NILES — Vicky Williams has been around the block with her store, Tippy Toes Natural Nail Salon & Spa — three times, in fact.

Since opening her business in 2006, she has moved twice around Niles, most recently to 101 E. Main, a corner storefront near the St. Joseph River and at the entrance of downtown Niles.

It will be Tippy Toes’ last home.

Williams announced she planned to retire on Oct. 26 and close her business, which offers manicures, pedicures, massages, tanning and waxing.

“I enjoyed my job and meeting all my clients,” she wrote in a letter she prepared for the Niles Daily Star to the Niles community and her clients. “We had a good time at Tippy Toes. It was like the barber shop or being a bartender. We listened to personal stories, from every baby being born to the foot with a corn.”

Williams’ own story with Tippy Toes began at age 13. She wrote she had always been a “nail girl.” Neighborhood children would come to her house and to get their nails done by Williams, sometimes leaving with bedazzled nails compliments of Williams’ mother’s sequins.

Williams went back to her roots when she left her financial counseling job in 2000 and enrolled in cosmetology school.

After schooling, she became a nail technician for Niles Nails. During her five years there, she found she occupied a unique space as an African-American woman working in a field with a strong Asian-American presence.

After Niles Nails was sold, Williams began working with nail salons in northern Indiana, but she became dissuaded by their use of acrylics.

“The salons had a pungent smell that would almost make you reel when you entered the salon,” she wrote. “I noticed that I started having allergic reactions to the chemicals I was using.”

After a severe breakout, Williams left the salons and worked to create her own, one that replaced acrylic fumes and dust with aromatic smells.

In 2006, Tippy Toes opened at its 127 E. Main location, offering acrylic-free manicure and pedicures.

“I opened my door on Memorial Day weekend, and I sat and waited,” Williams wrote. “Alas, my first client came through the door about two days later. Her name is Joan, and she still comes to my salon.”

As business picked up, Williams picked up both the gel manicure product Shellac and nail technicians, some of which she taught and helped get certified.

After structural damage to the roof forced her to move, Tippy Toes opened at 1002 E. Main, complete with massages, tanning and waxing on top of its manicures and pedicures.

Then came the move to Tippy Toes’ final location, 101 E. Main.

“We moved in the dead of winter, of course, with a blizzard roaring through,” she wrote. “It was a tough move, but we made it. Tippy Toes was alive again.”

Now, Williams wrote that her lease is about over, and her body is telling her to step down. However, she has plenty of people to thank and customers to serve before she does.

“God bless all of you, and thank you for being so dedicated to my salon,” she to the Niles community and her clients. “I love each and every one of you that helped me stay open year-round.”

Among those Williams specifically thanked were her longtime coworkers and friends, Hope Martinez and Tonya Hollerbach; her church ministry at Mount Calvary Church; Jesus Christ for His guidance; and the late John Lidecker, a friend she called her “partner in crime” in art class during their high school days.

Although Williams will soon step out of the public spotlight as a business owner, she wrote she has no plans to disappear.

“I will find another niche out there just for me,” she wrote to the community. “I hope to unexpectedly run into each and every one of you in the future.”

Williams is also hosting an open house celebrating her future retirement. From 1 to 6 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 21, people can stop by the Bell Building at 305 N. Third St. in Niles to meet her and share their Tippy Toes experiences.