{"id":202329,"date":"2026-05-26T04:51:38","date_gmt":"2026-05-26T04:51:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/202329\/"},"modified":"2026-05-26T04:51:38","modified_gmt":"2026-05-26T04:51:38","slug":"this-family-owned-flower-shop-in-west-oak-lane-is-going-strong-after-55-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/202329\/","title":{"rendered":"This family-owned flower shop in West Oak Lane is going strong after 55 years"},"content":{"rendered":"

Love Philly? So do we. Let\u2019s be friends. Sign up for the Billy Penn newsletter today<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Paulette Beale Harris has been working at her family\u2019s flower shop for 45 years. And she is not the only one in her family that\u2019s been on the job for decades.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Paul Beale\u2019s Flowers has been around 55 years \u2013 and has seen four generations of Beales.<\/p>\n

\u201cBusiness is business and family is family, and fortunately, we found a way to blend them all together,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd my mother and father wouldn\u2019t have had it any other way.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The shop was started by Paul Beale Sr. and his wife Altermese. Paulette said the couple shared a special bond.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy mother was born in Florida and my dad was born in Virginia,\u201d she said. \u201cBut they met in Virginia, and they were teenagers. They got married back in 1946, and they were married for 75 years.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"A memorial to the founders of the Beale\u2019s flower shop, Paul and Altermese, near the shop\u2019s register. Both lived into their 90s. (Kimberly Paynter\/WHYY)<\/p>\n

Paul worked in a flower shop in Virginia and eventually moved to Philly, where he was a manager<\/a> at Stein\u2019s Florist for 15 years.\u00a0<\/p>\n

From there, he decided to start his own shop.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Paul Beale\u2019s Flowers opened its doors on May 1, 1971. His kids and grandkids say he taught them all they knew about arranging and dealing with florals.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cMy grandfather taught all of us, and he was a very good designer,\u201d said Paul David Beale Sr., Paul Beale\u2019s grandson, who now works at the shop.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"A photo of Paul and Altermese Beale at the flower shop in 1971, the year they opened. (Kimberly Paynter\/WHYY)<\/p>\n

The shop operated on Paul Beale Sr.\u2019s vision: good service.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cMy dad, he didn\u2019t believe in advertising because he thought that if you do a great job, the advertisement is right there,\u201d said Carolyn Beale, another one of Paul and Altermese Beale\u2019s children. \u201cIf you\u2019re doing a good job, people will talk about you because you give them good work, nice work.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The business<\/p>\n

The flower shop offers arrangements for many occasions, Carolyn said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe get sympathy flowers for funerals, wedding flowers for weddings, birthdays, welcomes for newborn babies, holidays, Christmas, Valentine\u2019s Day, Thanksgiving, centerpieces, and really any holiday, we have flower arrangements,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"Paulette Beale Harris creates a prom corsage and has been working at her father\u2019s shop for 45 years. (Kimberly Paynter\/WHYY)<\/p>\n

While the commitment to customer service has remained, style and preferences with florals have shifted over the years, Paulette explained.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople before maybe liked more birds and anthuriums, and now people are into hydrangeas, orchids, lilies and peonies,\u201d she said. \u201cBut t I don\u2019t look at it as a challenge. It\u2019s just what we do,\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

And just as Paul Beale Sr. aimed for, good service has built loyalty among their customer base.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cLots of customers who got prom corsages here are still coming, and their children have gotten their prom corsages here too, and they\u2019re still coming.\u201d Carolyn said.<\/p>\n

Carolyn explained that the shop has also seen a lot of change over the years.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe neighborhood has changed quite a bit,\u201d Carolyn said. \u201cWhen we first started, we went through a phase of people moving out and closing up shops in the 1970s, but we stayed.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve seen the neighborhood change, the customers change, and just the business itself and us doing more things with a variety of different arrangements and different occasions.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"The Beale family has been operating their family florist shop on Ogontz Avenue in Philadelphia for 55 years. (Kimberly Paynter\/WHYY)<\/p>\n

In terms of the shop itself, there haven\u2019t been many changes in day-to-day operations, Paulette said. But, social media and technology have taken some adapting.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThings like that make you have to stay on top of things differently,\u201d Paulette said. \u201cYou have to keep up with the new way of delivering the wire orders coming on the website,\u00a0 dealing with Google and just different things like that. So you have to stay current in that kind of way and make sure that your presence is out there.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

A family affair\u00a0<\/p>\n

Paulette Beale Harris and Carolyn Beale are the two surviving siblings of Paul and Altermese Beale. Carolyn said her parents always loved coming into the shop.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cMy dad passed away about five years ago, and he was 92, but he was still in here every day until he was 90 and 91, and then his health got next to him, so he had to stop coming there,\u201d she said. \u201cBut my mom was in here every day until three months ago, when she passed away at 95. So, we had their influence with us the whole time.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Although Paul Beale Sr. passed in 2020 and Altermese passed earlier this year, Paulette said she is grateful that the two got to see multiple generations working in the store.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a wonderful thing, because [the younger Beales] don\u2019t have to be here,\u201d she said. \u201cThey chose to be here. And luckily, my dad lived long enough to see them here.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

If you visit Paul Beale\u2019s Flowers today, you\u2019ll see three generations of Beales behind the counter.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"Paul Beale\u2019s grandson Paul works on a flower arrangement for a funeral inside the family\u2019s flower shop on Ogontz Avenue. (Kimberly Paynter\/WHYY)<\/p>\n

Paulette and Carolyn do most of the front-of-house work, like taking orders, answering phones and dealing with inventory.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Paul David Beale, Sr., the son of Paulette and Carolyn\u2019s oldest brother, and Paul Beale Sr.\u2019s son, Paul Beale Jr., create most of the floral arrangements.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Paul David Beale, Sr. has been working with the store for over thirty years. He said getting to share this work with his son, who is only 28, has been priceless.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cHe makes me proud when I see him flourishing and making different things,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd just to see how he\u2019s learning how and really how interested he is in it, it\u2019s a very great feeling.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"Paul Beale\u2019s grandson Paul, and great grandson Paul Jr. intend to keep their grandfather\u2019s flower shop open for as log as possible on Ogontz Avenue in Philadelphia. (Kimberly Paynter\/WHYY)<\/p>\n

As for working around his aunts and family, he said it has been fun \u2013 and never boring.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cYou could never get bored with flowers, because there\u2019s always something different you can do,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd although I didn\u2019t plan on being here, I\u2019m glad I am here,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

And you can hear the laughs of the whole Beale family echo from behind their flower counter as they work.<\/p>\n

Paulette said her parents raised them to love and put each other first \u2013 and said they would be proud of the way they work together.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cMy mom and dad, they wouldn\u2019t have allowed us to bicker and carry on like that, and it just carried over,\u201d she said. \u201cThey didn\u2019t argue and bicker, at least not in front of us anyway, so it just carried on to raising us and how we were as a family.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

As for future goals, Paul David Beale Sr. says the business is doing good \u2013 and he hopes it remains this way.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe just want to keep this thing going,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019ve been here 55 years. I\u2019ve been here 38 now. My son is here, and he\u2019s been here nine or ten or something like that. He\u2019s only 28, so hopefully he might have another 50 in him. So [the goal] is to just keep it going.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

You can visit Paul Beale\u2019s Flowers at 7220 Ogontz Avenue. They\u2019re open Monday-Friday from 7 a.m. to 2 p.m.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Love Philly? So do we. Let\u2019s be friends. Sign up for the Billy Penn newsletter today. Paulette Beale…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":202330,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[60,79593,54160,69,71,70,18522],"class_list":["post-202329","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-business","tag-city-guide","tag-flowers","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news","tag-west-oak-lane"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202329","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=202329"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202329\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/202330"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=202329"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=202329"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=202329"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}