Simonet Funeral Home

A post to the department's Facebook page Wednesday announced Mike Peltier, who had been with the department since 1990 and had served alongside not only his father, but three brothers, recently died suddenly. ...

S. Army during World War II, Joseph “Dode” Simonet thought he might get a break from the family furniture and funeral business when he returned home to Stillwater in February 1946.He got one night.“After traveling for weeks by boat from Tokyo to San Francisco and then taking a lengthy train trip, he got home around 5 p.m.,” said his eldest son, Martin Simonet, of Stillwater. “They had dinner, stayed up kind of late, and he went to bed thinking he would have a day off and get a little rest and take it easy. His father (Joseph Simonet Sr.) called in the morning when he got down to the furniture store and said: ‘Hey, wake him up. I need him to come down and work today.’”Dode Simonet, a former vice president of Simonet Furniture and Funeral Home in Stillwater, died Friday of congestive heart failure at Boutwells Landing Senior Center in Oak Park Heights. He was 92.(Courtesy: Simonet Family)Dode Simonet, a former vice president of Simonet Furniture and Funeral Home in Stillwater, died Friday of congestive heart failure at Boutwells Landing Senior Center in Oak Park Heights. He was 92.Simonet was a fourth-generation owner of the business that started when his great-grandfather Sebastian Simonet opened a furniture store in downtown Stillwater in 1864, Martin Simonet said.Even after he retired, Dode Simonet worked part-time at the furniture store until it closed in 2009. At the time, it was thought to be the oldest continuously family-owned and -operated furniture store in the United States.“He was vice president of Simonet — that’s pretty high up there, but he spent part of every day out in the warehouse unpacking boxes and setting up furniture and stuff,” said Don Borden, who was a delivery man and warehouse manager. “He could have been up in the front office with his arms folded, looking out the window, but he’d get out there and do work.”Simonet continued to ...