The Joshua of Joshua’s

It seems like 2 or 3 times a week someone asks for Joshua here at our store.
When you call for “Joshua” you really only have two options; my four-year-old nephew or my deceased brother. Neither of which could really help you with your jewelry needs. Either choice would definitely be a great conversation, nonetheless.

​For almost a month now, I have been passing the idea back and forth whether or not to write about my brother. It never fails, if I tell this story to a customer, I immediately get a wince and an apology. Usually because they have just asked why the store is named as it is. Don’t get me wrong, I love talking about my brother. He was my first best friend. But as someone who is in a retail business, you never want a customer’s experience to be negative or awkward. Talking about death can definitely be that in a business setting.

What is extraordinary is that many times when we tell the story of Joshua here at our store, it does resonate with people. It begins a connection with some of our customers that wouldn’t happen if we just were concerned with making a sale or fixing a ring. It is in that spirit that I have decided to tell Joshua’s story. To connect with you. To let you see that this isn’t just a business, but a family.

Joshua Trent George
was born on April 2, 1979.
​Almost an April Fool’s baby. My mom started going into labor on the 1st and when they told my dad, he didn’t believe them. They finally convinced him that it was serious and off to the hospital they went. Joshua was born with a disease that affected his brain and muscles. Much like Cerebral Palsy. His lungs were very underdeveloped and his bones were extremely weak.

Yet, every single day, he found reason to smile.

I came along two years later.

My earliest memory of Joshua is his laugh.
I like to think that he had joy in watching me move around as I learned to crawl and use my hands in ways that he couldn’t. My parents have told me that as I got older and learned to talk that they would catch us having “secret” conversations in our shared crib.

As time went on, our differences in physicality became greater. I began to walk and talk. I had full use of my appendages and was able to control them. My muscles were strong and my bones were healthy. I was a normal kid, but that didn’t change my love for my brother or the way that I viewed him.


In the winter of 1989, Joshua contracted pneumonia. For someone with underdeveloped lungs, this was an extreme battle. There is only so much antibiotics can do, and at some point the strength of your own body is a factor in healing itself and overcoming even a more common disease like pneumonia. Joshua was a fighter. He would get better, leave a hospital, and for a month or so be just fine. Then it would attack again, and back to the hospital we would go.
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During this time, my dad (Chris, the owner of Joshua’s) was working in another jewelry business. He was making his own jewelry, staying late for repairs, and making many of the sales. There was a constant battle between home and work life. Especially with three young children and one of them being sick.

In February of 1990, after over a year of dealing with pneumonia, hospital stays, tubes down his throat, needles, and many sleepless nights,

                                 Joshua finally went home.

In some ways, maybe you can imagine what it would be like to lose a child to an illness, or for a member of your immediate family to pass away, but in many, many ways, there is no real way to describe it that compares.

A few years later, with his heart no longer in it and some disagreements with his partners, my dad left the jewelry business and never wanted to go back to it. Honestly, my dad would love to be a farmer. For a while that is what he tried to do. Mostly, there was still a lot of grief and frustration with life that our family was dealing with from the loss of Joshua. That’s when Bob showed up.

Bob was a long time family/business friend and also a jewelry salesman with his own line of jewelry. One day he showed up at my parent’s house.  Unannounced. If you don’t know how to get to my parent’s house, it isn’t the easiest place to find. It is just off the highway but hidden behind many trees. And there isn’t a normal driveway. This was 1993. No MapQuest or Google Maps. No Garmin or Siri to tell you where to turn.

In the midst of our family trauma, Bob came to help. He brought a suitcase filled with a ton of jewelry. He said to my dad that he needed to get up and begin the process of opening his own store. That he was too good of a salesman to just give up. He left that suitcase for my dad to have merchandise for his business.

A few days later, Reuben called. Reuben is my dad’s “jewelry father.” He is a Jewish diamond dealer from New York. His reason for calling? To encourage my dad to open a new store. My dad asked him what he thought the name of the store should be. “Name it after your son. What a great memorial for him,” Reuben said. In February of 1994, Joshua’s Fine Jewelry opened its doors to the public and we have been in business ever since.

If not for these caring people, we may never have gotten our start in business.

Kindness. Compassion. Trustworthiness.
These are principles we use in our lives, and in our business. Joshua still lives on. Not only in his nephew, but in our store every day. Joshua’s Fine Jewelry isn’t just a business. It is a family.

We want you to be a part of it.

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