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Tracing Design Mart's Roots: Summer Road Trip Includes Barre, Vermont
Design Mart traces its roots back to Spain at a time when Spanish dictator Francisco Franco saw thousands of citizens flee the censorship, coercion, imprisonment, concentration camps, forced labor, and heavy prison sentences, which characterized his regime.
Mike and his sons, Christopher and Nicholas, stand in front of the house built by Luis Pena.
Among those entering the country via Ellis Island were the Penas, who went on to settle in Barre, Vermont. It was in Barre that Luis Pena went to work in Barre's granite industry. He and his wife Madelina, built a home, and raised five girls. One of them, Josephine, graduated from Spalding High School prior to her death at age 22.
The form Spalding High School is now a beautiful museum in downtown Barre.
As pneumatic tools and sandblast came into use, granite dust took its toll on many sculptors. As Luis lay dying in Barre's sanitorium with silicosis and tuberculosis he joined together two pieces of maple wood and worked with a pocket knife, a piece of broken glass and a nail, to create a frame for Josephine's diplomma. Jospephine Pena's diploma remains inside the frame that was hand carved by Luis and is still on display at the home of Joe (Luis' grandson) and Katherine Fernandez in Elberton, Georgia. (At the bottom left corner is the signature of Deane C. Davis, who later served as Governor of Vermont.)
At about the same time, John Fernandez and his two brothers, Angel and Salustiano had left Spain for Cuba, and after learning of Barre's granite industry they made their way north.
At the former Jones Brothers Company, and at Barre's WWI memorial.
Luis, John, Angel and Salustiano worked at Jones Brothers Granite Company where they crafted monuments that can be found in Barre's Hope and Elmwood Cemeteries.
Then and now ... at Hope Cemetary.
After meeting Luis' daughter, Julia, John married her and moved south to Elberton, Georgia, as did John's brothers. They all went to work in Elberton's granite industry, and founded Victory Granite Company. John and Julia had four children, Manuel, Louise, Joe and John. The three brothers all worked in Elberton's granite industry, and in 1968, Joe founded Design Mart after working at Coggins Industries and Premier Designs.
A monument ot Barre's immigrant craftsmen. The Barre Granite Association.
Joe Fernandez and his older son, Mike, continue Design Mart today - supplying thousands of monument retailers with brochures, catalogs, web sites, online sales and design tools, custom memorial artwork, and precut stencil.
[This summer, Mike and his wife Cynthia, and their sons, Christopher and Nicholas, included Barre on a summer road trip. Their visits included the Jones Brothers plant; the house built by Luis Pena; Hope Cemetery; Spalding High School where Mike's great-aunt, Josephine, graduated; the World War I Memorial "Youth Triumphant"; and the Barre Granite Association.]