In the Company of Flowers in downtown Keene sold after 34 years

Jun. 26—A familiar floral scent wafted onto Keene's Main Street through the open door of In the Company of Flowers on Friday as Mary Schofield celebrated the sale of the business she owned for 34 years.

Schofield, 78, moved about the flower shop with a smile before settling comfortably into a chair behind the counter after a glass of champagne. With the help of her son, she had closed on the sale of the shop a day earlier — passing the business on to Andrea Daley, a former employee who now owns The Village Blooms in Walpole, and her two partners, Emma Miller and Mallori Balla.

"This business allowed me to have relationships that were very special," Schofield said during an interview at a coffee shop on Friday. "Now I'm having kids that were born when I started coming in with their kids; I got involved in people's personal lives."

A single mother, Schofield said she opened In the Company of Flowers in 1988 to support her family. In the decades since, the flower shop has bloomed into a centerpiece not just of the downtown, but of the community, intersecting with people's lives at personal moments — from proms to birthdays, weddings, anniversaries and funerals.

Asher Schofield, who grew up coming to the shop and helped manage it this past year, said that the wide reach of a flower shop makes the business unique and noted that meant his mother became so much a part of her customers' lives.

"She really has a sincere emotional investment in the lives that come in through that front door; she legitimately cares," Asher Schofield said. "She is so psychically invested in all of these lives that she intersects with — and it's not just a job. That business is her persona, has been her persona."

Before setting out on her own, Schofield worked at IGA Supermarket formerly in the Riverside Plaza in Keene, where she eventually came to run the floral department. When that store closed, she worked for two years on Nantucket, managing a flower business there, before turning down an offer to expand it to Washington, D.C.

That led Schofield to return to Keene, where she couldn't find a suitable job, so she decided to start her own flower shop.

"It was scary to step out and do your own thing," she said. "I was determined to settle downtown."

Despite having no business background, Schofield managed to find a space at 88 Main St. to open a shop. A few years later she would move In the Company of Flowers into a larger storefront just a little ways down the block at 106 Main St.

At the new location, the flower store had room to grow and Schofield began including a wide variety of items, from clothes and textiles to toys, gifts, jewelry and bath and body products.

As a florist, Schofield said she preferred to sit down and talk to her customers to get a sense of their personality and what they were looking for, rather than have them pick arrangements out of a book.

"I'm very grateful; I'm very grateful," Schofield said. "I'm grateful I had the courage to step out in the community and I'm grateful to the community that I stepped out into because I literally think back on different people all the time."

Still, the flower business kept Schofield busy, especially around the holidays. Her son was 14 when she opened the shop and she recalled working twice as hard to make sure he didn't miss out on holidays and to be there for his soccer games.

After years of entrepreneurship, she said she came to a recent revelation that it was time to move on. With a laugh, she compared that decision to a scene in the movie Forrest Gump.

"Do you remember when he was doing the marathon back and forth and back and forth across the country?" Schofield said. "And then one time he just stopped and said, 'I need to go home now.' That's sort of where I was. 'It's a done deal, I need to go home now.' "

A Richmond resident, Schofield said she doesn't have any particular plans moving forward. She may move to live closer to her son, who lives in Warren, R.I., and her grandchildren but will take some time to figure out what's next.

While longtime customers may not find Schofield in the shop any longer, Daley — who bought the business with two employees, Miller and Balla, from her Walpole shop — said the three partners plan to continue to connect with the community.

Prior to owning The Village Blooms, Daley worked at In the Company of Flowers for Schofield for about six years.

"It's kind of like a homecoming I guess," she said. "It was always sort of a shopping destination and we want to grow that but sort of make it a little more modern."

With plans for a grand re-opening sometime in the coming weeks, the three partners hope to make inroads with the young community in Keene while also building on relationships with longtime customers.

Asher Schofield said he and his mother are excited that In the Company of Flowers will continue to grow, bringing color and life to the community from the heart of downtown.

"You can hear in [my mother's] words how much this business and the experience of owning it all these years has meant to her," Asher Schofield said. "And I think it really means something that she's got a legacy still in this town. It's somebody else's to manage now but the fact that it has a life that will continue on, I think is of great importance to her."

Ryan Spencer can be reached at 352-1234, extension 1412, or rspencer@keenesentinel.com. Follow him on Twitter at

@rspencerKS