the north grenville
TIMES
Vol. 1, No. 48
The Voice of North Grenville
A Finnerty family finale
Haunted Hall Maplewood Park Oxford Mills see page 6
GERONIMO
“Coffee to wake the dead”
146 Prescott St Kemptville 613- 215-0401
geronimo@cogeco.net Mon - Fri: 8:30 am - 4:30 pm Sat: 10:00 am - 4:00 pm
photo by Micheal Pacitto by David Shanahan Ken and Dianna Finnerty invited a few friends in to the Finnerty Auction rooms last Friday to mark the final sale to be held in that location. After almost four decades in business, Ken and Dianna are starting to think about putting their feet up and taking it easy for a while. But not just yet: although the old auction rooms have seen their last sale, Finnerty Auctions are moving into the old Giant Tiger building in Kemptville, with the first sale there taking place this coming Friday, November 1. The Finnerty auction sales have been such a long-standing feature of life in North Grenville that any change
at all is worthy of note. The Finnerty family have played a prominent role in the political and economic life of this community for more than sixty years. Ken’s father, William Harold Finnerty, was an auctioneer too, beginning in the business in the early 1940's. What is now the Clothier Inn in Kemptville was for a long time known as the Finnerty Block and was the centre of W.H. Finnerty’s business activity. But years after his father had sold the auctioneering business, Ken was encouraged to run one or two small-scale auctions in Kemptville, and everything grew from there. It was obviously in the blood of the Finnertys. It is significant
that hundreds of people attend the weekly auctions. They know there will be good stock and fair dealings. The parking lot outside starts to fill up in the afternoon, long before the doors open. But not everyone is as successful in that business as Ken and Dianna have been. Working together over these decades, they have taken care to always maintain a strong work ethnic, and equally firm ethical standards in their dealings with the public. Vaguely shady procedures that are sometimes seen as part of the trade elsewhere were not tolerated at Finnerty Auctions. Reputation is everything in that business: to lose it is to lose everything in the long
term. Ken and Dianna have survived and prospered in the long term, and that speaks volumes about the integrity and personal touch they have brought to the business. The parallels between W. H. and Ken Finnerty are quite amazing, but this is not the time to discuss them. Look to next week’s Times for that story. This is the time to congratulate Ken and Dianna on what they have achieved together in Finnerty Auctions, and to join with the many hundreds of people who have enjoyed the buying and selling, the company and the atmosphere found at Finnerty Auctions for so many years. And that will continue at the old Giant Tiger this Friday too.
Oct. 30, 2013