Although their children pursued different avenues in their youth, some returned home, started at the bottom and have taken Dad’s company into the 21st century.

Johnnie’s Office Systems, McGuire Tire and Jody’s Restaurant have served Temple cumulatively for more than 150 years. Celebrating Father’s Day, we visit the families of John Guillen, A.C. “Coots” McGuire and Jody Franks.

John Guillen

One of nine children, John Guillen’s mother died when he a boy. His father worked on the railroad, away from home for long periods. At a young age, Guillen learned to get by on his fists and his wits.

“They actually lived in a shanty by the tracks. In winter, snow would blow in on the beds,” son Adam Guillen said. “There was constant hustle to find a way to get enough money during the day to get a meal.”

That experience affected how Guillen looked at the world, approached his work and raised his family. His children learned Dad’s work ethic doing chores at the shop.

Although modern calculators were common in the 1980s, daughter, Carrie, had to memorize the sales tax table. That was Dad. No short cuts. No special privileges.

“I painted the entire bathroom. I painted the light switches. I painted the little wall heater. I’m surprised I didn’t paint the toilet. I was probably about 10,” Ms. Guillen said. “It was a mint green (Dad chose). It was an awful color.”

When she was finished, Dad inspected the job.

“He walked in . . . and he goes, ‘You did a wonderful job.’ So he gave me some money and let me go down to the drug store that was downtown and get some candy,” Ms. Guillen said.

Oldest son, Adam, said he hated working for his father. Adam had to start at the bottom, delivering typewriters. After earning a finance degree, he returned to Johnnie’s and helped bring the company into the 21st century. Dad was relentless, Adam said, on the golf course and at work. He didn’t understand people who were not motivated.

And he was often stubborn.

Although Guillen suffered headaches for several months, Dad refused to get a checkup. Father and son had a blowup outside a doctor’s office one day when Dad refused to go in. Later that year the senior Guillen suffered a stroke.

When he woke up from surgery, Guillen recognized his daughter, Carrie, the one he had pushed into tears by treating her like a boy.

“He said to me, I’m so sorry for being hard on you all those years. And it made it all come full circle. It was priceless for me,” Ms. Guillen said.

Adam and Carrie Guillen now run Johnnie’s Office Systems in Temple. The senior Guillen lives at home, under his wife’s and nurses’ care around the clock.

A.C. McGuire

The German artillery shell blew A.C. McGuire into the air, ripped off his Army boots, and knocked him unconscious for several hours. When medics arrived, he woke and raised his bayonet, ready to fight. Although surgeons later removed about 40 pieces of shrapnel from his legs and feet, they didn’t get it all. Boarding an airliner 45 years later, McGuire set off a metal detector.

After the war, McGuire started the family tire business in a small building where the city library now sits. He moved to the present location on South First Street in 1959.

McGuire’s children, Kenneth and Kelly, both used to hang around the tire store and pretend they were big shots, sneaking off with the adding machine, pens and pencils. That was OK until Dad made a sale.

“He’d go back in the closet, and find me, and get that adding machine where he could add up something,” Kenneth McGuire said, looking back about 50 years.

One day, a kit car arrived at the shop via freight carrier. The senior McGuire shook his head, and called his son’s hot rod a “money pit.” Afterward, Dad changed his tune.

“Eight or nine months later, he’s showing everybody, ‘Look what my son’s building,’ because it began to look like a car then,” Kenneth McGuire said.

Two generations of McGuires learned how to mount and recap tires, and fix flats during their high school years.

Kenneth said his dad was not one to breathe down your neck. He encouraged his son to follow his calling. So, Kenneth welded at the Santa Fe Railroad for about 11 years before returning to the tire store.

Today, the grandson, Jeff, manages the business. When he hung out at the store after school, the adding machine had been retired. He pitched pennies with “Papaw” instead.

“He used to let me win,” Jeff said. “I didn’t realize it then.”

Today, McGuire Tire spans several buildings, totaling 30,000 square feet. Now that Kenneth is a grandfather, he would like to see the family legacy continue.

“We might have a fourth generation McGuire tire dealer involved.”

Jody Franks

One afternoon about 25 years ago, a Jody’s drive-in customer took things a little too far and crashed through the front wall, into the dining room. In the nick of time, Dad pushed his teenage son out of harm’s way.

“Ran right into the building. He’d a-killed Joey if I hadn’t grabbed him,” Jody Franks said.

Franks wasn’t the type of father to step in unless it was absolutely necessary. Teaching his sons, Joey and Doug, the restaurant business, he learned to back off and give the boys room.

“I never told him to do anything since he took this place over,” the senior Franks said, regarding his son Joey taking over the Old Jody’s. “If I even thought about it, I’d suggest that he’d do it. I never told him anything. I just felt it was always better for a man to be on his own two feet.”

Growing up, Joey and Doug learned to peel potatoes standing on a wooden crate so they could reach the sink. They started cooking burgers at about age 12. Both men, now in their 50s, say Dad showed them the way, without butting in.

“He taught me work ethics. Taught me everything,” Joey Franks said. “He wanted you to earn it.”

Younger brother Doug agrees. Dad’s commitment to his business is his gift to the next generation.

“He worked a whole lot harder than most people ever thought of,” Doug Franks said. “In my opinion, there ain’t a greater man in the world.”

Today, Doug and Joey each own and operate their own Jody’s Restaurant. The eateries sit next door to each other, like brothers, on South First Street.

“I tell people I’m a lot better cook than him, but I don’t know if you can tell the difference,” Doug said. “We both learned the same way.”