News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
Marsha Marr where she likes to be: at a sewing machine making something fit.
It might be an exaggeration to say that Marsha Marr has kept Sisters stitched together for the past 20 years, but it's an indisputable fact that Miss Sew-It-All has saved many a favorite coat and made fashion fit for thousands of Sisters area residents and visitors.
Not to mention making them look ghoulishly great at Halloween.
Marr is celebrating 20 years in business this week. She started Miss Sew-It-All in 1988 after she moved from Salem with her then-husband. She had been doing alterations and repairs in Salem and she decided that Sisters was a great place to open her own shop.
Marr said she's always loved to sew.
"When I was in eighth grade (home economics) and everybody was making aprons, I was making bathing suits," she said.
What's the charm? Instant gratification.
"I think it's the satisfaction of seeing something I've done," she said.
The Halloween costumes that have become so much a part of her business started creeping in in 1991 when she entered the Sisters Rodeo Parade. For years she provided costumes for kids and was herself known as Big Bird.
"I have 2,000 (costumes) now that I rent out," she said.
Marr can turn an ordinary Sistersite into a pirate, a gangster, a gorilla or Cleopatra with just a few moments in the shop.
Miss Sew-It-All has helped soccer teams and costumed kids for years. Now Marr is offering tuxedos so that Sisters youths don't have to pay premium prices at prom time. Her price: $50.
It's all part of a philosophy that comes naturally to Marr and has stood her in good stead.
"I've tried to bestow this in my kids," she said. "The more you give, the more you get back. I truly believe that."
Marr has gotten back more than she could have expected from a community that has supported her in good times and bad, through a divorce and into single-parenthood.
"This town has blessed me," she said.
Marr notes that even in the disposable society that has increasingly evolved over the past two decades, her services remain in demand. People still want that favorite coat repaired, or a pair of jeans taken in or taken up. Her business has never flagged.
Marr herself, however, has grown more selective in what she'll do. Repairing dirty horse blankets is in her past.
"In the beginning, I'd take anything," she said. "Now I'm a little more picky."
Marr said the best aspect of being in business for 20 years is seeing the kids of the community grow up. She's seen kids she costumed for trick-or-treating or outfitted for school turn into successful adults in the community and that is gratifying.
Marr said she has no plans to hang up the needle and thread - which means yet another generation of Sisters folks will beat a path to her door for repairs, alterations - and a cool Halloween costume.
Jim Cornelius is editor in chief of The Nugget and author of “Warriors of the Wildlands: True Tales of the Frontier Partisans.” A history buff, he explores frontier history across three centuries and several continents on his podcast, The Frontier Partisans. For more information visit www.frontierpartisans.com.
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