Had a little country store up there. You’d take the eggs up there. He made one trip to Canton every Saturday and took his eggs and stuff to barter with. If you’d go up there, you could get cloth on a bolt, get you enough cloth to make you a shirt. When your shoes wore out, you told him you wanted enough shoe leather to half-sole a pair of shoes. And he would take his knife and cut that off. You’d buy what you called “sprigs,” little sprigs, little nails—that’s what you half-soled with. And they had a last [a form shaped like a foot], and your daddy would half-sole your shoes. Every family had a last. If they didn’t, they’d go borrow one from a neighbor and they’d half-sole the shoes. And anybody that chewed tobacco, the tobacco came in little wooden boxes, little square wooden boxes; and in that box the pieces of tobacco had little marks marked off on them and had little cutters. If they wanted a dime’s worth of tobacco they’d stick that in there and mash that lever and cut it off.
My grandpa ran a store, and you could take a can down there and get a gallon of kerosene oil or lamp chimney or a lamp wick or shoe-sole leather or a piece of cloth, a little back pepper and stuff like that. They bartered at the country store. They’d take eggs and they’d take butter. There was just not any money. Most of them kept it at home in a sack and buried it, a lot of them . A lot of these old folks had more money than you might think saved up.
—Quay Smathers – “Mountain Voices’ by Warren Moore
One time Pap was sent to a store down the road like Quay described to get some lamp oil. He carried it home in the back pocket of his overalls never realizing it was leaking the whole way. He said almost all of it spilled out and soaked through to his skin.
I asked him if his parents were mad at him for spilling it he said “No but they sure were sorry for me cause it galded and burned by backside pretty bad.”
You can read more about Quay Smathers here and hear some hauntingly beautiful shape note singing.
Last night’s video: Watermelon Hill 6.
Subscribe for FREE and get a daily dose of Appalachia in your inbox
This brings back such great memories. My grandfather had an Old Country Store in Virginia. They called him Fuzzy Haynes. My grandparents house was just down the road past the garden. There was a creek that ran by the house that me and my brothers, sisters and cousins used to play in every Sunday after lunch at grandmas. I love Tipper and her family. Your missing so much if you don’t watch her on UTube.
I have ran across a few stores like that. Brings Back some memories. Say hi to Ms Cindy for us .
Mama’s washing machine was a Maytag agitator with a a ringer. It lived on the screened back porch and had a sluice under it that was connected to a hose that went off the side of the porch. A garden hose provided the clean water. My older brothers told of her getting that machine and being about as happy and proud as they had ever seen her. I well remember the rung-out clothes going in a woven willow basket and how heavy it was. I was proud when I got big and strong enough to carry it down the back steps and under the clotheslines. And, I well remember clothes freezing on the line. I don’t remember her using an iron that was heated on the woodstove but I do remember that iron. My recollections are of her using an electrically heated non-steam iron. She kept a bowl of water on the end of the ironing board and dipped her hand in then flung the water on the clothes then knotting them up to retain the moisture until they came under the iron. Some times she would I remember her wetting her fingers on her lips and patting the iron to be sure it was hot, too.
We lived in town by the time I came along, although older siblings grew up ‘in the country’ just outside of town. My experiences with stores was with neighborhood stores before Piggly Wiggly and A&P came to town. These didn’t have the range of product that country stores sold but they had the hoop cheese, bologna log, etc. The square metal kerosene tanks held about a 100-125 gallons and stood outside the door. They were cranked to pump into containers, usually 5 gallon cans with potatoes stuck on spouts for caps that were too easily lost.
My oldest brother worked for the Farmall tractor and International truck dealership as parts manager. He knew all of the larger farmers in the county and a lot of the smaller ones. It was not uncommon for one of them to call him at home to ask about a part and for him to drive out to deliver it. I went with him on many of those trips and got to be known as Bill’s baby brother by a lot of them. That’s where I experienced the sort of one-stop country store that Quay wrote about. I don’t remember shoe leather being available but dang near everything else commonly needed was. And yes, my Pa had a shoe last. You could buy Cat’s Paw kits at shoe repair shops and do your own half or full sole work at home. Last time I saw the last (didn’t know how else to say that) onr of my twin brothers had it. His daughter probably does yet.
Through all of my youth, there were no malls and no big-box stores (both of which I despise) and few chain stores. Most were run by local proprietors. Major shopping for household goods (clothes, books and the like) was done ‘downtown’ in the business district which covered about 5 or 6 blocks on 4 or 5 major streets in downtown Raleigh at the time. All car dealers and most garages were on the fringes of downtown. There were a few larger grocery stores downtown but every neighborhood had smaller versions of them, about 6 to 8 city blocks apart. There were hardware stores and pharmacies (drug stores) spread around town but not as near each other as grocery stores. And, of course, there were filling stations (service stations) spread throughout on major streets and thoroughfares. US highways 1, 70, 401, and 15/50 (I think) 1 ran through town which also spawned a lot of tourist inns in homes along those city streets. Bypasses hadn’t been thought of in those days. US 1 ran by my elementary school. We kids would stand by the fence at recess and lunch period and spot out-of-state license plates. Bets were won and lost based on the plates from farthest away. It sharpened out geography skills too.
I’ve witnessed a lot of cycles of retailing. Chain stores displaced mom ‘n pops downtown; big box ‘discount’ stores consolidated into K-Mart and then Walmart; Lowe’s replaced a few lumberyards and building supply yards; malls killed downtown shopping as automobiles became ubiquitous displacing city buses and shanks mare. Now Amazon is killing off malls (thank you kindly, Jeff) and just about all mom ‘n pop stores except a few restaurants and specialty shops. The reasons for those shifts had a lot to do with prices, increased household incomes, increased automobile ownership, advertising, and acquisitive human nature. Long before Amazon, Jewel Tea, Fuller Brush and other companies excelled at doorstep sales. One has to wonder what will drive Amazon off. I fear that it will be some sort of national disruption – war or economic depression or lack of gasoline – that will make it’s business model so uneconomical that something will arise to replace it. Maybe trains will once again bring most manufactured goods to town replacing trucking, and local stores will pop up in neighborhoods again. Much good was lost with the devolution in retail with little good replacing it in newer systems, in my opinion. Think how good it would be to know and be known by your retailers and to have neighborhood kids hired to use bicycles to deliver goods ordered by phone (or text) to your door. Old men can only hope and dream.
Sorry to be so long winded but last night’s reading and today’s post awakened happy memories loosened my tongue.
Blessings to all . . .
I also remember a lot of the same things you wrote about. Like Allan Jackson’s song “The Small Town Man”. If you haven’t heard it, it goes right along with things you said and how we forgot about him when the big stores came around. I am a shame to say . I’m as guilty as everyone else. I will always remember the Western Auto and the owner Mr. Andrew Ferguson in Honea Path, SC. He let me buy a bicycle on credit when I was 14 years old.
We had the ‘rolling store’ once a week. If you wanted something they didn’t have they would bring it next week. Sometimes Mom didn’t have enough money for what we needed and she would tell me to catch a chicken for the difference. We were too scattered to support a local store so the store in town sent a truck out in different directions each day.
Hi Tipper, My Grandpa Luckovich ran a little store like that at Anton’s Spit on the Hesquiat Peninsula, inland from Estevan Point here on Vancouver Island. He sold pilot bread, cloth, what they called “Trade Shawls” a little bit of everything. I have the last he used to repair the family’s shoes. He did a bit of taxidermy and I have a cougar skin he tanned, it’s 112 years old now and in beautiful shape. He was also the keeper at the Estevan Point Lighthouse for a few years. My Dad was born up there. My step-great grandpa John ran a little store with the same sort of stock at Ucluelet. Both stores were owned by a Captain Spring and he let John be buried on his property when John was killed because there were no cemeteries in Ucluelet at that time–1901. There’s still no cemeteries up there (about 75 miles Northwest of where I live)
Thank you Tipper for the wonderful stories, the history. I simply can’t get enough. I’m not sure how you have enough time in your day, with all you have going on, to keep bringing us these inspirational stories and truths. I’m reminded of how I felt as a small girl reading Laura Ingalls Wilder books. The stories enveloped me. Your stories have the same effect. Truly wonderful.
Sincerely,
Mrs. Shannon Duncan
An old man story. During the early to mid 60’s my best friend and I played close to the country store I mention that had the kerosene tank. Our daddies had told the owner to let us get a drank and candy bar (20-25 cents for both) and they would pay him later. The candy was kept in a wooden display case with a glass front and doors on the backside. The storekeeper had to get the candy for you. These stores in the south would get hot in the summertime- no air condition or ceiling fans. My favorite candy bar was a Baby Ruth, sometimes you had to open 4 or 5 before you could find one that didn’t have worms in it. Didn’t think nothing about it, just keep trying until we found one that didn’t have any. Somehow we survived all of these different things today’s experts claim will kill us. I think some of these experts have more education than sense!
Oh my goodness, Randy – that is one of my childhood memories that I had decided that I must be remembering incorrectly. As a child I would spend a week every summer with each of my grandmothers. One of them lived in a little mining town of about a thousand people. Across the gravel alley from my grandmother’s house was a small family cemetery and Mr. Norman Ferrell’s Dry Goods Store. It wasn’t even with the other few stores down on Main Street – just in the middle of a residential area next door to his house. My grandmother gave me a nickel or a dime every day to go to the store for whatever that sum would buy. One day I bought a Baby Ruth and when I bit into it, it was full of worms! As an adult I had decided that the worms must be a figment of my imagination. Based on what you have written, maybe the memory is correct. I never have bought a Baby Ruth since.
Patricia, it is true , I would guess the same thing happen at the other country stores of that time and with the other chocolate candy bars. Funny, I don’t remember the chocolate melting even though it would be hot inside the store. The lady I mentioned giving candy bars to children came along at a later time and the candy Did Not have worms in it.
I really liked what Quay Smathers shared about the country general store. I’ve been in a few where mining scrip was the currency in use there. You could get hunks of cheeses, meats, and wares like this man spoke of. Penny candy and cold drinks could be had for little. It was a place even a poor child felt like somebody! And there was something in those stores for everybody- something that spoke to the buyer on a very personal level. I don’t see today’s economy in free fall, I see a really big opportunity to barter work for goods and services and the best food we could ever eat gardened by hand with concern and care. Imagine bartering for a pie from the pie lady- the best you ever ate! I think we all have a longing to get back to the basics of life. Got up this morning and ended up on the kitchen floor. I slept and didn’t move until shortly ago. Between low sugar, Crohn’s, and MS, I muster through…
Sadie Belle- I pray for you!!
Have you ever heard of the Dutch Cove Old Time String Band?
Ed- seems like I have. Was that the one Quay’s daughter was in?
According to his obituary in the Asheville Citizen Times on 23 Jan 1997 he formed the band with his daughters. Daughters means more than one. He had three daughters and a step-daughter.
I attended the singing school a few times before Covid. June and Liz were wonderful. I enjoyed myself thoroughly and it brought back memories of sitting next to my granddad in church and listening to the ethereal beautiful sounds of shaped note singing.
I was lucky enough to have two country stores not far from where I lived. One was about a mile from our house and the other one was a little farther away, it was my uncles, so if we went there, we got to see family. The first store near my house was small and mostly offered the basics, wasn’t as warm and inviting as my uncle’s. His store was long and narrow with creaky wooden floors and a potbellied stove right in the middle with a few straight back chairs and where folks would sit a spell and some wooden drink crates that some of us kids sat on. That’s where all the news came from and some tall tales too. I remember when penny candy was a penny and times were so simple. It’s sad country stores no longer exist. There were a couple of ones I know of that now, housing developments took over their land and tore down the stores. Tipper, I enjoyed last night’s reading. It so far has been one of my favorite chapters. I remember the old ringer washers, and I also remember my mama having some sort of drink bottle with a stopper and sprinkler on top and she would sprinkle water when she was ironing. I was very young, but I do remember it. Hope you have a great book signing today!
I never had occasion to barter for store goods, but I made a few trips in horse and wagon with my Grandpa Alexander to sell vegetables to the housewives in the mill village at Walhalla, S. C. I would knock on doors and ask if they wanted to buy potatoes, beans, corn, etc., in season. We had no trouble selling the produce. This was in the 1940s, the same period I went to “singing schools” at Rocky Knoll Baptist Church. A music publisher’s representative conducted the schools, and sold paperback gospel song books with shaped notes to the church and to members. One night he promised he would play the piano without touching it on the next night. He did, by draping a bed sheet over the whole thing.
When I was young we traded eggs and butter with the local country store. Today I’ll drive further and pay a little more to buy from a locally owned store rather than from Walmart, Lowes or Food Lion.
Interesting story this morning concerning the barter and trade in a country store. I’ve never known anyone who made their own shoes. I never thought about people bartering for shoe leather, that was interesting. Pap must have had really understanding parents since they didn’t get mad because the lamp oil spilled out. I guess they figured his burned skin was enough and didn’t want to add to his pain. It’s stories like these that make me thankful I grew up in the era I did. We had some hard times, but nothing at all like these.
Mom told many stories about carrying food to barter across a mountain that ended in another town that had a country store. She came from a family of ten girls and one boy. The girls worked like men raising crops on a hillside so they could help support the family. Mom told a story about carrying a sack of tobacco on her shoulders to barter for enough cloth to make herself a dress. She said the tobacco worms nearly ate her up but the trip was worth it when she got her new dress made. Dad didn’t have many stories to tell about his youth. He was busy working in the coal mines from the time he was twelve years old.
She sold wormy tobacco? That means somebody either chewed or smoked worms. Some folks might say “why they had coming to them” but they didn’t know what we know today.
We raised tobacco when I was coming up. The only worms I ever saw in it, and I handled a lot, was those big juicy hornworms you often find on tomatoes. The nicotine in tobacco will kill many other insects but hornworms thrive on it.
Some people use tobacco juice to keep aphids and stuff off their garden vegetables
I came in right on the end of country stores. Faster, easier travel did away with them, not all of a sudden but a drying up on the vine. And I guess Sears&Roebuck had a hand in it to. Now the idea of the crossroads store still lives with Dollar General stores, some of them in unexpected places far from any town. For a body used to using topographic maps, I reckon most every one of those ‘settlement’ place names mark where there used to be a country store, many of them with a post office corner. Some of those names have not survived either, like Buzzard, KY.
Ron, a side note about the surname Buzzard: I served with Tom Buzzard in the army in Germany during the Cold War. Years later, I learned that Buzzard was originally the German name Buzhardt. When I passed that along to my old sarge, from West Virginia, he seemed as pleased as he was surprised, partly, I’m sure, because his sweet wife was German–so that made two of a kind.
My family ran a country store until 1972. Growing up in it I had the honor of seeing a cross section of Appalachian life, from the families with one room and a outhouse to the large working farm families. It seemed we were all of one mindset then, don’t remember a lot of division. people actually would sit on pop crates around the woodstove or outside and discuss current events.
Many country stores were in my area, one even sold work clothes. I remember one having a tank of kerosene right inside the front door. It had a hand crank pump with a rod attachment that moved along with the crank to measure the amount when turning the crank. One rod length was equal to a gallon. As recently as 5 years ago we had a country store that had changed from selling groceries to mostly hardware, (the owner died) if he didn’t have it you didn’t need it and his prices were cheaper than Lowes or Home Depot. A lot of things were sold on credit -no credit cards or interest at these stores. Two things I remember these stores would sell you as many shotgun shells as you wanted, 10 cents for each one and mopping the wood floor several times a year with a mixture of kerosene and burnt motor oil. When a barefoot kid went in before the floor completely dried, they would come out with the bottom of their feet black. The lady at the hardware store would give the neighbor kids a candy bar on their birthday or Halloween. These stories all had big heaters that the neighborhood men would sit around on turned up wooden drink cases and spend time together drinking Cokes, some smoking, and telling stories (lies!) in the evenings especially during rainy weather or winter. To me this was a part of the good old days. These men also had the upmost respect for a lady or children that might be in the store, there would be no cussing or anything off color said while they were there. I have my granddaddy’s shoe last.
My great grandfather had a store like this one in Flat Gap, Kentucky. I love the stories from the old family store.
What a beautiful story. I am teary eyed right now. Thank you for it. Your family are in my prayers. Anna from Arkansas.
My husband grew up in an IGA store owned by his father. Hunny’s first job was to bag potatoes after he got home from kindergarten. He’d crawl up on the pile of potatoes and take a quick nap and then the bagging began. By the time Jack’s dad sold the store mom and pops were about out of existence. Today it’s looking as though a lot of the big box stores are headed toward that same demise. I miss the little country stores and I also miss store catalogs. I remember growing up dreaming over so many of the things I see today in antique and thrift stores. I guess the more things change, the more they should have stayed the same. Sometimes the latest and greatest isn’t always the best as we are fast learning. I garden and process heavy in the late summer and fall so that when winter arrives here in Michigan I can prepare meals from my pantry and dream of what I will do the next growing season. I also cross-stitch so there’s an awful lot of times I’m “gathering wool” then too but sewing has come back to me in full force and I’m going to be replicating the apron you wore in your last vlog. I just fell in love with the whole of that apron…it was bright and cheery and with all of Hunny’s health issues…I NEED bright and cheery. Thanks Tipper for another boost to my memories!!!:):):)
This sttory brought back memories
My dad bought a small grocery store in the early 50s, at that time I was about 12 years old. I would ride the school bus to the store and work with him until he closed the store at 11:00PM. He would not close until the mill in nearby cotten mill shift change, this made for me a long day. I worked with him 7 days a week until I was 18 years old and graduated from high school inl 1958. Back then he sold gas for 19 cent a gallon. Back then we pumped your gas, washed your windshield checked the oil if asked checked the air in the tire, kerosene 20 cent a gallon, hoop cheese.big roll baloney. Farmers would come in and get a slab of cheese and a big cut of baloney for lunch. We had a old hand pump to pump the kerosene, I pumped a many gallon o kerosene with this hand pump. We had small line of essential grocery line. Back then we had no adding machine and I always had to add all the grocery that patrons would buy, I pride myself now even now at 83 I still can add up my high golf score very quick.
Even though those store were a thing of the past, it is so enlightening to hear stories from you reading and your readers. It does bring to mind, that the stores, so to speak, that are still around are the ones public still needs…butcher shops, repair shops, and the thinkgs that supermarkets cannot supply. Even Walmart has tire shops. But just like American history, that the newer generation does not talk about now are being taught, we are losing precious knowledge. And this is a whole’ nuther’ story. God Bless you guys and please pass on my hello to Miss Cindy and Granny.
Good morning! As I’m making my grocery list, watching the cost of it, I sure wish I had a little store to trade at…
Enjoy the weekend. Praying for you all.
My Uncle Rush Mauney had a country store at the corner of Murphy Hwy & Gum Log Rd late ‘40’s ‘50’s. He sold it to the Beavers family about 1958. Christmas was always a treat because he stocked big bags of oranges!!
I grew up where there was a country store just like this. by the time I was in the 7th grade a Quick Check then called Winn Dixie opened up and much like WalMart put all the little guys out of business. the Bakery, the produce store, the butcher, the fish market, all gone within a very short time.
I miss this small community that supplied our food, all neighbors we always knew where our food came from.
good morning Tipper, God bless Tipper and her family, God bless Ms Cindy!