Alexander ? Antiques fill the two buildings adjacent to the railroad tracks that pass through the tiny Rush County community of Alexander.

Inside one of the buildings sits Granny, as she is known to virtually everyone. Her looks – soon to be 80 years old and ever so slight of build – are deceiving.

After all, she’s the driving force behind an antiques house that most likely keeps the Alexander Post Office open.

Granny, also known as Thelma Bushell, her two daughters and a granddaughter all operate a successful online antique operation that results in anywhere from 20 to 30 packages being mailed each day.

The two small and cramped buildings in Alexander are just a small part of the overall operation.

Most of the sales are through the online auction house, eBay.

There, Granny’s Junktiques is known as Granny74 – how old she was when she started in the antique business.

“I’m a lot older than that now,” she said. “I’m 80.”

Today, Granny has gone high-tech, and has sold thousands of products through the online auction house, generating more than 22,000 positive comments in the six years there.

She is considered a power seller, because of the high number of sales and the 99.9 percent approval rating that come from the positive comments left about her service.

Bushell opened the Alexander buildings about a year ago, moving there from La Crosse, where she had been located for almost 11 years.

Thelma Granny Bushell of Granny's Junktiques talks about her business in Alexander. The bulk of her booming business comes from online sales.

“We live here,” she said of Alexander.

The main auction building once housed the old co-op office. The second building next door also was an elevator office and still contains the old scale mechanism that weighed vehicles delivering grain.

“We’re not selling it,” she said of the scale. “It’s part of our old building.”

Inside that building are what is called primitive collectibles, items such as tools.

“What you see is what it is,” Granny said of the antique shop that she runs. “We have regular people that come at certain times.”

Some of those people come from as far away as Colorado and Texas, some of them purchasing items for resale. Her antiques come from auctions and sales through the region.

“Wherever they’re having a sale, we go,” she said. “You’d be surprised how many auctions there are.”

Her bounty, and that of her daughters – Pam Ferguson and Carol Ferguson – and granddaughter, Amy Ferguson, are then sold though eBay.

Granny Bushell of Granny's Junktiques poses by her storefront.

It’s easier that way, she said of selling the items.

Together, they keep three computers humming along, using a high-speed Internet connection to their house. About two-thirds of the items they handle are sold through eBay, Bushell said.

“We got a computer one Christmas and that’s what did it,” she said of the family’s entry into the online world of auctions.

Bushell said she and her family keep anywhere from 120 to 150 items on the online auction house at any given point. Last week, for example, they had 183 items listed, a mix of just about anything.

“I don’t know how people get along without one,” Bushell said of the benefits of owning a computer. “I like doing it when I have time.”

The items that are sold by the group runs the gamut.

“Anything and everything,” she said. “Anything you can mail. Antiques or collectibles.” And every day, she said, they deliver 20 to 30 packages to the Alexander Post Office.

“We keep our post office going,” Bushell said with a chuckle. “She (the Alexander postmistress) appreciates us. Little post offices are having troubles keeping their hours.”

As with virtually all eBay items sold, the buyer pays for the shipping. “We sell jewelry almost every day,” she said of their online sales.

And she has no indication of slowing down. “I don’t mind being old,” she said of being 80 years old. “It has its little perks too.

“That’s why I like being here. I can go home and take a nap if I feel like it. “

But the antique business is in her blood. “This is something I like to do. This is my fun thing. I wouldn’t do it if it wasn’t. If it got to the point where it wasn’t fun I wouldn’t do it.”