Tom and Gloria were both 14 years old when they met at a church camp in Minnesota. Gloria knew right away that her life had changed forever.

“I knew some day he would be my husband,” she said years later. Tom just had that certain something.

"He was full of pee and vinegar," she pointed out.

Tom and Gloria Peterson were married in 1952, and a dozen years later they launched a store at 82nd and Foster in Portland -- originally called, simply, Tom Peterson’s -- that sold color televisions. It soon grew into an electronics, furniture and appliances retail empire stretching from Eugene to Spokane. The couple became Pacific Northwest celebrities.

That’s all part of the region’s collective memory now. The couple’s last store closed in 2009. Tom died in 2016.

And Gloria died Sunday at age 89, the radio station KXL reports.

“Gloria was a very kind and wonderful woman,” her former son-in-law Robert Condon said in a statement.

For years Tom was the face of the company’s quirkily homey TV commercials. “Wake up!” he’d cheerfully announce, leaning forward and knocking on the camera at the beginning of ads, which aired late at night on local stations.

Another signature catch-phrase promised gifts for customers: “Free is a very good price,” he’d say.

“I’m right up there with the governor,” Tom said of his local celebrity in the late 1980s and early ’90s. Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain wore a wristwatch that featured Tom’s face on the dial.

Gloria Peterson holds a Tom Peterson "wake up" clock.LC-

Tom called himself the company’s “front man,” while Gloria “takes care of the fiscal affairs,” The Oregonian reported. Later on, Gloria became a TV personality in her own right, and the store’s name changed to Tom Peterson’s & Gloria’s Too. Gloria’s head would materialize on the screen as their TV spots came to a close. “And Gloria’s too,” she’d declare.

The Petersons were loved by their customers -- but not only their customers. Their retail rivals admired them as well. “It’s a pleasure to have a competitor with good business ethics,” fellow store owner Fred Hicks said in 1987.

At the end of the go-go ’80s, the Petersons bought the overextended Stereo Super Stores chain -- a rare misstep that ultimately pushed the couple’s business into bankruptcy.

“I thought, 'Why did this happen?' " Gloria said in 2008. "We worked so hard for so many years, and all this is taken away."

But she and her husband didn’t wallow in their misfortune. They quickly relaunched a new retail business with Condon. Peterson returned to the sales floor, smiling and laughing and slapping backs. Gloria returned to the back office, where she checked on the books.

The new company was small but a success. And Tom and Gloria still enjoyed doing what they had been doing professionally for more than 30 years. As Gloria liked to say:

“Do you want to soar like an eagle?"

-- Douglas Perry

@douglasmperry

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