Pam Perrella sat at an old wooden desk in Towne Square Antiques last Thursday, Sept. 13, with a container of cupcakes she’d bought in remembrance of her late father, Tom Schaeffer’s, birthday. Mr. Schaeffer passed away four months ago to the day. He left the antique store as an inheritance to his daughter.
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“It’s a great gift,” Pam said. “But it’s also a hardship, because I don’t live here.”
The store’s isles are crammed with a variety of antique items, glass, pottery, clocks, furniture, quilts, toys, dolls. Pam recalls her father’s passion for collecting things — every single collectible thing and at least one duplicate.
“Dad used to tell me about having all these chicken boxes,” he said. “I’d say ‘What’s a chicken box?’ I thought he was nuts. When I looked upstairs I found a hundred of those boxes up there. I’ve gone through about 75% of them. There’s just more and more and more of it.”
She laughs and then wipes tears from her eyes. They are tears of joy at his memory and sorrow at his passing. But they’re also tears of frustration.
It was one of her father’s goals in life to own an antique store. When his own father passed away and left him a farm in Kingston, he decided to open Towne Square Antiques in Gallatin in 1987 with his second wife, Barbara. They divorced in 1992, but Tom continued going to auctions and flea markets and filling up the store.
“I think it was the thrill of the hunt,” said Pam.
Mr. Schaeffer amassed an incredible amount of things.
And now, as Pam said, “Here I am with all this. And I don’t know how I’m going to put it all together.”
Pam isn’t just talking about organizing the store. Her father’s sudden illness and passing caught her off guard. Pam lives in Austin, Texas, with her grown son. They had just moved there from Los Angeles where she had worked for 14 years as a dispatcher for a moving company. She got a job in Austin, only to learn her father was sick with cancer and in the hospital. She flew up to Missouri to visit him for long weekends.
“That made me very stressed and the people I worked with very unhappy,” she said. “But I decided, I’m a grown woman now. And this is a once in a lifetime thing. I’ll do what I have to do. So I quit.”
She came back to be able to open the store during the weekend of Chautauqua. She’s been dusting and sorting and organizing.
“It was kind of a disaster in here,” said Pam. “I couldn’t begin to figure out what to do. There was so much, and it was so disorganized.”
Pam does not claim to be an expert on antiques. Fortunately, many of the items in the store were priced by her father, which gives her a starting point.
She said she understands people are naturally curious and often drop in to ask whether she plans to reopen the business.
“By next spring I should have something figured out,” she said. “I’ll either be doing this for the rest of my life or the next portion of my life. Or I’ll decide to sell everything and the building. I’m not ready to make that decision right now.”
She added her thanks to the community.
“It’s been a very bumpy, emotional time for me,” she said. “Everyone here had been kind and generous and very supportive. Without their help, I don’t know how I’d have gotten through it.”