Popular York fabric shop for sale

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BY JOANIE CRADICK/For the Lincoln Journal Star

YORK — Ten-year-old Shaylee Vice of Lincoln is interested in sewing and wants her grandmother to teach her.

“She really enjoys working in the store. She’s always been my sidekick,” said her grandmother, Lola Schall.

Schall and her husband, Ed, own Countryside Fabrics in York. But by late fall, they expect to have downsized their inventory and sold their 4,000-square-foot store.

Then the couple will have time to travel, do volunteer work and spend more time with their grandchildren, including teaching them to sew.

Ed, a York native who retired from farming two years ago, serviced the Bernina sewing machines the shop sold while Lola managed the business, which also has included home decorating and quilting supplies and classes.

“We have been in the industry 37 years,” said Lola, a native of Pawnee City who moved to York to teach home economics after graduating from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

“We started in our home, when our children were very small, to see whether we would like the business world. And in ’73 we moved to Main Street York” to a store smaller than their present one.

“That lasted two years and then we moved to this one. In ’93, when the (tornadic) storm took our building, we expanded again,” Lola said.

“We have based our business on service and education, and we teach classes. We educate our staff through Bernina University and markets and other types of trainings. People don’t really realize the quality” of the help they get, Lola said.

The venture has exceeded the couple’s expectations, drawing people from a large radius and even off the interstate. “We have had a fantastic response. We have built the business to a destination,” Lola  said.

Thankful for the support she’s had from her staff of 14 part-time workers (including instructors), Lola says one of the things she will miss most is buying fabric.

Ed, who has attended “umpteen” Bernina schools, said he will miss the people — both loyal customers and folks he’s met from all over the world at conferences and markets.

Ed noted how sewing machines have changed over the years.

“Almost all machines are computerized now,” he said.

“We have some success stories with people that have had medical problems,” he added, singling out a Braille sewing machine.

Ed, who helped get sewing machines for the physically challenged into schools, once provided service for 22 schools. Today, he services only a dozen schools, due to school consolidations and the substitution of consumer science classes for home economics.

Employee Marie Brown, who will have been with Countryside  Fabrics nine years in November, fondly recalls going to market with the Schalls. She said they worked hard at market, then looked forward to the places Ed scoped out to dine in.

One year, Brown said, they went to Portland, Ore. After market, Ed  gave the women a choice of places to go: Sisters, a mountain town, or the coast.

The women opted for Sisters because it had a nationally known quilt shop.

Ed braved a snowstorm to get the women to Sisters, then surprised them by also taking them to the coast.

“They (the Schalls) have spoiled their employees royally,” Brown added.

Doreen Luethje, owner of Interior Innovations in York, said some of her business dovetails with Lola’s since they both do window treatments.

Calling Lola a friend, Luethje said Lola is active in the York Chamber of Commerce, where she chairs the retail committee. “She’s provided leadership for our retail committee. Her experience is invaluable to the rest of us.”

“She is a role model for me,” Luethje added, explaining how Lola managed to raise a family and build a successful business at the same time.

Lola, whose great-grandmother was a tailor in Switzerland, said  she  was the only offspring to follow her great-grandmother into business. But other family members picked up her great-grandmother’s  talent, including an aunt and Lola’s mother, who did quilting and other needlework.

Now, it is time for Lola to pass on her talent to Shaylee and her siblings.

Reach Joanie Cradick at dc34702@alltel.net.