Vashti’s Jewelry & Gift Shoppe, located at Edgehill Shopping Center in Gloucester, is celebrating its 50th anniversary in business with a promotion that ends Monday, Valentine’s Day.

Drawings will be held each day for prizes, and giveaway bags filled with earrings and chocolates will be handed out with qualifying purchases.

Joan Roane of Mathews, owns Vashti’s, but it was her mother—Vashti Wilcher of Gloucester—who began the business and ran it for many years and still stops by to greet customers on a regular basis. Roane said Vashti’s has had a long history of serving customers in the Gloucester area and that family tradition is likely to continue as Roane’s daughter, Nicole Michael of New Kent, has joined the staff as a sales associate.
Wilcher said it was a major step for her to open her store in 1961, a time when few Gloucester shops were owned by women—and with another jewelry store located across the street. She ran t...