The Story Behind Swan Street Florist
The Story Behind Swan Street Florist
How a Scrappy Salamanca Woman Made National News with a Soup Can and a Gun
This is an old story. Perhaps one local old-timers from Salamanca will remember all too well, but one worth retelling for the chuckle factor.
My knowledge of these events all started when I called Swan Street Florists to order some flowers to be delivered. The transaction eventually took several phone conversations because there was a delivery delay due to a storm. I don’t know about you, but for me, these many conversations mean I have a new BFF and before long, we were sharing stories. One thing led to another, and my new BFF James said, “You really ought to call our previous owner, Carol, who is now retired. She has a funny story about some things that went on here years ago.” (Her daughter, Amy Rivera, now owns the shop.)
Carol Ellis is the daughter of Leonard and Shirley Weatherly who raised four kids on Swan Street running what was then Leonard’s Grocery as a second-generation owner. Apparently, the store was an easy mark. It was burglarized many times. Leonard was likely an easy target because he was handicapped with cerebral palsy, limiting use of one of his arms. Born above the store, he spent his whole life there, running it with his wife for forty years. When he turned 60, his daughter, Carol, concerned for his physical limitations, suggested he sell the store to her.
And so it happened that he did. On the very day he sold her the store (September 1984), after it was closed for the evening, Carol’s sister, Elizabeth, had come in from Florida for the festivities. There was a TV in the store, so she stopped in to hang around and watch. No sooner was Carol setting down the punch bowl for the community celebration they were having the next day when the door flew open and in walked a man in a trench coat with a stocking over his face and a gun in his hand, announcing a robbery. Now, Carol, being an old hand at facing off would-be burglars (it happened several times before) knew she had to not only subdue him somehow, but also keep him there for the police or she could not press charges if he got away. She learned this from previous robberies when the bad guys got away, were found later, but were not apprehended on the property or with goods so nothing happened. She wasn’t letting that happen again. As for the gun, she had toy guns waved at her before. She was fearless as she grabbed the stocking off his face (thinking he would be someone she knew – he was not). She yelled to her sister to lock the door and call 911 which must have made him rethink things as he tried to get out of there. But by then, Carol had grabbed a tomato soup can and clocked him on the head with it, got him down, grabbed the gun and smacked him with that and got on top of him to hold him down. When he tried to get up, she yelled to her sister to help come sit on him. When he struggled, she told her sister to kick him in his most vulnerable spot to which her sister said, “I can’t, you are sitting on…"
Which is how the police found them - sitting on the bad guy.
Apparently, this story, retold to the grand jury had the ladies on the jury positively tittering, and supporting Carol completely. Incidentally, the wanna-be thief was not a local kid, as Carol had assumed, pre-unveiling. He was a vagrant from Lackawanna. He headed to Salamanca because he heard about the one-armed store owner who was a pushover. And, oh yes, the gun was real and had one shot loaded in the chamber. Carol Ellis recalls the fact that it did not discharge a “God wink.” Undeterred, they had the community celebration the next day as planned. Finally, after two years of jumping every time the door closed in the grocery store at night, Carol decided to switch gears and started selling flowers. After all, what better thing is there to do with a four-door beer cooler???
This story made local news, then Buffalo news and then, somehow found its way to the news desk of American radio broadcaster for ABC News, Paul Harvey. His programs reached as many as 24 million people per week. If you were glued to your radio back in September of 1984 you might have heard mention of this story about the fearless Weatherly sisters in Salamanca, NY. Some stories are just worth re-telling.