Treasures, good conversation await at flea market
By Andrew Griffin
The Town Talk
Andrew Griffin/The Town Talk
D.J. Faust (right) buys a collection of CDs from Martha Smith (left)
at the Leesville Treasury Chest Fleamarket.
Editor's Note:
"Somewhere in Cenla" is a new weekly feature that will focus on stories from off the beaten paths. The Town Talk features staff will travel the highways, byways and dirt roads of Central Louisiana each week seeking out those stories that might otherwise be missed because they seemed lost "Somewhere in Cenla."
Related articles:
This was a feature article in the Alexandria Town Talk
Scenes from Somewhere in Cenla
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LEESVILLE -- A steady and chilly drizzle was falling over west-central Louisiana that day and few people came out to brave the elements. There was a lone building on the north side of La. Highway 8 leading west out of Leesville towards the Texas state line, where a light shined. The sign on the front read "Leesville Treasury Chest Fleamarket."
Parking the car on the gravel lot, the warm light inside beckoned. It was late morning on a Tuesday in mid-March. No other vehicles were parked there.
Stepping inside, the eyes are overwhelmed with all manner of merchandise -- mostly old stuff (and a few new items) waiting for a new home.
The place was packed with everything from Dean Koontz paperback novels and old videotapes to old tools and a ceramic cookie jar in the shape of a smiling pig.
The owner, a woman with a distinctive New England accent who introduced herself as Martha Smith, sat in a chair playing solitaire on a computer near the back of the building.
Smith said many people come in and assume, when they hear her speak, that she left her home in rural New Hampshire because of some connection with Fort Polk. She is quick to point out that that's not the case.
"I met my husband on the Internet," Smith said. Her husband, a local man named Ralph Smith, wouldn't stop by the shop until closer to noon. "And when I came down here I fell in love with the state of Louisiana. No ice. I like the people. The people are very good. They make you feel at home."
Smith said she took a leap of faith leaving all she knew back in the Granite State. But so far, in the intervening five years since coming to Leesville and marrying Ralph Smith, things have worked out. She says that when she first started out, it was working as a cashier. But before long, the tenacious New Englander was opening a flea market. Eventually the first flea market moved and transformed into the current Leesville Treasury Chest Fleamarket.
"I wasn't lucky, I was blessed," Smith says matter-of-factly. "I had a lot of faith, a lot of help and a lot of dreams."
Smith said she met a lot of people who shared her interest in flea market shopping. In this particular shop there are six or so vendors who have particular areas set up where they sell their used treasures.
Smith acknowledges that her current spot, away from the main business district on U.S. Highway 171, is a bit isolating, but she said she kind of prefers to "be off by myself."
Still, she does like company.
"Here, it's like an extended family," Smith said. "We try to treat them that way."
Kenda Garnes comes in with Reesa Sanford. Garnes, who has a masonry business, said she sells items in the flea market because "it gets it out of my home."
Another local woman who helps Smith and sells items in the flea market is Louisville native Billie Crawford, who now lives in New Llano.
Crawford is a friendly, older woman with a keen interest in old things. She walks around the building and points out different things that the vendors sell, from a battery-powered dancing Santa and second-hand pillows and blankets to used golf clubs and power tools.
"Sometimes, if you talk to the people and it's their booth, they might come down on the price," Crawford said.
Crawford said she first met Smith "coming out to the flea market."
"I've known that girl a long time, bless her heart," she says.
Smith smiles and says of her flea marketing friend, "She brings me customers." And speaking of customers, the flea market begins attracting a few at midday, despite the inclement weather.
Smith says on some days, "it might be three or four hours before someone comes in. She jokes that with a reporter in the building, suddenly people start showing up, like D.J. Faust.
Faust, wearing a denim jacket and a "Jasper, Texas" T-shirt is looking around at the large collection of used CDs. After a while she settles on some familiar titles by Conway Twitty and Tim McGraw in addition to several others. Faust pulls out her checkbook after talking a bit about the videos and DVDs that are for sale.
"If it ain't action, I can't handle it," Faust says of her taste in movies.
Smith said her flea market is so full of stuff because she and her husband spend so much time traveling around the region.
"Recently we drove all the way to Sulphur. But we've gone as far as Beaumont, Texas," Smith said. "But you have to leave really early to get there and get the good deals."
And the man she spends her days with, husband Ralph, comes in, helping someone move a computer.
Ralph, a former truck driver who has endured much in his life, is still optimistic. Plus, he likes working with his wife in the flea market. The two of them live in a mobile home just across an adjacent parking lot.
Ralph noted that a few days earlier, two motorcyclists stopped by the store and told the Smiths that they were journalists traveling the nation's backroads asking people about their thoughts on the economy.
"He said that there weren't too many people willing to talk," Ralph Smith said. Then, he added, "When you've got a closed mind, you might as well keep the door shut."
Ralph isn't shy about talking. He especially liked to talk about his Christian beliefs, though the less prosaic and more unusual things like "the end times" and ancient technology that was believed to have existed prior to Noah and the Great Flood.
And his talk quickly moves on to other mysteries, such as that of the lovelorn guy down in Florida who made an entire castle out of coral. No one is sure how he did it.
Closer to home, Ralph talks about a woman who came by the store and though she'd never been there before but was convinced Ralph had been in her dream.
He also shares stories about divine intervention in his own life, like the numerous times his big rig nearly ran out of fuel on the Nebraska prairie, yet miraculously he coasted into the nearest town.
Then there are those moments, he said, when times are tight and it looks like the rent might not get paid. But the Good Lord comes through at the last minute, he says, providing them with the money they need.
An example of this was recently when they needed to pay some bills and a Hispanic man, who had been staying in the area while working on the four-laning of Highway 28, came in.
"He comes in and buys $300 worth of stuff," Ralph Smith said. "It was totally unexpected."
The man said he was going back to his home country to sell the items, mostly clothes.
Martha Smith said her faith is strong and that instances like that prove that she and her husband are being looked after by God.
"You can bank on the Lord," she said.
On the Web: http://www.geocities.com/leefleamkt (Leesville Treasury Chest Fleamarket, (337) 392-2607)
Andrew Griffin: (318) 487-6390; [email protected]
Originally published March 27, 2005
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