B&N Oil to close after 64 years in business, leaving lasting impact on community - Grand Forks Herald

GRAND FORKS – Yvonne Nelson clearly recalls the day she learned the business her husband, Ivan Nelson, launched more than six decades ago was going to be sold.

“I cried the first day I heard it,” she said, “because it was something he started. He had so much ambition.”

Ivan’s son Greg Nelson, who owns the business with his brother Michael, plans to hand over the keys to the new owner, Casey’s, on Tuesday, Aug. 29.

The business has been operating at DeMers Avenue and Washington Street – the busiest intersection in the state, according to the North Dakota Department of Transportation – for 64 years, Greg said. It will then close for a couple days, while inventory is recorded and a bakery and signage are installed.

Casey’s is a convenience-store chain that offers fuel, drinks and food, including pizza, sandwiches and baked goods. This will be the second Casey’s location here; the other is on Gateway Drive, near the Engelstad Arena.

The automotive repair portion of B&N Oil will not remain open under new owners, Greg said, noting that Casey’s plans to rent that space. The touchless car wash will continue to operate.

Business success

A native of Crookston, Minnesota, Ivan Nelson served four years in the U.S. Navy in the Korean Conflict in the 1950s. After military service, he worked as a mechanic, first for Rydell’s Chevrolet. In 1959, he opened a Carter service station at the southeast corner of the DeMers and Washington intersection. Later, he worked with Louis Breyer and bought into his business. In 1961, Ivan opened his gas, fuel oil and tire business as the B&N Oil Company at its current location.

Early on, the business focused on servicing trucks, Greg said. “They sent repair trucks to the (Grand Forks) Air Force Base three or four times a day.”

The Flood of ‘97 destroyed fuel oil tanks in homes throughout the community, and fuel oil was replaced by natural gas as an energy source.

The changes opened the door to developing the B&N Oil gas station, convenience store and car wash. As he and his son Michael worked on these plans, Ivan went to the Twin Cities to learn more about convenience stores, Greg said. Their new building was opened to the public on 9-11 — the day of the attack on New York's World Trade Center, Sept. 11, 2001.

Since the Nelson brothers assumed leadership of B&N Oil, “our convenience store and car wash business is up 60%, and I attribute that to my great staff (including) my store manager Ross Dobrovolny,” Greg said. The auto repair business "had dropped off a bit because we weren't able to get enough qualified help, but we're still able to offer quality service."

Lifetime of memories

Greg, 66, has a lifetime of memories about Ivan.

At age 10, he started working for his father, he said. “I’d sweep the driveway, mow the grass, fill the vending machine, paint used tires black,” earning 25 cents an hour.

“It was a big deal to be with my dad.”

Greg, who took over the business 13 years ago, said his father had been the eldest in a family of eight children.

“Growing up, my dad had nothing,” he said. “My grandfather didn’t manage his money well, and because of it the family was always broke.”

So Ivan went to work at whatever jobs he could find.

Because Ivan was underage, his mother signed a waiver to allow him, at 17, to join the Navy. In the military, he trained in mechanics and earned his GED.

Greg also cherishes other memories of his father – like in the aftermath of the Flood of ‘97, when the streets were strewn with nails and screws.

“We were repairing 20 to 25 tires a day, and a lady came in with a tire going flat,” he said. “It was late in the day and my dad told her that it didn’t look like we could get to it until the next day. “She sat down in the chair in our waiting room, put her hands on her face and cried."

Her family's home on Lincoln Drive "had gone totally under water and her family was sick and she needed to pick up medicine before the pharmacy closed. She was telling that to my dad between sobs," Greg said.

“He quietly put down the paperwork … and rolled a floor jack out on the driveway and lifted her car off the ground. He came over to me and gave me that look that only a father and son who have worked together for decades can share and said, ‘Greg, this lady needs to get going quickly, will you please take care of her?’

“I repaired her tire; my dad wouldn’t take any money from her,” Greg said. When Ivan died, “she was one of the first people to reach out to me personally and express her sympathy. She is still a customer today.”

Working as a team

After moving to Grand Forks and starting a family, Ivan’s wife, Yvonne, was a busy homemaker and mother, raising six children – three boys and three girls.

“I didn’t see my feet for eight years,” she said with a chuckle. “I’m so happy I had all these kids.”

She also became an important and valuable partner in her husband’s business.

Raised on a farm near Brooks, Minnesota, Yvonne met Ivan through her brother-in-law, she remembered. The couple became engaged while Ivan was serving in the Navy. Ivan faithfully sent money home to support his family in Crookston, Yvonne said.

And he corresponded with her.

“He wrote letters every day,” she said. He made a wooden box containing an engagement ring and sent it by air mail, with instructions to not open it until he returned home.

“When he got off the plane, he said, ‘I’m going to make a really good goal for us,’ ” Yvonne recalled. “He wanted to make something of himself.”

After the couple moved from Crookston and began building their life in Grand Forks, “anything he was involved in, he would say, ‘we’re two of us now,’ ” she said. “After he started on one thing, he was thinking of the next thing.”

Among his business ventures, Ivan owned apartments and the former Frontier motel and built a building just west of B&N Oil where he opened and ran the Greyhound bus depot – relocating it from a dilapidated space downtown. Yvonne sold tickets at the new location.

After Ivan added the convenience store to B&N Oil, Yvonne entered barcodes of countless items into the computer, she said. “I was in my 60s; I didn’t know anything about that.”

Example of commitment

Over the years, Ivan and Yvonnne’s children – as well as their grandchildren – worked at B&N Oil and “received no special treatment, believe me,” Greg said. “If you came 10 minutes early, you were 15 minutes late.”

Working at B&N Oil made for “a good college job,” he said.

Being raised in Yvonne and Ivan’s household, Greg also recalled his father’s extraordinary dedication to his business.

“He really put in the hours – it wasn’t five days a week,” Greg said. “And when he came home, it wasn’t before 6 p.m. and sometimes it was 10 p.m.”

“Work was his hobby,” he said.

One of the life lessons he imparted was, “work hard and things will come to you.”

But business was not Ivan's only passion.

He quietly supported numerous organizations, including the Salvation Army, L.I.S.T.E.N. Drop-In Center, Special Olympics, The Children’s Miracle Network, the American Cancer Society’s Relay for Life event, and many other youth and community groups.

B&N Oil hosted the first Salvation Army’s “Big Ring” event, in 2006, here. The site was chosen for its high visibility and adequate space for the Army’s big red kettle. A portion of gas sales, on one selected day, is committed to the charitable organization.

The annual fundraiser “just got bigger and bigger and bigger,” Greg said.

Thanking the community

Greg said he, his brother and mother appreciate how the community has embraced the family business all these years.

“On behalf of my brother, Michael, and our mom, Yvonne, I would like to thank the Grand Forks community for supporting our family business for over six decades,” Greg wrote in an email to the Herald. “We have survived hundreds of blizzards and a devastating flood, thanks to great employees and loyal customers – many of whom have grown to be lifelong friends.

“We plan to remain here in Grand Forks and look forward to seeing you out in the community in the years to come.”

Looking back at the legacy of B&N Oil and his family’s investment in this community, Greg said, “My dad didn’t know the meaning of the word ‘can’t. … He was a hard worker; everything he did, he did 110%.”

When Ivan died in 2010, at his funeral, “the priest asked, ‘how many men here worked for Ivan?’ Three-fourths of the men stood up,” Greg recalled. “He was good and fair to them. …

“He was just a quiet and unassuming man who loved his family and community and genuinely cared about people.”

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B&N Oil to close after 64 years in business, leaving lasting impact on community - Grand Forks Herald
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