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  • Tribune-Star/Jim Avelis Family affair: Albert Siebenmorgan with Delania and Bill Siebenmorgan. Tribune-Star/Jim Avelis

    MET060211carpet siebenmorgan.jpg

  • Tribune-Star/Jim Avelis Modern era: From 1951-1970 this is how Terre Haute Carpet Cleaning looked at its North 16th street location.

    MET060211carpet later years.jpg

  • Tribune-Star/Jim Avelis Ready to go: Bill Siebenmorgan stands by cleaned area rugs ready for delivery back to customers. The rugs are cleaned then dried in batches since it takes a lot to get the machinery for both cleaning and drying going.

    MET060211carpet cleaned.jpg

  • Tribune-Star/Jim Avelis Early years: This photograph and others chronicling the history of Terre Haute Carpet Cleaning hang in the hallway of the North 16th street business. This is their first location from 1918-1921.

    MET060211carpet 1st edition.jpg

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June 12, 2011

Covering a century: Terre Haute Carpet Cleaning and Rug Co. one of the oldest family-owned businesses in city

Arthur Foulkes The Tribune-Star

TERRE HAUTE — William Siebenmorgen worked for Oscar Alexander’s Terre Haute carpet cleaning business around 1910 — when William Howard Taft was serving in the White House.

In 1913, after a few years of working and saving, Siebenmorgen, who was then about 28, decided to purchase the business from his boss, neighbor and fellow member of the Plymouth Congregational Church.

A deal was made and Siebenmorgen began making regular payments to Alexander. This continued for some time until, one day, quite unexpectedly, Alexander approached his former employee near their homes at 16th Street and Liberty Avenue. Alexander, then about 65 and in poor health, was holding the deed to the business in his hand.

“Do you know what this is?” Alexander asked Siebenmorgen, who was standing in a grape arbor near his home. Siebenmorgen answered, “Yes,” acknowledging it was the deed on which he was making regular payments.

At that moment, Alexander suddenly “put a match to the deed,” erasing what was left of Siebenmorgen’s debt. From that moment on, the Siebenmorgen family has fully-owned Terre Haute Carpet Cleaning and Rug Company, one of the oldest family-owned businesses in the city.

“This is my first and only job,” said Delania Siebenmorgen, who started working at Terre Haute Carpet Cleaning and Rug Company the day after she graduated from Gerstmeyer High School in 1970.

Delania’s husband, Bill, is the last direct-descendent of William Siebenmorgen to operate the long-established business, which is located in an otherwise mostly residential neighborhood about four blocks north of Wabash Avenue on 16th Street. Bill is the third generation of his family to run the operation, which once employed as many as 25 people but is now down to a staff of just three.

The carpet installation and cleaning industry has changed over the years. At one time, Terre Haute Carpet Cleaning and Rug Company cleaned and installed carpets all over the city, including big commercial accounts, such as the Roots store, Sears and Montgomery Ward. Large carpets were also woven together on the second floor of the rustic-looking old building at 333 N. 16th St.

An advertisement in the 1960 Terre Haute City Directory states that the company did “complete carpet and rug service,” including cleaning, dyeing, binding, repairs and more. “Orientals receive personal attention,” the ad states.

Today, Bill Siebenmorgen, 60, who simply calls his business “Terre Haute Carpet,” does carpet installation while wife Delania oversees rug cleaning and binding, all of which takes place at the shop. Some local families have been bringing their rugs to Terre Haute Carpet for cleaning and repair for generations, the Siebenmorgens said.

One reason Terre Haute Carpet has remained at its unlikely location on North 16th Street for more than 100 years is that the massive cleaning equipment inside the building would cost a small fortune to relocate. A large, steel, rug-cleaning machine was assembled in 1954 and is the size of an average kitchen. Bill estimates it weighs just shy of four tons.

Another feature of the old building that would not be easy to reproduce anywhere else is the rug drying room. The room, which is sunken about 15 feet below the floor, looks like a medium-sized swimming pool with no shallow end. Thanks to a powerful drier, up to two dozen rugs can be dried in the room at a time, Bill said.

The original Siebenmorgen to own the business, William, had three sons: Herman, Albert and Robert, all of whom served in World War II. After the war, the three returned to Terre Haute and took positions at their father’s growing business. In 1960, at age 75, William handed the business over to his sons. William lived for another 25 years until his death at age 100 in 1986.

Albert, 90, the second-oldest of the three sons, is the only one of the brothers still alive today. He recalls when North 16th Street, which runs in front of the business, was a dirt road. It was paved in the 1930s by the Works Progress Administration, he said.

“This was out of town, practically,” Albert recalls standing inside the carpet business.

Robert Siebenmorgen, who specialized in in-home and other location-based cleaning, died in 1980 at age 57. Herman Siebenmorgen, Bill’s father, specialized in sales and installations. He retired from the business in 1981 and died in 2004.

Now Bill and Delania are the last two Siebenmorgens to operate the old business. It’s not clear what will happen when they decide to retire. But they, like their ancestors before them, have worked to keep the business going through the decades. They also still honor the memory of Oscar Alexander, the man who founded the business at the end of the 19th century. The Siebenmorgens take flowers to his grave in Highland Lawn Cemetery each year, Bill said.

“It’s meant a lot to us, as time goes on, to keep the family business going and to have stuck with it as long as we have,” Bill said. “We have worked to provide the same quality service and integrity that was established before we ever came along.”

Arthur Foulkes can be reached at (812) 231-4232 or arthur.foulkes@tribstar.com.

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