Moment in Time (October 20, 2021)
Helen Winnemore, a Grandview Glenn Avenue resident for more than fifty years until her death in 1996 at age 95, is today considered by many as the founder of the craft shop movement in the United States.
Craft store owner and Grandview Heights resident Helen Winnemore in a 1938 photograph in her shop in her home on West 7th Avenue (Dennison Place) three years before purchasing her Grandview home on Glenn Avenue.
The Winnemore family had moved from Pennsylvania to Muscatine County, Iowa, where Helen was born March 23, 1901, the second of five children of Christian K. and Louise Beatty Winnemore. The Winnemores were farmers and Quakers (Society of Friends).
Helen and her older sister, Charlotte, attended Penn Academy and from there entered William Penn University in Oskaloosa, Iowa, where Helen received a BA degree in 1928. Her university transcript shows classes in religion, French, German and Greek, as well as the more common courses.
Her sister Charlotte received an MD from the Women’s Medical College of Pennsylvania (the country’s oldest medical school for women, now part of the medical school of Drexel University in Philadelphia) in 1926 and became an instructor at Ohio State University. In 1930 she earned a Certificate in Public Heath from MIT. Charlotte worked for OSU student health services, and in 1945 resigned from OSU and worked for the American Red Cross and Planned Parenthood in Columbus until her death in 1965.
At some time in the 1930s Helen joined her sister Charlotte in Columbus. They lived first in the area of Indianola Avenue north of Arcadia, then on West 7th Avenue in the neighborhood now known as Dennison Place. In 1941 the sisters purchased a home at 1367 Glenn Avenue in Grandview Heights, and their mother Louise, who died in Columbus in 1954, came to live with them there.
Helen began taking classes in Fine Arts at OSU. While teaching small children at Friends Meeting, she wished for child-size chairs for her students. A trip was made to the woodworking shops at Berea College in Kentucky, where she was asked to take home on consignment some items of woven goods. In November 1938 she invited artist friends to display and sell their work in the living room of her home at 394 W. 7th Avenue, open afternoons only. Participants included Andrew Pereny, Ralph Fanning, Marjorie Batcheldor, Paul Bogatay, Carolyn Headly, and Harold Mills. (Some items were in drawers that visitors were invited to investigate. “Going through the drawers” became a tradition of visits to her shop.) The works of several of these artists are in museums and collections and bring good prices on the internet market today.
In an interview at age 85 Helen confided that when she began her business she was so shy that she found it difficult to speak to callers. So she offered each visitor a cup of tea as an opening gesture. This became a trademark experience of Helen Winnemore's craft store, a custom that continued with subsequent owners.
Winnemore’s Quaker commitment led to her learning of the work of the American Friends Service Committee in cooperation with Eleanor Roosevelt in the New Deal’s first homestead community. Arthurdale, established in 1934 in Preston County, West Virginia was built to provide homesteads and employment for out-of-work mining families, and included craft shops in wood, metal, and fabric. Helen began in 1938 to offer Arthurdale woven, wooden and pewter objects in her living room shop. Relationships developed with various mountain craft guilds, and Helen’s regular trips South for many years brought a variety of carefully-chosen, finely hand-crafted items to Glenn Avenue and Winnemore Contemporary Crafts’ later locations.
In 1951 Winnemore Contemporary Crafts moved from Glenn Avenue to 721 East Broad Street at Parsons Avenue, in the first floor of a former residence. In 1964 freeway construction and the widening of the Broad and Parsons intersection brought about a move to the corner of Mohawk and Kossuth in German Village, an area then just redeveloping.
During World War II Indiana native Bob Stocksdale (1913-2002) was a conscientious objector and was assigned for volunteer service in western forests. While in CO camp in 1943 he acquired a table saw and lathe and began carving wooden bowls. After the war, Stocksdale moved to Berkeley, CA, where he continued his “quest for the perfect wooden bowl” until his death at age 89. Helen Winnemore is credited with helping to bring Stocksdale’s work to national attention, and Winnemore Contemporary Crafts carried Stocksdale bowls for nearly 50 years. Stocksdale worked in teak, Indian rosewood, pistachio, and other rare woods. Stocksdale bowls are today bringing high prices at Christie’s and other such venues.
In a 1979 interview Helen estimated she then had at least 50 craft-creator sources. By the 1970s, beginning in November, much of the shop space was given over to Christmas items. “An ornament (perhaps one shaped from glass, wood shavings, or beeswax, or out of several European traditions) from Helen’s", became a Columbus holiday expectation. At age 85, and needing two canes to walk, Helen was attending only about three big wholesale shows a year. She said, “When I do go, I know exactly where I’m not going to stop.” She also stated, “I am now into my third or fourth generation. I don’t have a clientele, I just have people.” Winnemore explained, “I want people who buy here to have the enjoyment of picking things out. I have been doing this for 50 years because I think it makes people happy. As long as I live this will be my daily work.”
In 1965 Helen was married to Stefan Horvath, who predeceased her in 1992. Jack Barrow became a shop associate in 1960. In the 1964 move to German Village, Barrow built the shallow wooden drawers that hold jewelry and other small items. For many years he was store manager, and in later years became part owner, and then full owner. After Helen’s death in 1996 Barrow had reached retirement age and quietly let it be known the shop was for sale. Sarah Kellenberger Harpham purchased the shop from Barrow and owned it for over 20 years, until it sold in 2020 to
Marble Cliff resident Julie Jenkins and her brother John Jenkins, owners of Fresh Crafts Gallery in Upper Arlington.
This article was updated from one written by former GH/MCHS Trustee Pat Mooney for our Society's Winter 2011 Newsletter.