Some things are just intrinsically Maine. Lobster rolls. Stephen King. L.L.Bean. And Renys.

The chain of department stores, dubbed “A Maine Adventure,” has grown across the state for 77 years and become a staple for Maine residents and visitors alike.

But there would be no Renys without its namesake: Robert Henry “R.H.” Reny.

In honor of what would have been Reny’s 100th birthday on March 23, here’s a look — drawn from our Newspapers.com archives — at the history of one of Maine’s most pivotal businessmen.

Biddeford roots

Reny grew up at 13 Orchard St. in Biddeford, son of Edward Henry and Grace (Reilly) Reny. Edward Reny was a businessman, civic leader and police commissioner, associated for more than 50 years with the Reny Brothers printing firm, where R.H. worked as a teenager.

A search for “R.H. Reny,” “Robert H. Reny” or other variations of his name brings up hundreds of results over decades. The earliest may be from February 1930: a Biddeford Daily Journal story that highlighted Presidents’ Day. There were various sketches and readings from local children, including Reny’s siblings John and Ann, “and Robert Reny, three years old, who spoke of ‘Cherry Trees’.”

Reny’s letters to Santa appeared in the Biddeford-Saco Journal at least twice. From December 1932: “I am a boy 6 years of age. I wish you would bring me for Christmas a real dog, an aeroplane, snow suit, skates, skiis, top, a boy’s bed-lamp, flashlight and a jack-knife. Thank you, Santa.”

One year later: “I am a little boy seven years old. Would you please bring me a pair of skii pants, toboggan and a pair of skates.”

Reny, who joined the Knights of Columbus in 1942 as a squire, was profiled among “senior personalities” at Biddeford High School the following November. “Meet the blonde and curly-haired six footer who is the pride and joy of Shapiro’s station, Robert Reny,” Agnes Derderian wrote.

“He weighs a manly 173 pounds and has light brown eyes. Bob’s ambition is to become a member of the Navy V-12 and his hobby is skiing (pronounced she-ing?).”

Reny graduated in 1944, the first Biddeford student to pass the V-12 group U.S. Navy College program. He enrolled at Dartmouth College, receiving a commission at the end of his training period, the Biddeford-Saco Journal announced.

Reny completed Dartmouth’s four-year program in half the time, his obituary recalled decades later. He spent three years in the Navy before joining the R.H. White store in Boston. Serving as assistant merchandising manager of the men’s division, he returned to Maine to become general manager of the Senter department stores in Damariscotta and Boothbay Harbor, the Journal reported in September 1948.

With his naval aspirations behind him, Reny pursued a new direction that would define the rest of his life and leave an enduring imprint upon his home state.

Renys on the rise

Reny took what he’d learned about small town merchandising and, in October 1949, opened his own store across the street from Senter’s in downtown Damariscotta. The store took in $181.22 on opening day, Reny later recalled — the equivalent of nearly $2,500 today.

Eight days into 1950, a Portland Press Herald profile on Reny celebrated the young entrepreneur’s initiative. Asked by writer Helen Ripley what he’d do to improve his town and state, Reny said he would promote Damariscotta as a place to live all year, not just in the summer.

“The state should continue its present promotion of Maine, but should put more emphasis on the year around aspects of living in Maine,” he said. “But, most of all … we must make employers realize the importance of keeping Maine labor in Maine — particularly its young folks.”

After all, Reny had to leave the state to get the training he needed. But now, Ripley pointed out, “he is placing his future and his bankroll in Maine by opening his own store.”

It was not an easy launch. “The first winter was so slow that in order to keep the store open, R.H. had to go door-to-door around the area selling merchandise out of his old Hudson. That winter he made so many friends that in the spring his new friends came in to shop at the store and the business has been growing ever since,” Renys notes on its website.

As his business grew, so did Reny’s family. He married Carolyn Denny in February 1950, and their first son, John, was born the following year. Two other sons, Bob and Mike, soon followed.

Reny’s civic connections also grew. He was named vice president of the Damariscotta-Newcastle Rotary Club in 1952, and then president in July 1953.

He began expanding his chain in 1952 with the opening of a store in Bridgton.

The Biddeford-Saco Journal reported in April 1953 that a third was on the horizon, but that the “exact location of the store has not been definitively decided. The firm has several New England cities and towns under consideration.”

A year later, Reny told the Kennebec Journal that he chose Gardiner “due to [its] progressive record during the past few years.”

A grand opening was held May 21, 1954, at which “orchards [were] given to the women, cigars to the men and candy to the children.”

Renys ads ran repeatedly in the Kennebec Journal, with the slogan “The Busy Store — There is a Reason.” A back entrance was created in Gardiner that allowed foot traffic in from the municipal parking lot, and “(o)ther merchants are expected to build similar doorways in the future,” the KJ reported in June 1954.

“The wonderful response given us by the public has enabled us to enlarge our store,” Reny told the KJ that October. Now with a second floor, over half of the new space was dedicated to toys —which, of course, likely led to much greater interest in Renys’ younger customers, who flocked to the store that December to present their wish lists to Santa — as Reny had sent his own letters to Mr. Claus, two decades earlier.

Maine’s merchant

The chain expanded to Farmington (1957), Dexter (1958) and Madison (1960), with more to come.

Reny was elected first vice president of the Maine Merchants Association in November 1963, and two years later was named president, a post he’d hold twice. He was also longtime chairman of MMA’s legislative committee and was “the heart and soul of the Maine Merchants Association, and also of retailing in general,” MMA leader Jim McGregor said decades later.

Finding his business outgrowing its original location on Main Street in Damariscotta, Reny said in September 1965 that he’d been contemplating a move out of town. Plans for a new shopping center spurred his decision to remain.

“The town must grow to prosper,” Reny said, as reported in the Kennebec Journal. “If it doesn’t there will be a shopping center outside of town. In retailing, you either grow, or wither on the vine.”

Weighing in on the plague of shoplifting that had struck many businesses like his own, Reny told a Judicial Committee in Augusta that “he preferred the term ‘shopstealing’ to ‘shoplifting’ because it connotes a crime instead of a ‘lark,'” the Lewiston Daily Sun noted in April 1969.

Reny, who also joined the Maine State Chamber of Commerce, continued being a strong voice in Augusta for businesses.

Proposed legislation to force stores to open on Sundays drew Reny’s ire, according to an April 1979 KJ article. “Believe me, people will buy everything they need before Christmas, even if shops stay closed on Sunday,” he said.

Reny also argued that keeping stores open Sunday could be a detriment to Maine’s recreational business: “You can bet papa isn’t going to take the kids to Sugarloaf if mama has to work. That hurts Sugarloaf.”

Seven-day business hours ultimately became the norm, but Renys still bucked the trend, at least a little. A 1999 profile on Renys in the Morning Sentinel noted that while the stores were open seven days a week, including Friday evenings, it offered only reduced hours on Sundays.

‘I’m proud to be a retailer’

In October 1981, at its 48th annual meeting, the Maine Merchants Association honored Reny as retailer of the year. The prior month, he was the first person ever to be singled out for a distinguished service award from the Maine State Chamber of Commerce, the Kennebec Journal reported.

“Bob is a free enterpriser and entrepreneur in the finest sense of the word,” said Robie Liscomb, MMA’s executive vice president. “He has an uncanny ability to separate the wheat from the chaff.”

Reny’s efforts in Augusta for the MMA were worth about $50 million over the past decade, Liscomb estimated.

“You are the conduit that allows goods to get to the customer,” Reny told those gathered. “You are the basis of free enterprise.”

He added that “this is one of the highlights of my life. I’m proud to be a retailer.”

Named Maine’s Entrepreneur of the Year in August 1988 at age 62, Reny said “I’m very pleased, but a little old to be called an entrepreneur.” But he acknowledged that given the word’s definition, he was a “risk taker and owner of an enterprise, so I guess I am an entrepreneur. God gave me a great deal of energy and ideas and I like a challenge.”

By 2009 there were 14 Renys stores, reaching from Wells to Ellsworth and from Bridgton to Dexter.

“I remember my early days serving in the state Legislature, Bob worked the halls of the State House on behalf of Maine businesses,” Gov. John Baldacci said when R.H. Reny died on July 24, 2009, three months shy of his company’s 60th birthday. “He always had a ready smile and an easy laugh, even when we disagreed. Bob worked well with Democrats and Republicans, and always put economic development for Maine first.”

Jim McGregor called his old friend and fellow Maine Merchants member “the last of a breed in many ways. I think he adhered to old-time philosophies of retailing — that it was customer service, and give the customer what they want — and he could certainly be a textbook for retailing.”

A photo from the Aug. 18, 1983, Journal Tribune shows R.H. Reny with his arms around sons Bob and John outside the company’s Biddeford store, moments before its official opening. The elder Reny is beaming, clearly proud that the business he launched in 1949 was being carried forward by sons not much older than he was when he started out.

“Robert H. Reny called it, ‘a return of Reny’s to Biddeford, from whence we came,'” the JT reported. “Referring to the year 1883 when his grandfather, Dr. Henry Reny, had a pharmacy in the very building the new store occupies.”

The story of the Renys department store chain, now with 18 locations, is a family legacy three generations strong, with John and Bob — who began working at the business at the respective ages of 5 and 7 — and grandchildren Faustine and Adam now handling the reins.

Every year on March 23, the stores serve out ice cream and other treats to their employees.

It’s not just a nod to Reny’s birthday, but to one of his well-known sayings: “Life is uncertain; eat dessert first.”

Alex Lear is digital producer for the Maine Trust for Local News.