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NILES — Friday morning, before snow blanketing the roads had been melted by tire treads and the rising sun, Jim “Jimbo” Shelton was already working inside of Shelton’s Farm Market in Niles, preparing the storefront to open. By 9 a.m., he had already felt like he worked a full shift, catering to a line of customers reaching outside the door.

“I’ve been running my legs off,” Shelton said during a brief, rare break. “We’ve been very busy.”

Shelton, now 89 years old, still works day-in and day-out at Shelton’s Farm Market, 1832 S. 11th St., Niles. The store was started by his father, Ethan Shelton 73 years ago, and has remained a family business. Since the COVID-19 pandemic hit, Shelton has not missed a day of work, and continues to work on the front lines serving customers, despite long lines and supply-chain shortages.

“Last year, I took four days off, and you want to know why? We were closed,” Shelton said with a laugh. “I really don’t consider it work. It’s more like a lifestyle with me.”

Due to his age, Shelton is considered by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention at a high risk of serious illness should he catch the COVID-19 virus. Despite this, Shelton said fear of infection is not slowing him down at all, other than taking the necessary precautions all Shelton’s employees and customers are taking: keeping a proper space between people, wearing masks, and routinely sanitizing hands and objects. To help protect his health, Shelton has been coming into work earlier to minimize his contact with the public. However, sometimes he said he cannot help himself from helping out on the floor during the store’s open hours.

“My son and grandson might get a little angry with me if they catch me out on the sales floor when there are people here,” he said. “They try to protect me from all this. … I’m very fortunate that we don’t know anyone that has had the bug.”

To Shelton, work is a way of life — one that comes naturally to him. He spent much of his life working 90 to 100 hours a week, was never one for vacations and said retirement “is not a word in [his] vocabulary.” While he called his long hours and years of work in service of his family business a sacrifice, it is one he said he and his family were willing to make.

“[The business] takes a total effort,” he said. “Now, more than ever.”

His work ethic is serving Shelton well throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, as he said the store is facing unique challenges, such as shortages of certain products, and is busier than ever.

“This is tough. It’s really hard to stock our shelves, but we’ve been around for 73 years, so if there is anything we can do to stock our shelves, if there is anything we can purchase, we are going to find it and work around things as best we can,” he said. “We’ve been around long enough that we have survived a lot of bad things, so we will survive this. We have the crew to do it. Our crew is good. They have hung in there, they have stepped up, and they have worked hard.”

Despite the challenges, Shelton said Shelton’s Farm Market would continue to serve the greater Niles community throughout the pandemic and beyond — and he will be there bright and early each morning to help make that happen.

“I’m a born optimist, and I think everything is going to be OK,” he said. “I’m looking very much forward to when this is over with, and we can go back to normal — whatever that looks like.”