This column serves as a spotlight, highlighting the everyday people who work and live in Callaway County. The Fulton Sun takes a moment with someone who is not usually featured in the news, but is just as instrumental in making our community the strong and beautiful place we all know and love. If you would like to be featured in an upcoming Kith and Kin column, email [email protected].
Danielle Elsenrath owns Express Yourself, an art studio in Fulton that hosts craft nights, events and parties. Elsenrath is a cancer survivor and foster parent with a love of art. She was living in Marshall following her first husband's death when she met her current husband, a Callaway County native. In 2012, Elsenrath and her family settled near Fulton.
Q: What was your first job?
A: My first job was at the KFC in Marshall, Missouri. I was 16 and it was my very first job - I still have a burn on my arm from the biscuits.
Q: Who inspires you most?
A: My mom - she has always worked, worked, worked. I remember her working at a bank for the longest time and then she went through college as a single mom while working two jobs.
(Elsenrath's mother is also a cancer survivor.)
I will never be like her. I try. Well, I guess I kind of am like her now with my job and my art studio.
Q: What in your life has been the most fulfilling?
A: Raising my kids and being a grandma. I'm only 38, but I became a grandma two years ago. Raising my kids to be good human beings has been fulfilling. And starting my own business without any kind of degree.
I always say I have four kids - my oldest daughter, when she was a freshman, joined FBLA and ran into a senior and she just kind of held on to her as a sister I took her in while I was going through treatment as a cancer survivor and she's been mine ever since.
Q: What is something that you are proud of or that you've been recognized for?
A: My art studio - I'm really proud of that, especially of how it's going during this period of isolation. We have art kits to-go. Art is a big thing for me; it always has been, especially since my cancer. Even after we open again, I want to keep doing art kits - I think a lot of people deal with inside issues and art can be like therapy.
Q: What profession other than your own, would you like to attempt?
A: I think it would be fun to sing in a band. I love karaoke. I don't think it will happen, but I think it would be fun to sing in a band.
Q: What profession would you not want to do?
A: I would not want to work at a funeral home, for the fact that I cry over everything. If someone else is crying, I would not be able to hold it in, I'd be crying That or a veterinarian because I couldn't put animals to sleep. I wouldn't want to do anything with death. I guess you could call me an empathetic person - someone else's sadness can affect me.
Q: What is something that nobody knows about you?
A: There's three things because I moved here in 2012. One, I'm a cancer survivor. Two is that no one would think I'm a grandma. (Three,) I'm a big suicide advocate - I lost my late husband and a brother to suicide.
Q: What is your favorite thing about Callaway County?
A: The community and the beauty around it. When I first moved here, we lived way down (Route O) and Callaway County is really beautiful with the hills, the scenery and the small town love of the community.