Sisterly love runs Canfield store

By Justin Dennis

jdennis@vindy.com

CANFIELD

Inside Karey’s Vintage Store are rare treasures, heirlooms, oddities and personality of craftsmanship otherwise unseen along U.S. Route 224’s retailer corridor.

“I have things you can’t find anymore,” said owner Jackie Pollo, sitting at a solid and ornately engraved meeting table made from a rich, chestnut-brown stained wood.

For Pollo, the store is a labor of love. She assumed ownership from her younger sister, Karey Gengler, 46, who died unexpectedly of a brain aneurysm in December.

“Since it was so sudden, everyone was in shock – complete shock,” Pollo said. “Nobody even really gave a thought about what was going to happen to the store at the time.

“That’s when I started to get that nagging feeling in my chest. She’s telling me, ‘Keep my store open.’”

Antique sales and auctions were Gengler’s passion, Pollo said. Gengler spent lots of time learning the business, buying, selling and renting antique-mall booths, with the dream of one day opening her own vintage store.

She started hosting garage sales for cheap at the store’s two-story 6655 Stutz Drive location – inside an office park along Route 224 – to draw interest, before renting out its shelves to regular vendors.

She died not long after the first anniversary of the store’s opening, Pollo said.

Pollo ultimately quit her secretary job to work full-time as the store’s only employee, and found all Gengler’s 20-some vendors wanted to stay, too.

Karey’s Vintage Store was back in business Jan. 15. But now Pollo’s looking for more vendors to rent space.

Shelving is $20 a month, and space rentals range from $60 a month for a 6-by-6-foot area and $100 a month for 10-by-12 feet, which is “very cheap, compared to other antique malls in the area,” Pollo said.

On those shelves and walls one might find collectible decorative china, hanging three-piece Chinese wall art, an authentic gas mask, 5-foot-tall silk banner art that may have come from Asia, or a stuffed quail.

Working the store is like “therapy” for Pollo, who still mentions her sister in the present, as if she were still with her.

The Saturday before Gengler’s death, Pollo was helping her place signs for the store along Route 224 and retrieve them after closing.

“That night, we were leaving and she handed me the sign and she said, ‘Here, you can start putting this out in the mornings,’” Pollo said.

The day after Gengler’s death, Pollo and her son returned to secure the store, change locks and unplug electronics. She noticed she left the store’s sign in her backseat, she said.

“It was like she was giving it to me,” Pollo said.

Karey’s Vintage Store is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Thursday and Saturday.