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“The men came from delivery and gave me the order forms,” she said, adding, “I handed them back unopened. I did not know what to order or how.”
“Everyone was so patient with me,” she said, adding after a few rough spots things began to run more smoothly.
Mrs. Fannon’s one desire is to see the store run smoothly.
Born in Washington, D.C., Mrs. Fannon has roots far into the county’s family tree. Her great-greatgrandfather was Posy Wayland, superintendent at the county poor farm. Her mother was from Culpeper County and her father from Madison.
“I was a wife and a mother,” she said with pride, adding she moved to Rappahannock, and Laurel Hill, in 1967.
“The store was always here,” she said, remembering the nights she would dash in at closing for a loaf of bread or a bottle of milk.
In 1987 she got a chance to purchase it.
“First the buyers were going to leave it a store,” she said, adding after a change in fortunes, they decided to renovate the store into apartments.
“I just couldn’t see the place go,” she said. And she didn’t. Within the year, Mrs. Fannon wasowmer.
“And I love it,” she said, spreading her arms wide to encompass the whole building.
Starting with the renovations, Mrs. Fannon’s work began.
The store had rotted beams and flooring in need of replacement. New plaster added to the interior and landscaping as well as new gas pumps outside took time to complete.
“I wanted to save as much of the original as possible,” she said with a smile.
Laurel Mills Store has a cornerstone that dates 1877. Once a thriving wool mill, the store is documented as “one of the only surviving brick and stone stores in the Piedmont area in Virginia, as w ell as one of the oldest stores, still in use, in Rappahannock County.”
“I’m so proud of what I have,” she said of her store, not a supermarket but a stopping point for those who need an item or two, gasoline and deli items.
“I’ve learned a great deal since that first day,” she said, adding her total the first night was near $150,000.
“Boy, I did not know how to void my mistakes so I just kept ringing things up,” she said with laughter.
Since those early days, the store has grown. Nowadays clerks have been hired. Distributors have become familiar faces. Customers come from far and wide.
With the upstairs running smoothly, Mrs. Fannon is ready to open the gallery, “Down Under Laurel Mills Store.”
Sitting in the stone basement or\ a newly-laided brick floor replacing the original brick floor, she explains
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