Andrews – Despite what she has done and been a part of, Nancy Purser modestly believes she isn’t as interesting as other people. In fact, she had a hard time believing her shop, Nancy’s Treasures, was voted as the Best Antique Store in Cherokee County.
Her downtown Main Street shop, Nancy’s Treasures, opened about six years ago – about the same time Deni Graves opened Marketplace Antiques and Keisha Dockery started Black & White Market in Murphy – and she admires both ladies and their businesses. She said they are all very amicable to each other, and even direct customers to each other’s stores.
“Our three shops are very different, so it’s sort of like we don’t compete,” Purser said. “I love antiques. I always wanted to have my own business, but I couldn’t afford it until I retired.”
It helped that a good friend, Jackie Burt, had just opened a business of her own on Main Street, and Bill and Lynnie Anderson had a storefront available.
“It just sort of fell into place,” Purser said.
Growing up
Purser grew up in Marble. Her mother brought her children back to the community she grew up in after her husband and Purser’s father, Marvin Coffey, died.
The family was living in Flowery Branch, Ga., where Coffey worked in pulp wood. He was cutting down a tree when that tree hit another one that fell on him. Purser was 7, while her mother was 27.
As Purser enjoyed the country life of growing up in Marble, her mother took typing classes and learned shorthand, eventually getting a job at the Cherokee County Courthouse in Murphy.
“I was proud,” Purser said. “She came a long way to be respected lady in the courthouse.”
She also remarried, making Eugene Crooke – then the driver’s license examiner for Cherokee, Clay and Graham counties – her stepfather.
While she was growing up, she never thought much of her parents’ positions in the community, but today she realizes just how important they were to the area. Her mother, Rose Mary Crooke, was the first female clerk of court for the county.
Purser remembers sitting in downtown Murphy with her nervous mother, waiting for elections results to come in. Each time she ran for the office, she won.
“Mama was very popular and won easily, but it was still exciting to sit down there,” she said. “And we always got her flowers.”
Purser thought nothing of it being special at the time - her mother always had worked in the courthouse, and people just moved to different jobs as local politics changed.
“Looking back, I can see her achievements much better than I could then,” she said.
Herald of hoops
At the same time her mother was an elected official, Purser was doing some campaigning of her own. Andrews High School didn’t have a girls basketball team, so she and several others “begged” for a team. By her junior year, the girls got their team, and Purser played guard.
“I got to start every game,” Purser said.
At the end of her junior year, she got married to Floyd Purser. The school would not let her play basketball her senior year because she was a married woman and, as result, could get pregnant.
During her senior year, Purser was in a program where she could get credit hours while working her job at American Thread. She did get pregnant that year, and was so sick she felt she had to choose between going to work or school. She ended up choosing the job.
As fate would have it, Purser soon was called into the office at work and told she was being let go.
“I was so confused and so lost,” she said.
Purser did go back to school, but found out years later from a friend with access to information that she was fired because she was pregnant.
“Back then, they could do it,” she said.
Purser was 19 years old for two days when gave birth to her son, Kent. She also had a daughter, Tiffany, and got to raise a granddaughter, Anna, who inherited Purser’s athletic talents.
“It was a most wonderful blessing for me to raise Anna,” she said.
Purser believes she was a better parent as a grandparent because she was older and wiser.
A different time
Purser went on to work at several different local factories – back then, factories were everywhere, she explained – and was given the responsibilities of a supervisor without the title.
“I’m naturally a very loud, bossy person,” she said with a smile. “It comes from being a Coffey.”
When Lee Apparel Co. opened their factory, she wanted to start from the ground up. Lee gave her the opportunity to be a leader, and she was a supervisor there for more than 25 years. Joe Gibson was the manager, and he led the supervisors to be accountable for everything in their area.
“That experience, the things I learned at Lee Co., helped me with my business and my life,” she said. “It was a good place to work and good earnings.”
In her free time, Purser continued playing basketball and several other sports, including volleyball, softball, racquetball and tennis.
“My generation, we played ball all the time,” she said.
The leagues for each sport were big, and some had co-ed teams. Purser said parents didn’t have to worry about their kids – they’d play within earshot.
She played so many sports so often that many of her friends would be surprised she had other interests, like the antiques that decorate her home. She enjoyed getting the exercise and camaraderie of being on a team.
“It was so much fun,” Purser said. “I miss it bad.”
Her last game was when she was 55.
“And our team beat the Nantahala High School team,” Purser said proudly.
Many of her buddies have moved on to playing golf, but she didn’t. She often wonders if she could still play tennis.
Love of Andrews
She and Floyd will be married 50 years in May. They have lived in Andrews since getting married, and while some of her siblings have wandered to other places, she is perfectly happy that this is her home.
“I love Andrews, I do,” she said. “It’s something else to go down the street and know everybody, and know everyone is behind you.”
Purser also loves the heritage in the mountains. That the heritage creates many wonderful crafts and crafters. She has brought many of those crafters downtown by organizing vendors for town festivals, and is one of the founders of the annual Christmas on Main Street event in November.
“That just evolved,” Purser said.
She and Burt were trying to get more people to shop locally for Christmas, talking businesses into staying open later one night to draw more customers to town. “That’s how it started,” she said.
Every year, the event grows. Terry Gribble leads the event, Bill Anderson handles the advertising and promotion, and Lynnie Anderson and Purser organize and do the layout of vendors.
Purser uses poster board to plan where each vendor will go, color-coding each by what they provide. Over the years, she’s learned where each vendor prefers to be placed and spends the weeks leading up to the event arranging the vendors.
“We really do put a lot of thought in making vendors happy,” she said.
They have had 100 vendors sign up for the one-day festival, now in its sixth year and already the oldest festival in Andrews.
“Our little festival put us on the map,” she said.
Purser will soon start mapping out vendors for this year’s Christmas on Main Street, which will be held Saturday, Nov. 23. Vendor applications are available online at visitandrewsnc.com on the Christmas on Main page and may be turned in at Nancy’s Treasures.
She volunteers her time for the festivals because the events show people what Andrews has to offer – and have the potential to bring more businesses to the town.
“I think we have such a beautiful little town,” Purser said.