Old Market Memories

New Zealand-born Percy Roche, who owned one of the first shops at Omaha’s Old Market shopping district in Nebraska and who is even credited for naming the area, has died in Nelson, aged 88. Percival “Percy” Ronald Bourke Roche’s British Imports opened in January 1968 at 1019 Howard Street and there was a time when nearly everyone who frequented the Old Market knew him. In an Omaha World-Herald story from the late 1960s, Roche asked: “Why not give our ‘old town’ its old name back? Why not call it The Market?” Until then, the area had been dubbed the “old town” district. Percy Roche’s craftsmanship is still visible in the Old Market. “He was responsible for the decorative iron work in a number of the buildings,” long-time friend Fred Schoning of Omaha said. Quinn added that he also made the iron tables, chairs and other furnishings for the V. Mertz restaurant and other clients. Roche had served as an airplane mechanic in the Royal New Zealand Air Force during World War II. When a British plane became available for the SAC Museum, the predecessor of the Strategic Air & Space Museum, Roche raised money to buy the plane and helped restore it for the museum, Quinn said. Roche is survived by his wife Valerie, a founder of the Omaha Academy of Ballet and the Omaha Civic Ballet Company who later headed the Dance Department at the then-newly created Fine Arts Department at Creighton University.

Percy Roche: died September 23 2010