A belated goodbye to A Costumiery.

In January of 2012, Dale Moss (then still writing for the C-J) wrote about the owners of A Costumiery, who were having a very hard time of it.

Trouble hard to mask for New Albany costume shop (paid archive only)

Jean Crook struggled for the best way to sum up her predicament.

"I'm stuck," she said softly, eyes downward. "I truly am."

Along with husband John, Crook operates A Costumiery in what was built long ago as a grocer's mansion on Spring Street in New Albany. There, the elderly couple lives, and there a business dies. Not one customer came calling during my recent visit. At least no bill collector did, either.

A Costumiery was always there, ever since we moved into the neighborhood, just a block down the street. I saw Dale's piece and got the chills, because wasn't this every independent small business owner's nightmare? The Crooks were well past retirement age. Their business was dead in the water. They could afford neither to carry on, nor to quit. The house was falling part before their eyes and ours, and they were still living in it ... stuck.

It was so very sad, and maybe that's why I filed it in the anxiety closet and forgot. Some demons are too close to home, both literally and figuratively.

I've walked past the old grocer's mansion several hundred times since then. Until last weekend, I didn't even know that John Crook died in March of 2013, or that Jean Crook was ill and had moved away to live with family. Late last week, a small "Yard Sale" sign was out in the yard, and we began seeing items big and small being carried out -- couches, gowns, U-Haul boxes. We stopped in on Saturday to see what was left, and there was a lot.

Someone asked what would happen to the rest of the business inventory and personal items once the yard sale concluded. "I suppose into the trash," came the answer. We ran into Dave Barksdale, and he observed that although the house (once emptied) needs love, the bones are good. The house itself probably has seen this process a few times; if walls could talk.

The former grocer's house and costumery is for sale; there's a phone number on the door. I took photos to remember A Costumiery as a business, and perhaps also for comparison's sake, some day, when it has been renovated and is being showcased during the annual Historic Home Tour.