Sole business in McHenry County’s smallest village on the brink as COVID-19 deprives Greenwood of gathering

Heather Ferris still has big plans for The General Store, the only retailer within the borders of McHenry County’s least populous village, Greenwood, which is home to about 250 people.

By the end of next year or in early 2022, Ferris wants to have a bar installed and a license to serve alcohol obtained, and not just for at-home consumption like it does now. She is also working to make upgrades to the building, components of which are a part of the original 1894 structure.

She thinks that would make it an even busier gathering place than it already was before the COVID-19 pandemic. The General Store is the only spot in town for Greenwood residents to get together to buy a coffee, deli sandwiches, beer, candy, scoops of ice cream and an array of grocery items.

But the COVID-19 pandemic has threatened the viability of continuing to run the store, the operations of which Ferris and her husband, John Ferris, who also serves as Greenwood’s village president, took over last year.

It was difficult, said Heather Ferris, who is also the village treasurer, to find financing to buy the building, the historic nature of which means a great deal to the few hundred people who call Greenwood home. When the coronavirus invaded Illinois this year, any hope of obtaining a formal bank loan to purchase it this year went out the window, she said.

Nearby Creekside Country Store has also struggled with the effects of the COVID-19 outbreak.

Creekside has experienced difficulty maintaining stock of some grocery items, including beer brands like Miller and Coors, due to supply chain issues since the virus hit the state, said Karni Kahlon, who, together with partner Jas Kahlon, has run Creekside Country Store on Barnard Mill Road in Wonder Lake for six years.

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Greenwood's General Store General Store employee Sharon Consentino stocks a beer fridge Tuesday, Dec. 15, inside a section of the Greenwood store, which used to serve as the township's post office. The building has been a general store since its construction in 1894. (Matthew Apgar/Matthew Apgar - mapgar@shawmedia.com)

“We know we’re not the only ones suffering, everybody is because of this whole pandemic,” Jas Kahlon said.

The owner of The General Store’s building, William Hadley Streng, noticed the store’s bank account dwindling to a concerning level as the outbreak was keeping many people from visiting, and he held a phone call with Ferris earlier this month to make sure she wanted to keep managing the store, Ferris said.

She reassured him that she wanted to continue with the arrangement allowing the Ferris’ rent payments made over recent months to count toward the sale price when the couple is able to borrow the money to make an offer.

“It is the only place to go, unless you want to go into Woodstock or downtown Wonder Lake, which isn’t really easy depending on what side of the lake you’re on,” Heather Ferris said. “People have really responded since we put a plea out on Facebook saying, ‘If you want our doors to stay open you have to start to come in.’”

Seeing support for Creekside expressed on social media, just as Ferris has noticed for The General Store, has been a motivating force during the tough stretches for each business.

“It has helped, the positive feedback. It’s been nice,” Karni Kahlon said.

Creekside Country Store has also found new ways to serve the community and generate some revenue. Earlier on in the pandemic, the convenience store began delivering products to elderly residents living nearby, and last month it held a raffle for $300 in Walmart gift cards along with $200 in Chipotle gift cards, providing customers an entry into the contest for every $20 spent to help bring people into the store.

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Creekside Country Store Creekside Country Store co-owner Karni Kahlon helps stock the store with clerk Pam Donzelli on Wednesday, Dec. 16, 2020, in Wonder Lake. (Matthew Apgar/Matthew Apgar - mapgar@shawmedia.com)

The General Store has been helped by the men’s and women’s groups that met either weekly or every other week for coffees and deli sandwiches prepared at the store instead ordering by phone and picking up their meals for socially distant lunchtime chats.

“It’s a meeting place, where kids go for ice cream on their birthdays,” Ferris said. “It’s obviously very important to a lot of people that we’re still here.”

Angela Ortiz, a Greenwood resident, is one of those people. Her mother and her daughter are among the store’s eight employees that all work between 10 and 30 hours a week, and Ortiz used to lead meetings of a local Girl Scouts troop in the business. The General Store has not shed any workers during the pandemic.

“Without that there, it would be kind of like a ghost town,” Ortiz said of the store.

She has been proud to teach the scouts she was leading and her own children about the building’s past, which also has educated them on the wider area’s history, Ortiz said.

Over the years, The General Store has served as a U.S. Post Office, a stagecoach stop, a store and a restaurant with a hotel upstairs, Ferris said.

“There would be nothing to do without it. There would be no history. It brings back all the memory of the little town, to keep the general store intact,” Ortiz said.