McDaniel eventually became the administrative assistant to the director of construction in Englewood. After seven years, the company closed but her boss decided to open his own construction business – Reliable Construction Services — and took her along with him where she was office manager.
She married her high school sweetheart, Jeffrey, in 1979, when she was 20 years old. Within a few years, the couple had two children, and McDaniel was pregnant with her third child.
“I had a full term still born baby,” McDaniel said. “After something like that, you start thinking about life and what is important.”
For McDaniel and her husband, that was the family they had built and the two young children they still had at home. McDaniel decided to become a stay-at-home mom.
“After I held my newborn son in my arms before they took him away, I decided I didn’t want to try to get pregnant again and we decided to become foster parents,” McDaniel said.
At the time, McDaniel’s oldest daughter, Alisha, was 9. Her younger sister Rachel was 4. McDaniel said she knew very little about fostering but knew there was a need. And she wanted to help.
“We took in the older of two brothers, John Michael, and had him for three or four months, and the county was trying to get the brothers back together,” McDaniel said. “We decided to take his brother Steven when they were three and four years old.”
Though McDaniel and her family grew close to the boys, they were not available for adoption because their biological parents still wanted them. Eventually they were sent back and though McDaniel said she knew they would likely be back in foster care eventually, by the time they were, she and Jeffrey were no longer fostering. But when John Michael was 20, they were able to adopt him and McDaniel continues to be the legal guardian for Steven, who has developmental challenges and currently lives in a group home.
Though the couple decided after six years to stop fostering, McDaniel said they had mostly positive experiences.
“We decided it was time to focus on our own girls,” McDaniel said.
Once her girls were more independent and doing well, McDaniel decided she wanted to return to work. She applied for a job with Silhouettes, a company in Englewood that provided mastectomy products to women post-surgery, including wigs and bras. She became certified in fitting mastectomy products.
“I have always loved people,” McDaniel said. “One of my gifts is service and I love helping people and doing things for others. When I talked to the owner of Silhouettes, I thought the part time job they were offering sounded wonderful.”
In 2013, McDaniel had an opportunity to purchase a mastectomy shop located in West Carrolton, after the owner decided to step aside. At that time, she was also running a catering business part time — mostly focusing on baked goods and even supplying local restaurants with desserts.
“The business was small and slower at that time,” McDaniel said. “I thought I could do both.”
But then McDaniel’s mother became ill, and she needed to focus on caring for her. She had to put the dream of owning her own shop on the back burner. McDaniel worked for the new owner for a year when she was approached about buying the business once again.
“I prayed about it, and we worked out a deal,” McDaniel said. “I purchased the name — Personal Touch Apparel — and the business in 2014.”
Now running a shop that has focuses on a wide range of post mastectomy apparel, prosthesis and wigs, McDaniel said that there are few such business still in existence in Dayton.
“We are one of the only privately owned companies here that take insurance,” McDaniel said. “And we offer an intimate setting where we get to know our customers, their families and their spouses.”
Though the shop remains in the same space at 12 N. Elm St., West Carrollton, where it has been for decades, McDaniel said she has added products and increased her customer base from 400 to 1,200. Though not a breast cancer survivor herself, she said that being around women who are survivors, has given her a unique sense of empathy.
“It’s a wonderful job,” she said. “Women come in and many can’t even look in the mirror, and we give them something that helps make them look normal. I will probably retire in five years and would love to sell the business so the services can continue. It breaks my heart thinking that it might close altogether.”
PERSONAL JOURNEY
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