GLOVER, Vt. (WCAX) – Just off Route 16 in Glover, there’s a sign at Nana’s Bears and Threads — “We Make You Kindly Welcome” — that owner Becky Simino lives by.
The shop is bursting with used goods. “This is all sewing… this is dishes, the cooking dishes… games, toys…”
Reporter Joe Carroll: It looks like you have everything.
Becky Simino: Yeah, I do!
The store is open seven days a week and is run by Simino with some help from her family. Upstairs is the clothes section where her sister Lillian and daughter Alfreda are tidying up.
“I said, ‘Why don’t we close one day a week Mom?’ ‘Oh, no, we can’t do that, somebody might need something,’” Alfreda recalled.
The family is not only tight but large. Simino is the oldest of 14. “If one is sick, the rest are ready to help,” she said.
The store was once a barn where Simino’s husband, Richard, kept tools and horses. How the couple met could also be called a transformation. “I said, okay, I’ll do pen-pals, it doesn’t bother me. So, I started writing. I wrote to him for three years,” Simino said.
Simino’s girlfriend told her that Richard who was in the Army in Germany and was homesick. The letters were far from romantic. They wrote about sugaring and the first snowfall, but there was an obvious connection. Richard finally came to the Northeast Kingdom for a visit. “He’d been here three times to see me. On the 25th he had a diamond, and August — we got married,” Simino said.
Simino grew up here Perron Hill, about three miles up the road. She and Richard did move to New Hampshire, but that lasted only a month because she said she was terribly lonely. They came back to Glover, bought their property, and started a sawmill.
Reporter Joe Carroll: What do you think he think of this?
Becky Simino: Oh, he loves it. He would really love it.
The couple both loved collecting. Sadly, Richard would never see the opening of the store. He died within three months of being diagnosed with cancer. They were married for 50 years. Unfortunately, Becky would suffer again.
In December, a mile-long truck parade passed her son Carl’s house in his honor. He died just days later, also from cancer. Then, her grandson, Roger — Carl’s son — died of cancer in 2001 at just 20. “Losing a son and a grandson was probably the worst,” Simino said. “Oh he was a character… The grass didn’t grow under his feet.”
Reporter Joe Carroll: You two were close?
Becky Simino: Oh yeah. I and Roger used to do mud bogging, him and grammy.
It was the family who kept Simino going. “I’d probably wouldn’t be here,” she said.
At 82, Simino is full of life. There are even plans to expand the business. “No, I don’t want to retire. I get up in the morning and I’m ready to go,” she said.
There’s another sign near the door — “Living the Dream” — that the couple shared. “Because that’s what he and I always said, ‘I was just living the dream.’ So now, I’m living the dream,” Simino said.