The community of Haddock is definitely not a bustling metropolis, but one Jones County native is doing her best to make it a place to visit, spend time and maybe part with a little money.
Trish Ann Jordan, known at birth as Patricia Lyster, owns Trish Ann’s Antiques and Tearoom in Haddock. She was born and raised in Jones County and met her first husband, Howard Greene, while in school in Jones County. They married in 1961 and had two daughters, Kim and Kelli, before divorcing in 1971.
She subsequently married Pace Jordan while working at Claussen Paving. The Jordans lived in Augusta for four years before he took a job with C.W. Mathews Contracting. They lived in metro Atlanta for 25 years until his death in 2001.
When her husband died, Jordan decided it was time to head back to Jones County.
“I came back home and built the retirement home that had been planned,” she said.
It is located on Highway 49, and she moved in her new home in December of 2003.
Jordan soon realized she was restless.
“I’ve always loved old things,” she recalled. “And, this old store was where I had my first job as a teenager. I worked for Brinson Cooper in his grocery store right here one summer.”
The building that once housed the first Cooper’s Grocery was vacant when she started looking around. It was owned by the Pattersons and most recently used as a bakery. Jordan purchased the property and building in late 2005 and opened Jan. 6, 2006.
“I bought it and renovated it. Everybody told me I was crazy; don’t put your money in that,” she said, then shrugged and smiled. “I didn’t care. I did it anyway. I just wanted something to do.”
Trish Ann’s Antiques started small, but Jordan saw the room for growth.
“When I first opened, we only had the antiques part. Then, in May of 2006, I opened the tearoom. And I had only seven tables.
“I stayed full all the time,” she recalled. “One week, I had two groups of eight people to drive out from Macon and to eat lunch, and I couldn’t seat them.”
Jordan realized she had a decision to make.
“Either you do antiques or you enlarge,” she told herself. “So, I added on.”
Trish Ann’s Antiques and Tearoom basically doubled in square footage.
“I can seat 60 people,” Jordan said. “We do all kinds of stuff. I guess the best thing we ever did was Breakfast with Santa. Billy Mitchell was my Santa and my cook. Then COVID hit, and I haven’t done breakfast with Santa since.
“The other thing we did was steak night once a month. Billy was our cook, and we did our own steaks. It was neat, different.”
Mitchell, who lived just outside Haddock, was a wellliked Jones County sheriff’s deputy who suffered through a long illness before his death.
“After Billy got to where he couldn’t cook, it kind of took the wind out of my sails,” Jordan reflected. “I tried a couple of Santas and different people to cook steaks, but it wasn’t like Billy.”
Trish Ann’s offers space and services for a variety of functions.
“We do birthday parties, baby showers, bridal showers, church groups,” Jordan offered. “During the week, Wednesday through Saturday, we serve soup and salad with sandwiches. On Sunday we do country cooking.”
Who does the cooking? “Me,” the 79-year old replied without hesitating. “I do have a girl, my niece, Nikki, who works for me, and another girl that does casseroles and cakes.“ The business owner says she has three full-time employees as well as a couple of part-timers who help out on occasions.
Jordan maintains a sign-in log at the entrance to the shop, and she says she cannot count the number of different places from which visitors have come.
“I’ve had people from England, California, Arizona. One lady, not long ago, before Christmas, was from Key West.
“They are usually visiting people in the area,” the entrepreneur commented. “There was this couple that came every year for four yearsvisiting people in Milledgeville, and they came in here.
“I’ve had people come from all over,” she said. “It’s overwhelming; all I ever wanted to do was sell chicken salad and fruit.”
Even at her age, Jordan is not afraid to work, and neither are her helpers. Some weeks it may be 40 hours, but that is subject to the frequent events.
“If we have a dinner at night, we never leave,” she declared. “From 8 o’clock that morning until 12 at night if they stay that long.”
Jordan emphasized the work is challenging.
“What we do here at Trish Ann’s is hard work. Catering is hard work,” she stressed. “I am not a stranger to hard work. I was raised on a dairy farm. I always had chores to do that had to be done seven days a week.
“When I was eight years old,” she added, “I was driving a big tractor pulling a wagon loaded with silage for my daddy to shovel it out for the cows.”
Despite the hours and work, Jordan has no immediate plans to retire.
“If my health holds up, I will be here. I think things will be better, and I am going to work as long as I can.”
Jordan hopes that when the day comes that she needs to leave, either a family member will take it over or someone will purchase the building and business and keep it open.
“It’s good for this community,” she asserted, then mentioned a new Haddock tradition. “We had a festival, our first ever, the week before Thanksgiving. A lot of people came, more than I ever thought would.”
Jordan explained that a group met several years ago to explore ways to promote the community.
“When I opened the store, we formed a committee, Haddock Revitalization, just to see if we can make it a better place to live, clean it up and do some things. And,” she added, “we did; we bought all our Christmas lights that hang down on the poles. We have signs made up on 22, the entrance to Haddock. We did a lot.
“This month we’re going to have a meeting to plan for our festival next year. Hopefully,” Jordan added, “this year we can get ahead of the other festivals. There was just so much going on that weekend in Gray.”
Jordan has also done her part to help renovate and utilize another vacant — and very visible —building in Haddock. However, she had some help in doing so. The building on the corner directly across from Trish Ann’s that had not been used in some time was being auctioned off. Jordan put in an online bid, but the property was about to be sold at public auction.
“I bid on it because I didn’t want the wrong person to buy it,” she explained, “because we were trying to clean Haddock up and make it better.”
Jordan was busy cooking for Haddock Baptist Church the night of the auction.
“I just realized I couldn’t do this. Whatever happens, happens,” she recalls lamenting. “I went on to work and went up to the church and cooked.”
Jordan was at home the next day preparing to take an overnight trip when one of her employees called and said the lady that bought the building the night before wanted to see her. The girl did not know the person or her name.
“When I got back up there,“ she recalled, “Joyce Conn was sitting on my porch. I said, ‘Miss Joyce, did you buy that store, that property?’She said, ‘yes, I did; I bought it for you. The wrong people were looking at it.’” Jordan told Conn she would talk to her children and call her the next day. When she did not call, Conn showed up and told her she would sell the property for the same amount she paid.
“I said, ‘well, ok’, and she went and had the papers drawn up. I signed them, and that is how I ended up with the building.”
The structure has now been renovated and leased to two tenants. One has opened a beauty salon and the other an art center. Long-time art instructor Tia Litki of Haddock is responsible for the facelift and artwork on the outside of the building.
As Jordan talked on that Saturday afternoon, there were cars parked along the street in front of the building, there, she said, for art classes.
Jordan reflected on the purchase and ‘resale’ of the building by Conn, a long-time and very popular real estate broker in Jones County who passed away Jan. 1. Her funeral service ended less than an hour before the interview for this story began.
“I thought about her a lot. She didn’t have to do that. She could’ve let it go, and we would have had a mess over there. She was thinking.”
