Learning to let go of loss Johnson closing store

After one year of running Home Detail by herself, Roberta Johson is putting it up for sale.
“I figure I know enough to be dangerous,” she said of the home decorating business on the south side of the Iola square.
For most of their marriage, Roberta and Charlie Johnson were a team. She’d do the books and manage the store selling flooring and paint; Charlie would do the work of installing kitchens and bathrooms.
Charlie died in August 2012 at age 60, after a diagnosis five months earlier of melanoma, a deadly form of skin cancer.
“In February we noticed a mole on his back,” she said. By then the cancer had spread into his lymph nodes.
“He wasn’t sick very long,” she said.
Since his passing, Roberta, 59, has managed the store, “but I can’t do it alone,” she said. “I don’t know how to do the measuring and installation. I can order things and advise on color and textures, but to be successful you have to inherently know the construction side of the business, too.”
However, making the decision to go out of business, “wasn’t made in a day. I took the year to see how it’d go. It’s time to move on.”

ROBERTA Varval met Charlie when she was a student at Allen County Community College and he pumped gas at the Phillips 66 station. She grew up in Aliceville and attended high school in Le Roy.
Once they began dating, they were married within six months.
In hindsight, she’s glad they didn’t waste a minute before getting on with their lives together.
“We had a lot of wonderful times together,” she said of their 38-year marriage.
In short order, they had three children. Their son, Michael, and wife Tiffany live in Wichita where they run a graphics design business. They have two children, Gabi and Alex.
Daughter Linette and husband Paul Burton live here in Iola. He travels to Kansas City most days where he works as an engineer while Linette works in Chanute in Neosho County Community College’s financial aid department. They have two children, Amelia and Isaac.
And daughter Kristina and husband, Jonathan Palmer, live in Iola. Kristina teaches music at Lincoln Elementary and he is the youth pastor and worship leader at First Baptist Church. They have a son, Logan, age 2.

CHARLIE and Roberta worked together from the get-go, though Roberta knew it wasn’t her calling.
In 1980, Charlie went into construction full time working out of their house in Gas. In 1992, they bought the old Iola Planing Mill on North Street where he set up his workshop. In 1997, they bought their present location from Jerry and Betty Skidmore.
The move to the downtown square gave the business the visibility they needed and things hummed along. By then Roberta had returned to school and received a degree in education from Pittsburg State University in 1995.
In 1996-1997 she taught in Chanute elementary schools while continuing to do the books for Home Detail.
“It was too much,” she said of the workload. Knowing that Charlie needed her help, she quit teaching. Only one other time, in 2001, did she go back, teaching preschool in LaHarpe for one year as well as a couple of years at SAFE BASE, Iola’s after-school program.
Also, in 2000, Roberta developed kidney cancer when a cancerous tumor was discovered on one of her kidneys. It was found and removed before it had spread. Periodic checkups confirm she remains clear of the disease.
In 2010, times got hard at the store. “We had to lay off everybody,” she said of the recession. “Everything was dead. There was no business at all.”
Today, she thinks about teaching again, but knowing she needs to update her teaching credentials seems daunting. “And I still have so much to do here,” she said. Besides liquidating the business of its paint supplies, stains, and vanities, she also owns three apartments above, one of which is rented. The other two “need work,” she said.
Of the business at 9 W. Madison, “I’d like to sell or lease it,” she said. She has sold the planing mill to Andrew Beatty of Beatty Construction.

MOVING ON after Charlie’s death hasn’t been easy, “but I know it’s what I need to do,” Roberta said. Sitting in her office she looks around and says, “He’s everywhere,” which can be a comfort but also a sorrow.
“I’m adjusting to his loss. It’s a balance of hanging on to his memory, but also moving on.”
A woman of faith, Roberta clings to biblical sayings. Right now, Ecclesiastes 3, “To every thing there is a season, and a time for every purpose under the heaven,” is what is keeping her confident the move to sell the business is right.
“I listen for God’s voice. It’s very clear this is what I need to do.”