Baltimore-based retired teacher takes her traveling bookstore on the road

If you stop by Prigel Family Creamery or Peabody Heights Brewery on the weekend, you might come across a woman full of stories and a van full of books.

Retired teacher Rita Collins brings her mobile bookstore, St. Rita's Amazing Traveling Bookstore and Textual Apothecary, across the country. "I wanted it to be like the old-time medicine show, like this is gonna be, wow! Right? It's amazing, it's traveling, and it's a textual apothecary because I think reading can make you feel better," said Collins.

During her stops at Prigel Family Creamery in Baltimore County, she sees lots of young readers. Kids' books cost one dollar, which she said makes it easy for families to buy books. "Kids kind of, they go in and sit down on the floor, so you have these parcels of kids and adults are trying to walk around them," said Collins.

During one of her recent stops at the creamery, she met Erin Dorsey and her daughter Alice, who picked out a couple of books, including "The Pop-Up Book of Nightmares" because she loves pop-up books.

"It helps make it more accessible to everybody and especially, you know, there's certain areas, just [where] we don't really have bookstores anymore, so it's nice that it can go around and hit different people in different places and help expose more people to books," said Dorsey.

Collins carries a variety of used books stacked to the roof inside her traveling bookstore, from picture books to chapter books, young adult and adult novels. It's divided into sections with topics on health, spirituality, biographies, poetry, cookbooks, animals, travel and more.

She also tries to carry regional authors from the Maryland area, from lesser-known to more popular. She also carries authors she's fallen in love with over the years and classics from writers like Virginia Woolf and Toni Morrison.

More than a decade of travel

For 12 years, Collins has spent weeks at a time making stops across the country with her traveling bookstore. She's now visited more than 40 states.

She spent six weeks on the road this spring, visiting numerous southern states from North Carolina to Arkansas and more.

"I think of it almost like troubadours back in the Middle Ages," said Collins. "You're taking the ideas. Like when I go south, and people are like, 'Oh, you're from Baltimore; that must be a horrible place to live.' No, actually, I like Baltimore."

Calls Baltimore home

She moved from Montana to Baltimore 2 years ago. After searching for senior housing during her travels, she found Roland Park Place and decided to stay.

Roland Park Place V.P. of Sales and Marketing Becki Bees said Collins is a community builder everywhere she goes.

She added, "She is the kind of person that brings people together, you know, you'll hear her talk about, 'Oh, I know someone else with a similar interest,' or 'You really need to meet this person,' and she gets to know people, and she really bridges those connections and really enables people to form great connections themselves and find community."

Collins helped bring a Little Free Library to the Roland Park Place community. It's located just outside the entrance, along W. 40th Street. Residents designed and painted it, and Collins added the initial books.

Her travels continue

"I think it's important for people to have purpose and a purpose that is meaningful, right? Like, oh it's enough if I just get up and do the dishes or walk the dog, but it's like hmmm, can we look at something that has a little more structure to it, a little more depth?" asked Collins.

A 2026 study from scientists at Yale University found adults 65 and older can and do improve over time. In fact, those with more positive age beliefs were significantly more likely to show improvements in cognitive and physical function.

"There's kind of a negative spin about older people and a lot of older people absorb that and think, well, I'm invisible; oh, there's nothing I can do at this point in my life," said Collins. "It's like, you can do anything you want, you can be whoever you want, you can talk to whoever you want. Don't limit yourself by what the outer world is saying to you."

Collins has never let aging become a barrier and has never stopped learning.

"I feel like it's really important to read a variety of stuff, just as it's important to talk to a variety of people," said Collins. "If you always talk to people that think like you, your brain's like this; if you start talking to people that think differently, it's going to expand a little bit. Even if you don't agree with them, it's going to make you think about why you don't agree with them."

Her favorite part about traveling around the country is meeting people and experiencing different cultures.

"It's seeing these different places and how everybody identifies their place as home and identifies as American even though it's this immense spectrum of what that means."

So, she'll continue to travel and encourage people to read.

Upcoming events

You can find Collins and her traveling bookstore at some upcoming local events. On October 10 and 24, she'll be at Overlea Farmers Market at 8 W Overlea Avenue from 8:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. On October 25, you can find her at Canco Market at 2400 Boston Street from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.