Lucy Kelly and Mary Davis leaving core Morris Street businesses

Davis will turn lights off for last time

Mary Davis Vintage Lighting is the brick-and-mortar embodiment of a four decades-long passion.

By day, in her younger years, Davis pursued a retail management career. By night she tracked down vintage lighting for herself and her friends from the basement of her home in Seattle.

Moving to La Conner and opening her store sharpened her eye for lighting design. It is a gift she has shared with customers who want a single lamp and those who involve her in a custom home build or a complete restoration of an existing home..

“That is the real joy – planning lighting for spaces or planning spaces around lighting,” she says.

Projects like this can take up to two years and involve scouting trips to antiques markets on the east coast.

Customers Josh and Aubrey Schaeffer are already grieving. They became “enamored” of Davis and her late partner Tom Minifie when they remodeled a 1908 farmhouse in Snohomish.

“The beauty and wonder the store provided us and the grace and expertise that you and Tom offered will never be forgotten,” Josh wrote in a recent email. “Your and his kindness and experience made buying lamps so much fun it became addicting. I was heartbroken to hear of his passing and it doubled when I learned that your wonderful store would be closing.”

Minifie‘s death in 2018 greatly increased Davis’ workload. “I built the shop with Tom. He ran the shop and I did everything else, but now I do everything,” she said. “It is too much for one person at the level we took it to.”

During the COVID-19 lockdown last spring, she had time to rest and reflect on what might be next.

“While we were closed, I had a good time gardening, walking to the post office with my sheepdog Edgar and doing yoga,” she said. “I felt totally different than when I am crammed at the store. I know I don’t want to be tied down anymore.”

When her doors shut at the end of January, long-time colleague and fellow lighting enthusiast Mark Joseph will purchase her remaining inventory and open La Conner Electric Company in the Palmer building – the former Lighthouse restaurant.

Social media and online shopping are changing retail, says the seasoned retail expert whose resume includes stints with Frederick and Nelson and Ralph Lauren advises.

“Retail is theater now.” She hopes Joseph and fellow La Conner retailers will “give customers something they can’t get anywhere else and put your heart and soul into it. You have to stand for something” to stand out today, she notes.

“My biggest joy is when I hear someone walk in the front door and say ‘oh my god.’ My store isn’t what they are expecting. You work hard to get to that point.”

As the Schaeffer family told Davis, “You and your store were a beacon of brilliant light in a drab big-box store world.”

Kelly has mailed her last package

The last time Lucy Kelly retired, she decided to launch a business instead of hitting the golf course.

Realizing that La Conner residents had to go to Burlington or Anacortes just to make a black and white photocopy, she looked into office services.

She thought about opening a UPS Store, but decided going solo would be cheaper and a better fit for herself and the town. So in 2013, she opened Tillinghast Postal and Business Services.

In the beginning, she was not quite sure how to do what people were asking. Every day was a learning experience. Eventually she became a pro at making photocopies and much, much more.

As she hands over the keys to new owners Christi and Chris King, she names three highlights of her eight years in business.

Reproducing the work of local artist Bob Patterson in postcards and greeting cards has been a pleasure. So has been working with store associate Ginger Olson. Of the hundreds of people she has employed during her long pre-La Conner career, said Kelly, “Ginger is on top. She has put up with me for eight years and has been my absolutely most trusted employee and friend.”

But what she will miss most of all are the folks who have come in to buy stamps, mail packages, notarize documents and make those photocopies.

Running a business oriented towards locals rather than out-of-town visitors, Kelly has grown to know her customers well.

“Every day I’m awed by the kindness, consideration and patience that greet me,” she said. “There are acts of kindness that are totally unexpected, like people bringing me cookies and flowers from their garden.”

“I haven’t even let myself think about moving away from regular contact with people who have just made my day, and there are hundreds.”

While her business does not depend on events like the Tulip Festival, she grieves this year’s downturn. After looking down First Street and seeing “three cars total” one day last spring, she says she will not complain about Tulip Fest parking again.

“Those days were so joyous,” she said. “People were so excited to come see the flowers and La Conner, and the shops were all geared up to receive them. I’m looking forward to the Festival returning.”

Entering retirement – or as Olson teases her, “refirement” – for the second time, Kelly still will not golf or take cruise ships. But she knows that this is a good time to move on.

“The world constantly changes, and I don’t want to be the blacksmith looking out at cars and wondering why you’re not shoeing horses anymore,” she said.

“How many people can be as lucky as I am?