A New Future
Forget Me Not in Ankeny celebrates grand opening of new location.
When Mindy Seeman and her sister, Missey Michel, opened Forget Me Not in Ankeny in 2018, it was more than a business venture. It was a declaration that life is not meant to be lived for the “somedays.” In March they celebrated the grand opening of their new, larger retail space. But their philosophy hasn’t changed.
The sisters had already taken a leap into business ownership with their Tree House childcare business in 2008. Within five years, they had expanded to a second location and added an after-school business, Study Loft, to offer educational programs for school-age children.
“Mindy thought I was nuts when I told her I wanted to start a preschool and day care,” Missey says with a laugh. “Both of us were teaching at the time, and I just saw a need and really wanted to work with younger kiddos.”
Both Missey and Mindy dove into the Tree House business whole-heartedly with the full support of their husbands and families. When the sisters brought up the idea of adding an after-school option, their husbands were behind them for that project, too.
“I wrote the curriculum, and we created a program that isn’t just a play place,” Missey says. Children up to fifth grade come to Study Loft after school. The team of teachers works with them to complete any homework they may have, they can have a snack, and then they participate in educational activities.
“Our summer program expands to all day,” Missey says. “But it’s still educational, even though we plan all kinds of fun activities. We go on all sorts of fields trips and, even though the kids are divided by age, we have a theme so everyone is learning about the same thing.”
Back in 2016, when the second Tree House opened and another Study Loft was added to the business model, Mindy, Missey, and their husbands, Jacob Seeman and Denny Michel, spent the summer prepping for the new school year. Then both families headed to the Ozarks for a family vacation.
A tragic accident on their last day at the lake changed all the “somedays” they had planned. Both Jacob and Denny drowned, and Mindy says she nearly lost Missey as well. “While trying to get to them and help, I fell on the boat ramp and broke my leg,” Mindy says, “so I couldn’t do anything but watch as they all struggled. I thought I was going to lose Missey, too.”
The two women responded to their grief in different ways. For more than a year, Mindy says she was afraid she had, in some ways, really lost her sister. “She had always been the strong one,” Mindy says. “But she pulled away and closed off. For the first time, I had to be the strong one.”
“If it hadn’t been for my kids, I probably wouldn’t have come out of my house at all,” Missey says now. “I was grieving, and I was just overwhelmed with guilt. I couldn’t save them, and it was hard dealing with that.”
Mindy says, “We had talked for years about someday opening a home decor and design business. My husband was always building furniture and was so creative, Missey and I both love decor, and Jacob—you could give him any task, and he would just tackle it. So our ‘someday’ dream was to open a business where we could all work together.”
About a year after the accident, Mindy says, “I just asked Missey, ‘Why are we waiting for someday? Let’s make it today.’”
Forget Me Not became the path through their grief and a way to honor their husbands with the future that still lay before them.
They started with a partnership with Hunter Douglas to offer custom blind consultations and installation so they could establish themselves before taking on a retail location.
“I didn’t see that coming,” Missey jokes now. “She caught me off guard when she said she wanted to start with blinds. But she’s so good with people. She knows from the feel of a home what to suggest or recommend.”
After opening the retail location on the north side of Ankeny, Forget Me Not expanded into home decor and design consultation. But the COVID lockdown actually brought some of their most rapid growth.
“We added curbside pickup and ramped up our home delivery service,” Mindy says, “but the blind business just ballooned. I was doing more in-home consults with all sorts of protection and social distancing.”
“Clients learned that she does home consults for decor, too,” Missey adds. “And that side of the business really grew.”
Mindy will assist clients with staging or decorating an entire room or just adding decor to freshen up bookshelves or display areas.
“I look at the space, talk with the homeowners, then come back to the store and select items. I put everything in place, and they can choose to keep everything, nothing, or just specific pieces,” she says.
“When COVID hit, our childcare business went from full capacity to less than half in about two weeks,” Missey says. “We looked at each other and said, ‘We’ve worked too hard to end here.’ And we pulled together as a family and figured out a way through.”
Both women say Forget Me Not has given them that gift: time with family and a close-knit relationship that is deeper than they had before.
“Our cousins, our uncle, our mom—they all work here,” Mindy says. “We started Forget Me Not as a way to remember our husbands, but it’s brought our extended family together, too. We’re a part of each other’s everyday lives in ways we wouldn’t be if it weren’t for this business.”
“We’ve always been a close family,” adds Missey. “But they really rallied round Mindy and me when we lost Denny and Jake. And Forget Me Not has given them a place, too.”
“We may not want to do childcare forever. But the services we provide through Forget Me Not are something we can do for the rest of our lives,” Mindy says. “Forget Me Not has given us a way to honor Jake and Denny every day. And it’s given us a new future.”
It isn’t the ‘someday’ Missey Michel or Mindy Seeman had imagined, but it’s a ‘someday’ they’re grateful to be sharing with the people they love.