Jul 5, 2008

Finally ‘Out of the Woods’By Amy HillenburgReporter-Times.com

When Barbara Connell and her mother, Judy Lee, cast their eyes on the little house next to the Mooresville-Decatur Times, they decided it was worth saving. “We loved the character of it,” Connell said.

The foundation and the roof needed remodeling, the inside needed painting and new woodwork and the outside was crying out for vinyl siding.

Connell had owned “Out of the Woods,” an antiques and collectibles shop in Morgantown, for almost four years. But her history is in Mooresville. She is a 1984 graduate of Mooresville High School and grew up in the area. Currently, she lives in Decatur Township with her husband Todd and their two children, Ashley and Chris.

“We decided since we were doing all this remodeling, we would move the gift shop here and do everything right the first time,” Connell said. That was in the fall of 2007. And of course, life always throws a wrench into the best intentions.

“I was hauling stuff in and out, helping with the vinyl siding and suddenly, I stepped on a piece of it. My foot bounced off, and my other leg bore all the weight. I found out three weeks later I had a broken knee,” Connell recalled. “That was in November.”

She never wore a cast, but it’s taken several weeks for her knee to heal, and she’s suffered a lot of pain.

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