Rainwater Jewelry is probably one of the most familiar bygone businesses in the city of Sapulpa. The Rainwaters were well-known for their jewelry selection and their quick response in watch repair.
Roy “Leon” Rainwater met his bride-to-be at a dance in Chandler while working at a CCC (Civilian Conservation Corps) camp.
The CCC was a voluntary public relief program during the depression for unemployed, unmarried men ages 18-25.
Roy enlisted in the Air force during World War II, and before being deployed, he married Edith Crane. Rainwater served as a flight engineer and top turret gunner on a B-24 Liberator, flying 35 combat missions over Europe.
After the war, Rainwater decided to use the GI Bill to go to school to learn a trade. He went to a career fair at the University of Oklahoma and asked the job counselor what type of training was “coming up.” The counselor then told Roy that he had just missed the start of the current program, however, there was a watchmaking school starting a class in Wichita Falls Texas “very soon.”
He told the counselor he would “take that” and subsequently attended school at Hardin Junior College in Wichita Falls, Texas.
Rainwater became a watchmaker and came back to Sapulpa and went to work for Walton J.Miller who owned Miller Jewelry at the southeast corner of Dewey Ave and Water St. from 1946 to 1955.
By this time the Rainwaters had two sons, Ross and Lynn. According to Ross, his dad soon figured out “If he was ever going to make anything, he needed to go into business. He and Mom opened the store in ’55. I forget how many watches were brought in the first day they opened for repair but it was a whole bunch.”
Ross went on to say: “He [his father] had a manual trade he could do day-in and day-out fixing watches, back when watches were made to be fixed as opposed the throwaways nowadays.”
When Harrison’s clothiers moved from 110 to 120 East Dewey Ave in 1959, Roy Rainwater moved the business from 23 East Dewey Ave to the spot vacated by the clothing store at 110 East Dewey Ave.
Ross recalls the move, “My brother and I moved about two-thirds of the stuff, loading it on a little red wagon, pushing it from the original store to 110, back and forth, back and forth. I remember when they moved the big safe. It had metal wheels on it, it was very, very heavy. We waited until traffic died down and we pushed down the street. For a long time, you could see little scratches in the street where that thing went by.”
Ross said that both he and his brother Lynn worked at the family business. There was a running joke that he and Lynn had an “electronic brother.” Ross was born in 1946 and Lynn was born in 1950. According to Ross, his parents had planned on another child two years after he was born but his dad had instead bought an expensive electronic machine to time watches, which the two boys affectionately called their “electronic brother.”
As Rainwater’s business grew, so did his contribution to his community. He joined the VFW, the American Legion, and was Police Chief of the auxiliary police force from 1955 to 1976.
I remember buying my Sapulpa High School Senior ring at Rainwater’s, and friends buying jewelry, such as engagement rings for their sweethearts there as well.
In 1982 the elder Rainwater fell ill and Lynn and his wife Sally helped His mother run the store, and later took over the family business when Roy Rainwater passed away in December of 1982.
Lynn moved the store to 124 West Taft in the Rock Creek Shopping center in 1992. He and his wife Sally operated the business until 2004 when he had a final clearance sale and closed the business.
In December of 2003, the Tulsa World interviewed Lynn and Sally at the store. Lynn lamented it would not be easy shutting the business down because of the lasting relationships he and his family had developed in Sapulpa.
“This is bittersweet, a person cannot be in business for 48 years without being influenced by or having [an] influence on a town,” he said.
When discussing his return to help run the family business back in 1982, Lynn said “My mother and dad had been there all the time for me, and I decided it was time for me to help them.”
Sally told the reporter, “perhaps the best part of owning a jewelry store is knowing that people come to you during those special moments in their lives. We get to be involved in the happy times. People don’t buy jewelry for sad times.”
Like his father, Lynn was active in the community. He was a member of the Sapulpa Chamber of Commerce, the Sapulpa Education Foundation, Sapulpa Main Street, and the Sapulpa Lions Club.
After the store was finally closed, Lynn went to work for the liquidation company that ran the closing sale of his store. Sadly, Lynn passed away in 2012, thus ending a family legacy of honesty, integrity, and service.
At the end of the interview with Ross, I remarked that personal service is often lacking in today’s business world. He said that one Christmas when Lynn was quite young, his brother sat crying in the midst of a mountain of gifts. When asked why he was crying, Lynn told his father that Santa Claus did not bring the doll he had asked for.
Roy Rainwater went to the phone and called Dub Moore who owned a sundry store that sold toys. Moore opened up the store on Christmas day and Mr. Rainwater purchased a doll, brought it back home, wrapped it, and told Lynn that he must have overlooked the box.
Thus another family-owned and operated business is relegated to the annals of Sapulpa history.
