Obituaries - Jan. 27, 2000

* Irving Stone; Expanded Family Card Business

Irving Stone, 90, who helped expand his family’s business from selling picture postcards from the back of a wagon into the American Greetings Corp., selling products in 75 countries. Stone’s father, Jacob Sapirstein, founded the company with his modest wagon sales in 1906 in Cleveland. Stone started helping at the age of 5, stuffing cards into envelopes. By the age of 9, Stone was a partner, and by 12 he was the company’s bookkeeper. He became company president in 1960 and chairman of the board and chief executive in 1978 and had carried the title of founder-chairman since 1992. Dissatisfied with the quality of cards the family was buying for resale in the 1930s, Stone got the company to begin designing and printing its own. One of his earliest verses, “From someone who likes to remember, to someone too nice to forget,” has been the company’s all-time bestseller and remains in its line. The Cleveland-based company now has annual sales of $2.2 billion, is the largest publicly traded greeting card company and ranks only second in size to the privately held Hallmark Co. in the card industry. On Jan. 17 in Cleveland.