SIBLEY—The feeling of favor has no longer faded for Marguerite Bothof. The ninety-five-year-old residents of Country View Manor in Sibley take time each morning to wear a nice outfit and accessories. “It feels good, and people appreciate it,” Bothof stated. She owned Marguerite’s, an apparel shop in downtown Sibley from 1961-ninety-two. Both them sold the business to her niece, Amy Van Marel, who owns Mister B’s and Lady B’s downtown Sheldon. Marguerite went out of enterprise in 2012. Located on Ninth Street and Third Avenue, Marguerite’s and Bothof had power on ladies’ style in N’West Iowa.
People might line up outside of the store for her sales. Twice a yr, Bothof would have a massive deal. Customers who lived as ways away as LeMars made positive they stopped at Marguerite’s to get today’s style and the employee provider that became the shop’s trademark. They could stroll out with clothes, wintry weather garments, spring clothes, earrings, sportswear, swimsuits, hats, and greater. Sibley was a small metropolis,” Bothof stated. “There had been now not numerous shops. I wanted to make certain I had the whole lot anybody desired. I had a bit little bit of the entirety. I had formals, too but now, not for long. I had coats for all ages. Everybody had to go happy, and they had to like their outfit because if they no longer found it irresistible, they wouldn’t put on it. People still say they’d laugh. They had been appreciative of the fact I wanted them to be happy.
She might attend 4 to 6 marketplace showings every 12 months to get the garb that could grace the racks of Marguerite’s. At the showings sales, humans might show their garb pieces to keep proprietors to peruse and purchase. I might go to a marketplace and spend three days there,” Bothof said. Marguerite drew the business and employment of different ladies in Bothof’s circle of relatives. Not handiest did Bothof pave the way for fashion, but also for women in commercial enterprise. She became the Sibley Chamber of Commerce’s first girl member and one of the few ladies keep owners on Main Street in the Sixties. When Bothof opened the store, she had an accomplice, Ovey Valla. Both of them became the only proprietor in 1967.
The transition to shop owner started after she moved to Sibley in 1961. It was not a massive jump as Bothof already had to enjoy working in fashion retail. She started operating in retail at Hollander’s five-10-25-Cent Store in Sheldon for 20 cents in step with an hour in 1944 before operating at The Grey Shop in Sheldon for five years. Both of them became employed as a customer at Wolff’s Department Store and stayed there for thirteen years. “Wolff’s changed into a first-rate activity, and I appreciated the work, but I had to combat for each improves,” she said. A man might getolderr, and they’d tell me, ‘Well, he’s a person.’ I would say, ‘I don’t care.
Bothof was born in Little Rock in 1923 and attributed her energy to her mother, Henrietta, who died in 1981. Henrietta raised seven girls independently after her husband, William, died in 1940. Both of them became 16 when her dad died. She changed into the second one, the oldest of seven children, so a part of her job supporting her mother increased the number of younger girls. As she displays in her life, Bothof can’t consider she labored in apparel retail for 50 years. There have been loads of style modifications,” she stated. “They are right and but I like the antique style.