Southern Jewelry News
  • Featured
    • All
    • Featured
    • Featured Retailers
    • Retailer Roundtable
    • Sponsored Content
    • Supplier Spotlight

    100% Recycled GOLD…
    What’s the big deal?

    Atlanta Jewelry Show to host RJO at spring event

    Atlanta Jewelry Show to host RJO at spring event

    From gaming to geek, Balefire Goods creates pop-art jewelry

    Florida jeweler celebrates 131 years, 5 generations of family jewelers

  • Latest News
    • All
    • COVID-19
    • Furry Friends
    • Industry Events
    • On The Move
    • Other News
    • Tradeshow News
    • What's New

    GIA introduces Cultured Pearl Classification Report

    Stuller’s Year of the Wedding™ to help rescheduled dreams come true in 2021

    Stuller’s Year of the Wedding™ to help rescheduled dreams come true in 2021

    GN Diamond helps independents prepare for rising luxury demand

    Jewelers Mutual Group donates $500,000 to three organizations in Band Together charitable campaign

    Jewelers Mutual Group donates $500,000 to three organizations in Band Together charitable campaign

  • Columnists

    Silver Spotlight

    The Retailer’s Perspective: My 2021 Resolutions and Restitutions

    The Retailer’s Perspective: My 2021 Resolutions and Restitutions

    Do you need a website?  Yes, but… (the answer may surprise you!)

    Do you need a website? Yes, but… (the answer may surprise you!)

    The Story Behind the Stone: Diamond Jim head to toe

    Materials used in Kristen’s Deco Delight project.

    Rethinking heirlooms in the time of coronavirus

    The Retailer’s Perspective 2020 in the rearview mirror

    The Retailer’s Perspective 2020 in the rearview mirror

    The Story Behind the Stone: Thank you, Sir!

    The Story Behind the Stone: Too precious to carry

    The Story Behind the Stone: Too precious to carry

  • Classifieds
  • Subscriptions
    • Newsletter Signup
    • Print Subscription
No Result
View All Result
Southern Jewelry News
  • Featured
    • All
    • Featured
    • Featured Retailers
    • Retailer Roundtable
    • Sponsored Content
    • Supplier Spotlight

    100% Recycled GOLD…
    What’s the big deal?

    Atlanta Jewelry Show to host RJO at spring event

    Atlanta Jewelry Show to host RJO at spring event

    From gaming to geek, Balefire Goods creates pop-art jewelry

    Florida jeweler celebrates 131 years, 5 generations of family jewelers

  • Latest News
    • All
    • COVID-19
    • Furry Friends
    • Industry Events
    • On The Move
    • Other News
    • Tradeshow News
    • What's New

    GIA introduces Cultured Pearl Classification Report

    Stuller’s Year of the Wedding™ to help rescheduled dreams come true in 2021

    Stuller’s Year of the Wedding™ to help rescheduled dreams come true in 2021

    GN Diamond helps independents prepare for rising luxury demand

    Jewelers Mutual Group donates $500,000 to three organizations in Band Together charitable campaign

    Jewelers Mutual Group donates $500,000 to three organizations in Band Together charitable campaign

  • Columnists

    Silver Spotlight

    The Retailer’s Perspective: My 2021 Resolutions and Restitutions

    The Retailer’s Perspective: My 2021 Resolutions and Restitutions

    Do you need a website?  Yes, but… (the answer may surprise you!)

    Do you need a website? Yes, but… (the answer may surprise you!)

    The Story Behind the Stone: Diamond Jim head to toe

    Materials used in Kristen’s Deco Delight project.

    Rethinking heirlooms in the time of coronavirus

    The Retailer’s Perspective 2020 in the rearview mirror

    The Retailer’s Perspective 2020 in the rearview mirror

    The Story Behind the Stone: Thank you, Sir!

    The Story Behind the Stone: Too precious to carry

    The Story Behind the Stone: Too precious to carry

  • Classifieds
  • Subscriptions
    • Newsletter Signup
    • Print Subscription
No Result
View All Result
Southern Jewelry News
No Result
View All Result
Home Featured Articles Featured

Gulf Coast jewelry family demonstrates remarkable things you can do for love

Liz Pinson by Liz Pinson
September 1, 2020
Share on FacebookShare on Twitter
Cathy Reed, owner of W.P. Shelton Jewelers, and her daughter Dianne Murray.

It’s been a year of incredible hardship – and Cathy Reed and her family in Ocean Springs, Miss., have had their share of it. As a family and hard-working team, they’re pulling through it together.

Cathy owns W.P. Shelton Jewelers, which was founded by her father, William Paul Shelton, in 1945. Cathy and her husband, Terry, bought the store in 1996. They ran a popular coastal jewelry store over the ensuing years, inspiring their daughter Dianne to join the family business. Their daughter Jessica is a bench jeweler as well.

This past February, life took a turn. Doctors found a tumor on the top of Terry’s lung, and later he started feeling sick.

“Terry never complained,” Cathy says. “Everybody liked Terry. He was a fun guy and a protector of the girls. He’d drive me and six or seven women over to Jazz Fest in New Orleans, drop us off and pick us up so many hours later. He was just a nice guy, a good guy. He always wore a fedora hat. Everybody called him Big Poppa. He got up every morning to make me happy, to take care of what I needed. If I said you need to walk 700 miles, he would get up and start walking. Terry loved music. Rock ’n’ Bowl in New Orleans, we went all of those places.” He also loved surfing, reading the classics, good conversation and Jim Beam.

“In February, after they found the tumor, we still went to Mardi Gras. We went as dead rockers – I was Jimi Hendrix, Terry went as Tom Petty, and a friend went as Janis Joplin. We were in a quieter area of the French Quarter, more on the local side.

“A week and a half later, we were going to MD Anderson.”

Gulf Coast Connections

Terry, in his ever present fedora, and Cathy Reed at Mardi Gras.

As World War II began, Cathy’s parents were living in Texas. Her father signed up for the civil service and was offered a position in Mobile, Ala., where he was trained to repair instrument panels. Cathy’s mother, Mary, also joined the civil service.

The couple lived in Mobile during the war, about 60 miles from Biloxi. “When the war was winding down, a friend said, ‘There’s a jewelry store in Biloxi – let’s go in together and buy it,’” Cathy says. “So the two of them bought the store. When they parted ways later, my dad stayed in Biloxi.” The family moved the store to nearby Ocean Springs in 1972.

Cathy met Terry – who had finished his tour of duty in Vietnam and was hitchhiking around the country with an Army friend from Biloxi. When Terry dropped into Biloxi with his friend, he met Cathy and never left. The couple married in 1975.

“My father trained him in jewelry repair, clock repair and casting,” Cathy says. “We all worked together. In 1986, we bought the store from Dad. Dad worked up until he was 90 years old, not in the store all of the time, but from home. He’d plan the night before for the next day – he was a very positive person.”

Daughter Dianne eventually started working at W.P. Shelton, “doing all the behind-the-scenes things – waiting on customers, doing estimates, book work, planning,” Cathy says. “Terry had quit coming in so much a year or so ago. We had bought a tiny condo – a pied-à-terre – in New Orleans, 90 minutes away, and I was taking more time off, too. The condo is close to the Superdome – we’ve been season ticket holders for the Saints for 20 years and just loved that, and we loved the live music there.”

After the trip to New Orleans in February, Terry was waiting for an oncology appointment. “One morning he got up and said, ‘I have to go to the hospital,’” Cathy says. “And he wanted to go to M.D. Anderson in Houston. They admitted him and said he was a great candidate for radiation and immunotherapy. He was very healthy – doing yard work, helping with the grandkids. But he never got better. He just got sicker and sicker.” Terry had to be intubated, and Cathy had to leave the hospital because of COVID-19 regulations.

Dianne meanwhile, was back in Mississippi running the store while caring for her children, ages 11 and 8. An employee walked out because of COVID fears. “We thought, ‘What are we supposed to do here?’” Cathy says, “We knew nothing about the virus at that time. And then the schools shut down, and Dianne’s husband was working the night shift. And there was a business to run. It really got to be a lot, and I was 400 miles away. Thankfully, we had two employees who were so good to help.”

Thankfully, too, Terry had a brother and sister living in Houston, so Cathy never had to stay in a hotel. “I am such an optimist. I was like, it will all be great. I thought everything would be OK.”

Die hard Saints fans, Terry and Cathy have been season ticket holders for 20 years.

However, with Terry on a ventilator and Cathy barred from entering the hospital because of COVID, the experience was heart-wrenching.

“Dianne and Jessica started calling MD Anderson over and over, talking to everybody they could. On April 3, Dianne called me and said I could go into the hospital on a 24-hour pass. I went in, and I stayed. I did not leave. The girls had fought and fought to get me back in that hospital.”

When doctors said they couldn’t do anything for her husband, Cathy hired an ambulance to bring her husband home to Mississippi after 33 days in the hospital. “I think he must have been affected by COVID,” she says.

Cathy was still optimistic it would all be good – “that we’d be sleeping at night, cooking healthy meals. But it wasn’t good at all. The hospice nurse had come, and he passed away on April 14. It was just me and the girls here.”

All this, while still trying to run the family jewelry store. “I’d say 98 percent of our customers have been understanding,” Cathy says.

In early June, the store opened back up Thursday through Saturday. “Now we’ve extended it to Wednesday through Saturday. It’s all I can handle now; we’re so busy and it’s just me and Dianne and our employee Celeste. Another full-time employee had foot surgery but will be coming back to help.

“Just like every jewelry store, we’re constantly wiping, cleaning pieces with the UV box and using the UV wand to clean cases. It’s been a change in lifestyle for everyone.”

Living Life

Last summer, in June, Terry bought 3 acres of land to make his own driving range. “It was a lot of work, and he hired helpers,” Cathy remembers. “He’d come home covered in sweat. Then in July, we bought an office building – really a house – next door, and in the meantime he was planning a surprise 70th birthday party for me. We made plans to turn it into an Airbnb. We were getting started on it when we found out he had a tumor. Our daughters took that over and worked with the contractors.

“Ocean Springs is a nice little town, an artsy type with people driving golf carts. We’ll keep working at the store and running the Airbnb. That’s what you do, get up and go. The name of the Airbnb will be Ocean Springs A-Go-Go.

Terry & Cathy bought this house/office building to turn into an Airbnb before Terry became ill. Terry called it Ocean Springs A-Go-Go. It’s set to open in September.

“People thought we’d be having celebrations for our 75th year,” Cathy adds. “Sometimes I’m gung-ho – the last of October, we’ll have a celebration, our annual storewide sale. We’ll have giveaways, and we’ll honor Terry at that time, maybe with an open house – even if we have to do it under a tent!”

For more information about W.P. Shelton Jewelers, call 228-875-4842 or visit www.wpsheltonjewelers.com.

Liz Pinson

Liz Pinson

Liz Pinson has worked in journalism and publishing for more than 35 years, including 10 years as a copy editor, page designer and writer with The Charlotte Observer and 15 years as an associate editor with American Media. Liz holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Marshall University and is currently a freelance writer, editor and graphic designer based in Greensboro. She has enjoyed contributing monthly features to Southern Jewelry News and Mid-America Jewelry News since 2009.

Related Posts

Atlanta Jewelry Show to host RJO at spring event

Atlanta Jewelry Show to host RJO at spring event

January 9, 2021

From gaming to geek, Balefire Goods creates pop-art jewelry

December 31, 2020

Florida jeweler celebrates 131 years, 5 generations of family jewelers

December 31, 2020

Retailer Roundtable Q: What do you do to differentiate your store from online and big-box competition?

December 31, 2020

Latest News

Featured Articles

100% Recycled GOLD…
What’s the big deal?

January 13, 2021
What's New

GIA introduces Cultured Pearl Classification Report

January 13, 2021
Other News

Stuller’s Year of the Wedding™ to help rescheduled dreams come true in 2021

January 13, 2021

Other News

GN Diamond helps independents prepare for rising luxury demand

Jewelers Mutual Group donates $500,000 to three organizations in Band Together charitable campaign

NAJA’s ACE™ It “Not in Tucson” Conference

Kentucky jeweler’s Restaurant Rescue Rally helps small local businesses

Stuller Inc. releases first catalog of 2021

Is your website ADA compliant?

Southern Jewelry News

© 2020 Southern Jewelry News.

Additional Information

  • About
  • 2021 Trade Shows
  • Media Kit
  • Contact

Follow Us

No Result
View All Result
  • Featured Articles
    • Featured
    • Featured Retailers
    • Retailer Roundtable
    • Supplier Spotlight
    • Sponsored Content
  • Latest News
    • What’s New
    • Industry Events
    • Tradeshow News
    • On The Move
    • Other News
    • Furry Friends
  • Columnists
  • Classifieds
  • Subscriptions
    • Newsletter Signup
    • Print Subscription

© 2020 Southern Jewelry News.