Virginia Jefferson spent the past 65 years putting her customers in the dark. As the proprietor of an old Baltimore awning company, it was her role to spread the shade on the hottest of summer afternoons.
About to turn 89, she is retiring and selling a business founded by her father in 1917. This week, she will leave an office that has never seen a computer and the desk where she has worked since 1946.
She'll surrender her electric typewriter, carbon paper and ledger books filled with the names of the 500 people who have relied on her to screen their homes under one of her tentlike, custom-tailored enclosures supported by pipes and lashed with ropes.
"She made a beautiful awning. You could always tell a Jefferson," said Bryan Loane, who owns a competing business and is acquiring hers. "It had a distinctive scallop edge, which was almost proprietary. They hung perfectly straight and were evenly balanced."
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