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- This column by John Cosway
is a mix of 50 years of media memories and 20 years of buying
and selling experiences via live and online auctions, flea markets,
antique stores and markets etc
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- Cosway's Corner -
Roots of the business 2
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- Starting points: From the farm to the
supermarkets
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- By John Cosway
In the last issue of the Wayback Times, we profiled three men
in the antiques business.
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- In this issue, the spotlight is on women in the business.
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- Farm girls to city girls, all ending up in the business with
a passion.
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 Karen Leacock-Brown,
new owner of Quinte Antiques in Belleville and the Odessa Antique
Show, is a farm girl at heart.
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- "I was born and raised on a very large farm near Jasper,
Ontario," says Karen. "I am one of seven daughters,
and no brothers, so we learned hard work at a very early age.
There was nothing on the farm that dad thought we couldn't do
because we were just girls."
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- It's the only job Karen had after school and during her summer
vacations before leaving home at 16. The work ethic taught by
her father set the course.
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- "We were not paid for working on the farm. It was just
expected that we lived there, we worked there. I am not complaining,
it was a great upbringing."
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- For the next 31 years, Karen worked for the Rideau Regional
Centre in nearby Smiths Falls, a large facility for the developmentally
handicapped that closed in 2009.
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- Positions included residential counselor, social worker and
augmentative communication instructor, teaching sign language,
speech and bliss symbolics. She also worked with the OPP and
courts as a sign language interpreter.
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- Karen says she fell in love with antiques at 16 while trying
to furnish her first apartment with purchases at yard sales and
second-hand stores.
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- "My homes have always been decorated in antiques and
I have always been collecting one thing or another. I love going
through old houses, attics and barns finding the most unique
things."
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- Speaking of unique things, along the way she discovered German
Pink Pigs.
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- "They are quite hard to find in perfect condition and
I think the hunt for them and the pleasure of finding one I don't
have, is half the fun of collecting them."
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- Karen didn't get involved in selling antiques until she retired.
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- "I have been doing up to 20 antique shows a year and
have been in several markets since I retired. When the opportunity
came last year to take over Quinte Antiques, my dream came true.
I just love going to the shop every day. This is not a job, it
is a passion.
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- "Then the opportunity came up to purchase the Odessa
Antique Show and I thought I had died and gone to heaven. So
life is pretty awesome."
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- The mother of two says one of her goals is to get younger
people interested in antiques.
- "It is our job as antique dealers to keep the business
alive and to help younger people learn more about their heritage."
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- What does the labour of love she has chosen in retirement
mean to her?
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- "I love the search for items - then finding them. And
the people. I am very much a people person and you meet a lot
of wonderful people in this business.
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- "Antique dealers themselves are a wonderful group to
get to know and spend time with. The experience and knowledge
they have given me has been an enormous help and is always greatly
appreciated."
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- Karen's favourite antique story: Buying a box lot of costume
jewellery for $12 and finding a ring appraised at $2,700.
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- "Things like that don't happen near enough."
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- Karen can be reached at karenbrown@aserty.com
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 Annette Turturici,
owner of the Inglewood Antique Market in Caledon, is another
farm girl, born and raised on a small farm in Southhampton, N.B.
(now Nackawic).
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- "Being brought up in the country, I was surrounded with
'old stuff', but didn't think about pursuing antiques until I
was in my early forties," says Annette.
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- Her first paying job was the $8 a month she earned for building
the morning fire and sweeping the floor at Cronkhite School,
a one-room schoolhouse across the road from her house.
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- The grocery industry, including Dominion Stores, was her
sole source of employment from the time her trucker dad accepted
a job with Laidlaw in Toronto in the early 1960s until 1999.
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- "After settling in Toronto, I worked at Dominion Stores
part time. After finishing school, I continued to work for the
company as a store bookkeeper. Computers were introduced and
the grocery industry changed dramatically.
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- "Suddenly, we had so much more information and the manual
process had to change," says Annette. "I was moved
to head office. My task was to test, document procedures and
train the bookkeepers as new stores opened or upgraded to these
new systems.
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- Annette says after Dominion was sold to A&P in 1985,
she remained in the industry selling and supporting point-of-sale
systems as the technology continued to evolve.
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- Annette credits an astute cousin for getting her more involved
in antiques in the 1990s.
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- "We had new furniture and nothing much for decoration
on the walls or tables of our new house and Alex, known for his
honesty, said 'you guys have a serious lack of knick knacks.'
He suggested antique shows or stores. I took his advice and attended
a show.
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- "I learned right away that I knew more about antiques
than I thought because of my early days surrounded by 'old stuff.'
I returned home with a couple of 1930s floral prints that looked
great over our new sideboard. I was hooked.
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- "I immediately started searching for antiques and visited
the Circle M Flea Market, where I met Alma Smith, a wonderful
lady from my Dominion days. She had been selling furniture and
smalls on Sundays at the market for years."
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- Eager to learn, Annette volunteered to work with Alma for
free every second Sunday, which she did for nine months.
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- "I had a wonderful time and the dealers were all great.
They told me about their products and about mine when I took
something in that I wanted to learn about. I was excited."
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- After Annette and her husband, Phil, completed a History
of Furniture course at Seneca College, it was time to take the
leap. In 1995, they rented a booth at Harbour Front Antique Market
and stayed for four years, working full-time during the week
and selling on weekends.
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- "In the middle of 1999, I decided to leave my full-time
job and take a year off to pursue opportunities in the antique
business."
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- Within a couple of months, Annette got a call from Jennifer
Turner, owner of the Inglewood Antique Market in Caledon, where
they had a small booth. After seven years, Jennifer was ready
to move on. They purchased the business and moved in on Dec.
1, 1999.
Annette says the antiques and collectibles business is a "lifelong
study, but with today's technology there is so much information
at your fingertips.
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- "I enjoy learning from the people - the dealers, auctioneers,
customers and collectors. They are the best and love to share
their knowledge."
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- Annette can be reached at annette@inglewoodantiquemarket.com
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 Lianne Megarry,
owner of The Dark Horse in Sunderland, worked in accounting from
summer jobs as a teenager to 2009, so she has the business end
of antiquing covered.
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- "I wasn't born into this industry like many others,"
says Lianne. "I spent 25 years as a general accountant (Steelcase
Canada, Allstate Canada and Todd Pools.) Even my summer jobs,
when I was young, were in corporate offices (Steelcase Canada,
- Toronto Sun, the Archdiocese of Toronto etc.)"
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- Her hands-on experience with antiques and collectibles stems
from accompanying her mother and grandmother to country auctions
while growing up in Toronto.
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- "They were always collecting and going to auctions and
I loved to go with them," says Lianne. "I guess I just
got the bug on a personal scale at a very young age."
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- They would drive from Toronto, or from their cottage, to
auctions around Shanty Bay, Minden, Haliburton and Uxbridge.
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- In 1989, Lianne was in her early 20s and decided to move
from Toronto to Uxbridge. She gave herself a year to decide if
she could adjust to a rural setting.
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- "You have to drag me back to the city kicking and screaming
now for even a family function," she says. "In fact,
we decided that Uxbridge was getting so big and we wanted some
land, so we moved another 15 minutes north to Sunderland seven
years ago."
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- From the time she was old enough to buy vintage furniture,
she did so with care.
- "I still have some of the first pieces of furniture
I bought years ago. They are like my babies. I still remember
where and when I bought them. They are hard to let go, even though
tastes evolve and change."
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- The joys of attending auctions with her mother and grandmother
continued as an adult.
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- "I went to Gary Hill's in Uxbridge and Corneil's in
Little Britain for years after work and on the weekends before
going into business for myself."
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- Lianne retired from accounting two years ago in her 40s because
it was "time for a change," but the empty nester knew
sitting at home without a paycheque wasn't an option.
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- "I have always said 'you have to get up and go to work
every day. It isn't a choice, so figure out what you love to
do and find a way to get paid for it."
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- Lianne and her husband purchased the old fire hall in Sunderland
and after major renovations, opened the The Dark Horse antique
shop and art gallery in April 2010.
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- An older gent and former antique shop owner once told her
'you are not just in the antique business, you're also in the
entertainment business. You'll make more money charging admission
than selling antiques.'
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- "Some days he is so right, but I wouldn't have it any
other way."
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- Lianne can be reached at lmegarry@darkhorsestudio.ca
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 Olga
Domjan of Hands To Work in Elora says the first few houses
she lived in after being born in Toronto in 1953 were in the
Toronto Annex and High Park area. Then came a house purchased
in Mississauga when she was five on a street surrounded by old
farms.
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- "It was that early Toronto experience that instilled
in me a love of old homes adorned by old-fashioned gardens,"
says Olga. "The new house, in the midst of farm fields,
gave me a love of nature and gardening."
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- Her high school and university years were filled with books,
the ones she studied; the ones she stacked at libraries and the
ones she helped sell at Insight Books, Mississauga's first bookstore.
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- "After finishing my MA, I worked briefly at Britnell's,
then as a buyer for the University of Toronto Bookroom. While
attending the Centre for Medieval Studies at U. of T., I worked
for the Dictionary of Old English.
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- "Leaving after three years of doctoral work, I put in
11 months as an editor at Prentice-Hall, then worked until about
four years ago as a freelance editor of textbooks and scholarly
books."
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- So access to books about all things antiques was always at
her reach. She credits her European roots for her early interest
in antiques.
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- "My family is Hungarian, and my parents' houses and
their friends' houses were furnished with lovely items they were
able to salvage from the ruins after World War II, or acquire
after settling in Canada.
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- After living in a 1910 house in Rockwood for 11 years, she
moved to Elora, to an even older house. It had a large new wing
with a separate apartment, which she thought of as perfect for
a gallery.
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- "In April 1999, I opened Hands To Work in that space.
I sold Canadian paintings, as well as work by outstanding Canadian
material artists, mainly potters, but also a stained glass artist,
batik artist, and a weaver and basket-maker.
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- "I was already attending auctions, so I soon added to
the mix early Inuit art, which I had collected since my teens,
quilts and hooked rugs, Grenfell mats, even interesting early
domestic objects.
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- "My auction attendance began at Waddington's twice-yearly
Inuit auctions. I was buying for my own collection at first,
then for the gallery as well. Soon, I was also attending their
Canadiana auctions and fine art auctions, buying paintings and
prints, folk art, quilts and hooked rugs, furniture and other
things both for myself and for the business."
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- Olga says she broadened the antiques end of her business
in 2004, renting a booth at the Freelton Antique Market. Two
months later, she moved to Ron Hook's St. Jacobs Antique Market.
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- "At various times, I was also in the Elora Antique Warehouse
(until it closed), the
Waterloo County Antique Warehouse, Shakespeare dealers' co-op,
Shadfly and
Southworks."
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- In October 2007, Olga bought a commercial space in the heart
of Elora on the Grand River. Her new shop, also called Hands
To Work, opened just before Christmas with antiques, art, and
books.
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- Olga says she began closing her booths one at a time after
opening the Hands To Work antiques shop.
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- She says two things motivate her in the business: "Beautiful
objects and interesting people. When the two intersect, magic
happens."
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- Olga can be reached at odomjan@handstowork.elora.on.ca
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