Though her store is closed, longtime owner keeping busy

By Mary Sawyer

Carmen's Style Shoppe is known for the latest in women's fashion wear. Since the COVID-19 epidemic, the shoppe provides face masks to those who need them.

Carmen Bruning has worked at the Style Shoppe for more than 50 years. Owners of the Style Shoppe, Lloyd and Mildred Maxwell, hired Carmen Bruening as a seamstress and manager of their material and notions department in 1967. Carmen was the store's go-to person for alterations and helping people with their sewing needs.

In 1974, she and her husband, Gene, purchased the store and renamed it Carmen's Style Shoppe. Gene remodeled...