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Memories by Bev Jackson Cotter

Walking home from kindergarten one afternoon, I decided to stop at O’Brien’s store and buy a candy bar. I had no money, but I had overheard a conversation between Dad and Mom about their opening a charge account at the neighborhood grocery store, convenient for Mom if she needed something and Dad would pay the bill in full on payday. My 5-year-old mind liked the idea of buying something and not needing to pay for it, so that day I stopped, told Mr. O’Brien that I needed a Hershey bar and to put it on the account. I remember the puzzled look on his face, but he reached to the shelf behind the counter and gave me the five-cent candy bar.

I had only a block to go to reach home, so I had just finished eating the chocolate and was carrying the wrapper when I stepped into the kitchen. When Mom asked about the empty wrapper, I innocently explained how I had charged the treat, and it was nice having a candy bar to eat on the way home from school. That was when I learned my first lesson in financial management. It never happened again. Never.

Those were the days of neighborhood grocery stores. Within a 10-block area north and west of our home on Eighth Street, there were seven of them, some separate small buildings, and others additions on the front of homes where the owners and their families lived. On South Broadway alone there were eight grocery stores, some pretty good-sized, and some smaller about the size of the Health Food Department of our current Hy-Vee.

In Albert Lea, there were stores on Marshall and Main and Babcock and Clark and Bridge and Newton and Fountain and Front Street and Washington and Minnesota and Charles and South Pearl and Lakeview Boulevard and College, Third and Fourth and Seventh streets, and Water and Jefferson. Only occasionally, my parents would shop at the larger downtown stores on Broadway, Newton or Washington.

I don’t remember grocery carts in these smaller family operated stores. When shopping for Mom, I would hand the owner our list of items and then waiting while he gathered them, made out the sales slip and bagged them in paper sacks. Obviously, you would not find the variety of foods we see on shelves today. The original product was it. Coke was Coke, Spam was Spam, Cheerios were Cheerios. There were no options. Most people had gardens and many had apple trees, so during harvest moms were busy canning the fruits and vegetables which would carry their family through the winter months.

Prices back in 1945 seem impossible today, although we must keep in mind wages were equally low. A Tribune ad for Borland’s Super Market on Babcock Avenue (now East Main) listed California Sunkist Oranges, two dozen for 35 cents, tomato soup at three cans for a quarter, center cut pork chops for 31 cents a pound, and a two-pound jar of imitation jelly for 25 cents. What is imitation jelly?

Small communities in Freeborn County also had their own grocery stores or meat markets. Alden, Clarks Grove, Conger, Emmons, Freeborn, Geneva, Glenville, Gordonsville, Hartland, Hayward, Hollandale, Lerdal, Manchester, Maple Island, Myrtle and Twin Lakes all provided convenient shopping for their residents and neighboring farmers.

A special thank you to the people from these communities who were willing to reminisce about their grocery stores and meat markets and mini-Walmarts, places called mercantiles or trading posts, stores where you could shop for just about anything you needed, including materials for sewing and school supplies. Stores which maybe included the local post office, or a freezer section where you could rent a spot for recently butchered meat, or where area farm wives could bring in eggs for candling and then receive a discount on grocery purchases.

The nostalgia in these conversations about our communities and neighborhoods was contagious. I just wanted to turn the clock back for a while and revisit those times when life seemed less complicated. Aah, memories.

Bev Jackson Cotter is a lifelong resident of Albert Lea.