Ellen McKenzie sits comfortably at her desk in a nook of her downtown business, McKenzies on Main, surrounded by a plethora of beautiful things – from antiques to gift items. Halloween and fall merchandise are half off and in just a matter of days, she’ll decorate for Christmas.
“When I opened, I swore I would never decorate for Christmas until after Thanksgiving,” said McKenzie. “You can’t do that in retail. I found that out after the first year. But now I won’t do that until after Halloween and I’ve stuck by that. Others have been decorated since summer, but not me. Halloween is a holiday and Thanksgiving just gets overlooked.”
McKenzie, a product of the Hub City, went through the Hattiesburg Public School system. After HHS graduation, she headed to Randolph Macon Women’s College in Lynchburg, Va., where she studied the Classics and Art History, but the pull back to the Hub City was great.
“I was homesick the whole four years I was there (school),” said McKenzie. “Not terribly. I knew I would come back.”
Upon her return, she landed a job in the Bridal Department at Waldoff’s Dept. Store. She was there for a year before heading to graduate school at Tulane where she studied art history, remaining in the Crescent City for 12 years where she worked for an art auction house.
And then she just wanted to move home.
It was the pull of family and community that brought her back.
“I enjoyed life in the Hub City, growing up here, and pretty much my whole family is here, except for my sister who lives in California,” she said. “I love Hattiesburg. It’s a great community and very friendly.”
So friendly that there’s a donut named after her mother, Mary Virginia.
As Hub City restaurateur Robert St. John has added a variety of flavorful donuts to the menu at his newly-opened donutery, he added the Mary Virginia.
According to McKenzie, for as long as she can remember, her mother has made orange cinnamon rolls. “She makes own bread, with orange glaze on top and Robert St. John just loves them,” she said. “We grew up across the street from one another, so he’s known my mother forever and my dad and his dad were best friends. He just loved the sweet rolls and when he opened Midtown Donuts, he named one after Momma.”
The move home from New Orleans in 2001 brought with it a new challenge as a shop owner.
Having worked for the antique art and auction company in New Orleans, that’s where her love fell. She’s quick to say her parents had no interest in antiques, but her aunt and uncle, Dickie and Betty McKenzie, did.
“They knew I wanted to move home and they came up with the idea to open a shop,” McKenzie said. “Larry Albert is our landlord and he gave us a great deal, but we wanted to be part of the downtown Hattiesburg revitalization. It’s a great location because an antique shop is not a strip mall kind of store. It needs the space to have character and this space has that feeling.
“I love it down here,” she said.
The shop opened on Tuesday, Sept 11, 2001.
“We had a wine and cheese party the night before, which was a lot of fun with a great turnout, and then the next morning that (the attacks) happened, so it was officially our first day open,” she said. “Of course, that changed everything.”
Her aunt and uncle were her partners for 12 years until Ellen’s sister, Catherine, bought them out. “Now it’s me and my sister’s shop, but they are still very much involved.”
The sisters meet twice a year for market in Atlanta, where they purchase gift items – candles, books, and other decorative items to add a nice assortment to the store in addition to the beautiful antiques. The holiday items add a whimsical feel to the décor.
While the shop has a lot of local and state visitors, McKenzie has also welcomed guests from Luxembourg, China and other overseas locales.
“It’s not real often, but it surprises me how many stop in,” she said. “I think when people are traveling they want to go to the downtown area. They want to see what’s original to the town, so they end up down here. They can see Walmart and a strip mall anywhere.”
When she’s not tending shop, McKenzie enjoys travelling and recently returned from a 50th birthday trip that took she and her sister from Bergen, Norway, to Barcelona, Spain, over two weeks.
She said the trip is just a blur, but was better than she ever expected.
“It was great, the trip of a lifetime,” she said.
As she talks, a small bird flits around the cage sitting high behind her. In it are a Zebra Finch couple with unusual markings. The mother is sitting on a nest with five eggs.
“We may have Christmas babies,” said McKenzie.
Growing Up
McKenzie’s dad, James Frank McKenzie, was an attorney and her mom taught English at Beeson Academy, then returned to the University of Southern Mississippi to get her masters and taught a couple of classes at the university. The couple met when McKenzie’s dad was a Zeus duke and her mother was Queen of Zeus. McKenzie has known three generations of family on both her parents’ side.
When she was born the family lived on 22ndAvenue and when she was five they moved to Bellewood, within walking distance to Thames Elementary, where she attended first through eighth grades. Her mother still lives in the Bellewood home.
When she was little, McKenzie wanted to be an archaeologist then found out a lot of science and chemistry were involved and it was a NO!
McKenzie has one nephew in California, but her first cousin, Mary Moore Conville, who is really more like a sister to her because they grew up together and were both only children, has a son, who McKenzie considers a nephew.
McKenzie’s on Main
For McKenzie the hunt for items for the store is fun. But even better is finding the stuff for the store at a good price, which is a challenge.
And even though they carry a variety of antiques, they have merchandise, including decorative items, starting at $7. “I try and keep everything either antique or handcrafted,” McKenzie said. “Just because we have antiques doesn’t mean we’re expensive.”
She travels to South Florida about three times a year on buying trips. She said she finds really good prices because people retire there and don’t want all those things anymore. “They would rather have a beach condo,” she said.
McKenzie continues to work for the New Orleans auction company where she catalogs furniture at auction time. When she worked for them on a more regular basis, she traveled to Europe on buying trips.
“That’s really what got me to wanting to do this, because I loved it,” she said.
From mid-October to Mardi Gras is McKenzie’s busiest times of the year and then she just waits for mid-to-late October to come around again.
The store, which is normally closed on Mondays, is open during this busy time of year.
The shop is also open during special downtown events such as Art Walks and other events held to bring people downtown.
“Small Business Saturday (the Saturday following Black Friday) is probably the biggest day all year, short of selling a piece of furniture, which skews everything,” she said.
Dad
McKenzie has special memories of her dad.
After he retired, she said he’d come to the shop every day and sometimes twice a day.
When she moved home, “if I was late getting to the shop, he’d be on the corner tapping his watch,” she said. Since her dad passed away, her mother visits every day, bringing her iced coffee from McDonald’s.
She also remembers a party her parents had years ago before their married friends had children. “Mother and Daddy would have a Bloody Mary party every Christmas Eve,” she remembers. When everybody started having children, it wasn’t doable, so McKenzie became her dad’s elf, and up until her dad passed away, she and her dad would take the party to the friends.
“He’d make Bloody Marys, Mom would make milk punch and cheesestraws, and we’d deliver to their whole group of friends. “Even though I had a store of my own, somebody would have to come watch the shop every Christmas Eve morning, so Daddy and I could deliver the Bloody Marys, milk punch and cheesestraws.”
In addition to her time at the shop, Mckenzie is a member of the flower guild at Trinity Episcopal Church. On this particular morning she’d been at the church putting together flowers for Sunday’s service. She lives in a renovated home and enjoys the company of her cats, as well as many family members and friends who live in the Hub City and nearby.
As always, a traditional Thanksgiving with turkey, dressing, sweet potatoes, lima beans, corn casserole, will be celebrated at Dickie and Betty McKenzie’s home.
“My mother’s tradition is making the pies,” said McKenzie. “I think for one meal she made 16 pies. At times, there have been more pies than people.”
McKenzie said because everybody likes a different kind, her mother tries to be accommodating a mincemeat for one person and down the line, even trying out new recipes. “She has to have the traditional ones, even though I don’t think anyone eats pumpkin, but it’s always there.”
Christmas, which was held at McKenzie’s parent’s house until her father passed away, is now held at her cousin, Mary Moore and Ward Conville’s home.
Despite the season, McKenzie enjoys a friendly business that is open and accepting of strangers, just like the Hub City.
