The articles from Coal City’s Ashamy Store have been transferred from the Joliet Area Historical Society Museum to the Grundy County Historical Museum. These items were given to Joliet by Sharon Asahamy Skaggs and her brother, Roger, because they later lived in Joliet and there was no museum in Coal City.
There are over 165 items ranging from shoehorns and button hooks to bench seats and wash tubs. A new Ashamy Dry Goods and Apparel display was created next to the Baum Store display.
The story of the Ashamy Store begins when Nicholas Ashamy came to the U.S. from Lebanon around 1900 when he was 17. He started with a suitcase full of merchandise, walking from farm to farm, selling his wares in the Braidwood and Coal City area. And he did all right, because in 1909 he opened a store at 495 S. Broadway in Coal City. His wife, Lizzie, minded the store, while Nick kept on peddling – with his new horse and buggy. Then, in 1914, Nick moved his business to 105 S. Broadway where it operated until 1981.
Ashamy Store sold moderately priced clothing and footwear for men, women, and children. The Ashamy children helped run the store – Fred, Newt, Adele, and Clara. The youngest son, Roger, became a professor at Lewis University, but he worked in the store on the weekends and then full time after he retired. But as Sharon Ashamy noted, business dropped off every time a new shopping mall opened. So, after six years of working the store together, Roger and Sharon decided it was time to close. On May 8, 2003, Sharon Ashamy decided to give the remaining items from the Ashamy Dry Goods and Apparel Store “to the wonderful, new Joliet Area Historical Museum, and be content in knowing that thousands of people down through the ages will be able to see and learn from these relics of the past.” Later, in April of 2022, the Joliet Area Historical Museum Board of Directors voted to transfer the Ashamy Store collection to the new Grundy County Historical Society Museum. The legacy has now become our proud responsibility.