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My great grandfather owned a grocery store in our town somewhere around 1940s-1970s (the only one at the time). Town was much smaller then but about 200,000 peo

My great grandfather owned a grocery store in our town somewhere around 1940s-1970s (the only one at the time). Town was much smaller then but about 200,000 people now (edit: I looked it up, it went from about 10K people to 200K since 1940). My last name is somewhat unique in spelling and it was called "$LASTNAME Grocery" so I still occasionally* get a random old timer that asks me if I'm related to him. When I say yes, they always respond similar "Great man. A lot of people would have starved if he didn't offer credit." There's a particularly interesting twist to the story that I really always enjoyed. When the person I'm talking to is a POC, typically black, they always also mention that he was the only person in town that gave their family credit for anything. This is small town Texas, still very conservative and still above 75% white as is/was my family. Sorry for the tangent but the discussion made me think of this mildly interesting story. * Has dwindled quite a lot in last decade or so. Because of the time, those folks that remember the store are losing numbers (but also I haven't lived there in a while either)

saint_angels 5y ago
do you know if the grocery store was relatively successful? I imagine that doing business with whole town, instead of just 75%, is economically preferable
- conductr 5y ago
  I think it did ok. I never met my great grandfather. I heard a lot of family stories about the store. A lot of family time across 3 generations was spent there. I’m the first that never saw it first hand. I knew the great grandmother. I remember her fondly, but she didn’t talk much other than in duty of running the house. Food, cleaning, gardening, laundry, etc. They were depression era mentality. Saved all the butter container. I think they themselves were raised by Czech/Pol immigrants to Texas. Anyways, I knew they did well financially because of seeing my grandfather squander a ton of assets. They were super modest folks but as the town grew, they built apartment complex. They had several 100s units. Also the grocery store was on a gold mine of a street intersection. Supermarket competition and sufficient rental income are my guess at what caused my great grandfather to close the store and sell the land.

saint_angels 5y ago

do you know if the grocery store was relatively successful? I imagine that doing business with whole town, instead of just 75%, is economically preferable

conductr 5y ago
I think it did ok. I never met my great grandfather. I heard a lot of family stories about the store. A lot of family time across 3 generations was spent there. I’m the first that never saw it first hand. I knew the great grandmother. I remember her fondly, but she didn’t talk much other than in duty of running the house. Food, cleaning, gardening, laundry, etc. They were depression era mentality. Saved all the butter container. I think they themselves were raised by Czech/Pol immigrants to Texas. Anyways, I knew they did well financially because of seeing my grandfather squander a ton of assets. They were super modest folks but as the town grew, they built apartment complex. They had several 100s units. Also the grocery store was on a gold mine of a street intersection. Supermarket competition and sufficient rental income are my guess at what caused my great grandfather to close the store and sell the land.