Shopping
Life lessons from a little shop on Washington Street – Evanston RoundTable
On Friday, Dan Toomey’s little shop at 709 Washington St. became just a vacant storefront.
But it will be a clear memory for Toomey’s family and the neighbors who used to walk by the place — and wonder.
“This wasn’t really a store, so I wasn’t a customer,” said Celeste Santos, who stopped by the shop on Wednesday to hand a sympathy card and box of four Piron chocolates to Dan’s widow, Maureen.
The storefront, about a half block west of the Metra viaduct, never really had a name. “We called it the 709 because of the address,” said Maureen, “or the shop.” It was Dan’s playhouse. A spot where he could store his stuff and meet neighbors.
“I remember watching Dan and Maureen setting up the shop,” said Santos, thinking back to 2018. “The next day, when I came, they had more stuff in there. And I thought, ‘This is not a store. This is somebody’s collection of things.’”
That’s exactly what it was: A menagerie of Dan Toomey’s life. A place of memories gathered over a lifetime. Keys, political pins, license plates, magnets, screws, Irish coffee mugs from Pat O’Brien’s and flags from every country he visited.
It was also a place where he could make a statement — by putting up a display each month in the shop’s large front window. The presentations, waited for by neighbors, usually celebrated holidays, such as the Fourth of July or Martin Luther King Jr. Day or even the start of spring.
“He always put something in the window that meant something to the type of neighbors who live in southeast Evanston,” said Maureen. “Even though he was a lifelong Catholic, he’d have the Advent wreath with a menorah and Kwanzaa candles.” His message: “He wanted people to feel proud.”
In some months, he simply shared a part of the collection, like his Pueblo pottery from New Mexico. “He was a teacher at heart, and you know teachers do bulletin boards,” said Maureen.
Eighteen months ago, Dan Toomey died of bile duct cancer. He was 77.
Before retiring, he had worked for decades as a hospice bereavement counselor, a special education teacher and school social worker. He also worked as a psychotherapist, helping others get through the most difficult parts of life or face their mortality.
“He planned every bit of his funeral,” said Maureen. “The reading, the songs, the church and who said the eulogy. But he never talked to me about how to undo the shop.” She’s not sure why. “I think undoing the shop might have been more than he could handle.”
That’s when the shop took on a life of its own.
Although not planned, the 709 became a gathering spot on the day of Dan’s funeral. “After lunch at the Firehouse Grill, we all came here,” said Maureen. “I mean, this place was packed with people. And everybody wanted to come and see the shop if they hadn’t seen it before. We had friends from out of town. It was a huge Irish wake.”
And for the next several months, she said, “it was a natural place for his friends and family, his nieces and nephews to come to. When they would be in town after Dan died they’d say, ‘Could we meet at the shop?’”
But by Halloween last year, Maureen realized she had to figure out how to disperse Dan’s assemblage, because the lease would end. She offered items to her kids and five grandchildren. Then she put a cardboard sign in the front of the shop: “Everything in the window is free. Let me know.”
“I was shocked,” said Maureen. “I was shocked at how people flooded to it.” She received notes through the mail slot. People stopped by. “One lady said, ‘I really want two skeletons. Is that asking too much?’ Dan had twelve skeletons. ‘No, fine,’ I told her. ‘You’re doing me a favor.’”
Many of the larger items, such as work benches, were placed on a big truck for the Rebuilding Exchange in Evanston, so they will be reused. Some things, like Dan’s postcard collection, went to the WasteShed Evanston. Maureen gave Dan’s styrofoam heads to the nearby Classy Closet so they could display and sell hats. And a few weeks ago, a father and son duo of roofers working on the building took the built-in bookshelves. The son told Maureen that they used to talk to Dan on the bench outside. “He used to invite us in,” he told Maureen. “And he always asked my dad and I if we wanted a Coke.”
“Everybody that has taken something has been somebody that wanted it, and that’s for me the best story,” Dan’s widow said. “I didn’t feel like I had to throw anything away.”
On Wednesday, Maureen invited her son, Shamus Toomey, daughter Bethany Goodman and her husband John Goodman to pick up the last few items before she handed over the keys to the landlord.
“It looks a lot smaller now,” said John Goodman as he studied the store, now nearly vacant, one last time. “That’s what everybody says,” said Maureen.
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