The gifts are all gone from Helen’s Shop. The Main Street landmark closed its doors Monday, ending 56 years of local service.

“I’m ready to take a lot of days off,” said Sandra Martin, sole proprietor for the past 32 years. Before Martin took over, her mom, Helen Fenn, operated the store for 30 years, including for six years in Petersburg.

Like her mother, Martin has served as repairman for people needing eyeglasses or jewelry fixed, or work on their wristwatches.

Cruise passengers Don and Fausta Smith of Hanover, Ontario, were customers on a recent Wednesday, replacing a dead battery in her watch. “It’s been off for a couple days and she’s been grumbling,” Don said.

In little time, Martin took apart the watch and slipped in a new battery. Total bill: $2.26.

Besides making repairs, Martin sold watches and a variety of fine gifts, specializing in special occasions like Mother’s Day, birthdays and weddings. She was planning to close in September, but sold out her inventory.

Looking back, the best thing about the job was making friends, she said.

“There were people I met maybe once and we corresponded or you get to know people through things that happen. Someone I haven’t seen for five years would walk in and say, ‘You’re still here!’ The people that I served were the highlight of the whole business.”

There are also the same people who’ve been in and out of the store for 25 years she’s gotten to know well. Everyone has had a comment about the place closing, she said. “For some of them, if they had their way, I’d never retire. But just like in business, things change. I’m thankful for having had the opportunity to serve the people of Haines.”

Martin moved to Haines when she was 11, attended high school here, then went to college outside, studying accounting. She worked as a public accountant in Port Angeles, Wash. and Haines, and clerked in the store one year before buying out her mother in 1978.

In a 2003 newspaper story, Fenn, who started out as a clerk in a dry goods and jewelry store, described launching the business in a 6-by-13-foot taxicab stand. “I used my last paycheck of $250. I had nothing to lose.” In Haines, the business was located near the former Moose Horn Café at Third and Main before moving into the new Gateway Building.

Martin said she was too busy with the store to take up hobbies and she has no immediate plans to join groups or start volunteering around town. She said she doesn’t have any grandiose travel plans.

“I’m going to try this retirement thing. I guess I’ll stay busy doing something, but I’m not planning on going back to work. I have my time coming, and I’m going to take it.”

Someone, Martin said, will pick up the watch and jewelry repair business. “I still have my stuff. If somebody’s in a tight bind and I can help them, I will.”

Lifetime resident Debra Schnabel said Helen’s Shop was a part of many lives. “As a girl, I bought my Ginny dolls from Sandra’s mother and I had my watch repaired by Sandra. It’s the end of an era.”

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