Subscribers Login

Login Name:
Password:

Lost Password: Your password will be emailed to you.
Please enter login or email address:

Login Support

Serving Caldwell County Since 1870

Rural Living Top Stories

A guide to quality living in Northwest Missouri

 

Missouri Star Quilt Co. is an extended family operation that includes, left to right, Mom Jenny Doan, Dad Ron, daughter Sarah Galbraith, daughter Natalie Earnheart and son Alan Doan. Other family members have given their time, muscles and advice.

Success of local quilt shop is bringing new money, building community

By Anne Tezon

News flash: Big successes do come from small towns, even in Northwest Missouri, and even in the nation’s worst economic downturn in decades.

The evidence resides on Business Route 36 in Hamilton, in an old brick building that first housed an automobile dealership, way back in the 1950s.

Missouri Star Quilt Company is quickly gaining national and international star status due to its unique combination of an extended family operation with a niche product and the use of social media and technology for marketing.

It all began with Mom Jenny Doan’s love of sewing. When the Doans lived in California, she was a costume designer for a theater company. When Ron Doan left his job as a machinist for the Smucker’s Co. in California to become a machinist for the Kansas City Star, Jenny got involved in Hamilton theater productions, but didn’t get to indulge her love of sewing.  Finally she took a quilting class at the Chillicothe Vo-Tech school and admits she was “smitten.”

Meanwhile, the Doan children, all of them out of the nest, were looking for a retirement business for their parents.  As daughter Natalie Earnheart now recalls, “We’ve been throwing around business ideas for years.” Son Alan had a decent job as a globe-trotting consultant and really wanted to help his parents out. He and his sister, Sarah Galbraith, started working on a business plan centered around a quilting business, using a computerized quilting machine. He hastens to specify that the quilting machine is not your basement variety, but instead a computerized “robot” that could turn out a finished quilt in a day.

The business plan originally was intended as a machine quilting operation only, but it wasn’t long before the family decided they would need a storefront, or something “away from the dining room table.” With that, Jenny and Sarah decided to go to the quilting market in Texas. They went armed with $2,000 to buy fabric for their starting inventory.  They called back home and told the family they couldn’t buy “anything.” [Read More]

 

 

 

 

New baby ministry helps young moms and its organizers

Phyllis Miller, Polo, had been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in 2000. In 2004, diabetes was the new malady. Then last year she suffered through five knee surgeries after a loader in a huge discount store ran into her.

She may have identified with the Biblical stories of Job, but one night Phyllis woke up from a vivid dream and asked husband Paul, “What about a baby ministry?”

Despite her trials, Phyllis always had the impression she was supposed to do a ministry in Caldwell County and the dream gave her the guidance she needed.

Almost immediately, Phyllis enlisted the help of friend Tammy Tucker, the designated driver, and the two scouted every garage sale that had baby clothing, furniture and toys. They scoured the sale tables at discount stores and waited for the deep price cuts at season’s end.

For several months, they took the items to the county health department in Kingston and when they had WIC clinics there or young mothers come in for vaccinations, they were told about infant clothing available through Phyllis and Tammy.  It wasn’t long before the inventory of good used and new baby items was spilling over the health department offices. So when Phyllis and Tammy moved their operation to Polo to occupy the former pre-school owned by the Christian Church, they already had a track record of serving 59 families.

Today they call their ministry “Godmothers for Babies and Children” and word is spreading and “baby fairies” are leaving donations of baby items at their doorstep. Tammy and Phyllis still go to garage sales and bring the clothing, toys and bedding back to the pre-school building, conveniently located next to the church’s “Christ’s Cupboard” food pantry.  When expectant or new mothers come in, they both delight in helping them pick items out. [Read More]

 

 

 

i

 

 

  

A guide to quality living in Northwest Missouri

Rural Living

[Subscribe Now]

[Return to Top]

L&L publications Inc. © 2006 Designed/Hosted By CompWebServices

 
 

 

Enter your city or zip code below for your local forecast from

Weather.com

Google

Search the Web with Google

HOME

THIS WEEK'S

Top Local Stories

Sports

Rural Living

Classifieds

Auctions

Obituaries

 

ARCHIVES

Past Newspapers

ADVERTISING

Advertising Rates

Classified Rates

Place a Classified

PHOTO GALLERY

Photo Gallery

SUBSCRIPTIONS

Caldwell County News

Rural Living

 

*Online*

Subscription

 

About us

Our Staff

History

Contact us