Thinking about engagement?
Find out why customers have been turning to Kries for help in finding the perfect diamond engagement ring for over 50 years.
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Watch not ticking?
Kries' jeweler, Jerry Jaremenko, provides expert watch restoration and repair. Kries offers battery replacement and waterproofing on most watches.
Kries in the News
Courier News, April 24, 2002
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About Kries
Demetrio "Jerry" Jaremenko has owned Kries Jeweler in Flemington the past 11 years, but many people call him Jerry Kries.
That's because they don't know the Kries in the store name is William Kries, who started the business in December 1946 with Charles Temperley.
The business celebrated its 50th anniversary on Thursday, December 5, 1996 with drawings for free door prizes including watches, a ring and a clock.
Mr. Temperley sold his share of the business in 1969 to Mr. Kries on taking a job with the state.
Mr. Kries got started as a jeweler's apprentice to Oscar Fliegauf in Washington after World War II started. Mr. Temperley has attended the Elgin Watch Co. repair school and then went to work for Mr. Fliegauf, but during the war worked for a gyroscope company on Long Island.
Mr. Kries and Mr. Temperley, who had both grown up friends in Washington, decided to open their own store after the war. But they didn't want to start in Washington.
"We didn't want to go into competition with Mr. Fliegauf, because he was really a friend," Mr. Kries recalled. So they looked in Lambertville, Flemington, Newton, and Belvidere and in Central Pennsylvania, and finally settled on Flemington.
Their first store was in the little building behind Higgins News Agency, now used to sort and store magazines and Sunday newspapers for the business. Eventually they moved the repair part of their venture upstairs to the loft.
About four years later they needed more space and moved to the present location at 48 Main Street, in a building owned by druggist Frank Green. Even before the move they started a tradition that lasted for years, giving watches to one boy and one girl graduating from the local high school. First it was Flemington High, later Hunterdon Central High School.
Mr. Kries recalled how they used an eight-day clock, with pictures of each graduate arranged in a circle around it. When the wind-up clock stopped running, the minute hand pointed to a boy's picture and he won a watch, as did the girl whose picture had the hour hand pointing to it.
Eventually, there were so many members of the graduating classes at Central that two rows of boys' pictures and two of girls were necessary, so the store gave away watches to two boys and two girls each year.
In 1954, Mr. Kries and Mr. Temperley opened a second store in Clinton.
"Every other week we would change off where we worked" between Flemington and Clinton, Mr. Kries said. He remembered that on driving north on Route 31 to get to Clinton by 8 a.m., he'd be lucky to pass by eight or 10 cars. Now hundreds of times that many vehicles pass.
Mr. Kries sold the Clinton store after buying out his partner in 1969. Both founders still live in Flemington.
Mr. Jaremenko has a long tenure in the jewelry business, starting as a stock boy for Littmann Jewelers in Somerville when he was 15. His father, Dmytro Jaremenko, bought Fritts Jewelers in Somerville, and he went to work there in 1980, after graduating from college and working as a newspaper photographer for five years.
He and his sister eventually bought their father's business, but he sold out his share on coming to Flemington.
He learned of the Kries store availability from a jewelry salesman and within about three months of first meeting Mr. Kries they struck a deal.
They've remained good friends, with Mr. Kries calling his buyer "my adopted son." The good feelings are mutual.
"He comes in once a week to check on me," Mr. Jaremenko said with a smile.
"He tries to give me the keys back, but I won't take them," Mr. Kries retorted.
Mr. Jaremenko is "not against honest competition" but said small jewelers like himself have a hard time dealing with "deceptive advertising" by large chain stores that advertise 50 percent-off sales.
The majority of this information was taken directly from "Kries Jeweler Planning to Mark 50 Years of Service", Hunterdon County Democrat, Thursday, October 31, 1996, written by Terry Wright.
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