WAVERLY, Tenn. (WTVF) — This is a story about a year of a city, Waverly. It was in 2024 that I first met Loyce Holland.
"These are short dresses here," she said, walking through her dress shop Loyce's.
"I've have been in business for myself for 35 years," she explained. "I've worked in this town a total of 52 years."
Loyce knows everyone in the downtown Waverly businesses like the owner of Hal's Jewelry, Nancy Turner.
"Her dad started business in September 1987," Loyce said. "She's a special friend, has a special place in my heart."
Early in 2024, problems that started with a kidney stone placed Nancy in the hospital for a very long time.
"I would tell her, 'You don't know how loved you are,'" Loyce told me earlier in the year. "It was laid on my heart to help her."
In April, Loyce got the community together to do something. The event was called Nancy Day. Business was booming at Hal's Jewelry. The businesses of Waverly and surrounding communities gave items to auction and helped Nancy.
"It all goes to Nancy!" said one woman looking over items up for auction.
"Cause we love Nancy!" added another woman.
That was the last I heard for a while. On the last day of 2024, I went back to Waverly. After seeing the way people worked to help Nancy, I wanted to ask someone how she was doing. Well, there was no one better to ask than Nancy herself.
"I feel blessed," Nancy said, standing by a counter in Hal's Jewelry. "I feel blessed that I'm here. At the end of February, I didn't know I was going to survive."
Nancy ended up spending about 100 days of 2024 in the hospital.
"To keep me alive, I lost my legs below the knee," she said. "I lost this hand and the fingers on my right hand. That was a challenge and tough to accept, but once I knew that was going to happen, I said, 'Let's move on, let's do it, and let's start healing.'"
"Everyone here has played a huge role in my healing," Nancy said, gesturing to family members standing around the room. "I don't know what I would have done without any of them."
"You've just been amazing," she said, talking to Loyce.
"You're amazing," Loyce answered.
Though Nancy's now retired, her family will continue to run the shop. She told me back on Nancy Day in April, she was watching what her community did for her from her hospital room.
"This community, they're my rock," Nancy said. "They have gotten me through so much. It's the most difficult year that I've had but also the most blessed year that I've ever had as well. I'm ready to move on, put this year behind us."
Do you have a positive, good news story? You can email me at forrest.sanders@newschannel5.com.
This story by Aaron Cantrell reminds me of my first school in Dyersburg, TN. I was a student at Bruce School from Kindergarten to second grade until the school system was integrated. My parents graduated from this K-12 school in 1960 in one of the city's African American communities. After sitting empty for several years, part of the school was demolished while the rest was renovated and now serves as a community center for the Bruce community in Dyersburg. A local pastor is now trying to do something similar in the Cemetery community in Rutherford Co.
-Lelan Statom
