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Weakley County Chamber of Commerce
Area Newspapers
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Ice Cream Dreams Retired teacher Nancy Williams transforms a piece of small-town history into a promising business Story and Photos by Allison Morgan, Tennessee Farmers Cooperative
Renovating a historic building into an old-fashioned ice cream parlor in downtown Gleason has taught retired English teacher Nancy Williams plenty of lessons that can't be found in her textbooks. She's learned how to chip layers of concrete from brick walls, caulk the cracks in an ancient wooden ceiling, make the perfect banana split, fix a leaky roof, design a mosaic tile floor, and stretch a few extra funds into paint, planks, or other supplies. Perhaps more importantly, this teacher-turned-entrepreneur has also learned how to persevere in the face of adversity, to face skepticism with eternal optimism, to pursue a dream that refuses to die, and enjoy her retirement years to the fullest. "This is my haven ... my creative palette... my personal little oasis," says Nancy. "I didn't plan for this, but I'm awfully glad it found me. That's the way life is - - be ready for something when it comes your way." Nearly five years ago, Nancy began breathing life back into the vacant College Street complex and has since transformed this piece of small-town history into a promising business she calls Claude and Willie's Ice Cream and Soda Shoppe, named after her beloved paternal grandparents. Featuring an authentic turn-of-the-20th-century atmosphere, a tempting selection of Blue Bell ice cream, and a simple menu of homemade burgers, fries and sandwiches, the shop is a dream-come-true for Nancy, who hopes it will be a popular destination for tourists, travelers, and townspeople alike. "I wanted everything here to be affordable and plentiful and served in a fun, family setting where people can come together," says Nancy. "My dream is that someday this will be filled with customers and we can keep the business going for others to visit and enjoy." Nancy says her ice cream dreams were inspired by a devotion to youth fostered through 31 years in the classroom. Most recently, she spent 14 years teaching high school English at the 650-student kindergarten-through-12th-grade Gleason school, located just across the railroad tracks from her shop. "I worked hard as a teacher and learned something from every student," says Nancy, who holds a doctorate in English from the University of Mississippi. "I felt like my students were my own kids. The beauty of a small town is that you get to keep seeing many of these students as they enter the adult world." A native of Gleason, Nancy grew up on a farm where her father, "Possum" Hicks, was an "innovator" who was continually trying new ways of doing things. Nancy says she gets much of her determination and creative spirit from her father, who died of a heart attack in 1976 at age 57. Though Nancy moved away for several years to teach school in Madison County, she returned to Weakley County in 1983 with her daughters, April, Becky, and Holly. With all three of her girls now married and living elsewhere, Nancy lives near her shop in Gleason and helps care for her 85-year-old mother, Virginia Faye, who still lives on the family farm. When she retired from teaching in 2000 at age 52, Nancy knew she didn't want to just "sit on her front porch cross-stitching." That summer, a visit to see daughter April in Connecticut sparked an idea that evolved into her present-day project. "April asked me what I wanted to do with the rest of my life," says Nancy. "I said I like to go to auctions, and we decided that I should enroll in auctioneer school that fall." Nancy initially thought she would rent a building to hold auctions of antiques, which she had always enjoyed collecting. So she called local businesswoman Lillian Stoker, who had just retired after running a popular bridal and formal wear store in downtown Gleason for more than 25 years. Her three adjoining buildings had been empty for more than a year, and Nancy asked if she could rent them. "Lillian called me back a few days later and said, 'Why don't you just buy my buildings?" says Nancy. "I didn't even hesitate to say 'yes.' "Within five minutes, I knew what I was going to do with them and even had the ice cream shop named." Nancy never made it to auctioneer school. For a woman whose specialty was teaching teenagers about comma splices and sentence fragments, she quickly became the contractor as she began to renovate the buildings, which date to the late 1800's. Her goal of creating an authentic atmosphere for her ice cream parlor meant undoing many of the "improvements" made to the building in the 20th century. "It had to be subdivided into rooms with sheetrock, paneling, and lowered ceilings," said Nancy. "I spent a year and a half excavating to open up the interior, then worked another year chipping away an inch and a half of concrete to expose the original brick walls in the area where I planned to put the ice cream parlor. That's some job, especially, when you're using a six-inch chisel and a hammer to do it." The buildings have had many incarnations through the years, including a dry goods store, meat house, movie theater, laundromat, dry cleaners -- even serving as the Gleason post office until the 1930's. One portion of the complex was once a grand hotel catering to the many railroad passengers who traveled the busy route between Nashville and Memphis and New Orleans and Chicago. In the renovation process, Nancy used plenty of imagination and attention to detail as she selected furnishings and decor for her ice cream shop. The centerpiece is a 120-year-old mahogany bar she discovered for sale in an old pub in a quaint Irish mill town in Connecticut. The bar had to be disassembled, packed into 50 different crates, shipped to Tennessee and reassembled by a master craftsman.
Nancy also equipped the parlor with wooden booths from that same pub and ordered wooden-and-iron cafe-style tables and chairs to complement them. When she couldn't find the right type of flooring, she had eight-inch poplar planks custom-cut, finished and installed. And the finishing touches were decorative pieces from Nancy's own collection of antiques -- tin Coca-Cola trays, old framed advertisements, and vintage clothing, linens, and kitchenware. After four and a half years of working 12- to 18-hour days to get the business ready, Nancy opened Claude and Willie's in September 2003, keeping the bridal and formal wear business as well. Though this combination of prom dresses and ice cream sundaes may seem a bit bizarre, Nancy says it makes for an interesting work environment for her and her co-worker, Ginnie Leach, who joined the staff in August 2002. "We'll go zip up a dress, flip a burger, answer the phone, fill a Coke, make a sundae, unzip the dress, turn the burger again, and just keep going in circles in a nice little routine," says Ginnie. "We just love it." Typical of folks in a close-knit, small-town setting, local residents watched with quite, unobtrusive curiosity as Nancy made progress with her ambitious project. Librarian Kathy Tucker, who works next door, and hairdresser, Mary Margaret Beasley, who has a downtown beauty shop, had front-row seating for the renovations. "I'd stop by every day to see what was going on," says Kathy, who relocated to Gleason 10 years ago from Michigan. "Nancy has really put herself into this business. She's doing something constantly -- like a whirlwind. She's fun to watch. And she really loves the people who come in." "It's great to see life breathed back into this building," adds Mary Margaret, a Weakley County native. "I wish the same thing could be done with some of these other downtown buildings that are setting empty."
Since reopening, the bridal and formal shop has retained the steady business that Lillian had built through the years, but the ice cream parlor has been met with reluctant acceptance from some local residents, says Nancy. But she hasn't let that response put a damper on her enthusiasm. "I've never been afraid; I've never second-guessed myself," says Nancy. "I take what comes and deal with what happens." Now that much of the building's renovations are nearing completion, Nancy plans to concentrate on publicizing her unique venture to help bring tourist traffic to her hometown. So far, word-of-mouth advertising and a recent airing on the PBS television show "Tennessee Crossroads" in Nashville have beckoned many out-of-town visitors and groups -- such as Red Hat Ladies' clubs from nearby communities and some motorcycle enthusiasts from Hernando, Miss. Nancy is thrilled to see each and every customer walk through the door. "We may only have three or four customers at a time right now, but one day I hope that will be 30 or 40," says Nancy. "It's just a blessing to see people come." The business is still a work-in-progress for Nancy, who is finishing renovations in what was the basement of the old hotel, where she will move the formal wear, gift and floral shop. The middle room will become a banquet hall and, she hopes, eventually a steakhouse. She would also like to turn the vacant rooms upstairs into a bed-and-breakfast and rebuild the hotel's third-floor ballroom, which was removed in the 1950's. She has other ideas, too, like adding homemade candy and local crafts to create a Gleason-style Cracker Barrel in the ice cream parlor. Lofty ambitions they may be, but Nancy is confident that her venture is a case of destiny fulfilled. "I have no doubt that I was meant to do this," says Nancy. "Sometimes I'm overwhelmed by how much I've accomplished. I believe in what I'm doing, and don't worry about tomorrow. Somehow, I'm going to make this work." Claude and Willie's Ice Cream and Soda Shoppe and Lillian's bridal and formal wear store are located at 201 College Street in Gleason and are open Tuesday through Saturday from 8a.m. to 7p.m. or by appointment. Tour groups and organizations are welcome. For more information, call Nancy Williams at (731) 648-1444. Source: Tennessee Cooperator (http://www.OurCoop.com), June 2005 - Stores and Photos by Allison Morgan.
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