Many entrepreneurs find one business can eat up most of their time. So, is there even any time left when that number becomes three?
Billy and Kitty Caples have been married nearly 50 years, and they work three times as hard to keep all three of their businesses running, reports The Item. Lucky number three is a small fabric store Kitty recently opened to meet local demand.
“There was nowhere for ladies to buy threads or zippers. They had to go to Florence or Columbia to buy the material,” the Sumter native said. “I put a little ad in the paper and asked the ladies whether they would be interested in a fabric store coming to town. I couldn’t have a lot of inventory, but I planned on opening up a medium-sized store, and I got over 200 calls. The feedback gave me the confidence to open it, along with the Lord helping me.”
Caples said the store offers many types of affordably priced fabric, including fleece used to make blankets, cotton material for quilts and camouflage fabric to make nets for tents.
A few stores down from the fabric store is Miss Kitty’s Children’s and Maternity Wonderland, which has been open since March of 2009. Caples took over the store when Alice Robertson, who ran it previously, closed her store that same year.
Before becoming an entrepreneur, Caples helped her husband, Billy Caples, start his body shop business. The 65-year-old has been the owner of Pro Glo Auto Body Collision Center since October of 1981.
“It has been enjoyable,” the Lee County native said. “With any business, you’re going to have your ups and downs. However, we’ve been blessed to have been around for a good long time.”
“I thank God for our customers, which have kept our business to be able to survive. We also have good employees that have been there for a long time, which are like family. They are hardworking people, and without them we couldn’t have survived.”
Photo by Alan Levine