 1946 to meet and marry Ruth Margaret Jarvis, the young woman he had seen before the war on the stage in plays at Bellows Free Academy, St. Albans. Together as members of “The Greatest Generation”, they hit the ground running and never stopped until they had raised four daughters setting them all on their ways with plenty of love. He helped run the furniture store on Lake Street, St. Albans started by his father, first delivering for his Dad, then co-owning with his brother, then his wife, and finally with his daughter for a total of 59 busy, joyful years. He liked to think that there are still a lot of folks sitting on his sofas, sleeping on his beds, and eating together on his tables for Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners. He will always be happy and grateful to say that “those good people were good enough to stop in and see me”.
He leaves behind his four daughters, Mary-Ruth Hyser (the late James Hyser) of Midlothian, Virginia, Suzanne Gregory (Conway Gregory) of Denton Maryland, Carolyn Giroux of St. Albans, Jennifer Laidman (Gary Laidman) of Alden, New York; six grandchildren; four great-grandchildren; brother Bernard of Albuquerque, New Mexico, and sister Lucille Rolfe of St. Albans.

The family will receive friends on Wednesday, May 21, from 7 to 8:30 pm in the Brady & Levesque Funeral Home. A Funeral Mass will be celebrated on Thursday, May 22, at 11:00 am at Holy Angels Church. Interment will follow with military honors at Mount Calvary Cemetery. What better way to finish a life that at the church where he and Ruth, his grandparents, parents and daughters were baptized confirmed and married. Memorial contributions can be made in his memory to the St. Albans Free Library. Online condolences may be made at the funeral home website: www.bradyandlevesque.com. Arrangements are entrusted to the Brady & Levesque Funeral Home and Commemorative Service.