Jimmy Stewart and his father, Alexander, at his family’s hardware store located not far from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania —

The store was established by Jimmy’s grandfather in 1853 and run by Jimmy’s father until he was 88.

After Jimmy won an Academy Award in 1940 for his role in The Philadelphia Story, his father called him: “I hear you won some kind of award. What was it, a plaque or something? Well, anyway, you better bring it back here and we’ll put it in the window of the store.”

The Oscar was displayed in the store for 25 years, alongside Jimmy’s military honors he earned during the Second World War as a member of the Army Air Forces, the forerunner to the present day Air Force, for which Jimmy would eventually become a general.

Photo by Peter Stackpole for Life magazine, September 1945