"Sanborn's Store." This is my remembrance of my family's small family beach store that opened in the early 1930s and closed in 1963. My mother's uncle Art opened the store at the height of the Depression so that our shoreline neighborhood would have a little market that everyone could walk to for their newspapers, fresh eggs, Campbells soup, candy, cigarettes, soda and what-have-yous. It became a place for people to meet and hang out during the summers, and my mother remembered that there was a lot of singing and jolly good times there sharing Root Beers and ice cream. I have a poem somewhere in my collection, that a summer resident wrote describing just that type of evening, but have spent several hours looking for it and, of course, it's hiding on me. This piece is on a wooden base and measures approximately 20 x 17 inches.
Great Uncle Art in his little beach store, in the mid 1950s. Click on the photo to enlarge. Most of the brands of goods on the shelves are available today. I still have the remnants of the curved glass candy case he's sitting behind, but the most important (and expensive) part, the glass, is broken. He died when I was just six year old, but I remember he'd give me a couple of nickels before I went into the store, so I could give them back to him in front of customers and "buy" my own candy, lol. There was an intercom system in the store, so that he could be reached from the family home behind the store at any time instead of using the telephone. I have an audiotape of an evening spent using that intercom for conversation, and it's a bit eerie to hear those long-gone voices discussing the day's events.
Once again you have evoked a childhood memory for me, I wish I had pictures. In the little town where our beach house was located there was McGinnity's store, tucked away right there amongst the residences. The store was on the street level and the family lived upstairs I believe. Just a small place where you could get the daily necessities, like ice cream, lol. This had to be a year or two before 1948.
ReplyDeleteAgain shared events from different histories, the glue that binds.
GRAMPS OWNED A BLOCK OF APARTMENTS AND THE CORNER OF THAT HUGH BUILDING WAS THE CORNER STORE LIKE THIS PICTURE. GOOD TIMES WERE HAD BY ALL. ACROSS THE STREET WAS CHURCH WITH BELLS RINGING FOR ALL THINGS THAT HAPPEN IN THE CHURCH FAMILY. ALSO THE BELL WOULD RING WHEN SOMEONE DIED. SOMETIMES IT SEEM LIKE THEY WOULD RING FOREVER. THERE WAS AN OLD WOODEN BENCH OUTSIDE THE STORE AND AFTER THE STORE CLOSED DOWN AND DADA HAD HIS SUPPER HE WOULD COME OUT AND SIT ON THAT BENCH. IT WOULDN'T BE LONG BEFORE ALL HIS OLD [GRAMP TYPE] FRIENDS WOULD COME WALKING DOWN THE SIDEWALK AND SIT WITH HIM. I WOULD THINK THE CHAT WAS MOSTLY ABOUT THE OLD COUNTRY. HE WAS A KIND AND GENTLE SOUL. I LOVE YOU DADA. AND A TEAR FELL.
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CORRECTION GRAMPS' GRAMP OWNED THE BUILDING.
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Annie, Casey and GRANNY, those are WONDERFUL stories! My childhood memory is of my uncle Bob's store way out in the country in Missouri (near Joplin, sort of Annie). When we visited there, I loved "working" in the store all day! I was about 8, so it was about 1959-1960. The thing I thought was the coolest is that people marched in with their grocery lists and stood at the counter while I ran around, picked out the items on their list and boxed them up to go. My cousin rang up the orders -- well those few that weren't on credit. That and the Coke machine, where you put in your money (ack - I don't remember how much) and slid your bottle sideways to the open end of the rails. They had Clabber Girl baking powder and I thought that was the funniest name I'd ever heard in all my 8 whole years. LOL
ReplyDeleteCasey, what a treat for your community to have had this store during the depression!
Katie
Katie, I loved those coke machines and remember them well, the ones I remember the bottles were in ice water and the green glass bottles (always recycled) would have a patina to them from being scratched each time they were pulled out.
ReplyDeleteI have some ledger books for the store, and there was a LOT of credit extended for his customers in the 1930s and also during WW2, and that didn't mean credit cards, lol. There was a lot of trust and neighborly support back then. Of course, everyone knew everyone for the most part and had lived in the area for years. But it doesn't seem like anyone went without eggs, milk and bread during that period if they had cash or not. The building still stands today and looks exactly the same, but I guess it's just a storage building for the main house.
ReplyDeleteI love the old style "general" stores. There was one across and down the street a bit from my Dad's family house. It had the stereotypical covered porch with creaky wood floors and the Coca-Cola "chest" next to the big double door - and the creaky floor continued inside with a big counter surrounded by shelves of groceries and sundries for sale. I'm sure they had a chest freezer for ice cream - probably the reason I remember it so well, lol.
ReplyDeleteSadly it burned down in the mid to late 60's and was never rebuilt. But the memory of it lives on - at least in me !