CLOSING UP SHOP
Owner of North Smithfield’s New England Image & Print will retire the family business
NORTH SMITHFIELD — A lot of work goes into keeping a family business running, and as Judith (Tenczar) Beauchemin can tell you, success also requires a bit of pride.
That’s why Beauchemin, 71, is ready to say so long to a storied local business tucked alongside the Stop & Shop Plaza at 95 Smithfield Road.
Beauchemin, daughter of the late Edward and Evelyn Tenczar, grew up working in the family’s Tenczar Studios, Inc., an award-winning professional photography business.
Beauchemin and her late husband, Charles, took over the business when her parents retired in 2007. They reestablished it as New England Image & Print, an updated digital and offset printing and photo restoration operation that she has run since that time.
The transition of her family in recent years that began with the deaths of her parents – her father in 2012 and her mother in 2017, at ages 92 and 94, respectively – had her start thinking that the time for a new phase had arrived. The loss of her only sibling – sister Audrey Nelson Campbell – also in 2017, and her husband in 2019, only confirmed that the time had come for her to move on to something else.
“I’m the last man standing, as they say,” Beauchemin explained at her business. She closed officially at the end of 2020 and is finishing any remaining work projects in the days that follow.
The past months have been challenging, as the COVID-19 pandemic changed the ways businesses could operate. But like many other business owners, Beauchemin continued to run New England Image & Print, with the adjustments needed to do so safely.
Beauchemin stopped her walk-in copying and printing services and focused on her
photo restoration and commercial printing clients.
New England Image & Print handles the printing needs for clients such as Mount St. Charles Academy, printing the school’s graduation programs and other
items; and Hunter Insurance in Lincoln, for which she handles letterheads, envelopes, forms and business cards.
Today, everything
Beauchemin does is digital and computer-based, a major shift from her father’s day of high-quality, large format film cameras and chemical processing of negatives and prints.
Edward Tenczar started his offset printing business as an expansion of his professional photography studio when he moved it from Woonsocket to 95 Smithfield Road in 1966.
A man of many talents, Tenczar started learning photography along with his brother, Alexander, when they worked in their father John Tenczar’s photography studio at 108 Main St. in Woonsocket.
John Tenczar, who died in 1965, had started his family enterprise in 1916 and even schooled Woonsocket Call photographers in his tried and true techniques when the newspaper was starting up its own CallPix photography operations. He and his wife, Rozalia, were residents of Providence Street and members of the Polish Citizens Club.
Edward and Alexander, a future member of the Woonsocket Police Department, both went off to fight in World War II, Edward as a combat photographer and filmmaker for the U.S. Marines, and Alexander aboard a U.S. Navy Aircraft Carrier.
The Call ran a story about Edward Tenczar’s exploits on Okinawa in May 1945, based on a letter he had sent home to his family on Providence Street.
“Dear Dad: I have had that action that I used to talk about, and you can bet your best set of lens that I will be ready to settle down to the old shoppe when this blasted war is over,” the 25-year-old Marine wrote.
The story went on to note that on his first trip overseas, the young photographer had been on the bridge of his battleship, the USS North Carolina, and witnessed the sinking of the aircraft carrier USS Wasp.
He had also been with the task force supporting the initial landing on Guadalcanal, where another city Marine, the late state Sen. Alphonse Auclair, was also fighting at the time.
Tenczar’s own ship was struck by a torpedo off Steward Island in the South Pacific, but survived the attack.
On Okinawa, Tenczar was reported to have rolled out “foot after foot” of color combat films of the fighting.
Beauchemin said she was aware of her father’s war service growing up, but noted that he was among the local residents who did not spend a lot of time recounting his war stories for others.
“Yes, he talked about the fact his ship got torpedoed,” she said, and she recalled him telling how he went down into the hold with his Speed Graphix to photograph the damage.
Primarily, her father was a cinematographer for the Marines who, while in combat situations, had been armed with only a .45 caliber sidearm while carrying his camera to film.
“He would say how he could hear bullets whizzing by his head,” his daughter recalled.
For the most part, like so many others, Tenczar had put the war behind him when he returned home and set about starting a new civilian career in the city to make use of his graphic talents. He served as a commander of Woonsocket Post, Polish-American Veterans on South Main Street for a time, but soon had plenty to do with his new business interests.
In those days, there was a high demand for professional photographers, given the large size of greater Woonsocket weddings and banquets back then and the needs of a vibrant business community.
The Tenczars ended up running two studios in the area, with Alexander taking over his father’s city operation and renaming it Corrine’s Studio Inc. at 52 Main St., where his father continued to work.
Edward opened his Tenczar Studios in the city at first, located for a time on the second floor of 285 Main St. – next door to the U.S. Post Office – and then eventually moved the operation to 95 Smithfield Road. Tenczar Studios had plenty of competition in those days, with other area studios such as Morin Studios; Corrine’s; Cameo Studios, operated Rudy Graziani and Frank Giuliano; and other competitors, such as Crown Studios on Cumberland Street.
Edward Tenczar kept his edge in wedding photography portraiture over the years and was a frequent first prize winner in the R.I. Photographer’s Association and the New England Professional Photographers Association, for which he had served as president.
Tenczar also handled commercial photography projects for companies such as Tupperware, where he had a shooting set-up in place, and Polytope in the North Smithfield Industrial park. He also served at the North Smithfield Chamber of Commerce for a time and collected many community service awards.
Running Tenczar Studios meant everyone in the family had to contribute at times. Judith recalled how the business could handle six wed
dings on a weekend, with its hired photographers and family members such as herself. The front lawn held a set-up of porticos for outdoor shots, and there was another group photo setting in the backyard.
There was a studio setting in front of the converted garage and another formal photography studio in the back, she noted.
Tenczar offered everything from hand-painted oil photographic enlargements to candid albums and photo restoration services, she noted. It was a good business, she said.
“My parents did well and they treated people well,” Judith said. “Customer service was always first.”
She also believes her par
ents picked the home on Smithfield Avenue because it allowed them to run a business while being with their two daughters as they grew up.
Her parents could be busy at the studio – her mother serving customers at the counter, her dad running the print shop and portrait studio – and then take a break for supper with their girls and go back to finish up if necessary, she noted.
Beauchemin went to the Worcester Museum of Art’s graphic design school after high school and learned new skills to help out, but admits she learned most of what she did in her career from her father.
“He wouldn’t be critical
in any way, but he would say, ‘Let me show you what I know,’” Beauchemin said. “And he knew.”
“Sometimes you can learn photography, but most of the time people just have an eye for color, design or competition that makes for a successful piece for an artwork,” she explained.
Over the years, Beauchemin raised her sons Jesse and Kyle, just as her sister Audrey raised her son, Nelson.
Everyone played their role in the business at times – Jesse worked there out of high school from 1998 to 2014.
As she came to the endpoint of her own version of the family business this year, Beauchemin said she had no regrets.
“I’ve always enjoyed it, and truthfully, I have preferred to be behind the scenes working on projects, not out in front,” she said. “It was a good career and I am happy to leave it on the upside because of my parents’ reputation.”
With 95 Smithfield Avenue now up for sale, Beauchemin said it is “time to call it a day.”
She plans to spend her free time with her grandchildren and help out where she can. She expects to be busy.
“I have lot of slides and photographs of the family I want to scan and get them out to the kids so they will have them in the future,” she said.