Today we’d like to introduce you to Ruth De Hoyos.
Ruth, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
I have been in the floral business all my life. My mother and mother in law both had their own flower shops in San Antonio, TX that were very close together. I started working for them at a young age delivering, cleaning, and arranging during the holidays. I realized early in life the floral business was my passion, but life happens and it wasn’t the path I took when I graduated high school. I took a different route in life and had different jobs that had nothing to do with floristry, even though I would still help my mother and mother in law during the holidays. It wasn’t until 1992 when I was 35 a friend who owned his own shop in Roanoke got very sick and asked me to take over for him temporarily. I fell in love with Roanoke and the shop. My friends condition got worse and he realized he wasn’t going to be able to recover. He then asked me to take it over. I took a giant leap of faith and put all my savings into the shop.
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
The beginning was harder than I anticipated. It was before Roanoke had picked up in population and was still a very small town. Small towns and only rural routes aren’t very profitable. One day my husband told me, “I can’t put any more of my own money into this. You have to figure it out.” At the time, I was crying and thinking I couldn’t do this. It was the break down that pushed me to have a breakthrough. I started joining every wire service imaginable, advertising in all the local schools, passing out flyers. It got to the point I had garage sales almost every weekend and sold as much as I could just to have money to pay the rent on the building. I put all my money and faith into the shop and worked hard. And the good Lord pulled us through. The shop took off and started to thrive. It felt like I had finally made it to the top. We had orders constantly coming in and we were busier than we could ever imagined we would be, Just when we felt like we had everything figured out and everything was thriving, one of our children got into a horrible accident. He was in a coma and the doctors did not expect him to pull through. I threw in the towel at the shop. I handed over the shop to one of the girls working for me and took an entire year off. During that time, the Roanoke community came through for us. They had heard about the accident and they did everything they could to help. They volunteered their time and made mums during homecoming, and delivered for me completely free. It was in this time the Lord showed me why I was in this business. I didn’t start this shop expecting to make money, I was here to serve and bring happiness to my community. The Lord put my heart back in the right place, and ever since that accident I am reminded what I am here for. We still have our highs and our lows, but we roll with the punches and keep our eyes on our purpose.
Please tell us about Roanoke Florist.
We make arrangements, set up for event and weddings. Delivery to our local community. We specialize in weddings. One of our favorite things to do is set up for those special days! We are known for our dedicated staff that puts their all into serving customers, and building relationships with loyal customers. As a company, I am most proud of my employees, I take pride in all of them. What sets us apart is how all our staff is dedicated to going above and beyond for any and every order, and we sell more than just flowers. We have antiques, furniture, and candies.
Do you look back particularly fondly on any memories from childhood?
When I was young, I would go out and pick all the flowers I could find. One of my favorite things is when I was five years old and my mom would set me on the counter at her shop and she would talk to me and show me things while she made arrangements.
Pricing:
- Dozen Roses – $60.00
- Half Dozen Roses – $30.00
Contact Info:
- Address: 500 N HWY 377
- Website: roanokefloristtx.com
- Phone: 817-430-8590
- Email: roanokeflorist@ymail.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/roanokeflorist/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/
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