Edwin Theriault, the founder of a chain of regional thrift stores that helped transform the experience of buying and selling second-hand clothes in the Maritimes, has died.

Theriault, who opened his first Frenchy's outpost in Meteghan, N.S., in 1971, passed away on June 28 surrounded by family at his home in Church Point on Nova Scotia's French Shore. He was 94.

"I was born and raised in Boston, and I was the only French kid in the neighbourhood, so they called me Frenchy," he said in the 1998 Na…