The Tea Corner

From Congress to tea sets, one woman’s journey

By Pamela Riqaux, News-Post Staff                                                

My Journey to Tea

Pam Gleason gets up at 7:30 a.m. and starts working.  Her husband comes home at 4:30 p.m., and she is usually still working in her office in the basement of their home on Ridge Road in Frederick.

Her hobby of collecting tea sets turned into a full-time job two years ago when she decided to launch a web-based business called “The Tea Corner.”

“Children’s tea sets are a big seller right now,” Gleason, 60, said.  “I have them broken into categories: princess tea, flower fairy tea, garden party tea.  I even have boys’ top hats.  Boys like to have fun, too.”

She traces her interest in tea back to her first job out of high school in Winter Park, Fla.  She worked in the china section of a department store.

“I had a full set of china before I got married, she said.  “What got me back to this again, I was a legal secretary for a company and when they sold out, I had to have something else, I just went back to what I love — the china.”

The eleborate nature of her party supplies might be related to an experience with Walt Disney World in 1970 when she was 23 years old.  “I have one claim to fame,” she said.  “In Florida, I entered the Walt Disney World ambassador contest.”

A photo of her standing next to Mickey Mouse shows just how close she came to being picked — she was one of three finalists.

“That was a turning point of my life,” Gleason said.  “Had I become ambassador, I would have traveled all over.”

Instead, she went to Washington for a job on Capitol Hill as an appointment secretary for the late Silvio Conte, a Republican from Massachusetts.

“During my interview he said, “You’re from Florida.  What makes you think you can work her in Washington?”  Gleason said. “I said, ‘From one Mickey Mouse organization to another.’  He laughed and I got the job.”

That was in the early 1980’s she said.  Later she became a staffer for a subcommittee of the House Armed Services Committee.

Her job was to help conduct hearings.  She remembered one hearing vividly.  A congressman gave her some papers to Xerox, she said.  She opened a door to where she thought the photocopier was.  She stepped in, shut the door and looked around.

“I was in a broom closet,” she said.  “I didn’t know what to do.  People in the hearing knew I’d stepped into a broom closet.”

She did the only thing she could do — composed herself and slid out.

Meeting her husband for the first time is another story.

He was the bass player for a band she asked to play at at party.

“I was renting a big farmhouse on Quebec School Road in Middletown.” she said.  The band was from Baltimore, and they said they would play for free.

The only musician who didn’t like the arrangement was her future husband, she said.  “They showed up that night, and I ended up marrying him.