Cultivating Fairview HOW JO ANN DEWAR TURNED A HOBBY INTO HER LEGACY BY M E L I S S A W I ST E HUFF
T
P HOTO S BY B R U C E DeB OER he recipe for sprouting a plant is much like that of creating a solid business plan: Add light, nourishment and room to grow. For Jo Ann Dewar, however, who had aspirations to start a garden center in the early 1970s as a female
entrepreneur, the formula wasn’t quite so straightforward. Now 90 years old—and still the first to arrive and last to leave
Fairview Garden Center each day—Dewar looks back on her decades as a business owner, saying she wouldn’t change a thing. “I’ve made a lot of mistakes along the way—probably enough to write a book—but I try not to make the same ones twice,” she says. “You won’t be blessed with success if you don’t learn from your mistakes.” Raised on a tobacco farm in Harnett County, Dewar discovered her passion for plants as a young girl. “I’ve always loved playing in the dirt and seeing what I can get to grow,” she says. Growing up on a farm comes with not only fun, but hard work as well. “I have always been a hard worker, and it taught me from an early age that you have to work hard to get what you want,” she says.
42 | caryliving.com
