In 1985, Jeen Brown would have called herself a typical mom, in a typical town, living a good life.
Then not. When a car struck and killed her 6-year-old son, Brown said her life stumbled, leaving her disoriented and stricken.
"I didn't handle it well. I don't know how you'd handle it well," she said. "I was a mess. Even after two years, I still didn't know what to do. Nothing was focused, nothing was clear."
She couldn't know, then, what she'd do and accomplish. She couldn't know how well she'd get up. That with a nudge from husband Roger, a partnership with neighbors Lynn and Linda Thomas, and an eye for arts and crafts, she'd build a successful business — and rebuild a life.
Wimpole Street Creations, 501 W. 900 South in North Salt Lake, was started in 1989, a few years after the death of the Browns' son. It began as an answer to a question.
"My husband, who was doing everything he could to help, said, 'Why not go back to school?' " Brown recalled. "I graduated in home economics from the University of Utah. I was trained to be at home. So then he asked, 'Well, what do you do best?' I said, 'I'm a pretty good crafter.' Then he said, 'Well, why don't you do something like that?' "
She did. She began with a single stuffed bunny, designed and sewn at home. Lynn Thomas, an experienced importer, offered to look for manufacturers to mass-produce the rabbit. Linda Thomas added business expertise. The two couples — Browns and Thomases — shook hands and committed $3,000 each to the venture.
After the shock of the new (including a "baptism by fire" initiation to the world of craft-selling, at Disneyland, of all places) and the shocking immensity of what they'd taken on began to dull, Brown and the Thomases saw that something curious was happening. Wimpole Street was starting to grow. Fast.
"Neither Linda nor I took a salary for the first two years, maybe more," Brown said. "We just worked as hard as we could, and every bit of money we got we used because we were growing so fast."
From its start as a home-based business, demand drove Wimpole to hire seamstress neighbors and friends (at one time there were 20) to build the crafts, and employees to help with packing and shipping.
The business started taking over the Browns' home, so three years after it was formed, Wimpole moved to its first commercial building. Three years later, it outgrew that facility. Wimpole purchased a building on 500 South in Bountiful, which it occupied until about four years ago, when growing pains struck again, requiring a larger facility, which it built in North Salt Lake.
Today, Wimpole Street Creations is a successful craft and gift company, with a global market and a loyal following. Wimpole sells an ever-changing array of gift items and craft supplies to a broad domestic client base, and to Asia, Australia, Europe and the United Kingdom.
Reflecting back on the journey, Brown's voice still catches when she talks about the roots beneath Wimpole Street. The company was never about making money, or success or pride. According to Brown, it was about creating something in the face of loss. A productive distraction from grief.
It was largely because of Roger Brown and Linda Thomas and Lynn Thomas.
"It's been an awesome ride," Brown said. "I've had a life I wouldn't trade for anything, because you never know what's going to happen the next day. It's an adventure."
Before Wimpole Street Creations, Brown said she'd never spent any significant time outside Bountiful or Salt Lake City. Life was . . . typical.
Now, she said, "I have very dear friends in China, India and all over the United States. I travel too much during trade show season. There's an independence in it. I have an appreciation for people different from me, people I probably never would have even met before. I think I'm more open-minded now, probably I'm more progressive.
"My husband says I'm a women's libber," she laughs. "Can you imagine that?"
E-mail: jnii@desnews.com