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New Sheldonite airs town improvements
SHELDON -- A New Haven, Conn., woman who had often visited Sheldon as a girl has moved here with plans to open a multifaceted antique store on Interstate 49 and possibly to buy a farm and open a commercial kitchen.
Sabrina Selfridge's family was in Albany, N.Y., when she visited grandparents Elmer and Maxine Johnson in the 1960s and '70s, absorbing the folksy ambience of Maxine's Cafe and playing at Elmer's farm but never dreaming she would one day become a Sheldonite herself.
Graduating from high school in Manhattan, Kan., and for 25 years managing a kitchen at Yale University that served 1,500 students a day, Selfridge developed a sideline called Sabrina's Graveyard in which she etched images of 18th-century New England gravestones on coffee mugs, iron-on patches, tie tacks and clutches.
She made a presentation at Thursday night's Sheldon Board of Aldermen meeting, saying she will open the store next year, have a boutique there, create a line of stationery and sell books, arts and vegetarian foods along with antiques.
"I have a half-dozen people who see opportunities in your community," Selfridge told the board, showing a notebook full of drawings and photos to illustrate her plans. "I like it that you teach your children here instead of sending them to other places."
She said in a Friday interview on her way to Joplin that Maxine's Cafe "was the main influence on my food service career," adding that a group of East Coast investors is committed to her projects.
"Veganism is a tough sell in meat-and-potatoes country, but I'm looking at a line of vegetarian products," she said. "It becomes a dietary alternative to the heavy foods people are eating now. It's pleasing to the eye and pleasing to the appetite.
"We also hope to do a Renaissance fair. It could be done in any small town, but Sheldon has more opportunities for growth with the space that's empty downtown and really needs to be fixed. I don't have a lot of money, but I have enough to get started."
Selfridge has bought the old Finas Morris House at Second and Market streets and is still moving her "two houses full of stuff" from New Haven, an area of 570,000 people where Yale University stands.
Board of Aldermen President Robert Moran said Friday that he has not had the chance to get to know the 52-year-old grandmother very well, but has been favorably impressed. "She said it's kind of a homecoming because her grandparents lived here," Moran said.
"Being from a high density area, she's like other people from the Northeast who go to old towns that are falling apart and get involved in putting in crafts shops and renovating old barns and making bed and breakfasts out of them.
"She may see this as a way of doing something for the town and making a profit of her own. She has applied for federal grants. Some urbanite East Coast people have a vision of wanting to do things in arts and crafts and making a community a better place. So I think that's where she's coming from."
Sheldon is a town of 550 people in south Vernon County on the Barton County line.
Asked if she has encountered any skepticism, Selfridge said Sheldonites have been welcoming, but some seem a little dubious. "Most of the people I encounter are open and receptive, but seeing is believing," she said.
"At the moment, it just appears to be words. I hope to open the store by April Fool's Day, but it will be no later than next summer."
Selfridge said she does not have a set budget for all her plans but is in the closing phase of buying a farm, although not her granddad's old place.