SIDNEY — A new sign went up in the window of the State Farm Insurance agency office on the square in downtown Sidney, Friday.
It invites the public to say good-bye to insurance agent Earl Vance during an open house, April 3, from 1 to 5 p.m., at the office, 129 S. Ohio Ave.
Vance will retire March 31 after 55 years of serving clients of the agency that bears his name. It’s been a great career, he said, but not one that he had planned to have.
Vance was working as an inspector and salesman for Stolle Corp. in 1961. He was 24.
“A gentleman, Earl Roberts, from Springfield, came by the house,” Vance said. Joyce Vance was home. Earl Vance wasn’t.
“I’ve got to see him,” Roberts said to Joyce. Roberts had been talking to church ministers about who in town might make a good insurance agent. State Farm wanted to open an office in Sidney. Earl had been recommended, so Roberts asked around about him. Roberts talked to the police and bank officials.
When Roberts and Earl got together, Roberts made Earl an offer and left a copy of a test for Earl to take. Earl ignored the test for several days, until Joyce said, “Why not take it?”
Earl worked with Roberts for several weeks, but he couldn’t be paid as an agent until he was 25. He opened his office the day after his 25th birthday, April 15, 1961. At first, he, with Joyce as his office manager, worked from their home. They started with 12 clients, but they outgrew their home office pretty quickly.
That’s because Earl lost no time in drumming up business.
“I knocked on every door in Sidney. I talked to everybody who was home,” he said.
“He lost 25 pounds in three months, knocking on doors,” Joyce said.
Earl’s father was a landscaper and Joyce’s dad operated a chicken hatchery, so lots of people knew the family. They signed on. Earl made himself available to factory workers, who could talk about insurance only when they got off work after overtime shifts.
“I’d meet people at 10 o’clock at night,” Earl laughed.
His daughter, Deborah Luellen, of Sidney, remembers stamping the business name and phone number onto State Farm-produced flyers by the hundreds with her brother when she was still a little, little girl.
“We’d walk down the street and put them on doors, on every single car at the fair every single night,” she laughed. Earl shared a tent at the fair with his dad. Each man promoted his own business.
Originally not a people person, Earl was surprised at how fast friendships developed with insurance-buyers. But his agency grew because he cared personally about his clients.
“For years, he cut out clippings of every single client for weddings, births. He’d send them a card with the clipping,” Luellen said. Later, at their request, he helped elderly clients with paperwork at the courthouse. If teens had two car accidents, Earl would call them in for a counseling session.
“I had friends who said, ‘I had to go see your dad,’” Luellen said.
“Parents would ask me to be tough on their kids. ‘OK, you send them in,’ I’d say,” Earl added.
He and his family also attended funerals of clients’ relatives.
For the first two years, State Farm paid Earl a salary, which was actually a loan. Once the business was established, the head office began to deduct loan payments from Earl’s compensation.
“Sometimes, we’d cry when the check came in,” he laughed. “The first check was for $16.” Eventually, Earl recruited so many clients that State Farm put another agent in Sidney.
“I got nothing negative out of that. I didn’t lose clients,” he said.
The Vances traveled to California, DisneyWorld, Bermuda, New York, Montreal, Toronto and elsewhere for company meetings. Everywhere they went, people seemed to know Earl.
“It’s been fun,” Joyce said.
Even people who don’t know the Vances personally have appreciated the Dept. 56 brand miniature village they have displayed in the office window. It started with one building, the bus stop, which they bought during a trip to Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, and it has grown over the years to comprise a whole town, including two State Farm offices. People have come from as far away as Indiana to see it. Grandparents take grandchildren whose parents they took before them to ooh and ahh at the window during the holidays.
Not as visible, on shelves inside the agency, is a collection of toy cars and trucks. That assortment started with model muscle cars Earl won from State Farm in sales competitions.
“I liked them, so we just started adding things,” Earl said.
Just as the cars have changed since the ’60s, so has the insurance business. Computerization began with microfiche machines, through which office managers pushed punch cards with client information on them. About that time, Earl decided his office managers, Joyce, and for the last 18 years, Angela Evans, could take over that part of the process.
“When they go to lunch, I look at the computers, sometimes,” he laughed. Evans, of Botkins, also took responsibility for the financial products and securities that State Farm made available to clients some five years ago.
She knew nothing about insurance when she joined the company. She learned it all from Earl.
“I watch how he treats people. He loves the clients. I think he’s a fair, good man,” she said. “I wish him the best in his retirement.”
Earl plans to walk his three dogs more often than he’s been able to and hopes to travel to Columbus to spend time with his nine grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren and to Tennessee to visit with aunts in their 90s and cousins.
“We go down and do a lot of hugging,” he said. “And eating,” Joyce added.
He also enjoys “messing” — Joyce’s word — in their backyard garden and keeping two rental properties in shape. An interim agent will handle client business until a new agent takes the reins in September in new offices on North Vandemark Road.
The Vances have been married since 1957. They met at a musical performance when a just-graduated Earl was crusing operettas and ball games in Sidney and Piqua to meet girls.
“I had a pretty sporty car,” he laughed. “I quit cruisin’ pretty quick.”
