The Duck’s Rudder

Laura learned how to knit, crochet and sew at an early age and it became a creative outlet for her. As we were growing up, we often fell asleep to the whirring sound of her sewing machine and frequently got roped into her projects, either by peddling her potholder puppets door to door in our neighborhood, or by selling hundreds of teeny tiny doll clothes she made and displayed on a stand set up at our front door for the latest rage, Barbie (and other dolls).

Throughout her lifetime, Laura sewed clothes for herself, for her boys, for her friends and relatives and for clients, using established patterns and/or creating her own. It touched my heart to meet a friend of Bruce at our high school reunion who made a point to tell me how fantastic she felt in the prom dress mom made for her 50 years ago!

Once Laura found a market for her wares, the quantity of what she was able to sew was staggering. And I remember being really proud when people would comment how well everything was sewn. As adults, we took thousands of her sewn items to fairs, especially pre-Christmas gatherings, where we would sell out everything. She probably charged too little for her work, but it was certainly cherished by hundreds, if not thousands of people in her lifetime. Many of us still use her sewn items until this day, even in Switzerland and other far reaching places she was never able to see herself.

Bruce got her involved in Rudder for a Duck ties. After the family moved to Alexandria, Virginia in 1970. Bruce met a man on a Friday night who had a gift shop on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC and was desperately searching for someone to provide him with wider, brighter neckties that were then becoming popular. Bruce said he and his mom could, so the store owner asked for 6 dozen. Bruce said OK. On Saturday morning Mom asked Bruce when the 72 ties had to be made. He said by Monday! We all immediately hopped into the car to go to the fabric store. Bruce cut them out, Laura sewed them and Joe (Ridge) ironed them. We made the first of many such deadlines and for awhile, became leaders in that market, at least in Washington, DC.

Eventually, when Laura moved back to her hometown of Medina, Ohio, she set up her own shop near the town square first called the Creative Nook and later the Duck’s Rudder, and she lived above the shop with her son Dave and later, her mother Julia.

Laura dreamed of having more than a 1,000 bolts of fabric to offer to her customers, and she made that happen! It’s been rumored that over time she sewed the curtains, placemats and potholders for almost all the homes in Medina, but that may just be a rumor. She did like being in the center of things, which living over her store in the center of town provided. If an ambulance or fire engine went by, she was able to reach far out her upstairs window to get a good look at what was going on.

Hard times did require Laura, then a single mom, to be a smart businesswoman more than once. When the store across the way was going out of business, she stepped up to take over their burgeoning UPS packaging service to the community. It was extra work, but at Christmas, she could gather (at 50c each) hundreds of packages to be picked up daily. Likewise the Greyhound Bus needed to stop somewhere in Medina, so having that bench in front of her store brought her more business and part of that ticket revenue every month. She even rented her ceiling to a kite builder one year. It all helped to get through some terribly slow winters.