When you walked in, you weren’t in Mayfield anymore,” Jana Duffy declared. Her vision for her upscale, fashion-forward clothing store for women was based on high-quality design and fashion that appealed to buyers who might shop in Nashville or Atlanta, or some other metropolitan locale.
The building she eventually purchased to house her boutique was on the route she took almost every day, driving her kids to school. When she spotted a “For Sale or Lease,” sign on the distinctive structure she could not resist stopping, noting the phone number, and then making the proper inquiries.
In just three months she developed a business plan and acquired the building. The papers were signed and the property was hers as of October 27, 2018.
Asked how she managed to pull off the challenge in such a tight timeframe, she replied, “When I decide I’m gonna do something, I do it.”
Trained as a cosmetologist, she also had retail experience, so she knew the brands she wanted to carry and the environment she wanted to create in Anaj. No stranger to hard work, she fixed up the outside of the old building, which dated back to around 1887. Inside, high ceilings set off the dramatic décor tailored to buyers seeking attire that made them feel beautiful and powerful.
Anaj — Jana spelled backward — was barely a year old when COVID-19 struck. To keep the store open, Duffy worked part-time gigs. In spite of the challenges, she thrived on serving customers’ needs at Anaj while enduring the ups and downs of life in a pandemic.
In spite of it all, the Christmas season, always hectic, was fun and energizing. An Anaj post on Facebook from November 27, 2021, captured the spirit: “We are OPEN until 3 pm! Don’t forget to hit 7th Street while you’re out shopping small!”
Less than two weeks later, the store was in rubble. Most of downtown Mayfield, in fact, had been destroyed by a killer tornado that hit Dec. 10. The tone of Duffy’s Facebook entry on December 11 was somber: “Anaj is NOT salvageable. People have lost their homes, lives. Pray for our city.”
Months later, the events of that day are still vivid in Jana’s memory. “Everybody was talking about the storms, but I didn’t think it would be that had,” she recalled.
She had experienced dangerous weather in 2016 when her parents’ auto parts store in Mayfield was hit by a tornado. Though the business had sustained damage, it was repaired and eventually reopened.
Friday night, December 10, Jana was on her own, since the kids were with their dad’s family.
“At about 8:40 I got a sick feeling,” she admitted. “I said to myself, ‘I have to get out of here.’”
She loaded the dog in the car, called her parents, contacted her kids so they would not worry about her, and then phoned her 88-year-old grandmother to report her “weird feeling” about the oncoming storm.
Grandma understood right away and alerted her 92-year-old sister. Jana picked up both, along with two more dogs. Together, they headed to her parent’s house in Hickory, where they sheltered safely.
The tornado had barely passed when text messages began showing up about the damage to Mayfield. “Jana, your store’s gone,” one of them said.
A positive thinker, Jana figured the reports might be exaggerated. It was too early to know the state of downtown, especially in a pitch-black landscape with no electricity.
She headed back home and then spent a restless night. Emergency vehicles sped past her house. Sirens blared. After a fitful rest, she got up at 7 a.m. and realized, “Maybe things might be a little bit worse than what I’m thinking.”
The short drive to the store seemed pretty normal until she passed the Dairy Queen and got to the top of the overhead bridge leading into downtown.
“Everything was demolished,” she said. “I don’t know what I expected but it wasn’t that.”
Roads were closed, layers of rubble everywhere. When she got a flat tire, a police officer came to her rescue and changed it. She headed back home and by the time she got there, her spare was flat and she had to wait for her relatives to arrive to help her.
Her parents took her to Anaj. The display windows were shattered but the front door was still in place. Once inside, the reality was unavoidable. Everything from the windows, the clothing racks, and almost all that had been upfront were now in the back of the store. The roof had collapsed on top of the carefully curated merchandise. The stainless steel counter, however, was exactly where it had always stood, with the good luck bear claw and ink pens on top, undisturbed.
Indoors and out, the whole scene was shocking. The courthouse had lost its tower, the side of one bank was gone, the second story of an adjacent building had disappeared. Nothing looked the way it was supposed to.
Once the magnitude of the situation settled in, Duffy began the official process of filling out forms, filing papers. Since Anaj had been in business only three years — almost two of them in a pandemic — her insurance just paid off the basic debt. The day we talked she was waiting for an excavator to show up and clear the property.
“I don’t plan to rebuild,” she said.
For now, she is back at work in cosmetology at a local spa but planning to take a break soon and think about what’s next.
“I’ll do something in …” Her voice trails off. She has an idea but it is still taking shape. “But no retail in Mayfield,” she said, the only part of her dream she is willing to share.
She credits her children, a girl, 16, and a boy, 12, with helping her get through this turbulent time. “I’m lucky to be their mom,” she said.
Asked for advice about how to handle a disaster, she advised being prepared. “Make sure everything is insured and itemized. Take pictures. In the blink of an eye, it all can be gone and you can’t remember,” she said.
She has compassion for so many people who could not afford insurance to begin with. “Now they are in more debt than ever, and with no place to live,” she remarked.
“I feel guilty for mourning the loss of my building,” Duffy said. “It was beautiful. But I just lost a place. Others lost loved ones.”
Constance Alexander is a columnist, award-winning poet and playwright, and President of INTEXCommunications in Murray. She is a board member for Hoptown Chronicle.
