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Sisters of the Heart proud of 13 years in Burghill
By Charles Erickson
Burghill
Across from the checkout counter at Sisters of the Heart, just beyond the display case holding the magnetic jewelry that has been one of the top sellers, near the back room containing Santa Claus in a crate and other original creations, is a stack of red plastic shopping baskets.
It is the sole chain-store touch in an enterprise proclaimed by its front sign as a primitive gift shop.
“I might be small, but I’m mighty,” said Geneva Cebula, the owner, standing behind the cash register on a recent Saturday morning.
Located in a pair of conjoined buildings on the eastern side of state Route 7, Sisters of the Heart is a rare commercial presence in residential and agricultural Burghill.
Cebula opened the store in October 2001. It shares a driveway with her house. Five days a week, from Tuesday to Saturday, she walks over and opens the shop at 11 a.m. and remains there until 5 p.m.
“It used to be an old auction barn, years and years ago,” she said of the facilities, which were vacant 13 years ago. “And then they used it for car parts and to fix cars and whatever.”
Prices in the store range from $2, for candles for tart warmers, to $350, for some pieces of reproduction furniture. Most customers pay the price listed on the tag, but some try to dicker with the proprietor.
“Once in a while, you might get an older lady who says, ‘Gee, I could make that,’” Cebula said. “If I see she’s really interested, well, I have a soft spot for older people.”
Her husband, Robert Cebula, died in December last year. They had been married more than 51 years. The Cebulas’ four children — three daughters and a son — remain in the area and come in to help their mother arrange the store’s inventory.
Sisters of the Heart had an open house in early November. The owner said many people stopped in. She sold her entire inventory of artificial Christmas trees.
“It was fantastic,” Cebula recalled. “Two great days.”
The reproduction furniture, new construction that is built to resemble old pieces, is supplied by an Ohio company. Some of the candles also are locally sourced. Cebula said she prefers not to sell things made in Asia. U.S. products help domestic workers, of course, but they also make this store different from a big-box store, where the shelves and aisles are full of products from overseas.
Until the mid-1980s, the property was a working dairy farm.
“We used to milk 90 herd of Jerseys every day,” Cebula said. Her husband also was employed by Delphi Automotive Systems. The family’s pasture lands now are leased to other farmers and used for growing grains.
Sisters of the Heart’s candles, furniture, Lotti Dotties magnetic jewelry and assorted goods are unchanged from how they left the factory. Other products, such as Christmas wreaths, are unpacked and altered before going on display. It’s value-added work.
“If wreaths have some kind of decorative stuff on them, I always add more or take some off,” Cebula said. “I want it to be unique to here.”
Cebula makes the store’s pillows and dolls. She also enjoys finding new uses for wooden boxes. These are filled with dolls, figurines, artificial pine and other items. When added to a room, Cebula said, they instantly become topics of conversation.
An old shipping crate was recycled for a display in which a Santa Claus doll was featured. But Cebula favors cheese boxes.
“The square ones. The round ones, if I can find them, because they’re not easy to find,” she explained.
Most customers are women. Two sisters, both in their 30s, were heard giggling in the back room as they shopped without husbands or children. Both made purchases. They did not use the red baskets.
“I have a lot of people from Pennsylvania,” Cebula said. “Greenville, James-town, Hermitage.”
For years, Cebula and her sister ran open-house sales at her sibling’s home. Cebula decided to launch Sisters of the Heart as a way to fill the empty buildings she passed every time she left her own home. It also brought some business to Burghill.
“Everything has closed,” Cebula said. She mentioned the shuttered restaurant a few doors north of her store and said she is proud Sisters of the Heart has remained a going concern for the past 13 years.
“There’ve been peaks and valleys,” she said. “There’ve been really good days. Of course, there’ve been not-so-good days.”