Remembering When
by
Jerry Person
Huntington Beach City Historian
Dedicated to the people of Huntington Beach
Remembering John I. Parnakian
When it comes to fishing, this week's Main Street business owner had no equal and so lets remember this person who would have prefered fishing on the pier to anything else.
John Issac Parnakian was born on September 18, 1918 in Philadelphia to Issac and Valatin Parnakian.
John's family moved to California were John attened Washington elementary school and later he went to a private high school in Pasadena. After graduation, John went into the dry cleaning business in Boyle Heights when he was 18 years old. It was during this time that John would travel south to Huntington Beach just to fish on our historic pier.
John, or Johnny as his friends called him, entered World War II and served in the Army Air Corps.He was trained in espionage and became a special intelligence agent, where he worked his way from Normandy to East Berlin in the 3 1/2 years he was in Europe.
John returned home and during this time one of the families that Parnakian knew had a very lovely young daughter by the name of Alice and on May 11, 1946 he and Alice were married. That same day, John and Alice moved to Huntington Beach to begin married life in a small home on Frankfort Street.
John worked in construction, building homes here in Huntington Beach and John liked to tell of how he sold the first house he built on 10th Street in 1947 for $5,000. John next went into the furniture business with his father Issac.
In 1949-1950 they built the commercial building at the corner of Main and Orange. The Economy Cleaners opened at 328 Main and when it closed a year later, John and his father opened their Modern Furniture Store. They sold their business to Burl Bishop, who continued with the furniture store as Bishop Furniture. When Bishop moved his store to San Clemente, John reentered the furniture business as the H.B. Furniture Company that sold modern furniture in the 1960s. This complex he owned ran from 316 to 328 Main Street.
By now three children were born to Alice and John- Tom, the eldest, Anita and Dorothy, the youngest. John, Alice, and family moved to 205 First Street, 'to be nearer the water,' his wife Alice once told me when I had a store on Main Street. I can still remember seeing John at the rail of our pier with fishing pole in hand, many an early morning.
John's doctors gave him 2 years to live when he was diagnosised with leukemia, that was 25 years before John died on January 30, 1995, having outlived those same doctors.