BLUFFTON, Ind. — There are no hotels in Bluffton, population 10,308. So ahead of my visit, I wrote to Kathy Gardner, proprietress of the Washington Street Inn bed & breakfast, requesting a room for two nights.

“I’m so sorry,” Kathy wrote back, “but I am in the midst of shutting down.”

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I settle for an Airbnb above a shop on Market Street, and during my stay, I walk three blocks and visit Kathy, age 80, who is at work selling off the contents of the immaculately decorated inn.

It’s a magnificent place: pressed tin ceilings, carved hardwood archways, pocket doors, and a million exquisite touches that she is selling off in small batches. She particularly notes her collection of porcelain figurines made in occupied Japan, a collection she poured her heart into, but for which there is now basically no demand.

“Your generation and younger don’t even know what World War II was all about,” she gently scolds me, gesturing towards a table full of figurines. “So what we thought was an investment at the time is now junk.”

While we’re on the topic of profitability, I ask Kathy how she kept a bed and breakfast afloat in an outer suburb of Fort Wayne, where the biggest tourism draw might be the Ouabache State Park, which about 10 bison call home, three miles down the road.

“I didn’t run it in a big way,” Kathy says of the Inn, “because I didn’t care about the income.” Her voice drops a bit when she says this — as if it’s an admission, a former secret she’s just now revealing.

Kathy bought the place 20 years ago, which makes her the most senior small-businesswoman in town, by my calculations.

“Business........

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