By Cindy Hadish/ Homegrown Iowan
CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa – A Czech business in the same family for more than 100 years is marking its new location in Cedar Rapids with an open house on Friday, Oct. 27.
Czech Feather & Down is back on 16th Avenue SW, but quite a distance from the 16th Avenue in Czech Village, where, for years, it neighbored other businesses that traced their origins to Czech immigrants.
The open house is set from 4-6 p.m. this Friday at its new site at 5907 16th Ave. SW, and will include a surprise retirement celebration for past owner, Cookie Vanous. The business specializes in handcrafted feather and down pillows, and also cleans pillows, whether or not they originated at Czech Feather & Down.
Pillows await cleaning at Czech Feather & Down in its new location in Cedar Rapids. (photo/Cindy Hadish)
“I remember being inside the factory,” Vanous said of the pillow-making business operated by her aunt, Vera Vanous, then called Griffith Feather & Mattress, Co., located along Ellis Boulevard NW.
Established in 1885, the business didn’t make the move to Czech Village until 1991, where it was located in a former shoe store. The name changed to Czech Feather & Down when it moved to another location within Czech Village.
At that point, Cookie Vanous was the owner, but it was her daughter, Dawn Schorg, who initially purchased the business from Vera Vanous.
Schorg had been working at Square D as it downsized its workforce, and was interested in the family’s roots in the pillow industry.
“I always loved my pillow,” she said of the gift given by her great-aunt when she was born. “As a young kid on the farm, when people think about what they’d save if their house was on fire, well, I’d save my pillow.”
By that time, Vera Vanous had sold the factory and did most of the work out of her home.
Friends gather to strip feathers in this photo, likely from the 1950s. (photo/courtesy Cookie Vanous)
When Schorg was laid off from Square D, she began buying the business. For a time, she and her husband, Rob, operated the company, along with her mother, but when Schorg got called back to work at Square D, Cookie Vanous took the reins.
She moved the business to a more spacious building in Czech Village, where it remained until the fateful 2008 flood that inundated the historic business district.
In the meantime, her grandchildren, Brittany and Trevor Schorg, spent their childhoods “down on the Avenue” at her shop, just as Vanous had learned in her youth how to count change and other business skills from her uncle, Charles Kopecek, a co-owner of Polehna’s Meat Market in Czech Village.
The entire family came together to move all of the Czech Feather & Down inventory out of the shop just before Czech Village was inundated with unprecedented floodwaters from the Cedar River in June 2008.
Vanous quickly found a new location in the historic downtown business district of Mount Vernon, where Czech Feather & Down found a new popularity among the parents of college students and others.
A medium-weight, queen-sized down pillow is consistently their top seller, but custom orders, such as a handcrafted extra-long body pillow and heart-shaped breast cancer patient pillows “are what sets us apart,” Schorg said.
Online and in-person sales are about split in their business orders, with a good percentage of business also coming from their cleaning operation.
Each pillow is cleaned individually in a specialized sterilizing tumbling machine and typically encased in a new soft cotton ticking casing, with more feathers and down added to “fluff it up,” Schorg said.
A large open safety pin, corn and cigarette butts are among items found in pillows brought in for cleaning at Czech Feather & Down. (photo/Cindy Hadish)
A shadow box in the new shop showcases a large safety pin, bottle cap, cigarette butts, corn and a stand-in for a gold wedding band – the original was returned to its owner – found in pillows that have been cleaned, with corn and cigarette butts among the most common items discovered, though they are unsure why corn makes a frequent appearance.
In the past, older generations would host feather-stripping gatherings, a social tradition in which women would remove the hard quills from duck, chicken and goose feathers, with the remaining down used in pillows, but the tedious task has gone by the wayside.
The down and feathers are now sourced from Europe and Canada, and the 100-percent cotton ticking, previously from a longtime company in New York that has since closed, is sourced wherever they can find it.
The new Cedar Rapids site of Czech Feather & Down is shown in October 2023. (photo/Cindy Hadish)
Czech Feather & Down moved to the owners’ homes when the Mount Vernon shop was being renovated, and then to a spot in Hiawatha. Their new Cedar Rapids site had a soft opening in September, preceding this week’s grand opening and open house. The company still has a presence in a framing shop in Mount Vernon and in the Amana Colonies.
Brittany Schorg is now on-board as the next generation of pillow makers, also utilizing her media skills in the business. She secured a partnership for Czech Feather & Down with the nationally syndicated Bob & Sheri radio show that has helped attract a wider customer base, and has other ideas in the works, particularly reaching out to younger customers, who are searching for eco-friendly products.
“We’ve always been fortunate to have good customers,” Dawn Schorg said.
“They come in and they know what they want and they want quality,” her mother added. “If you get one person, the generations follow.”
How wonderful, it’s a lost art. My young son said that if there was a fire in the house that his Puzinia (?spelling) feather comforter would be the first thing he would save before he got out of the house. Went to the C. R. a few years back to visit a long lost relative and she had a small shed that she had barrels of feathers and a sewing machine that she made hew craft with. Do you have info for buying?
Thank you for your message, Gloria. Interesting about your relative’s shed! The article includes a link to their website for ordering.
My family has for generations used Czech Feather and Down since the time when the house was near Ellis Blvd. We have had pillows and comforters cleaned and stuffed.
Never had heard of black down or feathers before, and was told they are very expensive. I now own a very nice and expensive comforter. Thank you Dawn and Cookie for all your years of dedication!
Beth Kucera
I came across this page about feather quilts and pillows. When I was a child everyone in our family with goose down sent it away to be made into periny (quilts). I still have a collection of down which was never made into anything. I believe it is enough for a comforter. It’s been precious to me. I’ve been looking for a place that would have use for it or that could make it into pillows for me. it has never been used. Please contact me if you have any suggestions about what, where or who could use this bundle. I don’t want it to go to wasted.
I’ll hold my breathe till you contact me with suggestions. Helen Roth
Hi Helen! That’s so thoughtful of you. I’ve passed your message along to the owners. You can reach out to them directly at: pillows@czechfeather.com or call 319.895.6551.
I thought all feather and down places have disappeared. So glad to have found you.