Hallmark of Excellence

Dalrymple’s Card & Gift Shoppe Has Stood the Test of Time

The family business has been at the corner of JFK Boulevard and Pleasure Avenue for 59 years.

Angie and “Dal” cut their wedding cake in October 1943.

World War II. Sea Isle City. 41st Street. Charles Dalrymple, known as “Dal,” stands by one of the large glass windows at Braca’s Café, owned by Louis “Lou” Braca and his wife, Madelena. Dalrymple strikes a handsome figure in his uniform as he looks in the window. He sees a pretty brunette. He doesn’t know her yet, but her name is Angela Braca. Everyone calls her “Angie.” And she looks like a dream.

“My mother worked in the bar, and they sold sandwiches,” says Angel Dalrymple. “During the Second World War, my father was in the Coast Guard. He used to patrol the beaches. And all of the ‘Coasties’ and the servicemen would come into the bar.

“My mother was very pretty. Naturally, they would all dance with her. My father saw her dancing, and he went into the bar to ask her for a dance. And she thought, ‘Oh boy, here’s another one to step on my toes.’ But my father was a very good dancer. And they really hit it off.”

That encounter was life-changing. Dal moved from Kansas to Sea Isle, converted to Catholicism and married Angie on Oct. 2, 1943. Dal joined Angie in the family business by going to work at Braca’s Café, connected in the same building to Braca’s News Agency, which formerly was a barber shop begun by Lou Braca. Lou also owned two movie theaters and a pool parlor.

Dal and Angie briefly moved into the Braca home above the bar and the news agency until Dal purchased the “little house” next door on Pleasure Avenue. There, they raised their children: Angela, called “Angel,” born in 1945, followed by Linda in 1949, Valerie in 1952, and Charles Jr., called “Chuck,” in 1955.

Across the street from the “little house,” Dal purchased an empty lot. On a section of that land, he had four garages built, with two apartments on top. His intention was to rent the apartments. And in the future, two of the four garages would become an important transitional business property for the young couple.

Meanwhile, Dal, who before the war taught in his hometown of Haven, Kan., began teaching in Lower Township in 1953. By 1958, he was teaching in the Sea Isle City public school, where he eventually became principal. And from 1955, Angie operated a dress shop on the boardwalk while continuing to work at Braca’s.

“Mom worked in the bar/restaurant, did all the bookkeeping, and worked in the small candy shop that was part of the news agency,” says Chuck Dalrymple, today the owner of Dalrymple’s Card & Gift Shoppe at 20 John F. Kennedy Blvd.

Next year marks the 60th anniversary of Dalrymple’s, which Dal and Angie opened in 1963 in its current location.

The inception of Dalrymple’s has its genesis in the infamous Great March Storm of 1962 that devastated homes and businesses in Sea Isle, changing the landscape of the town. Several of those establishments were owned by members of the Braca Family, including Angie’s Penny Lynn Shop, which she co-owned with her sister Rita.

Angela Braca

Angel Dalrymple in the late 1940s.

“The bathing suits went out with the storm,” Angel says, referring to the demise of the Penny Lynn Shop, in which Angie had dedicated three racks with Hallmark Cards, her passion.

The stormwaters also flooded Braca’s Café. And the offspring of Lou Braca Sr., who had died a few years earlier, decided to separate the family businesses.

“They were enlarging and redoing it because they had gotten flooded,” says Angel. “And my parents were going to build a new store. But in the meantime, my parents took two of the garages and they brought Braca’s News Agency with them.”

The news agency’s name was changed to Dalrymple’s when Dal and Angie broke ground on their property on their empty lot at the corner of Pleasure and 41st Street, which would become JFK Boulevard.

Angel was 18 when Dalrymple’s was built.

“Growing up and building that building, oh, it was a big deal,” she says. “We were over there every day checking everything out. We were so excited. My mother was just in heaven. It was such a big experience for her. More than she ever dreamed possible. You have to understand, my mother was a businesswoman. And my father was an educator. They complemented each other so.”

The original building housed three stores: a flower shop owned by Linda Dalrymple, a government urban renewal store, which helped people with housing after the storm, and the largest space housed Dalrymple’s.

“I worked from sixth grade, delivered newspapers on my bike,” says Chuck. “I had to sweep, keep the outside clean. I delivered newspapers for the store. As I got older and got my license, I took over the route. We delivered to stores as well. Angel did the bookkeeping in the store. Dad was still teaching.”

Good times were had at the store and in the Dalrymple home.

“It might be 6 or 7 o’clock when I got home,” says Angel, who often stayed late after school for extracurricular activities. “I would sit there and have my dinner; my mother and father always did the dishes. And we had an old radio in the kitchen, and it would play a song, and my father would say, ‘Angie, this is our song.’ And they would dance away in the kitchen.”

Sadly, in 1974, Angie died. She was 56.

Chuck and Barbara Dalrymple

“I think about her all the time when I’m here,” says Angel. “I feel her presence. She’s just a part of this, that’s all there is to it. And my brother reminds me so much of my father, but he’s more a businessperson like my mother.”

After a brief teaching career, Chuck took a cross-country trip across 36 states, “grew up a lot,” and took over the family business in 1982. Two years earlier, in 1978, he’d met Barbara Galle, an educator. They married in 1980, and would welcome children: Katie, Nicole, and Charles III.

Before Chuck took over the business, 600 square feet were added to the building. More changes came. Linda closed the flower shop, and the urban renewal store moved out.

Explains Angel: “When my brother took over, he decided we needed more room, and he knocked the walls through to the second store. And then a few years later he knocked the wall through to the third store.”

Then, when Chuck and Barbara married, they created an addition that became the Boulevard Deli. And Barbara’s parents ran it. Today, that space is occupied by KD Photography Studios, run by Charles and Barbara’s daughter, Katie Dalrymple.

For the Dalrymples, it’s always been about family.

Since she was a youngster, Angel, the manager of Dalrymple’s, has helped run the family business while raising three children, Angela, Jennifer, and Charles. She had a 25-year teaching career in Upper Township. And she held posts in local government, serving as a Sea Isle City commissioner from 1997 to 2007.

Chuck Dalrymple in 1959 when he taught fifth and sixth grade. At right, his Navy portrait.

“I was the only female commissioner in Sea Isle’s history. And I was the deputy mayor,” says Angel, who can be found most afternoons working the register at Dalrymple’s and greeting customers with a smile like her father taught her.

But it’s her mother, Angie, that she thinks of most. “I feel like the store was a part of my mother. And I feel like the store is a part of me. I wouldn’t know what I would do without it,” she says.

Angie Dalrymple’s love for Hallmark Cards is a tradition that continues at Dalrymple’s today, with its expanded card section. From the original three racks of cards, it was increased to six racks, and today there are 28 racks with Hallmark Cards. And across the back wall are more Hallmark products: wrapping paper, gift bags, bows, invitations, thank you cards, note paper, and Christmas ornaments.

Says Angel, “After my mother died, my sister Linda became the card lady. Then Gert Morrison, Mary Leyden, and Cathy Kerrigan. Boy, the card ladies were the card ladies. Everything has to be just so with those cards.” Barbara carries on that legacy today.

July 2022. It’s a typical summer day in Sea Isle. Early in the morning, already there is a line of customers forming at the counter ready to check out. Everything from suntan lotion to a book, a magazine or the morning newspaper, a gift, or a Hallmark Card will be purchased. Chuck divides his time up at the register, talking with customers, and working behind the scenes. Barbara Dalrymple, who retired as a principal, is co-owner and shares the day-to-day duties with her husband.

The Dalrymple family honors the memory of their parents, and grandparents who settled in Sea Isle in 1901, while staying focused on the present.

“The store is a big part of me,” says Chuck. “I love being here. I have joy with all the work that has to be done. My parents taught us: You work with the customer. You talk to the customer. Whatever the customer wants. The store is the customer. That’s how we feel.”