The whole picture
story by Matthew Merchant
Once chocolate gets heated, it must remain in a constant state of motion until molded into a specified shape and then allowed to remain still.
In the case of Rebecca Ruth's bourbon balls, that process falls to a third-generation candy factory owner constantly in motion.
Charles "Charlie" Booe is the candy man.
But he is more than that. After buying Rebecca Ruth Candy from his father, Charlie attended business school, taking art classes on the side to fulfill his love for painting.
"Business is an art," he says with a slight Southern drawl. "It takes a certain kind of inspiration and creativity in order to do it right."
Outside the walls of his historic Second Street factory and store, Charlie also oversees nearly 30 properties scattered throughout Franklin County under his company, Booe Properties.
From commercial spaces and residential apartments to candy factory and warehouses, Charlie stays in motion, handling the many problems that pop up and supervising every detail.
However, in rare moments of stillness, he visits his painting studio in his warehouse or spends time with his family at home or at the candy factory.
From business to painting, it's the small things that he sees.
"Where you see a tree, I see the branches, the bark, the leaves — the whole picture and all of the details,” he says.
Painting provides an expression of art separate from the structured rhythm of his business life, he says.
"I consider myself more a custodian of it than owner," he says of his business. "I’m just one guy in its history and, hopefully, it will have a long history past me."
Joey Dickerson, an employee at Rebecca Ruth Candy, stacks ready-made boxes for collecting finished chocolates at the end of the assembly line. Each batch of bourbon balls takes about two hours to finish.
Charles, the third-generation owner of Rebecca Ruth Candy, crafts candy by hand in the factory same factory his grandmother founded.
A portrait of Ruth Hanly Booe sits in the museum portion of the Rebecca Ruth Candy Factory. Ruth, along with her best friend, Rebecca Gooch, started the candy store in 1919.
Inside his warehouse, Charles unpacks a pallet of almonds that will top Rebecca Ruth's bourbon balls. Charles often takes a hands-on approach to the business. "It's hard to find good help," he says. "Sometimes I've got to do the work myself. I don't mind."
Charles and his daughter Sara work after hours in the factory of Rebecca Ruth Candy to produce a batch of cherry-filled candies for a 90-year-old woman in Florida. With no written recipe, Booe reworked the mixture from memory. "I remember what it tasted like 40 years ago when my grandmother made them," he says.
As a property manager, Charles is involved in multiple projects throughout the area and drives to meetings set at his convenience.
At one of his several real estate properties, Charles traces a leak reported by a contractor to a faulty pipe.
Charles hands off a hose to Alex, his 15-year-old son, who attempts to keep a leak in check. Charles, who bought the candy factory from his father, hopes to keep the business in the family when he retires, but Alex is still unsure whether he will become the candy man.