Customers say goodbye to Elgin institution, Keeney's
Shortly before 6 p.m. Wednesday, Charlene Sligting-Doud made what is likely one of the last purchases at Keeney's Sporting Goods, which closed up shop — for now — after 127 years in Elgin.
She said she wanted to honor Patricia Keeney, the longtime Elgin businesswoman who passed away Monday night after a battle with cancer. Sligting-Doud bought a piece of jewelry — a butterfly broach — to remember her friend.
“Pat was a key influence in the community,” she said. “The butterfly is symbolic of new life. It would seem appropriate to find this. It's an ideal thing to commemorate her.”
Keeney's friends — many who volunteered to run the shop in her last days — and customers filled the downtown Elgin storefront at 19 Douglas Ave. to share memories of Keeney before volunteers turned off the lights and closed the front gate.
But Keeney herself wouldn't have made a distinction between people who walked through the doors of her store.
“You weren't just a customer,” said Tonya Hudson, executive director of the Downtown Neighborhood Association. “If you came into her store, you were a friend.”
The association billed the event, through Facebook and elsewhere online Wednesday afternoon, as a “fond farewell to a beloved Elgin institution,” which would be “closed indefinitely until further notice.”
A day earlier, volunteers said they were planning to keep the store open in the near future, but decided early Wednesday that it would be the last day they would keep the doors open.
It's unclear what might happen with the store down the line. Keeney cared for her 90-year-old mother, Kathryn, who friends say isn't in a position to be responsible for the store because of her health.
Keeney is survived by three cousins. One of them, Bob Mulroney, said the family hasn't yet discussed the future of the store. But for now, he said he wanted to leave things up to his cousin's friends and neighbors in downtown Elgin.
“I'm not sure really what's going to happen. I wouldn't want to second guess or project one way or another,” Mulroney said. “More or less I want to leave it in their hands because they are really like one big family. I wouldn't even want to interject or interfere with what's going on.”
A crowd of 50 or so people left Keeney's Sporting Goods at closing time, as volunteers shut off the lights and a sign in recognition of Keeney was placed on the store's front gate.
“She wanted Elgin to be Elgin,” said friend Victor Gonzalez, a local business owner. “Where people help people.”