Consignment shop opened in son’s memory

By KELSIE VANDERWIJST

Times West Virginian

WHITE HALL, W.Va.

The Henline family of White Hall has opened a children’s consignment shop in memory of their son.

John Angelos opened on May 21 to help those who have experienced the loss of a child.

At 16 weeks John Angelos’ heart stopped beating, Hanzel Henline said.

“We opened up this store because we lost our son in November,” she said. “Although it was in utero, I still had to go through labor. I still had to do DNC and all those other procedures.”

Hanzel said there was no explanation to why they lost their son, John Angelos.

“The doctors say sometimes the baby’s heart just stops beating. It could be genetic abnormalities, or sometimes it just happens,” she said.

“When he came out, everything looked normal and there were no abnormalities or anything like that, so there was really no explanation to why his heart just suddenly stopped beating when I was 16 weeks along. We wanted the baby of course, desperately, and the fact that we lost him, we were grieving. We had no justification whatsoever.”

During the Henlines’ grieving process, they decided to do something positive out of their loss.

“What the store is about is trying to keep everything as low cost as possible so this way we can make it affordable to families who are just starting out, families who are struggling or even families who have kids that have a terminal illness,” Hanzel said.

“Our used clothes are only $1.99 a piece, and our brand new clothes are still low-priced considering most other department stores in the mall or even Wal-Mart.”

The Henlines are also donating a portion of their profits.

“What we wanted to do too is donate half of our profits, 50 percent of our profits, to families who have lost their children to help pay for medical costs, funeral costs or even help make a car payment or mortgage payment,” she said.

Besides clothes, the store has other things that babies need including Pack n Plays, cribs, walkers, strollers, etc.

John Angelos also offers trades with unstained clothes.

“You can bring in things that your children have grown out of and do a trade where we will give you store credit where you can use it to purchase whatever you need,” Brian Henline said.

“The whole thing is to help out the community. It is to give back, help families that need it and donate to causes that help families pay bills.”

The Henlines want to help out anybody who is struggling.

“When we went through what we went through, we realized how quickly the medical bills pile up, and it is expensive to have kids,” Hanzel said. “They grow so fast out of their clothes. You try to buy something nice for them, new stuff, and the next thing you know they are already a bigger size.”

The couple hopes to grow into a bigger store one day and go all the way up to size 12/14 in kids.

The Henlines are also grateful to anyone who would like to donate items that are not in bad shape and they are only lightly used and not stained.

“Ninety percent of the stuff that is in the store we bought at yard sales, liquidation sales, stores and different things to fill the store up,” Brian said. “We have some from Dollar General, K-Mart, Target, etc.”

The Henlines are also grateful for a friend at a funeral home in Jane Lew who took care of their funeral costs.

“His generosity is what made us kind of want to do stuff like this and pay it forward,” he said.

John Angelos hours are from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday, 2-6 p.m. on Saturday and closed Sunday.

The Henlines are happily expecting their second child.