Making Beauty From Beads Gave Mom Reason To Live
Melanie Haun strung together friends as easily as the beads she turned into necklaces and bracelets.
Those who shopped at her Raleigh store, Bead Delite, came for more than just the selection of supplies. They also came for the company.
“If you were a customer, you were a friend. That was Melanie,” said Mary Hall, a regular at the store. “The first time I was in the store, I thought ‘I could just stay here all day.’ The atmosphere was awesome.”
Some would come on their lunch hour, as much to chat and visit as to shop, calling ahead to see what they could bring Haun to eat.
“Mom wasn’t a pushy salesperson,” said her daughter, Kathy Carpenter. “She definitely had a personal interest in every customer. They would just sit and talk.”
Haun died unexpectedly of an aneurysm in October, but her family and others are working to keep the store going as a memorial to her.
“She wanted local designers to have outlets for their creations,” said Carolyn Williams, Haun’s friend and the store’s manager. “The community has already lost out because she has passed away. We don’t want the beading and design community to lose any more.”
Haun came to beading late in life, after a diagnosis of myasthenia gravis sent her into a period of depression.
For years before becoming ill, she had worked in advertising and, later, in education, first preschool then as an elementary school teaching assistant. In between, she was a stay-at-home mom.
About five years ago, the Henderson native began having vision problems, said her husband, Harold. Soon, her face began to droop.
The myasthenia gravis diagnosis meant the doctors could prescribe medication to control the symptoms of the autoimmune disease. But it also sent the normally vibrant woman who had been looking forward to an active retirement into an emotional tailspin.
As a mix of 18 medications slowed her symptoms, Haun began exploring a long-held interest in crafting. She had tried beading before. Now she tried again, and this time it stuck. Her new passion pulled her out of her chair and replaced that vacant gaze with focus.
As her beading habit grew, she tried various venues to sell the jewelry she had created, but none of them seemed quite right. Her husband persuaded her to “reinvest” what she was creating; they took out a mortgage on their home which had been paid for with two teachers’ salaries, and in 2006, Bead Delite opened.
“It gave my mom a reason to live. It got her excited,” said her son, Michael Haun.
As well as providing a gathering place for customers and friends, the store also provided a place to display Haun’s work, characterized by her ability to take beads that others rejected but that she saw potential in.
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