‘A blessing’: Signe’s unique contribution helped Hilton Head Island stand apart

Signe Gardo came in a tiny package, but her impact on Hilton Head Island was gigantic.

And to the people, it was as warm as her famous oversized cookies at Signe’s Heaven Bound Bakery and Café.

Last year, when Signe hit 50 years of owning and operating her small business -- dreaming up novelties and schlepping dough from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. six days a week -- her creative menus still matched the eclectic look of a woman then 81 years old.

“Signe is still Signe,” I wrote at the time, “marching to a different drummer in her fuzzy pink polka-dot socks in flour-dusted Crocs. Feint green shorts, pink top, and oversized pink glasses and blue eye shadow beneath her trademark mop of blond hair make her look like a little girl caught playing in Elton John’s closet.”

Signe was different, and dared to remain different, and thus she helped Hilton Head to be different – and better.

On Christmas Eve a year ago, she closed shop for good, finishing the last of her take-home holiday dinners and saying “that’s it” to a career that was a passion and a calling.

On this Christmas Eve, she was at The Preston Health Center at The Cypress, part of what looked to be a long but positive recovery from a near-fatal thoracic aortic dissection on Nov. 14.

Tom Gardo, her husband of 45 years, said he was there with her till about 11 p.m. They talked about what time he’d be there in the morning with some presents and a couple of soft-boiled eggs – something he makes that Signe liked.

But he got a call at 6:20 a.m. to come quickly. Signe had quit breathing, and despite efforts to revive her, that great blast of energy that had been unleashed on a sleepy island in 1966 was gone.

Signe was heaven bound on Christmas day, and the outpouring of sadness and love from Hilton Head was immediate.

‘BLOOMINGDALE’S’

Signe was a latchkey child in Connecticut, entertaining herself by cooking.

Her first job on Hilton Head was as a telephone operator at the old William Hilton Inn. And she polished silver for Charles and Mary Fraser, and was nanny to their two daughters.

She opened Signe’s World deli in a tiny building in Harbour Town in 1972, pregnant with her second child, and having relatively no business experience.

She called her shop “a teensy weensy Bloomingdale’s.”

At first, it was basically a health food store.

But a Packet story four years later said she had a section of grand cru wine, Tesori Rice Ambra from Italy, five kinds of mineral water, carob powder, shelves of vitamins, seeds for sprouting, health books, the Mother Earth News, dried fruit, gorilla bars, teas, honey, cakes and cookies, super sandwiches, fruit drinks, imported beer, soaps, candy and candles.

You could get a sandwich made on eight-grain bread that was literally homemade at Signe’s house (where trays of bean sprouts stacked six-feet high in the bathroom), topped with hand-sliced everything and a pile of fresh alfalfa sprouts – all washed down with pure watermelon juice.

She had zany fruit drinks with funny names, like the Chocobanana made of chocolate protein powder, a banana and milk.

None of this was going on anywhere else in South Carolina at the time. Hilton Head was different, and in that formative era of the modern island, people noticed and appreciated it.

It was true Signe, the young mom and step-mom who rode to work on a bicycle, and for a while, roller skates.

Her mantra was, “Stay clean; stay pure; nothing artificial. Everything is made here.”

Cookies were a hit from the beginning, starting with chocolate chip, then the “Cowboy” with oatmeal, raisins and nuts; and the “Mumbo,” a chocolate cookie with chocolate chips and nuts.

Her first popular pie was pecan chocolate chip. Her biggest cake hit was the key lime pound cake.

Parents would drop their kids off at Signe’s World with $5 and they’d hang out at Signe’s and the adjacent playground that was handmade by Wayne Edwards.

Signe had jump ropes for them. She said kids liked to make the tables on the front porch squeak. They were made from old sewing machines she bought in Savannah for $5 each.

Generation after generation of customers were touched by Signe. So were hundreds who worked for her, but especially the 4,500 or so who had wedding cakes handmade by Signe.

And she could remember their names.

FAITH IN GOD

Signe was divorced with two little girls when she met Tom Gardo, who was divorced with two little girls.

They met at a Bible study in the home of Robert and Manelle Graves, a group that would evolve into the evangelical Christian Renewal Church, where Signe’s funeral will be held at 10:30 a.m. on Saturday, Jan. 6.

Tom and Signe were married two months later in a small service early on a Monday morning at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church.

Tom was vice president of marketing and public relations at the Sea Pines Co. They were both new Christians. Signe had been an atheist.

Dyane Lee of Bluffton, who worked with Signe for more than a decade, said this week, “People don’t know it, but Signe was a farmer. What Signe did was plant seeds. She prayed for people, and she wanted people to know the Lord. That’s what we call planting seeds.”

She said Signe hired people no one else would hire: under-qualified, over-qualified, sometimes right out of jail, sometimes fighting drug addiction, including one who is now a church elder.

“She did everything she could for them,” Dyane said. “A lot of people were saved in the early days at Signe’s and that was important to her.”

Pastor Brad Steele of the Christian Renewal Church on Gardner Drive said, “That woman could pray down heaven.”

She was often called to come forward and lead prayer, especially for the next generation.

“The thing about Signe was, if I could say one thing about her, she was always ready to preach the gospel. Even to the end, with health care workers. Faith came first for her.”

He said they often worried that a strong wind would blow her over, she was so frail.

But, the pastor said, “Signe was just a rock. She was Tom’s rock. She was a rock in our church. And a blessing to our community.”

David Lauderdale may be reached at LauderdaleColumn@gmail.com.