Lenora's place...

Driving down the back roads you’ll find them if you look hard enough - those little home storefront businesses which are so much fun to visit and give the community “character.”.

Being in a rural area that has a significant Amish population, we are blessed with several such businesses. Today I took my Daughter and granddaughters to Lenora’s Place. Allissa is from the Triad - Greensboro, Highpoint and Thomasville NC area where she can shop at every store imaginable, so rural Garret County MD is like a culture shock for her.

But I’m working hard to charm her with our community’s out of the way treasures. Lenora’s place is one of them. We waited all week to go because Lenora is only open on Friday and Saturday. We weren’t sure she was even open, except for the little red “open” sign in her window as we pulled up to the white barn-like structure.

The inside of the shop surprised my daughter as she found buttons of every size and color tucked into Ziploc containers, zippers, and quilt fabric in the first room. But she was even more surprised as we trekked into the second room – a large open barn style area full of ends of bolts of tee shirting, quilt fabric, denim, and even a table of black knit socks for 25 cents a pair.

I found a piece of plum color tee shirting material to match Eve’s skirt she made earlier this week for $1 per yard. There was another precut piece of white that I picked up just in case the plum didn’t match well. I even found inexpensive bolts of John Deere fabric to make summer shorts for my 2 year old grandson, Avery, who loves his “turaters.”

But that wasn’t all – there was a third large room full of yarns and cotton threads for weaving cotton carpets. Material wide enough for king sized sheets adorned one table along with other fabric in a large box for $1 per pound. Hand made carpets and comforters were piled helter skelter on another table. Leona used to have real wool along with spinning wheels and knitting machines in that room as well, but she has downsized some.

My daughter will be talking about that shop for some time to come. Hmmm. Next time I think I’ll have to take her to Yoders …