Retiree McQuillan Owned Feed Store For 35 Years
Gladys McQuillan of Noel is retired now, but she and her late husband, Edward, ran a feed store, McQuillan Feed, in Noel for 35 years.
McQuillan and her husband both grew up in Noel and attended the same small, rural school.
“I was blessed with good parents. I went to a country school for the first eight years. There were just 30 kids in the first eight grades. It was very small. I graduated eighth grade there,” McQuillan said. After the eighth grade, she went to high school at Southwest City, and her future husband went to high school at Noel.
“We grew up together. Our families were good friends,” she said. The couple married right after graduating high school in 1952.
For 35 years, the couple ran the feed store in the building next door to Landon Feed in Noel.
“My husband hauled feed to different farms, and I just worked part time while he was busy delivering,” McQuillan said. “We also raised broiler chickens for years and I took care of the chickens. We hauled hay in the summer to make ends meet. We bought walnuts and hulled them, and after we hulled them we hauled them to Gravette to the Gravette Shelling Company. We had a lot of little side jobs. We dressed chickens for people who raised their own chickens.”
“Then you knew a lot of people in Noel. It was a small town — just about 500 people.”
“After we retired we traveled some. We went to Texas a couple of weeks every winter for about four years. My husband was an avid fisherman. I’d go with him every once in a while, but I wasn’t a fisherman. I didn’t have the patience to fish.”
McQuillan and her husband were married for 56 years before Edward died several years ago. The couple had three daughters — Vicki Barth, Beverly On-The-Hill and Terri Jewett, all of Noel. McQuillan has three grandchildren and five great-grandchildren.
“Our girls all live close to me. They all live close, so I spend a lot of time with them,” she said.
In addition to spending time with her children, McQuillan volunteers at a thrift store in Gravette, tends a garden in the summer and mows her own lawn.
“It’s huge. It takes me about five hours to mow it,” she said.
She is a member of the Noel United Methodist Church and the Noel Woman’s Club.