Hardware Store Packs ‘Em In For Party

WAITSBURG - A standing room crowd packed the aisles of Waitsburg Hardware & Mercantile to listen to cowboy and western music, chat with neighbors and celebrate the Christmas season. The annual potluck and party put on by owners John and Marilyn Stelwagon drew around 200 community members this year between the hours of 11:00 a.m. and 1:00 p.m. Saturday.

It all started five years ago when customers asked the Stelwagons if they were going to have a Christmas party.

"What started out with just cookies and coffee, turned into a big potluck," Marilyn Stelwagon said. "Everybody who walks in the door brings something. That's just really how it got going. They just came and started singing Christmas carols one day. It was never something that was planned. It just evolved. And every year it's gotten to the point that we can count on the same people in the community coming in."

At the front of the store, patrons attacked three countertops piled high with potluck plates-elk sausage, lasagna, veggie trays, pies, and cookies to name a few. Near the register about 20 people crowded close, about half of them standing to hear the cowboy and western songs of Prescott's Nevada Slim and Cimarron Sue.

" When we moved to Prescott in 2007, we needed hardware like everyone else, and grass seed and all that kind of stuff," said 'Cimarron' Sue Matley. "So we came down to the hardware store, and got to know John and Marilyn and just got to be very good friends with them and said 'you know, if there's anything we can ever do let us know.'

"And they started this Christmas party, and it's just been a blast. It's a great place to see a lot of folks we see throughout the year at our performances. But this is different. Because it's just a big party with great food and the focus is on the Toys for Tots donations."

The very first year the Stelwagons chose to make the party more meaningful by holding a charitable drive for the well-known provider of Christmas gifts to children of needy families. A row of four foot high Toys for Tots boxes stood in the front aisle of the store, each overflowing with gifts.

"We keep their boxes in here for three or four weeks before the party, and people throw things in. Then we culminate it with the Toys for Tots today," said Stelwagon. "The first year we only had one box. This year we have four. There's been about $300 in cash (donations) that went in today as well. Today the basketball team came to volunteer to help with it and we never knew they were coming. We don't plan anything. They just come."

Valley resident Jack McCaw was one of the lucky ones to garner a chair for the musical performance.

"What you enjoy about it is people getting together and having a good time," McCaw said. "John and Marilyn, that's what they really enjoy doing. Slim and Sue do an excellent job. They're people who enjoy making people happy. And a lot of their songs, the older you are the better. It's easy for us older people to sit around and sing along with them, because we've known all those songs."

As the celebration has grown, Marilyn and John considered moving the party to a more spacious location, but the community would have none of it, according to Marilyn.

"We said maybe we should put it over at Ye Towne Hall. And they said, 'no, no.' So we have people up and down the aisles sitting on stuff."

No one seems to mind sitting on five gallon buckets, least of all the performers and their audience.

"It just gives you that wonderful hometown feel that everybody needs at this time of the year," said Matley reflecting.

McCaw says that feeling can be found at the hardware store year round.

"I'll have to say that if you want to come and meet people," McCaw said, "right there around the little round table at John and Marilyn's-that's the place in the community you can go."