The Quilt Lady in Hamilton, Missouri

The clerk in the Store in Far West told us of a member family in Hamilton, Missouri. She said this family years ago were living in California and decided they wanted to move to a smaller town which they felt would be a better place to raise their children. These are members of the Church, so I assume they prayed about this and received promptings to do this. She said the family got out a map of the United States closed their eyes and one of the family members placed a finger on the map. That finger was pointing to Hamilton, Missouri, so they moved there. As I have mentioned before, these little rural towns in Kansas and Missouri are pretty and in many ways picturesque, but they are dying because of lack of jobs. All the jobs are in the city. This family moved to Hamilton and the father was a machinist and he ended up taking a job in St. Joseph which was a fairly lengthy commute. This family raised their children in this small town of about 1200 people. I am sure this active family would have been a real strength to the Church in this small community; knowing what the Branch in Mound City is like, I assume it is similar in Hamilton. Well, the mother, sister Doan had a love for quilting. Several of her grown children purchased some type of long arm quilting equipment for their mother. One of her sons was pretty good on the computer and set up a web site. They started getting calls and requests for pre-cut material; they had their mother make a number of videos which they posted on line. The videos were free, but the orders started coming in. I think they said this little company called the “Missouri Star Quilt Company” gets 4 million hits a month on their web site. The company is six years old, but they have stayed in this little town in Missouri and have grown to almost 100 employees. It has completely changed the prosperity of this little town and the way the citizens view the Church.

 

 These little towns typically have a main street down the middle of town, but often the storefronts are closed and the buildings are empty. We stopped in Hamilton just out of curiosity to visit the quilt company and it turned out they were having J.C Penny days. We found the quilt company store; our daughter Tara would like this, the sign above the door said quilt diva. Anyway, I met the marketing director for the company also a member of the Church and he shared a little of their story. He also explained that the company had purchased several of the empty buildings along Main Street and were in the process of restoring the buildings. They also were instrumental in opening several restaurants in town. Anyway it was a fun success story where members of the Church are making a difference.  The mom Jenny Doan has been on several major talk shows and broadcasts. I posted one of the newscasts of her below:

 

http://www.nbcnews.com/video/nightly-news/54502376#54502376

Book Store in Far West

When visiting the Liberty Jail I asked one of the senior couple missionaries where I could find a book describing the early history of the Church in Missouri.  The Church visitor centers don’t sell books, but they told me some members had a bookstore in Far West. Sure enough about 1 mile down the road from the Far West Temple site is a book store. I think the members who built the fairly new log building where the bookstore is housed is from Arizona and clearly spent some money on it. I suspect it was partly a labor of love. The Clerk in the store sold us a book and told us an interesting story about a member of the Church that lives in a little town up the road on the way to Adam-Ondi Ahman. The town is Hamilton, Missouri and it is about a sister who is into quilting. You will find it in the blog titled “The quilt Lady in Hamilton, Missouri”.