Ohio boutique has holistic plan for women’s well-being
TALLMADGE, Ohio — Women come to Conversations & Co. for more than the jewelry and handbags.
They also come for the empowerment.
The boutique in this restored Victorian house off Tallmadge Circle may look like just another pretty shop, but there’s strength behind the beauty. The store is the centerpiece of a wellness center designed to bring women together, improve their physical and emotional well-being and foster their creativity.
It’s a place where women can get a manicure or a make a business connection, where they can sell their artwork or heal from an emotional trauma.
The concept was developed by Jana Tucker and Lisa Williams, who own the business along with their siblings, Julie Machinena, Dirk Breiding and Ryan Breiding.
Tucker said she discovered a talent for developing synergies among people during more than 20 years in a corporate job. In particular, she found a passion for connecting women, and she dreamed of creating a facility where that could happen.
“Yeah, it’s great when you sell something,” she said, but the real gratification of running Conversations & Co. comes from hearing the stories of women who made connections or found inspiration there.
The shop embodies that commitment in what it sells. Its inventory includes goods by local artists and books by local authors, whose visibility the owners hope to raise.
One of them is Deborah Lynne Keith, a Kent resident who makes handbags and recently branched into wall hangings. She originally dabbled in the craft as a way of making Christmas gifts and discovered that the creative endeavor helped alleviate the effects of her Parkinson’s disease.
“Conversations and Company was instrumental, absolutely instrumental, in this whole process,” Keith said. A friend introduced her to Tucker and Williams, and she felt an immediate affinity with the women, she said.
Every time she met with them, their enthusiasm and support for her handbag business inspired her.
“It transitioned me into a whole new way of making them,” she said. When she thinks about the role they played in her growth as an artist, “I keep thinking of the word kindness over and over.”
Maybe nurturing success is built into the home’s very framework. The house was the childhood home of Clara Wolcott Driscoll, who designed some of the most famous Tiffany lamps around the turn of the 20th century. Though she wasn’t publicly recognized at the time for her work, Driscoll was an adroit businesswoman when few females had leadership roles in the workplace.
The house was constructed around 1878 as the parsonage for the nearby Tallmadge Church and most recently housed a florist shop. Tucker and her siblings moved their business there in 2015, after an extensive renovation.
The boutique occupies the first floor. The second floor houses Evergreen Healing Centers, where practitioners offer such services as skin and nail care, massage, reflexology, yoga, meditation, healing services, hypnotherapy, art therapy, life coaching and grief support.
Clinical hypnotherapist Kelly Brown uses a cozy office on that floor to see clients struggling to overcome traumas such as rape, incest, molestation and addiction. Brown likes that the building and the tiny office provide the safe environment her clients need. “It’s a calm, peaceful, protective place that my clients respond to very well,” she said.
A former lawyer, Brown changed careers after witnessing the benefits of hypnotherapy in the combat veterans her firm represented. Those years in the legal field also made her cautious, she said, so she was initially skeptical about the Conversations & Co. setting and the idea of bringing together various healing practitioners.
But Brown said Tucker’s honest concern for women won her over. And she appreciates working with other women, an experience she didn’t have in her male-dominated law firm.
“Working here has been absolutely wonderful for me,” she said. “It’s an amazing group of women.”
At 5:30 p.m. on Dec. 24, the Christmas Eve service at St. John’s Episcopal Church will hark back to the late night services of former years.
Instead of a children’s pageant, the service will be preceded with a choral prelude featuring the choir and instrumental music.
There will be a special entrance rite after the prelude when the lights will be dimmed and the prologue from the Gospel of St. John will be read as the Christ candle in the center of the Advent wreath is lit.
A dramatic reading of the Christmas gospel, interspersed with Christmas hymns, will be followed by communion, after which worshippers will be invited to light hand-held candles as the church lights are dimmed for the singing of “Silent Night.”
Child care will be provided, although families are encouraged
Al-Anon — For friends and families of alcoholics, 6 p.m., in fireside room, St. Paul Lutheran Church, 701 S. Pleasant Ave., call 334-2523.
Business Men’s Fellowship U.S.A. — 7 a.m., Hollywood Cafe, 315 S. Cherokee Lane, call 369-0955 or 401-1219.
Celebrate Recovery — meeting at 7 p.m., Bear Creek Community Church.
Celebrate Recovery — Christbased meeting, focuses on hurts, hang-ups and habits, 6:30 p.m., room 6, First Baptist Church of Lodi, 267 N. Mills Ave.
Community Center for the Blind — Tuesdays and Wednesdays, 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. for resources and support, call 298-7912.
Lodi Eagles Auxiliary — Meeting, 7 p.m., 217 E. Lockeford St.
Lodi Women’s Center — 29 S. Washington St. 9 a.m. to noon, 2 to 5 p.m. Contact Paula Grech. Crisis hotline 368-3406.
Lodi Toastmasters — 7 p.m. Open to public. Ambassador room at
LOEL Senior Center — Exercise session, 8:30-9:30 a.m.; hand and foot, 10 a.m.; duplicate bridge, 12:30 p.m.; Bingo 1 p.m.; Memoirs writing, 1 p.m.; 105 S. Washington St. 369-1591.
Narcotics Anonymous — 7 p.m. 20 S. Main St. 464-9262.
Widowed Persons Association — Pinochle, 12:30 p.m. at Casa de Lodi. Call 333-0438.
Wednesday
50 Plus Club of Lodi — Bingo, 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m., Hutchins Street Square, all welcome, refreshments. Call Margaret Fitch at 334-4926 or Lavonne Nies at 369-4624.
Bingo — Casa de Lodi, 4:30 p.m.
Community Center for the Blind — Tuesdays and Wednesdays, 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. for resources and support, call 298-7912.
Delta Blood Bank — The blood bank is in need of all blood donors. Please call 88894BLOOD or visit the website at
Donations may be made at Hutchins Street Square today, 12:30 - 6:45 p.m.