Four years ago, there was no such thing as Martha Nell’s Clothes Tree. Martha Nell Knox was the wife of Tom Knox, and she had never held a job. Knox and her husband lived together in Lake Highlands for 33 years.
“I was a wife, a mother, and a real, real good grandmother,” Knox says, laughing. “I went from home to college to marriage – that was all I knew.”
But all of that changed after she lost her husband to a heart attack in 1993.
“He just never came home one day,” says the 60-year-old woman. “Really and truly, I had to start my life all over again.”
During Christmas season, Knox helped out relatives with their gift shop in Waxahachie, her childhood hometown. Day after day, Waxahachie residents would frequent the store and say “Why, there’s Martha Nell.”
Knox soon realized how many friends and relatives she still had in the little gingerbread town and began contemplating opening her own specialty shop.
Two months later, her musings became reality when she opened Martha Nell’s Clothes Tree on South College Street.
Knox had no formal business training. While planning her store, she attended one business class that proved less than supportive.
“I left there so discouraged because they tell you how many businesses fail,” she says.
More useful was the experience she had gained as a contributor to neighborhood crafts shows such as Market in the Meadow. There, she and a friend had worked on everything from floral arrangements to T-shirt painting. She credits that bit of crafts experience, combined with good luck and strong customer service, for keeping her business out of the statistical graveyard.
Her store has filled her days with new activities, such as a style show for the Waxahachie Professional Women’s Association and the 29th Annual Gingerbread Trail Tour of Homes, which raises money for the Ellis County Museum.
If Tom could see her now, she says, “I think he would be real proud of me.”
