THROUGH
MOUNTAIN MISTS
Early Settlers of
Their
Descendants...Their Stories...Their Achievements
Lifting the
Mists of History on Their Way of Life
By: Ethelene Dyer Jones
The Country
Store and Christmas
Before I begin
today’s topic of the former Country Store and its part in helping
people to celebrate Christmas, I have another correction to make.
Setting the record straight is important to me. I appreciate so much
Mrs. Shirley Summerour Brackett writing
and calling me to tell me that she was a member of the Class of 1951,
the last one from Union County High School to graduate from the
eleventh grade (as was my brother, the late Bluford
Marion Dyer). Shirley reminded me that there was not a graduating class
in 1952, but in 1953 the first class graduated from the twelfth grade.
I’m sorry for my “arithmetic” being off by
a year, and my not allowing for the time needed to get that Class of
1953 through the added grade. Thanks, Shirley, sister of my classmate,
Kathryn Summerour Bachelor (Kathryn and I
were in the Class of 1947, four years before the twelfth grade was
instituted).
Now to some
thoughts on how the country store of long ago
helped neighborhood people have a happy Christmas.
My best
remembrance of a country store was one operated by my maternal
grandfather, Francis Jasper Collins, better known as “Bud.” My first
recollection of his country store was of a large, rambling building
right on the road, now named
A
set of scales sat on the porch. On these scales, my Grandfather and my
maiden aunts, Avery and Ethel, who worked as clerks in the store,
weighed the live chickens that country people brought to barter for
goods. After weighing the chickens (in coops), and subtracting the
weight of the coop, the clerks calculated how much “money” was
available for trade. They turned the chickens loose in a pen lined and
ceiled with chicken wire at the side of the store. There the chickens
would be fed and watered until Grandfather went to
I’m not sure
when this old gray building was torn down and a new smaller store
building built closer to the house. Seeing the old storehouse go seemed
to me, even as a young child, to be the passing of an era. I loved that
old store building with its long counters and all the merchandise that
sat on the shelves to be purchased by people who brought chickens and
eggs, tanned skins of animals, chestnuts, chinquapins, and sorghum
syrup to be traded for “store-bought” goods. The barter helped them to
get coffee, sugar, salt, baking powder, spices, shoes, and yard goods
from which dresses and shirts were made by industrious housewives of
the community. Men’s overalls, work shirts and socks were part of the
inventory. And the glassed-in candy counter boasted chocolate drops,
sugared orange slices, and peppermint and licorice stick candy in boxes
or to be purchased for a penny by the stick! What an enticement this
array of candy was to my young eyes! I can remember Grandfather
reaching into the counter and getting a chocolate drop to give me, even
if I didn’t have the penny to pay for it.
The “new” store
had a front porch as well, with the usual scales to the left of the
entrance door. The chicken pen was attached to the right side of the
store, outside. In my young eyes, the procedures at the “new” store had
not changed much. But the building itself was smaller, perhaps handier
to the house so my aunts would not have such a hill to climb as they
did getting to the old store when the cowbell, hanging outside the
door, rang to announce the presence of customers (for the store was not
open all the time, but just when someone needed its services).
I remember with
fondness the time I was allowed to go to
I had never
ridden over Neal Gap before, nor had I ever been to the city of
I shall never
forget that day in
This trip was
near Christmas, and Grandfather had remembered to buy some simple toys
like
It did not seem
to matter at all to the children of Choestoe community when they awoke
on Christmas morning to find their stockings containing an orange from
the Collins country store and nuts like pecans and English walnuts not
grown in the woods near their homes. Somehow, Santa had been helped
along with his magical bag by stopping at the country store to
replenish his gifts.
Overabundance
was not a concept we knew in those days. But the necessities of life
were somehow available, thanks to the efforts of persons like Grandpa
“Bud” Collins who ran a country store. With the gifts received, we felt
a deep appreciation and a sense of wonder and surprise. Little was much
when love was in it.
May your
Christmas be filled with joy transcendent and may 2007 bring you
renewed hope.
c2006 by Ethelene Dyer Jones; published
[Ethelene
Dyer Jones is a retired educator, freelance writer, poet, and historian.
She may be reached at e-mail edj0513@windstream.net;
phone 478-453-8751; or mail
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