Cast of NBC's Parenthood (Photo courtesy NBC).

Like so many other Americans, Gentle was hit hard as the financial dominoes fell in 2008. The value of her house dropped while property taxes soared. When she was laid off from her job as director of marketing and sales for a small publishing company, she could no longer keep up. The bank eventually foreclosed on her Indianapolis home.

So, at 35 years old, Gentle did what numerous other 20- and 30-somethings are doing: She moved back in with her parents.

“It was difficult,” Gentle readily admits. “I had a successful career, and I went from being on my own, in a good place, to basically starting over.”

Gentle is not alone. Adult children of boomers— famously overeducated and underemployed—have created a moving-back-home tsunami. The driving force behind this trend is financial pressure, particularly rising housing costs, health insurance premiums, and college debt. About 8.7 million young adults ages 25 to 34 became part of multigenerational households in 2009, an increase of 13 million over 2007. Now, more than one in five young adults lives in multigenerational households.

But it’s not just the young who are coming home to roost. Many elderly parents of boomers are moving in with their children as well. All told, the number of multi-gen households grew about 30 percent during the past decade, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. And a Pew Research Center report found that 51 million Americans lived in homes of two or more adult generations in 2009, compared with 42 million in 2000. That’s a 21 percent increase in less than a decade, but more importantly it reflects a turning back to what used to be, well, normal.

“We had a 50-year experiment of thinking of families as two parents and two kids,” says John Graham, co-author of Together Again: A Creative Guide to Successful Multigenerational Living. “What’s happening right now is that the 50-year nuclear family experiment is ending.”

So you want to live under one roof? To successfully blend multiple generations into one household, here’s a checklist from Nancy K. Schlossberg, a professor emeritus at the University of Maryland and author of Revitalizing Retirement: Reshaping Your Identity, Relationships, and Purpose.

Click image to enlarge checklist.

Dan, who requested that we not use his last name, considers the decision to stay put a no-brainer. Apartments in his neighborhood cost upward of $1,100 a month, and with a $15-an-hour job, his budget would have been stretched to the absolute limit. “I didn’t want to move out on a whim,” he says.

Whatever the circumstances, being an adult in your parents’ home is different from being a teen there. Before Gentle moved in with her parents this past January, the family sat down in the living room and discussed expectations, including chores, financial responsibilities, and how long she would stay. This phase of basically resetting her GPS could have turned into an ugly high school flashback. Instead, having new structure in her life was soothing. “After all the stress of being laid off and losing my house, it was very comforting to be with my family,” Gentle says. “I’m used to being very self-sufficient and independent, but it was nice to take a deep breath for a moment and get back on my feet.”

Gentle has found a job and plans to move out again soon, but author Graham sees multi-gen living as the wave of the future. “The boomerang kids’ experience is spring training for the long season of baby boomer retirement,” he says. “They’re learning how to live together. That’s vital, because in the next 10 years, boomers will start moving in with their children.”

He’s undoubtedly correct, but the trend of elderly parents rejoining their children has already begun. When Hurricane Irene raked the Eastern Seaboard this past summer, 79-year-old Lois Bechtel grew uneasy as the winds increased and the rain pounded her Stamford, Connecticut, home. Instead of weathering the storm alone, the retired executive secretary describes how she dashed a few steps into the adjoining house to be with her daughter’s family, safe and secure. “If I lived on my own, I’d be by myself in storms or other emergencies,” Bechtel says. “Now I know that if I get sick, they’re close by. It’s a comfort.”

Bechtel lives in an attached, “in-law” apartment that allows her privacy when she wishes. According to a 2010 Coldwell Banker trend survey, home builders are on the multi-gen bandwagon, increasingly incorporating in-law apartments and adding other features for extended family members, such as separate entries, multiple kitchens, and second master bedrooms.

The New American Super-Family The Saturday Evening Post

Michele does her wanderung these days in the foothills of the Wasatch Mountains near her Salt Lake City home. It’s about fitness, sure, but it’s also a form of release. “Out in the open spaces, hiking takes you to beautiful places,” the 57-year-old says. “It’s a walking meditation. I’m a very Type A, anxious person, and after walking an hour or two my mind wanders, and I can let all the daily issues drift off.”

Michele Straube on an Alpine tour: “I’m a very Type A person,” she says. But hiking helps her unwind.

Day hiking is a minimalist’s dream. You don’t need to learn anything, and—aside from a good pair of hiking boots—you don’t have to buy anything. Planning is a cinch: You just go when and where the spirit moves you. As for fitness, this low-impact sport also just happens to be a powerful calorie-burner—a vigorous hike consumes nearly as many calories as a 5-mph jog.

And, if you’re new to fitness, you can start slow and go at your own pace until you build up more stamina. The point of the exercise is experience, not a race to the finish. “The good thing about hiking is that you can always slow down and rest,” says Peter Olsen, spokesperson for the American Hiking Society. “If you’re not having fun because the hike is too hard, sit down and look around. That’s also when you’ll actually see things like deer and birds.”

Hiking on the Cold Spring trail near her home in Santa Barbara, California, Melissa Keyes soaks in the changing seasons, making frequent stops along the way to observe flowers and a chubby, iridescent-yellow banana slug. The air is scented with bay leaves and sage, which grow wild along the path.

Where Michele is a hiking soloist, Melissa prefers company on her excursions. She began hiking about 20 years ago with her son. “We’d discover plants and animals together,” says the 54-year-old. “It was a way to get outdoors and introduce him to nature.”

With her son now grown, Melissa hits the trail with a group of new friends she met through meetup.com. It’s a supportive cluster of fellow outdoors-types that makes newcomers feel right at home. “Our hiking group is about being all inclusive,” she says. “It doesn’t matter what your fitness level is, we make sure everyone has a good time. Hiking helps us put life in perspective.”

“I wasn’t a hiker or an outdoor person until I retired,” says Norm Kleifgen, 74, of Cumberland, Indiana. Norm got his hiking start out of sheer restlessness: “I spent my entire life in an office and didn’t want to sit around the house all day.”

He’s since become an avid bird watcher. Unless the weather is severe, Norm hits the trail seven days a week. He brings a camera, binoculars, and a notebook so he can jot down his sightings. He has several trails he likes to follow, but his favorite local hike is at Fort Harrison, a former military installation converted to a state park. There, especially in the spring months, he watches for migrating warblers along with the usual suspects—robins, cardinals, and the like. Over the years, his hobby has taken him on hikes throughout North America where he’s snapped photos of moose and bears.

For Norm, hiking is about the magic of the wildlife—but it’s also more than that. “When I’m outside, I just feel stronger,” he says.

Trail-Finders

Looking for a place to hike? The following websites are loaded with useful information.

Americantrails.org: Nonprofit dedicated to maintaining trails for hiking, bicycling, skiing, and other activities. Posts information on National Historic and National Recreation Trails as well as trail planning and facilities.

Americanhiking.org: Lists clubs throughout the country promoting foot trails and hiking experiences.

Trails.com: For $49.95, you can access maps of more than 49,000 trails, driving directions, and more.

Localhikes.com: Site lists local trails in your area complete with information on length, hike time, and difficulty—and reviews from hikers.

Trailsource.com: Find more than 1,500 trail descriptions, maps, GPS downloads, and more. Offers free information, but—for an annual fee of $29.99—you can get access to unlimited premium content and information.

A Good Walk The Saturday Evening Post

Quigley’s Building Supply—Putting Customers First

The St. John River in Maine swiftly and relentlessly surged over its banks. After a record snowfall and heavy spring rains in May 2008, the river’s waters rose more than 30 feet. The lumberyard of Quigley’s Building Supply in Fort Kent, Maine, became a grim yardstick of the floodwater’s progress. Foot by foot, plank by plank, the water swallowed pallets of wood until the 66-year-old family business was 12 feet under water. In just an hour, more than $200,000 of the small business’s inventory was either waterlogged or swept away by the murky currents.

Six months before the flood, owner Norman Ouellette died in a boating accident at just 51 years old. That left general manager Justin Dubois, Ouellette’s son-in-law, running the company. Then, only a few months after the flood came, the man-made disaster of the financial crisis hit. Fresh from college and only 24 years old, Dubois felt a little like the Biblically unfortunate Job.

But Dubois wasn’t alone. Many other businesses throughout the country were submerged or swept away in the overflow of the financial meltdown. However, Quigley’s and many others survived and even thrived through these tough times.

Despite an economic mess and big businesses outsourcing labor and manufacturing, the spirit of small business continues to drive the growth of our nation with enterprise, ingenuity, and craftsmanship. Small businesses still create most of the nation’s new jobs, employ half of the country’s private sector work force, and produce more than half of the private sector gross domestic product, according to the Small Business Administration. Much like the hardworking Americans that came before them, the modern-day entrepreneurs you’ll meet here are striving for success against all odds, whether the problems are thrown at them by the economy or Mother Nature herself. These small businesses keep their doors open with a mix of smarts, guts, and determination, even in the face of unexpected hardship.

After the floodwaters crested, Quigley’s buckled down, adapted to the changes and challenges, and notched one of their highest sales years ever, with a 21 percent sales increase from 2008 to 2009.

“Just like everywhere else in the United States, there was a slumping economy and the housing market was nonexistent,” Dubois recalls. “If we just sat back and allowed it to happen, we’d fall. We looked at the slump as a chance to increase sales, customer traffic, and loyalty.”

To increase customer count, Quigley’s needed to find their niche. The store increased advertising, and management looked to long-term employees for new revenue suggestions. Of the 16 employees, many have been working for the company for 12 years or longer. Their know-how helped identify that customers were requesting more and more products they saw on television or the Internet. The bottom-line result for the store: The special order department has increased 50 percent in the past three years. “This has changed the way we do business,” Dubois says. “We’re increasing customer service. No matter where a customer sees a product, we can get it for them.

“The employees are the reason we changed,” he says. “I looked to them for advice and knowledge. We couldn’t have done that without their knowledge and support.”

Schacht Spindle Company—Woven to Success

From its humble origins, Schacht Spindle Company has grown to world-class status with a reputation as a maker of quality hand-made looms and spinning wheels.
Photo courtesy Schacht Spindle Company.

Pulling together the similar fibers of employee knowledge, Barry Schacht has spun the Schacht Spindle Company into the kind of American success story that’s vanishingly rare these days. The Boulder, Colorado-based company began in Schacht’s garage about 
40 years ago and has grown into a 35,000-square-foot factory with 35 employees. Today, Schacht’s is the second-largest weaving supply and loom manufacturer in the world.

“In those early years, I made a point of finding people who knew more about the business than I did,” says Schacht, who owns the company 
with his wife, Jane Patrick. “That employee knowledge helped me 
create a better product.”

Schacht says he constantly strives to improve relations with his staff and provide them the right tools and benefits—both at work and in their personal lives. In addition to health insurance, the company offers two months of unpaid leave, assuring employees that they’ll still have a job when they return. Schacht and Patrick also built a special, environmentally controlled room for an employee with asthma and allow flexible schedules for workers with children.

“We hire people for their skills, then work with their schedules,” Patrick says. “We emphasize family values, getting back to what’s important. If employees need time to take care of a sick parent or child, it’s not a problem.”

The work atmosphere Patrick and Schacht created has paid off: The duo’s philosophy has fostered long-term staff retention. One employee has worked with the company for 39 years, a few others for more than 20, and several for more than 15. And Schacht is quick 
to credit those employees with the company’s ongoing success. For example, staffers recognized a market for lower-priced, entry-level, easy-to-use spinning wheels. Their input led to the development of the company’s new Ladybug spinning wheel. Adding to the company’s handmade cachet, each is unique, with a ladybug logo individually placed somewhere on the wheel. During the past two years, such entrepreneurship has helped Schacht Spindle Company to post a 35 percent sales increase. But the company can’t rest on such successes, and its bottom line can be dramatically affected by the fortunes of suppliers and profit-driven big box retailers. “Some of the companies I have dealt with over the years have disappeared,” Schacht explains. “I have had a more difficult time finding suppliers.”

Schadt’s hard work has paid off: The company’s spindles, looms, and winders are in just about any weaving supply store in the country, and they ship orders worldwide.

Yet, Schacht’s garage-born business roots are never far from his reach. On his desk is the first spindle he ever made. Constructed from an old, used doorknob and wooden stick, it’s the genesis of his business. “It reminds 
me of the complex, yet simple, beginnings,” he says. “When I started, what was most inspiring was making new products and solving old problems with a creative touch.”

Hudson Beach Glass—Hearts of Glass

Touch of glass: Operating out of a renovated firehouse, the artisan owners of Hudson Beach Glass prove that pursuing their passion makes good business sense.
Photo courtesy of Hudson Beach Glass.

The glass-blowing furnace in Hudson Beach Glass burns 24 hours a day. Visitors to the converted firehouse in Beacon, New York, feel the heat and hear the hum of the furnace that glows white hot, full 
of molten glass. For the 26-year-old company’s owners—John and Wendy Gilvey, Michael Benzer, and Jennifer Smith—that furnace is the source of their art and entrepreneurial freedom.

“In the last 26 years, we’ve been able to make the work we want to make,” John Gilvey says. “Doing that has been satisfying. I feel like I’ve done it my way. That’s so corny. But true.”

The different blown glass styles of the artist-owners are on the shelves throughout the store. John, for example, crafts Tiffany-like vases with leaf-like patterns. Benzer’s trademark work is hand-cast tiles and bowls that have been Hudson Beach Glass signature pieces for more than 20 years. Wendy Gilvey and Smith produce fluid-form pieces, often with opaque, sandblasted finishes.

“Every object we make, we’re proud of it,” Benzer says. “We’re not making big money, but we’re not sure we could work for anyone else.” John likens the Hudson Beach Glass business model to subsistence farming. “Or subsistence artists,” he says with a laugh. “We know we have done something right at the end of the year if we’re still in business.”

The four originally opened Hudson Beach Glass Studio in 1984 in a warehouse-type building and sold through distributors and trade shows. Seven years ago, they opened their retail store in an old firehouse on 
Main Street. In 2008, John’s son, 
Sean, opened his own Hudson Beach Glass storefront in Philadelphia. Works from the studio have been featured in the book 500 Glass Objects, and plates from the Philadelphia store were used by 
chef Jose Garces when he competed 
on the cooking reality show Iron Chef.

Such success came after riding more than two decades of up-and-down economic trends. The downturn 
of 2009 definitely caused some scrambling. “Our business took a big hit,” John says. “No one was calling with orders, no one was buying.” And they had to make the difficult decision to lay off four full-time employees. Knowing that their business could 
turn in a season, John and Benzer continually look for new markets and different ways to distribute their work. In recent years, they have expanded to include etched glass awards and table settings for high-end restaurants. 

“We adjust to what’s happening in the marketplace,” John says. “We’re also continually experimenting with new colors, forms, and processes. In our business, new is everything.”

They learned that lesson in the mid-90s. After 20 percent to 30 percent growth per year, their business became flat. When attending a business consulting seminar, they realized the studio hadn’t been rolling out enough new products. “After that, we didn’t go to a trade show without something new,” Benzer says.

Enterprising Endurance The Saturday Evening Post