When Kim Swise, Sales and Marketing Manager for Charter Senior Living, takes prospective residents on a tour of the Pekin facility, she sometimes hears an unusual question: “Is that Mr. Steger from the furniture store?”

As a matter of fact, it is Louis Steger, the second-generation owner of Steger’s Furniture and Mattresses, 818 Court Street. The 96-year-old, a resident at Charter Senior Living since 2022, is often seen socializing with other residents and enjoying the many amenities with family and friends. He retired from full-time responsibilities at the store in 2008, but his son, Jack, the third generation involved in the 88-year-old business, said that until the COVID pandemic, Lou came into the showroom a couple of hours every weekday morning.

“I’m pretty sure he was just coming in to see if I made it in,” he joked.

Steger’s Furniture celebrated its 88th anniversary in 2025. A second store opened in Peoria in 2023. The new Peoria store is just the latest chapter in an American success story that features Lou Steger very prominently, but which begins with his father in Switzerland more than a century ago.

Joseph Steger was living with this family on a farm in Switzerland when his father died in a flu epidemic. Joseph was about four. At age 16 he traveled to the United States to join two brothers who were already working on a farm near Chatsworth, Illinois.

Joseph worked on the farm for a time, but Jack Steger said his grandfather “didn’t particularly like farming.” After making several trips to Peoria, Joseph decided he really liked the big city, Lake Peoria, and the Illinois River. He took a job as a driver delivering furniture for P. A. Bergers, eventually working his way up to salesman.

When World War I broke out, Joseph, who had by then become an American citizen, joined the United States military forces heading “over there.” He spent his time abroad as a truck driver on a particularly dangerous route from the port at Cherbourg in Normandy, France, to the front lines. After the war he returned to central Illinois and met a young woman named Elizabeth Loew who worked as an elevator operator at Bergner’s.

Joseph and Elizabeth would eventually marry, and Lou came along in 1928. He attended a two-room schoolhouse in East Peoria, and Joseph opened Steger Paint Company in Pekin. An 8-year-old Lou helped his dad deliver paint and collect payments.

The Stegers were packing to move their household to Pekin on December 7, 1941, the day before Lou’s 12th birthday, when they heard news of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Despite the turmoil that followed, the family moved to Pekin and Lou continued school at Washington Junior High School and Pekin High School. In 1944, at the age of 16, he joined the Army National Guard thinking he would be sent to the Pacific. But the war ended before he was shipped out. After the war he earned a bachelor’s degree and two master’s degrees at Bradley University before joining the Navy during the Korean War. 

Lou returned to the United States after a tour of the Mediterranean on the USS Tidewater. One night on shore leave in Norfolk, Virginia, Lou spotted a young woman who seemed to be having a difficult time with another sailor. He intervened and ended up dancing the night away with Rosemary Meyer. She and Lou were married in Pittsburgh on June 1, 1957. Their marriage lasted until she passed away in 2022. Together, they had four children (Jill, Jack, Judy, and Joel), 9 grandchildren, and 11 great-grandchildren.

Steger’s Furniture began as a paint and floor covering store in a rented space on Margaret Street in downtown Pekin. The first version of the building at the company’s current location on Court Street was built by Joseph in 1959. That’s when furniture was added to the line-up. Lou expanded and updated the store in 1972, and then son Jack finished another addition in 1990.

Lou said his father told him he built the store to have something to pass on to his children. Lou has done the same for his son, who is doing the same for his children.

According to Lou, business in general — and the furniture business in particular — has changed dramatically over the past eight decades. “I remember when we had two sales a year and no more,” Lou said. “And now there are sales all the time.”

No doubt Lou and Rosemary’s involvement in the community brought customers through the doors as well. But more importantly, they were committed to giving back to those who gave so much to them. Lou was president of the Pekin Hospital Board and Chamber of Commerce, and served on the Pekin Airport Commission and the Tazewell County Board. His wife gave back through the Rosebud Chapter, Order of the Eastern Star, the YWCA, the Herb Guild, and the Tazewell County Fair Board Association, among others. 

No matter who comes to visit Lou at Charter Senior Living, his life perspective is longer than anyone else in the room. He has lived a full and active life, but now enjoys simple things like a delicious meal prepared and served to him in comfortable surroundings, music programs, shooting pool with friends, working puzzles, playing cards, or going on field trips.

When asked what he attributes his longevity to, Lou answered simply, “Good, clean living.”

“I like it here very much,” Lou said of his current home. His family agrees. 

“From a family standpoint, it’s nice to know he has someone watching out for him,” Jack said. “It gives us peace of mind.”