08/09/2007

Record-Eagle/Tyler Sipe
Donna Mikowski will be closing up shop at her family-owned rock business by year’s end.

End of an era

Old-fashioned rock shop plans to close at year's end

By CYMBRE FOSTER
Special to the Record-Eagle

Record-Eagle/Tyler Sipe
Mikowski and her husband, Bob Mikowski, make jewelry out of Petoskey stones including this Michigan shaped stone.

TRAVERSE CITY — In less than six months, the folks at Davidson Rock Shop on Randolph Street will be turning off their rock polisher and bidding a fond farewell to the family-owned and -operated business that began as a hobby some 45 years ago.

It will be a bittersweet day for Donna Mikowski, who worked side by side with her mother, Helena Davidson, almost from the day her mother opened the rock shop in her Traverse City home in 1962.

With the death of Davidson a year ago, and a steep rise in their property taxes, Mikowski and her husband Robert decided it was time to lock the doors and put up a "for sale” sign.

"In a way I'm ready, but it will also be hard,” said Mikowski. "It's been my life for 45 years. I will really miss the people. We have the nicest people that come here.”

Over the years, the Davidsons purchased some merchandise for resale in their shop. But much of what their customers wanted was what the family found themselves at area beaches and gravel pits.

"Mom and Dad used to go hunting all the time,” said Donna. "Then in later years, my husband started to take my mom.”

The family cut, polished and set stones into earrings, rings, necklaces, bolos and more. Rock hounds knew they could also find fine examples of Petoskey stones, agates and other nature-made treasures either in their natural or polished state.

"We're a working shop,” said Mikowski. "We do it all.”

Helena Davidson was a familiar sight to anyone who frequented the unassuming white clapboard building with a view of West Grand Traverse Bay. She was less than a month from her 94th birthday when she died last year, said Mikowski, who now runs the store with the help of her husband. With her home attached to the store, Davidson was able to work there until she was 91.

"Everybody loved my mom,” said Mikowski, who went to work in the store in 1963 and has been there ever since.

Mikowski said that the rock shop began when her mother, who had always loved collecting rocks, received a rock polisher from her husband as a Christmas gift. She began displaying some of her finished work in the front window of their home.

"People started taking an interest,” said Mikowski, and eventually the Davidsons decided to open a retail store. A year later, Donna became their first employee.

"I was pregnant with my first child and needed a job so they hired me,” she recalled.

Mikowski said she has never been "nuts” for rocks like some people, but loves and appreciates the beauty of the natural material she has been working with for more than half her life. Mikowski's father William, who polished many of the agates over the years, died in 1988 and Davidson and Mikowski continued to run the shop together.

Repeat customers know that the little rock shop has remained virtually unchanged over the years. A buzzer that is loud enough to be heard back in the house announces visitors. They are greeted by the same cheery aqua walls that are lined with shelves of polished Petoskey stones, beach stones, minerals, fossils and other goodies from Mother Nature's storehouse.

Small plastic deli containers hold a rainbow of polished minerals. In one of the glass display cases, specimen stones are displayed next to Davidson's hand-lettered labels that tell what the stone is and where it came from.

The tub of Petoskey stones and water that Mikowski's father kept out on the front sidewalk are gone, but there is still a pile of Petoskey stones on the sidewalk free for the taking. There's a hose next to them so you can spray them off and see the telltale honeycomb pattern of hexagons that makes them one-of-a-kind.

"Not much has changed here,” said Mikowski. "We're the same old, same old.”

Not only has the building remained the same, but the way the family conducts business has never wavered. They still base their business on trust, which means they'll send off the goods before they have payment.

"There's a couple from Texas who left their Petoskey stone with us and I'd polish it and send it and then they'd pay me,” she said.

If someone calls the couple at their Union Street home after hours, they will go and open up the store.

"It's not that big of a deal,” said Mikowski. "You know our customers have been pretty good to us, too.”

The Rock Shop is well known for its exceptional selection of Petoskey stones. Customers can buy them unpolished for as little as 50 cents or bring in their own, which Mikowski will polish for them.

Mikowski said she is especially busy in the summer polishing customers' special Petoskey stones. She gets them done as quickly as she can, though polishing the fossils is an involved process with many steps.

They also slice and cut the fossils into a variety of shapes for jewelry.

"My mom did a lot of the Petoskey cutting,” said Mikowski, who has found it difficult to find the time to cut them now that her mom is gone. Her mother was especially good at cutting the stones in the shape of Michigan, she said.

For many customers one of the most endearing memories was the smell of Davidson's lunch cooking when they stopped in.

"My mom would always cook her main meal at lunch time and people would come in and say 'Boy, it smells so good in here, what have you got cooking today?'” she laughed.

In fact, Mikowski said, customers have made the last 45 years so special. They come from around the world, she said, and many of them return year after year.

"We try to treat everyone nicely. We say hello when they walk in and answer our own phones. We do it all and we just do the best we can,” she said.

Because they didn't want to disappoint their repeat summer visitors this year, the rock shop won't close until late November or early December.