Linda Taylor has her own hall of fame
in the greeting card business

BY STEVE BUTCHER

The wonder is how a narrow, rectangular alcove could be so tidily and artfully packed with a dozen tables, shelves, cases and chairs.

The workbench is barely large enough to accommodate a cup of tea—one cream, one sweetener—and two steady hands. In the near corner a floor lamp casts a weak circle of light over a multi-drawered storage bin that is crammed with tape, pencils, paper, scissors, stamps, stickers, glue, rulers and the miscellanea of a business painstakingly constructed upon small details. The exposed concrete ceiling and the cement floor make conversation difficult, and visitors are often focused more upon the nearby restrooms than upon the several display racks arrayed in a semi-circle around the handsome, bespectacled woman whose attention is focused upon a piece of stock that she is turning into a birthday card.

But Linda Taylor, owner of Adnil’s Design—one of 38 businesses in the Global Market, operating since June in the re-opened Sears building—is thrilled. She is thrilled by her location, thrilled by her proximity to the other merchants, thrilled by the ugly ceiling (“It’s better than sitting outside in the rain at the Midtown Farmer’s Market!”), and thrilled even by the restrooms, which, in her estimation, are actually responsible for increasing the daily traffic past her table. Best of all, says Taylor, she is thrilled that she no longer commutes two hours each way to an overnight cleaning job at a casino, which is what she did for seven months before she signed her lease at the Market. “The casino was a steady job, but this is my thing,” she says. “I’m in tune with what I want to do.”

Taylor’s journey to Global Market entrepreneur has taken her from public assistance, to an hourly lunch counter job at Snyder’s Drug, to factory work, to the casino, to her current spot —a tamale’s throw La Loma. “I chose welfare for four or five years so that I could be a parent, but then I went to work. I got off welfare as soon as I could; I did not want to be part of the system.”

One measure of her progress is a sunny personality that makes time for anyone passing by the table, whether they are carrying a pocket book, or pushing a trash cart. “I know how to love and nurture,” she says. “My mother was a stay-at-home mom. And I lived in the Phillips neighborhood for 17 years. People say ‘Phillips? With five kids? How did you do it?’ It’s about the upbringing. I had to be a role model, with everything happening there from A to Z.”

Taylor traces her creative energy to her grandparents, who, in the 1940s, moved from Tennessee to Peoria, Ill. “My grandmother used to do laundry,” she says. “She charged two dollars for a bushel basket, and she also worked as a chef, a domestic and a caregiver. My grandfather was a railroad man, and he also used to sell coal from house to house. My father was an engineer for Caterpillar, and he also built houses, and sold eggs.” Taylor has braided rugs, carved wood and painted, but she has gradually narrowed her focus to paper goods: bags decorated with shells or buttons, coasters, CD cases, notebooks and—most of all—cards.

“I liked painting with oil and acrylic, but that’s expensive,” she says. “You have to buy canvas and paints and brushes. I can do a card in 20 minutes.” After a 1991 auto accident forced her out of work, she drew on the philosophy she inherited from her father. “He believed in discipline and diligence,” she says. “‘Patience’ was his favorite word. He used to tell us, ‘Everything and anything doesn’t happen overnight.’” She had enough confidence in her skills to begin thinking about launching her own business. She hooked up with the Courage Center, where she had undergone therapy for her accident injuries, and arranged to sell some of her cards through the center’s gift shop. In 1995 she started a home business called Linda’s Variety that, in 2006, became Adnil’s Design.

She acknowledges some nervousness about the financial gamble of a small business—the Global Market charges her $350 a month for rent, past debts are a constant worry, and she has, so far, been unable to get the kind of loan that would enable her to improve the décor and appearance of her alcove. “This summer has been slow for everyone,” she says. “It’s not just me. I would like to see [the Market] do another Open House-Fall Festival in September to get things going.” She does not yet do the kind of high volume sales that will enable her to hire the extra help she needs to be able to take a regular day off. Days when she can barely keep her eyes open, she sends her daughter in to pinch hit for her.
But she appreciates the irony of working in a building that just a couple of years ago sat like an abandoned shipwreck on a deserted beach. “My daughter started working here [for Sears] when she was in the 10th grade,” she says. “I came here when I was a girl, and I used to come and get bargains for my son. I’ll see a daughter coming in with a grandmother in a wheelchair, and the grandmother will remember something from before.”

She likes what the Global Market has done, and she is always contemplating ways to improve Adnil’s Design. “The merchants here give each other discounts,” she says. “We watch out for each other. I would like to see more cross-trading like that. I think about the different ways I can decorate, and about how I can do something different for Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas.” She holds up for inspection the birthday card she has just finished. “People always ask me, ‘You make these cards?’ My cards are all personalized, just like the stars are personalized.”