Small's Stools a Big Deal for Islanders Past and Present

Ken Foland had a great idea when he posted on the Growing Up Marco Island’s Facebook page a picture of a step stool that has been in his family since he was a teenager on the island in the mid-1970s.

“Does anyone remember Mr. Small,” Ken Foland asked the membership, "and the wonderful step stools that he made for everyone that he met on Marco Island? I would love to see your step stools and would love to hear any stories that you have about Mr. Small.”

Foland, who moved back to his native Ohio years ago, recently reunited with a former classmate from Lely High School, Rita Cioppettini, who also relocated to Ohio after high school. He noticed a familiar object when he visited her home in Ohio.

“I kept seeing her step stool,” Foland said. “I said, ‘You know, my mom has that identical step stool, it’s just a different color.'  So, Rita said, 'well look on the bottom of it.’”

H.L. Small was a Marco resident who built wooden step stools and either gave them away or sold them cheaply to Marco Island residents during the 1970s and 1980s. He would place an embossed label on the bottom of each stool, telling when he built it. He even numbered the stools. He eventually placed his name on the bottom of the stools, too. Cioppettini’s stool from 1975 doesn’t have Small’s name, just the date and stool number.

“Rita’s got number 778,” Foland said. "I talked to my mom and she sent me pictures of hers. She has number 887. Since I’m on Growing Up Marco Island, Florida, I said, ‘Let me post this.' So, I got all of the pictures together and posted it. I was very surprised at the response. I knew there were a whole lot of them out there.”

As a teenager, Foland worked at the Winn Dixie store on the island. So did Cioppettini.

"I remember going by Mr. Small’s house on my way to work,” Foland recalls. "His garage door was always open and there was always somebody different sitting in his garage with him, talking with him. He must have been very popular. He was on South Heathwood. We lived up by the new library off of Winterberry.”

“I’m pretty sure Mr. Small made those stools as welcome gifts for people who moved to the island,” Rita Cioppettini said. “My parents moved back to New Jersey at the end of my junior year of high school and I moved back to Marco Island on my own. And Mr. Small knew that I was living there. So, he brought me a welcome gift. I know that when my mom moved back to New Jersey, she commissioned him to make a birdhouse for her in the replica of her house. It was really cool.”

You could say Cioppettini is attached to her step stool.

“It’s the best step stool,” she said, "because I still have it to this day - from 1975 till now.”

Cioppettini remembers H.L. Small as a kind man, whose last name reflected his stature.

“He was just a friendly little guy,” Cioppettini said, “I know he wasn’t a very big guy, maybe 5’5” at the most. But he had a big heart.”

She marvels at the quality of Small’s step stools.

"They’ve stood the test of time,” she said. "I know he gave it to me and I’ve kept it. I’ve repainted it many times to match my decor. But I’ve kept it all these years.”

Foland’s mother, Judy Foland McCowin, was surprised when her son called her from Ohio asking about her step stool.

“When Ken told me about putting a picture on the Facebook page, I said, ‘You’ve got to be kidding. Nobody’s going to care about these stools,'” she said and laughed. “I guess a lot of people have ‘em."

 Foland McCowin has a fuzzy recollection of purchasing her stool from Small.

“I think I went to his house and bought one from him,” she said. "That’s all I can remember. And I’ve used it ever since - faithfully. It’s really beat up. It needs a paint job. It has a lot of character.”

Pat Sweeney Foth and Rita Bruno got together on New Year’s Day with Tara O’Neill at the latter’s art studio on Goodland to compare their H.L. Small foot stools.

“It was given to Betty Boyle,” Pat Sweeney Foth said of her foot stool, number 1697, built on Oct 8, 1981. "Years ago, there was a Naples Federal bank on the island. Betty was the manager of Naples Federal. Mr. Small gave the stool to her. We worked together at the bank for many, many, years. When she left, she didn’t take it with her. So, when I left, I took it with me.”

Sweeney got Betty Boyle on the phone and quizzed her about Small and his stools.

“Mr. Small gave me the stool directly,” Betty Boyle told Sweeney Foth. "I really don’t know what he did for a living or anything. I kinda lost all contact with the Smalls. I do remember leaving that stool at the bank, but I don’t know why I left it there. I probably just got off in such a hurry.”

“I probably hid it so you wouldn’t think about it,” Sweeney Foth joked.

“Mine was my husband’s,” O’Neill said. “He had before we even met. I have no provenance on this.”

O’Neill’s stool doesn’t have the familiar label, telling when the stool was built, or what number it is. Bruno’s doesn’t have a label, either.

“I’ve had mine at least thirty-five years,” Rita Bruno said, “and I’ve moved a couple of times. I use it when I paint. I’d rather step on this than something that goes up two steps.”

Bruno said Small showed up at the Cafe del Sol at the Marriott one day in the early 1980s with stools for the workers there.

“It's perfect,” Sweeney Foth exclaimed, turning the stool over in her hands.

“It is perfect,” O’Neill agreed.

“And it’s sturdy,” Sweeney Foth said, “I stand on it.”

“I use mine all the time,” O’Neill said, “with my studio stuff. They’re really, really sturdy,” O’Neill said, inspecting the underside of her stool.

“They have that signature arch,” Sweeney Foth said. “They’re all a little different.”

“Mine’s a little taller than yours,” O’Neill noticed. “The arches are all a little different - they’re mouse holes,” she joked.

“Maybe he was free handing it,” Sweeney Foth suggested. “You can tell he was pretty good at that pattern.”

The Growing up Marco Island Facebook page is the brainchild of Marco real estate agent Steve Lindburg. It has 1,700 members. Lindburg reminds folks that the site is for people who currently live on, or have lived on, Marco Island, Isles of Capri or Goodland. Lindburg limits posts and discussion to historic content and memories, not current events.