by Vickie Holt

The year was 1944. Douglas and Ruby Gray were enjoying the first years of their lives together as the proprietors of Gray’s General Store, located at 214 Floyd Highway South, just two minutes’ drive from the main stoplight in downtown Floyd. Douglas and Ruby were also the proud new parents of baby Mary.
The building that housed the general store had an apartment on the second floor where the family made their home. This is where baby Mary spent the first eighteen months of her life while her parents were busy downstairs. One day, however, little Mary had an adventure. She got tired of staying in her baby bed, so decided to get up and move around. Ruby had heard her daughter walking about, and it was decided that Mary might best off downstairs. Though Mary spent more and more time with her parents in the store, she could still be spotted occasionally looking out of the upstairs window. Mary fondly remembers her mother telling her how everyone in Floyd would wave at her as they passed by. When Mary was five years old, Douglas and Ruby had their hands full. In addition to running a business, they also had to keep their eyes on a mischievous little girl. For a laugh, Mary recalls she would sometimes sneak into the back to smash the farm-fresh eggs on the cement floor. She would also tear holes in the loaves of bread.
In 1950, when Mary was six, the family rented out the store and moved to a nearby farm. Ruby, however, continued to work in the store for the new proprietor. Throughout her school years, Mary was an ongoing presence at the general store, staying there with her mother after school, and during the summers.
After graduating, Mary went to Bridgewater for a year to study physical therapy, but returned when her mother suffered a broken leg. Since her father was still responsible for twenty-five head of dairy cattle on the farm, Mary felt it was her duty to help the family. While away at school, she had done haircuts for her fellow students. This inspired Mary to abandon her career as a physical therapist and go to beauty school.
After completing beauty school, Mary married Bobby Gardner on August 7, 1965. That same year, Mary moved into the old general store, the property still owned by her family, to set up her beauty shop, Mary’s.
The next few years were happy ones for Mary. Since Ruby helped at the salon by shampooing the customers, Mary was still able to spend a lot of time with the mother she loved so much. Even more happiness came when Mary and Bobby welcomed their new son, Bobby, and then their daughter, Elizabeth. History was repeating itself. As Mary had grown up in that building while her parents worked, it was now Bobby and Elizabeth’s turn.
In 1974, a small rack of dresses was added to the beauty shop. Ruby had often mentioned how much she thought she’d like to sell clothing, and since this mother and daughter were a team, Mary agreed. After obtaining a four-foot rack and a selection of dresses from various clothing factories, the Little Dress Shop was born.
Mary recalls what a great saleswoman her mother was. “Even to this day,” says Mary, people talk about how Ruby would tell customers whether their selections looked good on them or not. Her opinion was valued, because she was candid and honest. The addition of the dress rack was popular with customers. Demand for the clothing grew quickly, and it wasn’t long before the single rack at Mary’s just wasn’t enough. The decision was made to expand into an apartment that connected on one side of the beauty shop’s building. Mary’s family already owned the property, so it didn’t take long to line the walls with racks and fill those racks with more dresses.
If a beauty shop, a growing clothing business, and a new family wasn’t enough to keep Mary busy, her husband, Bobby, decided to purchase the big house at 202 East Oxford Street, just behind the Courthouse in downtown Floyd. Bobby Gardner purchased the house in 1977 with the intention of making a home for his family on the upper level while renting the lower level as an apartment. Just a year later, however, the decision was made to convert the stately house into a funeral home. With only a year of preparation, Gardner Funeral Home was ready to serve the public in 1979.
The family, however, still lived upstairs. Mary recalls years of raising her children above the funeral home, rushing up and down the stairs at strange hours as people came to talk or to make arrangements. Despite two other funeral homes in the area, Gardner Funeral Home became a success, and today has expanded from the original home to the house next door, connected by an enclosed hallway built to allow visitors access to both buildings without having to go outside. The interior is beautiful. Visit gardnerfuneralhomefloyd.com for more information and to take the virtual tour.
Meanwhile, back at the beauty shop in 1990, Mary decided to close the business and use the space to expand even further with the dresses. The clothing had become so popular that Ruby and Mary wanted to focus on just The Little Dress Shop. The mother and daughter team ran the expanded dress shop as a duo until 1993. That was when Mary’s daughter, Elizabeth Reynolds, who had been working in Roanoke, continued the family tradition by coming to work with her mother and grandmother. History repeated itself once again. Elizabeth’s children were also now spending their childhood at 214 Floyd Highway South.
1993 was also the year that Mary and her family expanded further into an adjacent spot. The building next to the main location is a structure that was actually once part of the original Gray’s General Store, even though it had its own address. Also owned by Mary’s family, this 5500 square foot building located at 204 Floyd Highway South was used as a feed and fertilizer warehouse. Mary recalls the family scraping the floors clean of fertilizer and paneling the walls to make it ready for the clothing and customers. “Nobody would have ever guessed,” says Mary, “that it was any other way.”
With so much space in the old feed building, Mary was able to expand the inventory to include lingerie, casual wear, uniforms and formals, wedding gowns, jewelry, and shoes. At one time, she even stocked children’s clothing and men’s clothing.
It also became necessary for Mary and her family to bring on some helpers. Ogie Rumburg, Esther Trail, Geneva Thomas, and Shirley Moran all became part of The Little Dress Shop’s family. With these ladies lending a hand, Mary, Ruby, and Elizabeth happily travelled all over Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina to find the best selections for their customers, as well as the best prices.
The (big) Little Dress Shop was a huge success. In addition to the local regulars, folks would visit two or three times a year from as far away as Florida, New York, and beyond! And when those far-flung fans did drop in, they would be recognized and welcomed like friends.
For a few more years, Mary continued to use the beauty shop space to sell irregular clothing, but eventually rented it to a pawn shop, leaving the old feed warehouse as the sole location for The Little Dress Shop. And perhaps that was meant to be. In 2008, fire broke out on the second floor above the pawn shop, in the apartments where Mary had spent the first years of her life. It wasn’t long, however, before the two upstairs apartments were rebuilt to the original floor plan. And once the downstairs was cleaned up from the water damage, it coincidentally became home to a new beauty shop. Even more coincidentally, the proprietor, Stacy Midkiff Simpkins, had already spent much of her childhood in the building when it was Mary’s! Stacy was Elizabeth’s friend from school days and spent a lot of time visiting Elizabeth in Mary’s Beauty Shop.
Stacy ran her shop, Sheer Elegance, until health issues forced her to close. Even today, however, 214 Floyd Highway South persists in being a beauty shop! It is now Gussied Up, run by Miranda Bolt.
Until 2019, The Little Dress Shop was an iconic fixture in a town famous for its tourism. With internet shopping becoming more popular than ever, however, Mary had a difficult decision to make. After forty-five years in business, The Little Dress Shop would close its doors.
By this time, it was just Mary and Elizabeth. In 2014, the family was devastated to lose Ruby at the age of ninety-seven. As Mary recalls, her mother continued to come to the shop each day it was open, up until two weeks before her passing. “…inviting people into the shop and telling them how they looked in the things they were trying on…if it was good or if it was not good.
In order to liquidate the remaining stock, Mary and Elizabeth decided to move selections of seasonal merchandise to a temporary location closer to downtown. Mary’s father, Douglas Gray, had purchased the small storefront at 111 West Main Street in the 1940’s. Mary recalls that her father walked all the way to Hillsville to make the purchase! Douglas Gray had passed away in 1998, but Mary remembers him fondly as a remarkable salesman. Before buying the general store, he’d been a “huckster”, going door to door with flour, sugar and other items. He would also pick up hams, chickens, eggs, and other goods from the farmers to then sell in Roanoke. Mary chuckles at the story she was told about her father’s aunt sending him candy from Chicago, which he then took to school and sold to the other children. He was a salesman all his life and loved helping the community.
The storefront at 111 West Main has had multiple tenants over the years. Early on, it was a thrift store for the Save the Children Federation. Among other incarnations, it was also a seamstress shop for Velma Spangler, a sewing machine repair shop run by Tyler Turner, a carpet shop run by Donny Black, and an antique shop run by Melody Winger.
In June of 2020, however, it became an outlet for The Little Dress Shop’s remaining stock. Mary says that the pandemic has had a definite effect on customer traffic, but she is happy that local Floydians and tourists are still supporting the business. After the Fall and Winter merchandise is liquidated in December, the 111 West Main Street location will also close. The plan is to join the online-shopping trend by creating a website through which to continue selling the formals still in stock at the old feed warehouse building. It has not yet been determined what the site will be called, but Elizabeth tells us it should be online this Fall.
Elizabeth tells us that when the temporary store front closes, she and her husband, Andy, plan to set up a studio and shop where Andy can display and sell his beautiful woodcraft items.
The old feed building location stores only a fraction of the inventory it once held. Not wanting to let the space go to waste, Mary has recently remodeled and split it into three beautiful spaces. One is occupied by a florist called Tilted Tulip, run by Melissa Goad. The second space will soon be available for rent, and the third will continue, for now, as a storage location for The Little Dress Shop’s remaining inventory.
More than her successful businesses, Mary Gardner lives for, and is in love with her family. She adored her parents and is especially proud of her children, Bobby and Elizabeth. She is honored to be mother-in-law to Bobby’s wife, Joy, as well as Elizabeth’s husband, Andy. She loves being grandmother to Bobby’s children, Adam and Baily, as well as Elizabeth’s children, Nathan and Zackary. And now, she is thrilled to be great-grandmother to Adam’s daughter, Dawsyn.
More than the history of one woman, and more than the history of a few buildings and businesses, the history of Mary and her family is Floyd’s history, too.
“What wonderful years it has been,” says Mary, “with so many memories that we will cherish forever. It was a true blessing for Elizabeth to have joined us. We would have had to close long ago because of lingering illnesses that occurred. God has been with me over all my life, blessing me with wonderful parents, marriage, children, grand-children, great-grand-children, and friends in my small, little country town. People have been a great part of my life…especially Floyd County People.”

Mary Gardner and Elizabeth Reynolds
540-239-7038 Little Dress Shop
111 West Main St. Floyd, VA