BELLEVUE, Neb. (KMTV) — Erwin’s Jewelry is the cornerstone of the old market, sitting there since the 1950s.
For decades it was owned by Frank Kumor, a Bellevue legend, who passed away last year due to complications from covid. That left the fate of Erwin’s unknown.
Since then, his daughter Rebecca Zurcher has heard from the community.
“From the time that my dad passed away to even now, I mean hundreds of hundreds of people,” said Zurcher.
Zurcher is a lifer at Erwin's.
“I started when I was about 8 years old polishing silver, making bows for presents,” said Zurcher.
She was there from childhood until college when she got a trade degree and then worked there full time for 25 years.
Eventually, she got a similar offer from her family, as her dad got from the original owner, Erwin Dreibus, many years ago.
“Erwin said Frank, here's the deal, I want to retire, so you have two choices: you can buy the business and find another job. And my dad’s like ‘well I mean as well just buy the business,’ so fast forward to now and I looked at it and I said ‘that’s kind of the deal with me,” said Zurcher.
Currently, Zurcher is doing what she calls intense spring cleaning. That means organizing and adding fixtures, but they want to make sure they keep the same flavor of the store that has brought so many in the community to Erwin’s for decades.
“The mantra of hard-working, honesty, we kind of almost treat everybody like we’re family,” said Zurcher. “I feel like we offer just that personal one on one service. Every single person is important, it doesn’t matter if you’re spending ten-thousand dollars or ten dollars.”
While there is plenty of work to do, the store that sells everything from diamond jewelry to watches to glassware is set to reopen July 1st.
From the sound of it, the people in Bellevue are ready.
“I know people haven’t forgotten about us,” said Zurcher. “It’s been very nice and comforting and humbling to know that people are just excited for us to open, they want us to open and they just are excited to support us.”