`Irv' Frese Owned Chubby & Tubby

If there is general merchandise to sell in the afterlife, Irving W. "Irv" Frese probably is selling more of it, and for less, than anyone else.

Mr. Frese - the "Chubby" of Chubby & Tubby stores fame - along with partner Woody Auge, who died in 1989, virtually invented low-price retail in Seattle.

Beginning with a few surplus goods in a Quonset hut, he took the down-home feel of the "five-and-dime" to new heights: shoes, shirts, stepladders and seasonal trees stacked wall to wall and curb to curb at stores in North Seattle, South Seattle and White Center.

"They sold a lot of shoes, a lot of clothes, and a lot of everything else," said Mr. Frese's brother, Lloyd Frese of San Francisco, who will keep the three stores going. "If we didn't have something, like a pair of size 18 shoes, we'd get it the next day, UPS overnight. My brother was a helluva salesman."

Mr. Frese died of heart failure Friday, Jan. 17. He was 82.

"He was a close-out artist buyer," said Mike DiCecco, the Rainier Avenue South store manager and a friend who took world trips with Mr. Frese. "He tried to make great buys so he could pass savings on to the customer."

Born in Petaluma, Calif., Mr. Frese grew up peddling potato chips and near-beer on trains, and hawking newspapers on street corners. He moved to Seattle in 1935 and worked at his family's gas station on Rainier Avenue South.

In World War II, he served in the Merchant Marine. Upon his

return he managed the service station, fished, and played cards and football with his buddies.

One of them was Auge, who knew how to get military-surplus merchandise. Mr. Frese gave him the place to sell it - a hut on the gas-station lot.

Mr. Frese's wife nicknamed the men Chubby and Tubby, reflecting their ample girths. The men opened two more stores. Fashions waxed and waned, but they stood behind their formula of more for less.

Rough-spoken to visiting salesmen as well as to employees, Mr. Frese basically was kind, creating a close-knit atmosphere in the stores.

"His bark was worse than his bite," his brother said.

Mr. Frese visited each store Christmas Eve to wish employees a happy holiday, donated poinsettias to his church and opened his pool to neighborhood kids.

The Chubby & Tubby tradition of selling Christmas trees for 97 cents, which began in the late 1940s, when the men gathered trees cut for power company right-of-ways, was purely their own, said DiCecco, who said holiday trees still sell for only $5 or $10.

"Both Irv and Woody wanted everybody to have a Christmas tree. That's why they sold them for less than anyone else," he said. "They made Chubby & Tubby's an institution in Seattle. It's Seattle's general store."

Other survivors include a nephew and niece. Mr. Frese's wife of 55 years, Ruby Lee Frese, died in 1992.

Services for Mr. Frese are at 11 a.m. Thursday at Mount Baker Presbyterian Church, 3201 Hunter Blvd. S., Seattle. Remembrances may go to Hope Heart Institute, 556 18th Ave., Seattle, WA 98122.