Page 150 - South Mississippi Living - November, 2022

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THE STORY OF
otos by Madeline Simpson
There's a dynamic mother-daughter duo, Jeanne Brackin and Ashley Fillingame, behind Sadie Jane's Famous Wreaths and Sadie Jane's Fresh. The wreath-making business came first in 2008 and Brackin says it gave birth to the other shop.
Many people ask about the name, assuming Sadie is one of their names.
But no, Sadie was Brackin's beloved grandmother's name. “I always liked the name Sadie,” she says. “When I put Sadie with my name, it didn't sound right so I thought Jane would sound cute.”
It's been a long and busy journey that actually began before there was an official business. Both women are creative. Brackin says a lot of it has been out of necessity, and Fillingame grew up in that creative environment.
As a young wife, Brackin foraged the countryside for flowers and other creative materials. “I made do with what I had and made grapevine wreaths, paper roses and pine straw baskets,” she recalls. “I always dabbled in flowers.”
In 1989 she won a wreath making contest and was featured in Woman's Day magazine. She was on her way.
That led to selling things out of her
home and decorating for friends' parties. Fillingame got into helping her mom at an early age. Like the proverbial phoenix the ladies have risen from the ashes of adversity. Hurricane Katrina took the business of Brackin and her late husband, Mike, who died not too much later. A scrapper, she's done a variety of jobs, including cleaning houses, selling produce, and doing laundry for workers who came to help after the hurricane.
“I've had to do some stuff,” she says and can now laugh about the time she used
a relative's old van from which she sold decorative items. “It was raining and I turned on the windshield wipers; the one on the driver's side just immediately flew off.”
story by Lynn Lofton ph
Sadie Jane’s Fresh
500-A Courthouse Rd., Gulfport | 228.209.9976 | www.sadiejanesflowers.com
150 | November 2022
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