Story by Bridget Mills; video by Torrey Lin Weiner
On Ninth Street, where storefronts have come and gone, Vaguely Reminiscent has long felt like something familiar, enduring, and personal to the people who pass through its doors.
That will change this year.
After 43 years in business, owner Carol Anderson, 75, is closing the clothing, crafts, and knickknacks store as she prepares to retire. While the exact closing date is still to be determined, Anderson is emptying shelves and not restocking the store.
“I kept hearing from other folks who said, ‘When you are ready, you will know.’ And I just reached a point a couple months ago that it was like, yeah, this is it,” Anderson said.
Though she feels certain in her decision, Anderson says the closure comes with mixed emotions. More than anything, she will miss the community she built over four decades.
“We have the most incredible customer base. The community has been so supportive from day one,” she said.
Anderson opened Vaguely Reminiscent in 1983, when Durham looked very different. Ninth Street was a “mini Main Street” serving nearby textile mills and, home to a shoe store, a bait shop and a breakfast spot.
“There was kind of nothing there. The Regulator bookstore was kind of the first inkling that something different could happen,” she said.
The store itself began almost accidentally. Anderson and her business partner at the time, Deb Nickell, were both new mothers and “simply looking for something to do.”
“It wasn’t purposeful. It was almost like we fell into it,” Anderson said.
The original space was half the size it is today, selling crafts on consignment and cotton clothing in front of a movable wall. But as Ninth Street evolved, becoming a hub for local activism and small, independent businesses, so did the store.
By the 1970s and into the early ’80s, the area had become a tight-knit community of “like-minded folks,” Anderson said, with organizations like the People’s Alliance and Reproductive Freedom for All (then known as NARAL) operating nearby.
“Ninth Street was where it was happening in Durham,” she said.
Through decades of change, Vaguely Reminiscent has remained a constant on Ninth Street, serving generations of customers.
Anderson remembers a Durham where parking was free, there were more dirt streets, and you could get across town in 10 minutes.
“The older you get, the more you wish things would just kind of stop and stay the same, even though there is nothing inevitable but change.”
Today, the small space is filled with enough to exceed one’s imagination, from vintage jewelry stands, to animal-shaped tea infusers, to an “emergency snoring kit.”
Shawndra Cummings, a sales associate at Vaguely, repositions a pocket-sized dream analysis book on a shelf as a young girl whizzes through the aisle on roller skates, only to be quickly ushered out. Cummings has shopped at the store since she was a teen, and is “crushed” about the store closing. She used to take day trips to Durham with her mom just to stop by. Now her daughter shops there, too.
“I’ve met some really wonderful people within the community, and the fact that Carol is so active within the community … it’s been an honor to be a part of the team,” Cummings said.
Since Vaguely’s opening, Anderson has insisted that either she or store managers select each item rather than relying on sales representatives. She doesn’t push products that she thinks would simply “sell best.”
“If people want these shoes that don’t fit, I’ll tell them, Don’t buy them.’ I don’t want them to walk away unhappy, because that’s a reflection on me,” Anderson said.
Anderson is confident it’s the right time to step away. She recognizes what the store has meant to the community, though.
“There is something about losing one more connection to the past… people in my generation shop there. Our children shop there. Now their children shop there. So we’ve been through three generations.
“That’s a lot of people, a lot of years, and a lot of community.”
Bridget Mills
Torrey Lin Weiner
