

Jones enjoys appearing in TV commercials, visiting all six store locations and buying estate jewelry. William, who has a degree in finance, is COO and Wyatt is in charge of training. Two grandchildren, William and Wyatt, have joined the business.

When we had the whole family coming together, it was just wonderful.” Bill is CEO now.

“The company really did take off when my daughter (Ginger), son (Bill), and my husband, Murphy, formed a team. Antiques stayed in inventory for a while, but jewelry began to seem easier than carrying a roll-top desk or two up a buyer’s staircase. “I really had to study,” says Jones, 83, who took GIA correspondence courses.
#Sissy log cabin how to
She learned how to make slide bracelets from the contents of that box, which marked the beginning of a shift toward jewelry. “And heavens, there were these long, 66-inch necklaces with slides on them, along with a chain for a watch,” Jones says. One day, a customer walked in with a lockbox and dumped the contents on the counter. The 900-square-foot place was soon crowded with antique furniture. “The customer said, ‘What is that?’ I said, ‘It’s a termite.’ Diplomatically, the customer said, ‘Can we step outside in the sunshine to look at this diamond?’ We had to put plastic on that wall to catch the termites when they came out.” One day, she and her son, Bill, were selling a diamond and bugs began dropping onto the counter. The termites became the talk of the town. The bathroom was a stall on the screened back porch, which was freezing cold in the winter. We knew we had a few termites we didn’t know they would spawn,” she says. “You could take your finger and punch it through the logs. It was more work than she had bargained for.
#Sissy log cabin full
“He shook his head and said, ‘Surely, you didn’t do this!’” But she used all of her powers of persuasion to convince him it was in fact a great idea, including reminding him that their house was full of antiques, and $50 was cheaper even than a storeroom would be. She told her husband about it at lunch - after she’d signed a lease for $50 a month - but when he saw the place, he was incredulous. “It was a mess, but I had the vision that it could be a little store for antiques,” she recalls. She was driving down a road she usually didn’t take when she spied a run-down log cabin with a “for rent” sign. SISSY JONES’ ACCIDENTAL entrance into the jewelry business is the stuff of industry legend.
