It’s been a tradition for the last 50 years that the owners of Kenai Fabric Center raise their kids in the store. Geneva Stasek bought the place in 1970 and her three daughters, Wendy McGahan, Gwen Woodard and Lynn Dykema, worked and sewed there until they ran it themselves. Their kids and grandkids were later folded into the business, spending time with aunts and cousins at the Willow Street storefront.
But that pattern will repeat no longer. The store will close its doors for good Oct. 31. While owners were close to selling earlier this fall, it didn’t end up working out.
Still, Woodard — the middle of the three sister-owners — said it was just time.
“We’ve been kind of working toward this the last couple years," she said. "Only my younger sister and I are working there now, our older sister had retired already. And I’m 67 now, she’s gonna be 65 in a couple months. And we’ve had the store for 50 years, we’re in our 51 year.”
The family sold the building to SOAR International Ministries and is having an everything-must-go sale for the remainder of the month. The outpouring of patrons who have come into the store to scoop up final fabrics is a testament to the following the sisters have built in their last two decades as owners.
In that time, business has changed. Woodard said when their family first bought the place, customers were mostly coming in to buy fabric for clothes. In the ’80s, that shifted.
“Then it started getting more and more quilting and less fashion, and then eventually, when we started getting Kmart and Walmart and Fred Meyer into the area, people kind of quit buying fabric for clothing and they would just go there and buy their clothes," she said. "And they just started doing more quilting and more fun sewing.”
Stasek, the sisters’ mother and former owner, bought the store with money she inherited from her father. When she started out, she was working without a paycheck. The three sisters would help out, though they had other jobs, too.
Woodard appreciated the craftsmanship of homemade clothes.
“I was in high school when we bought the store and you bought a lot of stuff through catalogs," she said. "And so you had to wait for it. Or you looked just like everybody else. So sewing was a way to be a little more unique.”
Woodard taught sewing classes upstairs before they sold that part of the building. Each sister had her niche.
“Wendy, who’s the youngest, is a little more business minded. And then I tend to be more mechanical," she said. "So she took over the business part of it more or less and then I took over the things that had to do with the sewing. And then our older sister had lived over in King Salmon for quite a few years. And so she came over about 20 years ago.”
As you might imagine, a store with such a loyal following can be quite the social place. In saying goodbye to the store, the sisters will be giving up part of their social lives, too.
“You just visit with people while you’re talking and helping them with fabric. There’s just a lot of socializing going on between yourselves and customers. And customers with other customers. And customers and our children," Woodard said. "Somebody might talk about something that’s going on in their life and that they don’t know what to do, and doggone if there isn’t somebody else in the store that has an answer for ’em. So it’s just been a very wonderful thing.”
That social element extended to the business they conducted with manufacturing representatives, who would come to the area to peddle their prints.
“In the Lower 48, we’ve heard other stores say that they never see their representative unless they go to market. So we’re very fortunate up here," Woodard said.
One representative, Woodard said, is so close with the family they consider her another sister.
At the beginning of the pandemic, the store was closed to browsing. But that’s when everyone was getting into the DIY spirit, so they were still busy.
“Lots of fabric for masks. They were making quilts, too, because they were home," Woodard said. "A lot of people were finishing their projects. They were coming in and getting the final stuff for those projects.”
Though her kids would like to take over the store, they have other things going on, Woodard said. One of her daughters is Dana Michelle Woodard, the owner of Wildfire Designs Alaska, a print and laser kit business. She was practically raised in the store from the time she was a newborn.
“So she’s still going to be part of what we’re leaving behind, but then I’ll also be helping her.”
The Fabric Center has posted all its final inventory on Facebook, @kenaifabric.
