Our Story

 

OUR STORY
By Co-founder Charlotte Rinehart

 

THE CART is the name of our product - Dessie Mae is the name of our company!

Here’s how it all happened:
Back in September of 2014, I was walking through this darling little town called
Skippack with my dear friend Marti when I realized I wasn’t having fun anymore.
Our little shopping expeditions, our once-a-week get togethers of lunch and
quaint boutique discoveries, just didn’t have the allure they once had.

My favorite leather handbag felt like it weighed a ton. The shopping bag with my new little treasure tucked inside seemed a burden to carry. Nope, I really didn’t want to walk way down the street looking in all the unique shops. It sounded great, but I wanted to sit down. I wanted to trudge back to the car. I wanted to go home.

My back hurt. My legs were tired. I was tired. UGH! What was wrong with me?!
Maybe it was age - I am getting older. Maybe I was out of shape (yes, I was
DEFINITELY out of shape). Maybe my fibromyalgia was the culprit. Whatever
the reason, I knew in that moment that walking a distance while carrying stuff just wasn’t working for me anymore.

That night I did some pondering.  I thought about the past several months, maybe even the past year, and recognized some changes in my lifestyle that had just…happened - not planned, not even consciously recognized as it changed.

I didn’t go to the mall anymore, unless it was just the one big department store
where I parked by the door of the section I wanted to visit. When my kids invited me to activities with their families, my first thought was always “how far will I have to walk?” and “what will I have to bring?”

I recognized that I’d been making excuses to NOT do things I used to LOVE to
do. Like the farmers market. The pool. Walking around the town rose garden.
A picnic. The outlet center. The flower show.

I recognized that the places I DID go now were places with shopping carts.
Places like Target and Marshalls or Hobby Lobby. Or if I did go somewhere with
the kids and grands - I wanted to be the one to push the stroller. And hang my
purse from it. And put my drink in it. And be able to take off and shove my coat
in it if I got hot.

What would happen when the youngest grew out of their stroller?

Then I had an idea! Maybe I could buy some sort of product that could help with my walking and carrying stuff challenge. That would be worth whatever the cost!

My daughter Laura and I searched the internet for a product that could meet my
needs. I found lots of things - but they were mostly things you had to pull and
they had one big deep basket where everything would get smushed by whatever was on top of it. That wouldn’t help me walk. I wanted a little support, a little something to lean on if I wanted to. I wanted it to carry whatever I was bringing with me. And I wanted easy access to my stuff, not digging down to the bottom to get what I wanted.

So simply put, the functionality of every product we could find was wrong. Or it
was ugly - like utilitarian, looks-like-it-belongs-in-the garage ugly. I wanted
something pretty. I wanted something I’d be proud to push, not embarrassed
about.

After a futile search, Laura closed the laptop and announced, “So let’s invent one!"  Something kind of like a stroller and kind of like a shopping cart. Something that would be pretty and stylish, something I could push and lean on just a titch and put all my stuff in.

Something that would lighten my load wherever I wanted to go! And an idea was born!! A mix between a stroller and a shopping cart. A strolcart?! Shopstrol? Cartler? All too weird (or already taken!) - how about just:

THE CART by Dessie Mae

We played around with different ideas and finally drew up some designs and met with a designer named Matt Sommerfield in June 2015. Matt saw our vision and committed to help us accomplish our goal!

We had no idea what all was involved in creating, producing, and selling a product!  It took nearly SEVEN years from concept to production model. There were lots of milestones along the way. One of the most exciting was the award of our design patent in January 2018. We were officially inventors!!

We are thrilled with The Cart! It is even better than I imagined, better than what
Laura and I first drew up at my kitchen table. With The Cart, I can really go
where I want to go and carry what I want to carry!

The Cart has changed my life. I bet it can change your life too, or that of someone you love!

Who is Dessie Mae?
How do you choose a name for a company? After lots of thought and discussion, Laura and I chose to name our company after someone who represents many of the attributes most important to us.

Dessie Mae is my father’s mother - Laura’s great grandmother - my beloved
MamMaw. She was born a farm girl but eloped at 14 to get married to my
PapPaw, a blue-eyed, red haired Irish coalminer named Henry Hines. They’d
met at the local county fair. He was actually engaged to another girl, but when
he met Dessie Mae…well, they both knew it was true love!

Once married, they lived in a handful of little coal mining towns in West Virginia until they finally settled in the Morgantown area where PapPaw was the superintendent of the local coal mine.

My MamMaw, Dessie Mae, had courage. She had grit. She knew how to stretch a dollar. She had integrity and faith in God. Her life wasn’t easy, but she made the most out of it cheerfully and with determination.

She raised six kids - two daughters and four sons - during The Depression. She was a member of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union and a block leader during World War II. She lived to be 99 years old, outliving most of her children. She is an icon of faith and strength to her ever-growing posterity. A fine woman to name a company after!

Our Company
We are a start-up, family (female) owned business located in Whitehall, PA, a
little more than an hour’s drive north of Philadelphia. Laura and I are co-founders.

We really appreciate your support as we seek to improve the lifestyles of others with The Cart, The Tote, and The Organizer.