Stone Furs to close later this fall

Snookie and her husband Jeff bought the store in 1979 and since then have been staples of downtown Medicine Hat and the city’s fashion sense.

When Jeff passed away in 2018, having the store and its customers was a sort of therapy for Snookie.

When she had to shut the store for two and a half months this spring due to COVID and she felt “pressure galore,” she decided it was time to step back.

With a store full of clothing that was current and no customers, nobody going on holidays, no chance to sell the stuff and bills to be paid, Snookie says she had a realization.

“I thought, ‘I don’t think I need this pressure anymore,’” she says. When she learned life expectancy for women is only 83 years and knowing she was just five years from that age, Snookie decided it was time to take it a little easier.

She says after taking some time to just relax, she’ll start doing some volunteer work.

Snookie says she has so many memories from her 41 years at the store that she should have kept a book, adding being in retail is kind of like being a bartender.

“People come in and they just dump and you become involved in their life. Maybe their husband’s sick, maybe their kids are sick or somebody’s lost a job or some big trauma’s come into their life and they share with you. You become involved in their lives,” she said. “You’d like to say friends but there’s two types of friends. There’s old friends you’ve had forever from high school days and then there’s your new friends. And I like to think I’ve made many new friends in this place.”

She says her new friends have been gracious since hearing the news.

“I’d like to give them all a big hug and a huge thank you for supporting our family all these years and giving us such a good life and being so nice and I’m so blessed to have had the life that I’ve had. And it’s certainly not going unappreciated and I certainly wish all the best in the world to my customers.”

Snookie recalls a big change that took place about halfway through her time at Stone Furs, one that took her life in a direction she never imagined.

When the Wellings took over the store from Sam and Sheri Stone it was all fur and leather, says Snookie. Over the years tastes change and activists groups such as PETA became more common, and you have to give the public what they want, she said.

“I was wearing a line of cotton clothing that one of my sales reps was selling just to me and I was getting compliments on them,” Snookie recalls and her husband suggested she bring some into the store. “If we hadn’t I think we would have starved because that’s what saved our bacon was the clothing. And then it became a monster, it just took over the store.”

Welling says if she was 10 years younger she’d keep going, believing that downtown is on the upswing.

“There’s a new feeling of vitality down here. We’ve got patio pubs and restaurants and it’s got a feeling of a bigger city. There’s some newer businesses, smaller ones and I think positive things are going to happen down here.”

by Chris Brown

Stone Furs to close later this fall

Our Community