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Paulette Beale Harris has been working at her family’s flower shop for 45 years. And she is not the only one in her family that’s been on the job for decades.
Paul Beale’s Flowers has been around 55 years – and has seen four generations of Beales.
“Business is business and family is family, and fortunately, we found a way to blend them all together,” she said. “And my mother and father wouldn’t have had it any other way.”
The shop was started by Paul Beale Sr. and his wife Altermese. Paulette said the couple shared a special bond.
“My mother was born in Florida and my dad was born in Virginia,” she said. “But they met in Virginia, and they were teenagers. They got married back in 1946, and they were married for 75 years.”
Paul worked in a flower shop in Virginia and eventually moved to Philly, where he was a manager at Stein’s Florist for 15 years.
From there, he decided to start his own shop.
Paul Beale’s Flowers opened its doors on May 1, 1971. His kids and grandkids say he taught them all they knew about arranging and dealing with florals.
“My grandfather taught all of us, and he was a very good designer,” said Paul David Beale Sr., Paul Beale’s grandson, who now works at the shop.
The shop operated on Paul Beale Sr.’s vision: good service.
“My dad, he didn’t believe in advertising because he thought that if you do a great job, the advertisement is right there,” said Carolyn Beale, another one of Paul and Altermese Beale’s children. “If you’re doing a good job, people will talk about you because you give them good work, nice work.”
The business
The flower shop offers arrangements for many occasions, Carolyn said.
“We get sympathy flowers for funerals, wedding flowers for weddings, birthdays, welcomes for newborn babies, holidays, Christmas, Valentine’s Day, Thanksgiving, centerpieces, and really any holiday, we have flower arrangements,” she said.
While the commitment to customer service has remained, style and preferences with florals have shifted over the years, Paulette explained.
“People before maybe liked more birds and anthuriums, and now people are into hydrangeas, orchids, lilies and peonies,” she said. “But I don’t look at it as a challenge. It’s just what we do,”
And just as Paul Beale Sr. aimed for, good service has built loyalty among their customer base.
“Lots of customers who got prom corsages here are still coming, and their children have gotten their prom corsages here too, and they’re still coming.” Carolyn said.
Carolyn explained that the shop has also seen a lot of change over the years.
“The neighborhood has changed quite a bit,” Carolyn said. “When we first started, we went through a phase of people moving out and closing up shops in the 1970s, but we stayed.”
“I’ve seen the neighborhood change, the customers change, and just the business itself and us doing more things with a variety of different arrangements and different occasions.”
In terms of the shop itself, there haven’t been many changes in day-to-day operations, Paulette said. But, social media and technology have taken some adapting.
“Things like that make you have to stay on top of things differently,” Paulette said. “You have to keep up with the new way of delivering the wire orders coming on the website, dealing with Google and just different things like that. So you have to stay current in that kind of way and make sure that your presence is out there.”
A family affair
Paulette Beale Harris and Carolyn Beale are the two surviving siblings of Paul and Altermese Beale. Carolyn said her parents always loved coming into the shop.
“My dad passed away about five years ago, and he was 92, but he was still in here every day until he was 90 and 91, and then his health got next to him, so he had to stop coming there,” she said. “But my mom was in here every day until three months ago, when she passed away at 95. So, we had their influence with us the whole time.”
Although Paul Beale Sr. passed in 2020 and Altermese passed earlier this year, Paulette said she is grateful that the two got to see multiple generations working in the store.
“It’s a wonderful thing, because [the younger Beales] don’t have to be here,” she said. “They chose to be here. And luckily, my dad lived long enough to see them here.”
If you visit Paul Beale’s Flowers today, you’ll see three generations of Beales behind the counter.
Paulette and Carolyn do most of the front-of-house work, like taking orders, answering phones and dealing with inventory.
Paul David Beale, Sr., the son of Paulette and Carolyn’s oldest brother, and Paul Beale Sr.’s son, Paul Beale Jr., create most of the floral arrangements.
Paul David Beale, Sr. has been working with the store for over thirty years. He said getting to share this work with his son, who is only 28, has been priceless.
“He makes me proud when I see him flourishing and making different things,” he said. “And just to see how he’s learning how and really how interested he is in it, it’s a very great feeling.”
As for working around his aunts and family, he said it has been fun – and never boring.
“You could never get bored with flowers, because there’s always something different you can do,” he said. “And although I didn’t plan on being here, I’m glad I am here,” he said.
And you can hear the laughs of the whole Beale family echo from behind their flower counter as they work.
Paulette said her parents raised them to love and put each other first – and said they would be proud of the way they work together.
“My mom and dad, they wouldn’t have allowed us to bicker and carry on like that, and it just carried over,” she said. “They didn’t argue and bicker, at least not in front of us anyway, so it just carried on to raising us and how we were as a family.”
As for future goals, Paul David Beale Sr. says the business is doing good – and he hopes it remains this way.
“We just want to keep this thing going,” he said. “We’ve been here 55 years. I’ve been here 38 now. My son is here, and he’s been here nine or ten or something like that. He’s only 28, so hopefully he might have another 50 in him. So [the goal] is to just keep it going.”
You can visit Paul Beale’s Flowers at 7220 Ogontz Avenue. They’re open Monday-Friday from 7 a.m. to 2 p.m.
