Kim Kilgore of Paper Moon: Turning Toward the Life That Felt Like Her Own

Inside Paper Moon in Mascoutah, there is a little bit of everything.

There are coffee beans to grind, handmade candles, local goods, jewelry, gifts, Mascoutah merchandise, funny cards, children’s favorites, and pieces that feel like they were chosen with someone specific in mind. On Saturday mornings, local vendors set up behind the shop for the Saturday Morning Market.

Paper Moon feels like a cheerful Main Street shop — colorful, creative, and full of personality. Behind it is a story much deeper than retail.

For Kim Kilgore, Paper Moon did not begin as a simple business idea. It grew out of years of responsibility, pressure, and the gradual realization that the life she was living no longer felt like the one she wanted to continue.

A Career That Asked Her to Be Strong

Before Paper Moon, Kim spent years in a very different world.

She was a prosecutor in St. Louis County, handling some of the hardest kinds of cases — child abuse, sexual abuse, and murders. At one point, she supervised eight attorneys. The work required focus, toughness, preparation, and an ability to carry stories many people would struggle to hear once, let alone day after day.

Kim was also raising a large family while navigating the demands of her career. She has five children, including a 24-year-old stepdaughter, a son turning 19, a 17-year-old, a 14-year-old, and an 11-year-old. For years, she balanced motherhood, work, commuting, and the responsibility of carrying much of the family’s financial stability while trying to find enough energy to be present at home.

For many years, Kim’s family life was in Mascoutah, while much of her working life was in St. Louis. After moving from University City to Mascoutah for the schools and smaller-town life, she continued commuting to Clayton for about 15 years.

“I would grocery shop there on my lunch break,” she said, describing how much of her day-to-day life still happened near work before she drove home to her family.

Over time, the schedule and emotional weight of the work began to take a toll. What had once felt like a clear, responsible path slowly began to feel misaligned with the life she wanted to live.

When the Work No Longer Fit

Kim remembers being on maternity leave around the time Michael Brown was killed in Ferguson. The day she was supposed to return to work was the day the grand jury decision was being handed down. Her boss called and told her not to come in because the office would be closed.

For Kim, Ferguson was not only a major regional moment. It also marked a shift in the work she was doing and in how she experienced it.

“The whole dynamic of being a prosecutor changed,” she said.

She felt the public trust change. She felt the pressure in the office change. Later, when leadership shifted and coworkers were struggling, Kim realized she was reaching a point she could not keep ignoring.

Her husband encouraged her to leave, though leaving was not simple. She was five years away from being able to retire from the prosecutor’s office.

Still, something inside her knew the way she was living was not sustainable. The tension between who she was at work and who she was at home became harder to reconcile.

“I was a different person at work than I was at home,” she said. “But I spent the majority of my time at work. That wasn’t good.”

That realization stayed with her and began to push her toward something different, even before she knew exactly what that would become.

Finding Another Way Forward

Creativity had always been part of Kim’s life, even when it was not central. As the pressure of her career grew, those creative instincts began to feel less like hobbies and more like necessary outlets.

As a child, she was crafty. As an adult, she still found herself drawn to making things. Like many people, she followed the path that made sense on paper. She was a good student. People told her what she was good at. She listened.

Law, achievement, stability, and income became the responsible choices.

Still, making things kept pulling her back. Over time, that pull became harder to ignore.

After one of her daughters was born, Kim started making hair bows. Big bows were popular, and she could not find exactly what she wanted, so she made them herself. Then people at work started asking if she would make bows for them.

What began as something small became an outlet and, gradually, a glimpse of a different kind of life.

“It was my therapy,” Kim said.

Later, when she moved into work at SIUE doing Title IX advocacy, the environment gave her space to see life differently. She took art classes and began to notice how much she had been missing. That shift in perspective helped her imagine what it might look like to build something of her own.

The Leap Did Not Happen Overnight

Paper Moon may look like a leap from the outside, though Kim’s path into business happened in steps. Each one built on the realization that she needed a different kind of life.

She sold on Etsy. She did craft fairs. She made handmade items. She taught classes. She built confidence piece by piece.

One of the most unexpected stepping stones was freeze-dried candy.

Kim was one of the first people in the region selling freeze-dried candy and was even featured on Fox 2. Through Etsy and local retail locations, she was bringing in about $500 to $800 a month.

That income, modest as it was, became proof that something new could work. It gave her a practical way to begin bridging the gap between leaving her career and building something sustainable.

When she began thinking seriously about opening a storefront, she had saved about $10,000. It was not a massive cushion, yet it was enough to begin. She told her husband that even if nothing else worked right away, the freeze-dried candy income could help cover the rent.

Paper Moon opened in October, just as Mascoutah’s Fall Fest and the holiday shopping season helped bring people through the door. Those first few months gave the shop needed traction and showed her that the risk could become something real.

Kim was not stepping from one life into another without fear. She worked another job while building the shop, often working from about 6 a.m. to 3 p.m., then coming to Paper Moon from around 3 p.m. to 6 p.m., plus weekends.

Eventually, after leaving WashU, Paper Moon became her full-time work. It was the result of years of gradual change, growing confidence, and a willingness to act on what she had been feeling for a long time.

“Every day is still a hustle,” she said.

Hanging above the register is the framed words of encouragement her husband left behind on a moving box during the transition to the new space-

“I am so proud of you for following your dreams and so happy to be on this journey with you! I love you!”

Building More Than a Store

Paper Moon has changed since it first opened, evolving in response to Kim’s vision and what the community needed.

At first, Kim leaned more into antiques. She quickly realized buying habits were shifting, and younger generations were not collecting antiques in the same way. She adjusted, bringing in more gifts, local products, candles, jewelry, Mascoutah merchandise, and items that made the shop feel useful, fun, and community-centered.

The current Paper Moon location will mark one year in July, while the business itself will be three years old in October.

The building also carries history. Before it was Paper Moon, the space had been Bee Hollow, a place known for gourmet coffee, tea, wine, and specialty items. When Kim moved into the building, people asked her to keep the coffee. She did.

Today, customers can still find coffee beans there, along with many other pieces that connect the shop to the community around it.

Kim also makes her own candles and offers candle parties. She supports local makers and carries products from women-owned and small businesses, including Mama’s Rehab and Wild Roots.

She has learned that the items helping a business succeed are not always the ones people expect. Freeze-dried candy helped launch Paper Moon. Now, popular children’s items like squishies have become surprisingly important to the shop’s day-to-day sales.

That is part of small business ownership, Kim has learned: paying attention, adjusting, and understanding what people actually come in for.

A Place for Community to Gather

One of the strongest parts of Kim’s story is how much Paper Moon has connected her to Mascoutah.

For years, she lived in Mascoutah, yet spent most of her waking hours elsewhere. Her work, errands, and energy were tied to St. Louis. Opening Paper Moon changed that.

Now she sees her children’s friends come into the store. She meets people she might not have known otherwise. She serves on the Chamber of Commerce Board. She has become part of the daily life of the town where she had already been living.

“I get to be active in the place I lived and actually live here,” she said.

Kim remembers moving from University City and missing the activity of places like Kirkwood, where there were shops, restaurants, and things to do. In Mascoutah, she remembers taking the kids to parades and realizing there was nowhere to go afterward.

Now she is helping create some of that activity herself.

Paper Moon hosts a Saturday Morning Market from 10 a.m. to noon, where vendors can set up on the back patio and lot behind the shop. The market includes local honey, produce, eggs, handmade goods, and young makers, including an eighth-grade student who sells 3D-printed items.

Kim has also helped organize events like sip-and-shops and Derby Day celebrations, often collaborating with other businesses, photographers, bars, vendors, and entrepreneurs.

She was inspired by the Main Street model she had watched in Belleville, where businesses often help draw traffic for one another instead of only competing.

“We all rise together,” she said.

The shop now also includes others building their own businesses. Karlene has opened Twisted Flamingo, also known locally as The Pink Flamingo, a small café serving drinks and treats within Paper Moon. Kim also has tenant space upstairs. Those pieces help support the business financially and add to her larger vision of shared space and collaboration.

Check out Twisted Flamingo on Facebook

Upcoming Events

Living a Life That Feels Like Her Own

Kim knows what it feels like to live for the weekend or the next break.

For a long time, she said, she worked around the things she loved rather than within them. Yoga, travel, and personal loss — including losing her father and watching her mother live with memory loss— shifted how she thought about time and what mattered.

Those experiences reinforced something that had been building for years: waiting for the “right time” could mean missing the life she actually wanted.

When Kim left the prosecutor’s office, she was five years away from retirement eligibility. That was not a small decision. She began to think differently about what she wanted her life to reflect.

“My chief legacy is to my kids,” she said.

She wanted them to see that it was possible to take a chance, even after years of doing what was expected.

One of her daughters noticed the change quickly.

“She said, ‘Mom, you seem happy,’” Kim said.

That mattered.

What She Would Tell Her Younger Self

When asked what she would tell her younger self, Kim does not focus on titles or money.

She would tell her younger self to follow her heart and trust her intuition.

She knows now that being good at something does not always mean it is the thing that will make a life feel whole. She was good at law. She was good at hard work. She was good at being responsible.

She was also drawn to making, teaching, traveling, gathering, and building.

For a long time, those parts of her life lived around the edges.

Now they are at the center — the result of years of gradual change, difficult decisions, and the courage to act on what she knew deep down.

She encourages younger people to pay attention to what they naturally gravitate toward. A hobby may not become a full-time career immediately. It may begin as something small, part time, or uncertain. It can still matter.

“What you do as a hobby or what you gravitate toward, you can make a career out of that,” she said.

For Kim, Paper Moon is not just what she built after law. It is proof that a life can be redirected — even later, even imperfectly — toward something that fits.

What the Future Looks Like

Kim is still building Paper Moon, and she holds the future with a lighter grip than she once might have.

At 53, she can imagine running the shop until around 60. After that, she hopes life may include more travel, time with future grandchildren, and the freedom to enjoy the slower, more present life she has come to value.

She is also open to the possibility that Paper Moon could continue beyond her in another form. If one of her children ever wanted to take it over, she would stay and help. If the right person came along someday, she could also imagine helping someone else carry it forward.

What matters to Kim is that the space continues to serve the community.

“It really is a good anchor,” she said.

For now, she is not rushing the next chapter. She is living the one she worked hard to choose.

She did not just leave one career for another.

She chose a life that feels like hers — and kept choosing it.

217 E Main St. Mascoutah IL 62258

1 -314-348-1734

email: papermoon_mascoutah@icloud.com

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