Peabody Singing Tower

 NORTH MANCHESTER HISTORICAL SOCIETY
 North Manchester, Indiana

Recipient of Indiana Historical Society's Awards--"2013 Outstanding Project Award" &
"2009 Outstanding Historical Organization".  Welcome to our web site!  Enjoy using this Portal to Our Past!

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BUSINESSES

Early 1880s
1890 Directory
1904 Advertisers
1920 Businesses
Industries-Billings
 Main St. 1923-1928
Transitions
Ambulance-EMS
Beery Orchard
Blackmore Cigars
Blacksmith-Farrier
Blacksmith-Livery
Cabinet Makers
Canning Factory

Cigar Factories
Dentistry
DeWitt Auto

DeWitt Building
Drug Stores
Excelsior Factory
Farm Implement
Flour Mill
Frantz-Loucks
Furniture Making
Grandstaff Rendering
Grove's Grocery
Hayes Motors
Heckman Bindery
Hotel Sheller
Howe Bait
Leedy Motor Co.
Louie's Candy

Mfg Industries
Mills
N.M. Airport
N.M. Foundry
Oppenheim-125 Yrs
Peabody Retirement
Peabody Seating
Photographers
Physicians
Planing Mill
Rex Windmill
Stickley Furniture
Telephone Cos.
Undertakers
Wagon Makers
Warner Brooder





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North Manchester
Historical Society
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Source: Aurora (1921) Ad:

Students! Students!
LET GROVE SERVE YOU
With his Delicious ICE CREAM
As the temperature goes up, let Grove's ice cream go down.
Let us help you plan your feeds.
Grove's Grocery
"The White Grocery Down the 'Van'."
Eel River 283    Rex 3


Source: NMHS Newsletter Aug 1993

Grove's Grocery

by Ruth Anna Taylor

When I was in the first grade, my father took mother's pantry and started a small store. Then he built a small store on wheels that was drawn over the countryside by a team of horses and after a year of this, they purchased a store-the only one in the village-in Ijamsville, and once again my father built a larger bed on a half ton truck bed and went out into the country with groceries. My father would take the grocery on wheels out during early spring through late fall and my mother would manage the store and try and keep my brother and me busy.

We lived in Ijamsville for four years and the folks purchased the Clark Grocery store in North Manchester which was located on the northwest corner of North Walnut and Seventh Streets. My father once again took his truck with the grocery store thereon to the country and mother took care of the store. Fortunately the store and house were connected together so the folks had buzzers put on the screen doors in the summer and then on the store doors in the winter so mother could get some things done in the house as she could hear the buzzer when anyone entered.

I personally never liked selling. My mother always admonished me that I was to go out when it was my turn to take care of the customers and treat them well for that was how we got our bread and butter. In time I got promoted and became part time cook and always the dish washing was my job. My father in the fall of the year would go out to his customers and buy up their flocks of chickens for the Thanksgiving market in Detroit and he would do this again before Christmas and then sell them to Ollie Burkhart in North Manchester. These were days that you sold bread that was not wrapped, and PW crackers came in a barrel and you would help mother lift the barrel and transfer over into a glass framed case and sell your customer any amount they wanted. Brown sugar and white sugar came in the bulk and usually the brown sugar came in a 20# wooden flat and in the winter it would get so hard that you wondered if you could loosen enough for folks. The white sugar came in 100# burlap with white cloth inside with the sugar. You had to learn how to start unraveling the stitching across the top of the sack, and if you accomplished the trick, then mother would wash the inside bag and we used them for store wipe clothes and also for wiping dishes. Since the sugar was in the bulk, we would sack sugar into 25¢ and 50¢ bags so they would be accessible when customers would order. Some folks in those days would buy a 100# bag and stash it away in a cool place so that with winter baking, etc., they would have plenty to do all their baking. I can remember when they first sacked flour in different sized paper bags. We dealt with a flour mill down in the Roann area and the miller was a very particular man. In those days the women made their own bread and pies and naturally were users of the flour.

We are so accustomed today to having everything in compact sizes and boxed well, but there are many fond memories on my part as I look back over those almost 20 years at this location. My husband and I were back in North Manchester in 1985 after several years of absence and we drove through Ijamsville on our way to see his family and discovered that the grocery store had been either torn down or burned. That was a jolt! Then we drove on to North Manchester and drove by the store on the corner of Seventh and Walnut and the four lots that the folks owned back in the 20's and 30's were bare ground. That was quite a shock and I can truthfully say it took time to get over that sight.

In the days that we have been speaking of it was not an eight to five job. We opened the store in North Manchester at six o'clock and the Manchester Bakery would come in with a tray of fresh doughnuts and rolls and folks would soon buy them while they were good and fresh. The folks usually kept the store open from six a.m. until 8 p.m. daily and from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. on Saturdays.
Ever so often after closing the store at ten, they would oil the floor in the store part and then you had to keep rag carpets at the kitchen and dining room doors and you were supposed to wipe your shoes well before tracking into the living quarters.

One task that often fell to me was on Saturday afternoons folks would call and order chickens to be cleaned and cut up so they would have chicken for their Sunday dinners. This usually fell to my responsibility. I never had the nerve to kill a chicken, but I have held many a chicken's beak so my mother could chop its head off. I think that I could still scald a chicken, feather it and then clean and cut it up but I am mighty thankful that today I can buy any part of a chicken that I want and it only needs scrutinizing to make sure all foreign substances are taken care of.

I thought that I had a hard life when I was growing up, but I have had a wonderful time since we have been married. The things I learned as I was growing up-although I thought I had it hard-have certainly stood by me in still being able to do my own thing. My generation certainly has seen a world of changes. My husband and I often say our mothers wouldn't believe all that we have seen and done.