This article was originally published in the Tompkins Independent, December 6, 2023
Brother and sister, Dave and Vicki deBruyn, co-owners of Pete’s Tire and Auto Service, on 432 Bone Plain Road, Freeville, New York, are closing their business at the end of December. This is a hard pill to swallow for the many customers they have helped over the years. They have been helping me nurse along my Toyota Corolla with its 96,000 plus miles for several years now, and I have been a customer of theirs since 2008. My father, Barth E. Mapes, became a steady customer when he and my mother bought the Payne farm on Scofield Road back in the eighties for their retirement. I found out that the business was coming to an end when I brought my car in for a new water pump and a switch to my winter tires, and found my regular tires in the back seat.
Their father, Pieter deBruyn, began the business in 1972, on the forty-two acres where he also had his home. After the war, in 1949, he emigrated to the U.S. from Holland. He was born in Alblasserdam in 1926, a city near Rotterdam, which was leveled during the war. Because Europe was so ravaged, he thought it made sense to emigrate, but the rest of his family didn’t make the same decision. His mother died soon after. Over the years, his American family became accustomed to listening to him talk on his phone to his family in the Netherlands in Dutch.
For years, Pieter worked for Agway on their farm tire service. When Agway decided to quit that aspect of their operation, he decided to take it and his customers with him and formed a new business, named after him. At its onset the business was 100 % geared toward farming, but over the years Pete’s Tire shifted its emphasis to the automotive side of things. They now devote about 20 % of their business toward helping farmers.
The forty-two acres contained the business, the house, and a small dairy farm, where all of the deBruyn children worked as teenagers, including their older brother, Rodney, who still lives in the area. The family kept 15 or 16 dairy cows at a time and sold their milk to Purity Ice Cream. Dave learned the agri business from his father, and Vicky and Dave both started working at Pete’s Tire in 1979. They became co-owners in 1991 and Pieter died in 2001.
Their mechanics, brothers Ernie and Ron Quarella, have been with them over thirty-five years.
Dave says that a big part of what you look for in a mechanic is “people who want to stay with it.” The brothers have helped to serve as the backbone of the operation. One of their mechanics has started to have back trouble, but both Vicki and Dave feel they are also ready to move on.
When I asked them how the area had changed since the business first started, Vicki said that the area had become more “gentrified,” while Dave commented that “the service industry is bigger, the farms are smaller, and there are fewer of them.” Both of them commented on the increase in traffic in the area, except during the pandemic when Pete’s Tire stayed open. What they say isn’t surprising, since Tompkins County is the only county growing in the Southern Tier, and much of the growth is taking place in Lansing, partly because of Cornell.
My memories of Pete’s Tire and the deBruyns and Quarellas include walking in the front door, where my eyes would always fall on the big cow, painted by Vicki’s daughters, Rachel and Katy, and some of their friends. There was also a big wooden shoe on the back wall. I understand the reason for that now. I would be greeted by either Dave or Vicki. If I was greeted by Vicki, I would first check to see what earrings she had on–she has many. Whoever was handling me, would then go over the list of things I needed covered for that appointment and I would usually sit and read a book. Vicki considered herself “a Jill of all trades,” while Dave could be considered “a Jack of all trades.” He often dealt more with the ordering of parts than Vicki. I asked them their secret to working together; they both said “trust and a strong work ethic, and “knowing each other’s limits.” My main memory of Ernie is that he liked my mother and came over to Kendal one Saturday and worked on her car. She, in turn, made him cookies.
When I asked them what they would miss most in retirement, they both said the customer interaction and their co-workers. Their children, who are scattered across the United States, aren’t interested in taking over the business, but they have provided many travel opportunities for their parents, including visits to Louisiana and Colorado. Two of Dave’s hobbies include flying both personal planes and remote control planes. He also likes to visit museums. Vicki is into gardening and has various projects she wants to work on in her house. But we, their customers, will definitely miss them.
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