NATCHEZ — As the furniture and walls at Pyron’s Furniture were decorated with sale signs last week, Billy Pyron sat in the office he’s occupied for 42 years contemplating life after the furniture business.

“There’s an old Bible verse my dad used to say all the time that says, ‘Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof,’” Pyron said. “In other words — today has its own set of problems, we can’t do anything about yesterday, and I don’t want to jump too far into tomorrow.”

And there’s really only one reason that Pyron gives for closing the doors to his 67-year-old furniture business.

“It’s just time,” he said while sitting in his office, flipping through the store’s first receipt book from 1945. “There’s no other way to put it.

“I probably made this decision about six or eight months ago, and of course I made it quite a matter of prayer, but a series of events happened that just told me I was doing the right thing.”

Pyron’s Furniture started after Billy’s father, Kelley, noticed a need for furniture as soldiers began returning from World War II with military money in their pockets and settling down on their minds.

“We had a housing boom and families were being started, but the problem was you couldn’t get any furniture,” Pyron said. “My dad had a friend in the lumber business who made sure he had furniture available. He had the vision to start this business, and it was a good time to start it.”

As the business continued to grow, Pyron said some of his fondest memories are of helping his father out in the store on the weekends.

“From when I was 11 until 13, I would come to the store every Saturday and my dad would have me dusting, sweeping and polishing the furniture,” Pyron said. “Then during my high school years I was the assistant on the delivery truck.