June 4, 2015 #THROWBACK-THURSDAY — Opening a Wicker Repair Shop in a Small Town
For the first sixteen years of my chair caning business, I worked from home so I could care for my children when they were young and save on expenses afterward when they entered school. But I also dreamed of opening a wicker repair shop someday.
So, in 1991, when the kids were in junior high and high school, I found a very good (make that cheap) place to rent in a small town only 10 miles away from where I lived.
I quickly jumped at the chance to move the business out of my house and into a retail store with structured business hours and everything else “business-like.”
It was great taking the business out of the house. I loved driving to work, “punching” a time clock again, maintaining regular business hours, and being right on Main Street in this small town in southern Minnesota.
Another perk of opening a wicker repair shop in Zumbro Falls, Minnesota, was that it was only 20 minutes north of the Mayo Clinic in Rochester. I felt quite certain that I’d be able to capitalize on the people driving down from the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul to Rochester to add to my client base—and it worked!
I realized right away that I couldn’t maintain the regular hours of 9 a.m. – 5 p.m. at my new wicker repair shop as I planned. Instead, it would need to be “Open by Chance or Appointment.” I hung one of those clock appointment signs in the window of the front door to cover myself when I was gone from the shop.
Of course, whenever I had to leave the shop to pick up or deliver chairs, walk down to the post office, go into the kid’s school to take them to an appointment, or whatever, that’s the exact time someone would come to the shop and find me gone! Shortly afterward, people said I was never at the shop. Can you believe it?
After I’d been renting the space for several years, the landlord decided to put the building on the market. So hubby and I decided to buy the 100-year-old building, leave our rental home in the other town, and move into the two-bedroom apartment upstairs over the wicker shop!
This worked out fantastically well for me because now I had the best of both worlds—living above my business, just like the shopkeepers of old. No more commute, and yet, a distinct separation from business and home.
The lower retail shop looked very professional for a wicker repair shop and yet, I could go upstairs whenever I wanted. I could even go up there for a nap over lunchtime if I was so inclined.
I had a wonderfully cheerful old-fashioned shopkeeper’s bell on the door, which hubby hated, so I could hear any time someone opened the door and could quickly run down the stairs to assist them.
Then, one day in 1998, I was doing some client chair caning and gazing out the big front window, when I noticed a guy walking down the street packing a bunch of camera equipment on his back and carrying in his hands.
Since long ago, I had appointed myself the unofficial Welcome Wagon for Zumbro Falls, (I’m really a nosy-rosy), I went outside and struck up a conversation with this newbie to our town, who frankly looked a bit lost.
Come to find out, this guy was a writer and was on a mission to write a book about small towns in Minnesota with a population of less than 1,000 people, using a city for each letter of the alphabet.
Author Tony Andersen was here to write about our little town of Zumbro Falls and to complete the alphabet for his book’s ending! He climbed on my roof, with its rare antique 1898 corner ball finials, to take a picture of downtown Main Street, which also appears in the book.
Tony did a wonderful job on the book and I will remain indebted to him for including my wicker repair business and a few of my interesting client projects in his Small Town Minnesota from A to Z historical book.
Those of you from northern Minnesota, where I now live and work, might recognize the tiny town of Effie, MN which is only about 60 miles west of me here in Angora, MN.
Have you seen this terrific book, or maybe you already own a copy? Please let me know if you are familiar with some of the other small towns Tony covers in the book. Small towns’ origins and people have always fascinated me. How about you?
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~~Live Well, Laugh Often, Love Much ~~
Happy Weaving, until next time!
