Edgemont Village Jeweller owner Sherry Violette is closing the doors of her family owned business after 33 years to pursue her artistic passion and check off her bucket list.
The store, which closes on May 18, sits on Edgemont and Highland Boulevard and has been a cornerstone building in the village since the 1950s. But it wasn’t until late 1985 that Violette’s parents Jean and Michael, who were wholesale jewellers, bought the business.
Violette is retiring at age 55 after seeing a few of her close friends, who were the same age or even younger, pass away.
“There’s nothing like having that happen to make you go I’m hoping to live a long full life but if I don’t, those bucket list items I’ve got to get them done,” she said.
Violette is hoping to pursue her passion in painting by taking some art classes. With her husband, who’s also retiring, they plan to do some travelling, enjoy their love of skiing and hopefully give back to some charity organizations.
“The thing about a brick and mortar business, it’s limiting because you can’t really go away for a long time and you know if you want to take classes it’s difficult because you need to open certain hours,” she said.
In her early 20s, Violette was financially struggling as a daycare educator and her parents offered her a job at the store. After working at the shop for seven years, Violette got married and moved to northern Alberta with her husband.
In 2009 when her parents decided to give up working she moved back to North Vancouver to fully take over the business so her parents could retire. According to Violette, her father was the “face of the shop” and following his footsteps was a huge responsibility.
“I’ve done my level best to try to do everything he did, he did a lot of stuff in the community. He supported a lot of teams and donation requests for all the schools and community groups and I tried to keep that up,” she said. “Honestly not a day goes by that somebody doesn’t ask how my parents are doing, not one day.”
Since Edgemont Village Jeweller has been around for many years the store has generations of customers who come in, leaving Violette with memorable stories.
She recalls a time that perfectly depicts the quaint, small village of Edgemont, when they had a customer come in who was searching for the owner of a charm bracelet she found.
Violette noticed the bracelet had two little Scottish terrier charms. She thought that was unusual to have two identical charms and it reminded her of a woman who ordered two “Scottie dog” charms six months prior. She looked through her records and called up the woman. As it turned out the bracelet was a gift from the her mother who had passed away.
“We were able to get her bracelet back ... so it was super meaningful. Everybody was crying, it was insane, yeah it was pretty special,” she said.
Violette knows the store closing is bittersweet but will never forget all the loyalty she’s received from the community.
“A lot of people are sad to see this store going but I kind of look at like we’ve had 33 years, I think that’s a really successful long term business and now I’m ready to move on to the next stage, I don’t see this as a bad thing, I just see it as a next phase,” Violette said.
