Queen of hearts: South MS bids farewell to ‘a firecracker’ gone too soon
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Wendy Figer built Gabrielle’s retail store into a 5,000 sq. ft luxury lifestyle brand.
- She also mentored teenage girls, raised children, entertained and supported the community.
- After a six-month fight with Stage 4 gastric cancer, Figer passed away.
Wendy Rae Figer never slowed down and never gave up.
She was only 4 feet 10 inches tall and weighed 95 pounds, but she was, friends and family said, “a firecracker.”
Figer was also an entrepreneur, wife, mom, friend, community fundraiser, fashionista, fabulous cook, lover of dogs, party planner extraordinaire and mentor.
Her energy was boundless, husband Rich Figer said.
“You couldn’t get her to lay down,” he said, “but when she did, she was out. When she woke up, her mind was going, as she used to put it, ‘90 to nothing.’ “
Social media tributes poured in after the 53-year-old passed away Nov. 17. Wendy Figer was widely known and loved in South Mississippi. For 24 years, she owned and operated Gabrielle’s retail store, first in Long Beach and, after Hurricane Katrina, in Biloxi.
She lived for only six months after her diagnosis with Stage 4 gastric cancer, determined all the while to witness daughter Gabrielle “Gabbie” Shaw’s wedding this coming January and her son Luke Shaw’s graduation from St. Patrick High School in the spring.
“It’s going to be OK,” Gabbie said after losing her mom, whose presence she knows she will feel when she marries. “We always thought positively,” she said.
Opening Gabrielle’s on the MS Coast
Figer grew up in Long Beach, watching her grandmother, Christine Platts, whom she called, “Gigi,” model many of the virtues Figer would inherit. Both of them could be stubborn, Rich Figer said, but her Gigi lived with integrity and set high standards. Figer’s grandmother passed away at age 98 in April, the month before her granddaughter’s diagnosis.
After high school, Figer graduated from Delta State University, where she was a cheerleader, a flyer, as the petite athletes who twirl through the air are known.
Figer was back on the Coast and working in marketing at Palace Casino Resort when she met her destiny: an empty storefront on Jeff Davis Avenue in Long Beach. She took a big chance and opened a boutique, named Gabrielle’s after her daughter.
Stella Wolf of Pass Christian, a businesswoman herself, remembers being in awe of Figer and her ability to balance motherhood with work.
The two women met at St. Thomas the Apostle Catholic Church and its pre-school, which their children attended together.
“Immediately, I saw that spark in her,” Wolf said. Figer, Wolf noticed, was never jealous of others. Instead, she celebrated their successes. As Figer’s experience and success grew, she brought others along with her, including her employees.
“She just had a way of connecting with people and making them feel good about themselves,” said Paige Holliday, who has worked at Gabrielle’s for four years. “She was just such a positive-energy person.”
In 2005, Hurricane Katrina leveled the shop. Figer was undeterred. She reopened less than four months later at Edgewater Mall, later settling in the current location on Popp’s Ferry Road, a 5,000 square-foot-store with 12 to 15 employees. Figer has branded Gabrielle’s as a luxury lifestyle store specializing in fashion, gifts, home decor and gourmet items.
Figer did everything with intention. When she went to market in Atlanta or New York to shop for the stores, she learned the backstories of each designer. Every detail in the shop was important to her, down to the gift wrap, her daughter said. Ivory matte paper with a satin bow was a favorite.
Gabbie loved accompanying her mom to New York for market. They always saw Broadway shows and ate fantastic food. Her mother could eat at a restaurant, then go home and replicate the dish.
Figer believed in experiences. Gabbie rattled off some of the places they visited, including the Bahamas, Rome, Florence, Venice, Greece and Singapore.
“She loved to travel,” Gabbie said. “She seriously never sat still.”
In 2018, Figer created a fashion board called Gabrielle’s Trendsetters for junior and senior high school girls in the three Coast counties. To be selected, girls went through panel interviews, wrote essays, maintained good grades, and demonstrated community involvement and leadership skills.
‘Some girls didn’t make it in because they didn’t do the work,” Rich Figer said. “My wife was a stickler about that.”
Wendy Figer learns she has cancer
Wendy and Rich Figer met June 8, 2015, on a cruise. He saw her on a lounge chair at the pool, fast asleep, and arranged an introduction through her sister, Heather Fain, who was with Wendy. At the piano bar that night, he and his future wife talked for hours.
The odds of a relationship were long. She and the software sales executive lived 1,000 miles apart. He was from Cleveland. He also had been diagnosed with a brain tumor and given five years to live. At the time, he was in year five of his illness. But the news only drew her closer to him. They later learned together that he had been misdiagnosed and did not have a cancerous tumor.
They kissed goodbye when the cruise ended and proceeded to text nonstop. On Jan. 3, 2019, they married on a beach in Belize, with a party of 30 family and friends present. He had proposed beside the turquoise waters of Humantay Lake in the Andes Mountains of Peru during a seven-day hike to Machu Picchu, a World Heritage site.
Rich Figer relocated to Biloxi. Visits with his daughters in Cleveland, Gia and Stella, were frequent. They became his wife’s daughters as well. The Figers called their family “the modern, cross-state Brady Bunch.”
Wendy Figer’s store was a big part of the family, too. “We always said that was like her other kid,” daughter Gabbie said. Her mom wanted everyone who walked through the door — employees and customers alike — to have the best experience possible.
She was in the shop one day when she said that she was not feeling well and was going to the emergency room when they closed. Her husband said she was complaining of excruciating back pain that felt internal, not muscular.
At the emergency room, they told her she had acid reflux. Rich Figer insisted on an abdominal CT. He found then and throughout her illness that he had to be a strong advocate for her to get the care she needed. He also feels fortunate that they were able to afford quality care because it gave his wife more time.
“Through all of this, that’s the advice I would give anyone going through cancer,” he said. “You have to be an advocate to make sure you have the right level of care.”
Thanksgiving dinner on her mind
Close friends gathered at the Figer home when they learned of her diagnosis. They cried together, said one of them, Dusti Simnicht of Biloxi.
Simnicht said that Wendy Figer told them:, “We’re going to get through this. We got this. Come on, girls.” She posted health updates on Facebook. She never stopped traveling or making plans.
Her daughter’s January wedding and son’s spring graduation from St. Patrick’s were uppermost on her mind. Mother and daughter went shopping a couple of months ago for wedding dresses. Gabbie said her mom showed up for the New Orleans outing wearing the same designer and color dress as Gabbie, but in a different style.
“We twinned all day,” Gabbie said, recalling the trip with delight. They both knew when Gabbie found the right dress, the fourth one that she tried on. It was timeless and elegant.
Figer made her husband tenderloin and potatoes for dinner Nov. 8, his birthday. The next day, he had to check her into the hospital. First, they visited her mother, Mary Myers, who was also hospitalized at Memorial Gulfport. At one point, they were three doors apart in intensive care.
As she faded, Wendy Figer was planning Thanksgiving dinner. She asked her father, Edwin “Gibby” Myers, what he wanted to eat. Trying to keep it simple, he offered that salad and chocolate pie sounded good, said Cyndi Myers, his current wife and “bonus mom” to Wendy Figer and her sister.
Wendy Figer was on her computer doing work for her shop on the day she died, her husband said.
During her illness, he said, “She had moments of being sad and scared, but ultimately, she was brave.”
A celebration of her life will be held Monday evening at White Pillars restaurant before her funeral Tuesday. She enjoyed many happy occasions at the fine dining restaurant, including her Trendsetter fashion shows and wedding reception.
Many friends from the all-woman Mardi Gras Krewe of Athena will be there. Wendy Figer was a core member. Professional photographer James Edward “Jamie” Bates has taken pictures for years at their Mardi Gras balls and got to know her well.
“I think we could all learn from her positivity,” he said. “And all of us who knew her are better off for it.”
