Sandy Scott (left) and Andrea Jones, in the children’s book section of the Galaxy Bookshop they’ve owned together for 11 years. Photo by Alana Dutcher-Hirsch/CNS Alana Dutcher-Hirsch is a reporter with the Community News Service, part of the University of Vermont’s Reporting Documentary Storytelling program. HARDWICK — Best friends and store owners for 11 years, Andrea Jones and Sandy Scott — “work wives,” as they affectionately call each other  — run Hardwick’s Galaxy Bookshop with pride. On a snowy Thursday afternoon, the two women bustled around the store, taking business calls, ringing out customers and fulfilling book orders. “Thursdays are my favorite day of the week because we’re both here and we have fun,” Jones said. Her gaze shifted to Scott who had just rejoined the conversation after a sale at the counter.  Together, Jones and Scott now anchor one of Hardwick’s most enduring small businesses. Their partnership — forged quickly, and almost by chance — has carried the Galaxy Bookshop through ownership changes, community crises and the daily work of keeping an independent bookstore alive in a rural town. Though the Galaxy Bookshop is now co-owned by Jones and Scott, the story begins long before they arrived. The store was founded in 1988 by Linda Ramsdell, a recent graduate of Brown University. With little more than the sense that Hardwick needed a bookstore, she developed the concept behind Galaxy.  “I thought I’d give bookselling a try for five years,” Ramsdell said.  Those five years stretched into several decades in which Ramsdell shaped the Galaxy Bookshop into the community fixture it is today. Scott, who is from Hardwick, worked at the bookstore on her summers off from school. In 2003, after graduating from Champlain College, Scott came back to work as the bookstore’s event coordinator and bookseller.  After more than 25 years of owning the store, Ramsdell was ready to move on in 2014, and offered the store to Scott. But the recent college graduate couldn’t afford to purchase the store on her own.  Enter Jones, an avid customer. Originally from Maine, she came to Vermont for college and worked as an English teacher at Hazen Union School after graduating. While shopping at the store she heard about the switch in management and Scott’s interest in purchasing the store.  “I went home and I said to my family, as a joke, ‘I’m gonna buy a Galaxy bookshop,’ and they went: ‘Oh my God, you should totally do that,’” Jones said.  Within just a few months, Jones and Scott agreed to purchase Galaxy Bookstore together.  “We went from barely knowing each other to being business partners in three months,” Scott said.  Ramsdell, meanwhile, was thrilled with the new partnership. “The feeling of selling the store to Scott and Jones felt like keeping it in the family,” she said. Although the women come from very different backgrounds — Scott has experience in bookkeeping, while Jones built her career in teaching — they each bring something essential to the Galaxy Bookshop.  The front section of the Galaxy Bookshop and painted mural of Hardwick’s downtown  that dominates one wall in the store. Photo by Alana Dutcher-Hirsch/CNS                  “I had nothing to bring to the table other than loving to read. Sandy’s all the institutional knowledge and the practical day to day stuff,” Jones said.  As an avid reader, nothing makes Scott happier than helping someone find a book.  “When they’re excited about a book and I’m excited about it … the conversations that we have here are really wonderful,” Scott said. The two friends only work one day a week together, though: Thursdays. That’s when everything comes together, they said, and when they can lean on each other for support.  But the bookshop has faced significant challenges in recent years. In 2022, a fire in an apartment above the store triggered the building’s sprinkler system, causing the store to flood. Scott and Jones launched a $20,000 GoFundMe campaign to help with recovery expenses from significant water damage to the store and its inventory. For six months, the Galaxy operated out of customers’ living rooms and borrowed spaces around town — staying open in whatever way it could. Hardwick’s recent floods also took a toll on the business. During the major flooding events of 2023 and 2024, access to the downtown was limited for weeks, and sales dropped as residents focused on recovery.  “We’ve gotten through COVID, and we’ve gotten through a flood,” said Jones. “People always step up and show us how much they love this store and how much they want it to be here,” she said.  Above the front register, a large-scale painting captures the store’s relationship with its community. In it, familiar Hardwick faces move books through town, framed by swirling stars and loose, whimsical brushstrokes that give the shop its enchanted feel. “Sandy and Andrea are creative and stay involved in the community of professional booksellers,” Ramsdell said. “They’re innovative and involved with Hardwick, and they’re both great readers.”  Even with all of the hardships, the store has always bounced back. Jones said she knows they won’t run the Galaxy forever, and when the time comes, she and Scott will choose its next stewards carefully. “The Galaxy is bigger than us,” she said.  Scott’s love for the shop is rooted in a lifelong dream she’s had to own a bookstore. “Andrea and I sometimes talk about how we’re kind of stewards of the bookstore; this bookstore exists in town because of all of the support of the community and we’re stewarding it until it ends up being handed off to the next people who will take it on,” Scott said.  A bookstore, or a library, is an essential part of a town, Jones said. “I wanted to make sure that there was a bookstore in my community,” said Jones. “Because, you know, I used to come here all the time. I still do. More. But now I own it.”  Read the story on VTDigger here: Hardwick’s Galaxy Bookshop shines on. ...read more read less