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She had never felt anything there before. It was an unnatural and scary thing, and she went to see a doctor the next day.
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Priscilla Warnke, owner of Priscilla's Country Merchantile in Winona, MN, closed her business when she was diagnosed with cancer. Now that Warnke is back in good health she has decided to go back into business at a new location. Warnke is pictured with her dog BaiLee at her new store on Second Street. (Erin Sather of the Winona Daily News) |
The doctor sent her to Gundersen Lutheran Medical Center in La Crosse, Wis., for an ultra sound test. When the results came back, it looked like cancer of the thyroid. The prognosis was not good, doctors told her.
Warnke, 55, decided to start settling her affairs.
She didn’t want to give up her 3,000 square-foot downtown store filled with consignments and her own inventory, but it seemed the only wise thing to do “because I wasn’t sure what was going to happen,” she said. She didn’t want to leave a burden for her husband or others to deal with when she was gone.
Sue Spiten has been Warnke’s friend since their school days. Spiten knew her when, for 24 years, Warnke was a childcare provider but had to quit because of a case of fibramyalgia. Five years ago, Spiten watched Warnke pursue her second love, the store.
“She’s such a sweet lady. She’ll cheer you up and give you a hug. And she’ll give you a deal, too,” Spiten said. “But when she learned about the cancer, I talked to her, reassuring her. She didn’t know what to do. I didn’t want her to liquidate.”
But Warnke did. By the time she had surgery
Oct. 30, she had gotten rid of 50 percent of her inventory.
Most of it was donated to the Lutheran scholarship fund, Habitat for Humanity, an epilepsy charity, the DFL party and the Winona County Historical Society Bunnell House roof fund.
Then Warnke’s doctors concluded they had gotten all of her cancer.
She was given a new lease on life. But she also had to find a new store to lease.
“I guess I jumped the gun a little bit,” she said. “I didn’t want to give up my store, but I did and then I had to find someplace else.”
A Realtor friend, Wendy Triplett, pointed her to an empty store front at 114 Second St., just a block from her previous location.
“I felt sorry for her. She’s not the kind of person who can sit still and do nothing. She had a lot of stuff to sell, and she had to find something,” Triplett said.
Warnke found a new focus in her new 1,100-square-foot store, Priscilla’s Country Mercantile. She narrowed her inventory to fit around a country mercantile store theme with an emphasis on vintage kitchen paraphernalia. She now specializes in little cupboards and ornamented antique tables.
“I’m a great lover of collectables and antiques,” she said. “I love to furnish people’s homes and do consulting.”
She also sells Watkins products and collectables, Winona memorabilia and family pictures. Nestled among the larger items are locally produced products such as Nubian goat milk soap, candles and greeting cards made in Hartland, Wis.
Now Warnke is back in the swing things, involving herself in her customers’ lives.
“I always check on her because she’s had health issues for a while,” said Triplett. “She always overdoes things. That’s normal for her. If she’s doing that (again), she must be feeling all right.”
Contact reporter David Krotz at dkrotz@winonadailynews.com or call (507) 453-3524.
