Georgette Shelton has early memories of helping her father and Uncle Joe sweep up the family’s shop on Marshall’s main street. With its tall wooden shelves, high ceilings, and display of antiques, Penland and Sons, a department store that carries everything from clothing to shoes and books, has retained its timeless atmosphere.
“People say it’s like a walk back in time,” Shelton says, “That nostalgia is what they like about it.”
When Helene hit Marshall in September, it struck a hard blow. Penland and Sons was destroyed and Shelton, unable to get in the front door, had to climb in through a window and stand calf-deep in mud. The shop windows and doors had been blown out, and much of the merchandise washed out down the street.
“It was wet and cold, and it looked like a tornado had been in there,” she said. “We lost all our invoices, our catalogs, family photos; we lost everything.”
Shelton and her sister, Susan Rector, both in their sixties, had been running the store since their mother died in 2016. Though they’d dealt with floods before, neither had tackled a disaster of this scale and they weren’t sure what to do next.
A friend told Shelton about A-B Tech’s Small Business Center’s (SBC) free classes in grant writing. “My sister and I are trying our best not to have any kind of loans,” Shelton said.
At the SBC, Director Jill Sparks met with Shelton and told her about possible next steps, including grants and FEMA loans.
Shelton applied for a grant through Women Entrepreneurs Asheville Recovery Endeavor (WE ARE), an Asheville nonprofit started by local entrepreneurs Ginger Frank of Poppy Hand-Crafted Popcorn, Allison Blake and Elsa Van Arnam of Soulku, and Meg Ragland of Plum Print. The nonprofit, which is focused on giving grants to women business owners, was started when the founders raffled off local services and goods to raise money.
“Women-owned businesses are often underfunded compared to men-owned businesses,” Ragland said in a recent interview. “We’ve been so supported by our community, and we wanted to give back.”
Shelton’s application paid off. In early January, she learned she was one of four women selected from 100 applicants to receive $30,000. “I was surprised and speechless,” Shelton said.
Ragland said that grant recipients were chosen by a local committee that looked at factors such as a company’s longevity and level of need. Penland and Sons, she said, demonstrated that they’d exhausted all available resources. “Georgette had just bought two doors that cost $5,000. We saw they were in a difficult spot,” Ragland said. “They’d lost everything; the store washed away.”
The money Penland and Sons received will help with the massive cost of restoring the one-hundred-year-old building from the ground up. As of mid-January, Shelton had started hiring contractors to begin reconstruction. “It’s all lined up on paper,” she said. “We’re waiting for the weather to get a little bit better before we begin.”
In the months since the hurricane, a GoFundMe set up by Shelton’s nephew has garnered nearly half of her $100,000 goal.
After the hurricane, the majority of Marshall’s downtown was left flattened and destroyed. However, Shelton’s spirit remains hopeful. When asked if she ever considered letting go of her family business, she doesn’t skip a beat.
“No, (rebuilding) is something I want to do,” she said. “This place was started by my grandfather; it’s probably the oldest business in Marshall. The community would be disappointed if we didn’t come back.”
A visit to the store’s Facebook page affirms its popularity. Recent comments include this one by an older gentleman: Every year after Christmas, growing up, my grandmother would take us kids to Penland and Sons and buy us a pair of Redwing boots. Joe would fit us that day and we would wear them out of the store.
Does Shelton intend to change the store during the renovation? Just the location of the furnace, she said. It will be moved up out of the basement and away from potential floods.
“We are trying to keep it the same because people love the old nostalgia,” she said.
In the new shop, she also intends to start a display for local women business owners to sell their products. After winning the grant to help her own family business, she would like to give back to the local community.
To donate to Penland and Sons, visit
