Back to Virginia

 We drove back over the Bay Bridge Tunnel to Norfolk  to be welcomed home by my parents and my son, Chris.  We got my other son, Scott situated in a Kindergartner associated with the Good Shephard Church in Norfolk.  It was just around the corner from my parents home.  Tink went to work setting up the extension of Auslew Gallery in Wythe Green, Williamsburg Virginia.  The shops at Wythe Green were a cluster of shops that looked like some of the homes in Colonial Williamsburg. They were situated on a green with brick paths meandering though, a gazebo and a small bridge added to the charm of the area.

That December we were blessed with the birth of our third son, Lewis.  Once I laid my eyes upon him there was no more longing for a girl.  I was so glad that one of the ladies who worked in the area had mentioned that my boys had said that they were going to have a little sister.  They had prayed for a sister.  I immediately explained to them that even if we prayed for something, that did not mean that God would grant our prayers. God was going to sent us whatever was right for us to have.  How right it was for me to have sons. 

Tink  came home one day early in 1971.  He had heard that the gift shop across from the Gallery was going to be up for sale.  He thought that since we had made money on the School House we sold in Vermont that we should go ahead and buy the gift shop.  There were ladies that worked there as sales people and I could be the buyer.  We took the plunge and purchased the business for the wholesale value of the merchandise.

I jumped into running a business.  Actually I believe that this is part of God's plan for me, why else would I find myself thrust into being in a business?  I love dealing with people particularly chatting and visiting with the public.  I never much liked or felt comfortable going to big parties where I knew very few people.  But being in my shop was like being in my home and it was easy to be gracious to people who come into your home or shop. 

 I ran the Leigh Gift Shoppe with my husband.  I was responsible for ordering the merchandise for the shop.  Since we had bought a preexisting shop, I was able to use the example of what was previously purchased in order to figure out what would sell.  I soon was connected with the various salesmen who represented these companies.  Then I relied on my up bringing and personal inherent taste.  Being a Virginian, I was aware of the type of items that Virginians would buy. Unfortunately I never had any training in business.  Perhaps, I should have taken a course or two in business.  My Art History background helped me with buying.  It taught me to look for quality and good design. Where I had problems was keeping up with the book keeping.  I ordered items for resale and projected sales.  As long as I was the only one doing the ordering I was able to keep up.  When my husband started to order framing materials we began to run into some problems.  I kept records in my head, that was not a good plan.  I still tend to have this bad habit.

All the while that I was running the gift shop, I had small children at home.  Lewis was a baby when we bought the business, Chris was eight years old and Scott was five years old.  Some how we maneuvered running a business and a family at the same time.  Actually,  I ran the gift shop with help from the ladies that worked for me and my husband ran an extension of my father's art gallery, for a while.  I took Lewis to work originally in a baby seat  and play pen, years later people would come in and asked about the cute little baby.  Thinking about this now, I have to stop and wonder that I could do all this.  Some how I did manage.  I would leave work and head home in time to be there for the boys to get home from school and pick up Lewis from baby day care.  Then I would start dinner and help the boys with their home work.  There were bullies to deal with hurts to heal, swim team and soccer practice. Games to go to.  As I write this I am marveling at how I could have managed all this.

To begin with we lived in an apartment before we could find a house.  The apartment had a pool and our family enjoyed that a lot.  I always enjoyed swimming as it was one form of exercise that I could do.  Even though my left leg was completely paralyzed, I was able to move it in the water.  When I swam, I was able to keep my weight in tow. That summer we were able to find a house in time for the boys to start school in the district where were going to live.  We moved into a two story home in the Druid Hill, Kingswood area of Williamsburg.  There were a lot of children in the neighborhood.  We quickly struck up a friendship with the couple next door.  They had girls about the same age as our boys.

Corliss and Jim Tacosa were originally from California.  She taught in the high school and Jim worked as an mechanical engineer for the newly opened Bush Gardens.  My friend did not have a bathroom on the first floor so she asked if I would mind if she brought her youngest girl in to use our first floor bathroom while she was potty training her.  We would sit on our front steps and talk while the children played in the neighborhood.  Soon we became fast friends, and we still are the best of friends today.

As Lewis got older I worked more hours at the shop, taking on some of the sales duties, especially during the Thanksgiving Holiday.  I learned what black Friday was all about.  We had about 1,000 square feet of showroom space.  The ladies informed me that we would need to all help out over the holiday weekend.  The Williamsburg Pottery was across the street from our shop.  Sometimes we would get bus loads of people coming to our shop.  There would be a line of traffic to go to the pottery and many of these would come to our shop as well.  I would find that on that weekend I would be on my feet all day long.  When I would go home that night my good leg would ache clear up to my knee, and because I walked with the aid of crutches my hands and arms would ache too.  I had no idea that this could cause me problems in the future.  I did what the other sales ladies would do.

Around 1980 I was nominated for the Handicapped professional woman of the year by the Pilots club, a woman's business organization.  This was quite an honor.

Some years after we started the business, we decided that Tink was needed in the gift shop.  We were doing quite well with selling framed prints that we purchased from a supplier.  What set our shop apart was the unusual items that we tried to handle.  Tink knew how to frame.  We began doing our own framed prints for the shop.  This way we had more control over what we had for sale.  I also started buying semi precious stone beads that I used to design necklaces for the shop.  I used antique Chinese jade and ivory pieces.  My jewelry was well accepted.

The fun part of working at the shop was going on buying trips.  We would stop at the design center in Chicago after visiting with the Trimbles.  I had a friend who lived out side of town in the Lake Forest area and we left the boys with her girls and a sitter and went into town together.  This was a new experience for my friend.  I felt safe with the boys at her house.  Another time we hired a sitter to stay with the boys in Chicago.

We also would attend the various Washington D. C.  gift shows.  My friend Corliss would help watch the boys.  We would trade off sitting with each others children.  Some how I never attended the shows in New York City.  One time after a good friend moved outside of  Dallas Texas, I flew down to do the Merchandise Mart there.  I rented a car and  we drove from Plano, where she lived into Dallas.  I drove and she did the navigation.  I can not believe now how brave I was at that time.  Texas was an eye opener.  I had been to Dallas several years before representing my sorority PI Beta PHI for a meeting of their Financial advisers. I had worked with the chapter at William and Mary.   Texas was exciting.  While I was there my husband took care of our boys.

In my mid thirties I heard the first murmurs about a thing call post polio which was effecting a lot of people who had polio as children and largely had recovered.  I was aware but also in denial.  I was concerned about my back.  I had begun to develop scoliosis in my teens.  Considering that I had polio from my shoulders down, this more than likely was caused by polio.  Mother I have noticed has a very slight curvature to her spine.  I decided to go to visit my old polio Doctor, Dr. Vann, for some reason he was not available.  A young Doctor in his office saw me.  I had seen something on television about people having rods put in their back to straighten their backs.  I wanted to inquire about this surgery.  The young Doctor had none of my  records ( someone cleaned house and got rid of all the old records).  He told me that I was too old.  I was about 36 at the time.   I had been a patient there since I was four years old. They had gotten rid of my records.  I am sure that no one asked Dr. Vann, as he knew our family.  I left the office mad, and in tears.

Later, my back started bothering me hurting enough to interfere with my sleep. I consulted my family practice doctor and he took immediate action sending me to an associate who had taught him.  He said that if I was going to have something that drastic done to my back that I needed to go to the best there was.  I was send to see Dr Bradford, who was then working at the Scoliosis Clinic in Minneapolis Minn. 

I got an appointment with Dr. Bradford and Tink, Lewis and I flew out to La Crosse to his family and then rented a car to go the rest of the way to Minneapolis.  Lewis had not visited his grandparents in Wisconsin for a while and the other boys were away at Randolph Macon Academy, a prep school in Front Royal Virginia run by the Methodist Church. 

When we got to my appointment, we found out that I would have to wait about five or so months to be able to have surgery, there was a waiting list.  I was also told to go home and diet.  The surgeries would be two, one to take out a rib in order to make a mortar to use to have the interior of my back fused.  After that a second to straighten and reinforce the exterior of my back with rods. 

I went home to diet and wait.  This was the first time that dieting was hard.   I kept working at it watching my intake, but at forty years old the weight did not slough off as easily as it had in my twenties. 

During this time, our nine year rental agreement for the shop was up.  The Wythe Green had been sold to another investor, who was greedy.  He wanted to up our rent to the extreme and we in turn had seen a drop off of business in the area.  The decision was made to move the shop.  I had experienced problems with having to buy such varied merchandise for the gift shop that I had begun to think that we needed to rethink our direction.  So a change of venue was initiated and we rented a shop across from the Bush Brewery called the Kings Mill Shops.  We found a side shop that also opened up to the interior of the shopping center.  This shop also had a second story.  Tink had a frame shop in the upstairs of the Wythe Green Shop and another at our second home on Hickory Sign Post Road.  This new shop gave him a large area in which to do his framing.  In the new shop we began cutting down on the smalls and selling Tink's talent as the Master Framer of Williamsburg.  We bought some furniture which we had a lot of success with in our original shop.  Also we carried a lot of the Chinese pieces we purchase from Carol Fang, who grew from trading from the back of her van to having a warehouse full of Chinese goods.  We went for the Antiques that she bought back from China and the rosewood stands.