After 80 Years, Women's Market Still A Bethesda Staple

The Montgomery Farm Women’s Farm Cooperative Market will celebrate its 80th anniversary next June. But as far as its remarkable staying power, President Barbara Johnson is as baffled as the next.

“I don’t know why it’s so popular,” she said. “It just is.”

It could be that the market has 77 vendors — 27 inside displaying everything from cheese, spices and meats to seafood, baked goods and tea, and 50 more outside, flaunting flea-market fare. Or it could be the ideal location in the heart of downtown Bethesda on bustling Wisconsin Avenue.

But Johnson said in the end, it probably comes down to customer satisfaction, year after year, decade after decade.

“We have everything they want,” she said. “It’s the only market around here like this.”

It’s certainly not the usual stands-on-the-street setup. The market fills an entire parking lot, plus a low, white building standing in the backdrop. And while some of the usual foods and trinkets line the tables, much of it ranges from the exotic to the stuff of your grandparents’ attic.

There’s vintage furniture, hand-knit hats, antique silverware, oriental rugs, scarves, boxes of silver rings and even a table full of men’s button-downs wrapped in plastic.

Reshma Ali, who has sold her wares at the market for about 15 years, lands on the exotic side. She and her colorful display of beads and all the fixings of jewelry-making hail from India.

Her supplies may be for the hobby-minded, but not for Ali.

“This is my living,” she said.

Eric Perine of Frederick has also been at the market for about 15 years. He does his own framing of various prints--photos, paintings, deco and art nouveau--from handheld to full-poster-sized and sold for anywhere from $18 to $300.

The local stuff sells the best, Perine said--like bird’s-eye views and maps of Washington, D.C.

Also popular is what he calls “guy art”--skiing images in the winter and golf in the summer.

His customers range from the amateur to the collectors, who are always coming back for more.

“The only reason I lose them is if their house is full,” he said.

Joe and Linda Cicero of Potomac are two of those customers. On a Saturday morning, Joe Cicero paused in front of a particular print, trying to remember.

“I think we already have that one,” he said. His wife paused, then agreed.

And then there are the first-timers, like Brian Hopkins of Alexandria, who stopped by with children Jake, 6, and Kaylee, 3, after lunch at Mongolian Barbecue across the street.

Jake and Kaylee were pleased, running around in knit hats with renderings of fuzzy zoo animals and pompoms dangling from the ear flaps.

“I figured, what the heck,” Hopkins said of making the trip.

Mainstays like Mary Ann Sheffler have helped keep the market alive for so long.

Sheffler has come every Sunday for 32 years now, selling antiques she picks up from various auctioneers back in Waynesboro, Pa. There’s a series of plates painted with “Gone With The Wind” images, a redheaded doll next to an old typewriter, glass and silver tureens.

To the untrained eye, it looks like garage-sale junk. But the occasional expert knows what treasures are to be found there.

“Every once in a while, you’ll get someone who knows what things are,” she said.

The Montgomery Farm Women’s Cooperative Market is located at 7155 Wisconsin Ave. between Willow and Leland Streets. The indoor market is open 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays. The outside market is open 7 a.m. to 5 p.m., weather permitting, on Wednesdays, Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays.