SWEET SUCCESS

Those looking for a treat in Sanders County, can look no further than the little Thompson Falls candy shop, Candy Ma'am Candies. For the last 25 years, Marilyn O'Neill has been creating a variety of sweets for locals and recently, those who order online.

Originally from eastern Montana, O'Neill worked at several grocery stores before moving to Thompson Falls in 1995 to help work at her niece's candy shop. After almost four years, O'Neill bought the shop and started running it herself. She says that it was a handy job when her daughter was younger, since she worked mostly from home. Not long after buying the business her husband built her a workshop in their back yard so that O'Neill did not have to go far to work on the candies. The workshop has a full candy kitchen, outfitted with just enough room for her to work in comfortably. She says that her job has also paired well with her husband's job, which had him working more in the summer and less in the winter. This meant that she could work producing more candies in the winter.

Over the last few months, O'Neill has been selling most of her stock online since many of the events that she normally attends at were cancelled due to the coronavirus. "It has been hard with the virus," said O'Neill, "I hate raising the prices." O'Neill said that shipping and supply costs have skyrocketed during the pandemic. Fortunately, the majority of her sales now happen online. She also sells some of her chocolates at the Sunflower Gallery in Thompson Falls.

O'Neill sells a variety of chocolates in milk, dark, white and mixed varieties. Many have fillings flavored with huckleberry, cherry, raspberry and more. She even does coconut, peanut butter and caramel filled candies, all of which are made by hand, in house. She takes a melted base chocolate and coats molds with it. Then she puts the molds in the freezer for a few minutes to harden the chocolate shell. She does this step at least twice to get the perfect thickness of chocolate. Then she adds the filling to the molds and tops it with chocolate. After that, she wraps and packages the chocolates and they are stored until shipped or purchased. She also produces huckleberry jam from local huckleberries.

O'Neill says she loves her job and has never looked back. She also loves the history of chocolate and says it is fascinating to look into how it came to be the way we know it today. "Chocolate can be good for you, especially dark," said O'Neill. It must be hard to complain with a life filled with chocolate.