In her shop on Mount Airy's Main Street, Jane Fallin surrounds herself with the discarded objects that tell the stories of past lives.
For Ms. Fallin, the battered books, yellowed letters, vintage clothing and assorted antiques and collectibles reveal precious bits of information about their previous owners.
"It's like an extended family in here," Ms. Fallin said of the items in her shop, Presence of the Past. "Everything's alive and has got a story to tell. It's definitely not junk."
Ms. Fallin, 34, of Taylorsville, opened her shop 16 months ago, in memory of her 58-year-old father, who drowned in Florida in July 1993.
Her father had always encouraged her to open a business to sell the antiques and collectibles she had amassed over a 25-year period.
The Main Street building became available two weeks after his death.
Preserving the past is particularly important to Ms. Fallin because when her father died she realized she knew very little of his early years.
"I don't have anything from his past, and it tears me up," she said. "He died at 58, and I never got to sit down and talk to him about his life."
This regret draws Ms. Fallin to the stories of other lives, told through the merchandise in her shop, most of which is acquired through auctions.
"I think when things are kept in a family for so long and end up at an auction, it's a tragedy," Ms. Fallin said. "I don't feel greedy selling these things. I feel like I'm giving them a second life."
Ms. Fallin has been collecting since her childhood, when she found an old radio in a shed that had belonged to her grandmother. After she cleaned and decorated it, the radio was given a place of honor in her bedroom.
"I just started getting different things from the family and filling up my room," Ms. Fallin said. "I just love it."
Over the years, she honed her collecting skills at auctions and estate sales, storing her finds in boxes in her home.
Ms. Fallin was able to unpack the boxes to fill the five rooms of her shop, which she runs with interior decorator Aletha Kraft.
The two women recently set aside a room to display the work of local crafts people, and another room is devoted to Christmas-related crafts.
Without hesitation, Ms. Fallin said her favorite finds are the old letters, journals and diaries that she has stumbled across over the years.
She's become quite attached to a set of journals kept between 1946 and 1950 by man named William W. Patterson in upstate New York.
In each journal entry, Mr. Patterson, who apparently ran a general store, recorded the temperature at four times throughout the day and wrote a concise description of the day's activities.
On June 16, 1949, Mr. Patterson wrote: "Sister Mabel came over and brought me a chicken dinner, strawberries and all the fixings. Had a busy day in the store. Fair and warm, lots of sunshine."
Through the journals, Ms. Fallin said, she has become close to Mr. Patterson.