Grocery stores will soon have the capacity to track our every move, yet we enjoy more than back in the Good Ol’ Days. The neighborhood grocer knew exactly what our ancestors purchased and each family’s credit rating. Based on this week’s email, readers agree that being constantly monitored by computers is a fair trade for modern shopping quality, variety, price, and convenience.
While searching for archival images to accompany the story, I looked through photos of former grocery stores in downtown Portsmouth. And there were a lot of them back in the day. Each store owner proudly displayed his name in bold lettered signs. Most shops in the Market Square area presented their wares on the sidewalk for inspection. And that doesn’t include dozens of neighborhood shops. Puddle Dock alone had at least five little stores, as small as 500 square feet. The reconstructed Abbott Store at Strawbery Banke Museum is a great place to get a feel for personalized shopping in the Good Ol Days. Initially, everything was behind the counter. You want a can of soup? You ask the clerk to hand it to you.
Today, the supermarket stores have, with the rarest of exceptions, moved to the highways and malls. They’re huge. They have even bigger parking lots. And there are a lot of them. But not downtown, where the grocery business, like the hardware store, appears to be on the verge of extinction.
This photograph shows what I assume to be Charles H. Joy standing in front of his grocery store at 33 Congress Street. Stephen Preble, the barber, is next door. I don’t recognize the architecture. Do you? The shot was probably taken around the turn of the century in 1900. A quick search of the owner, sadly, only turned up an obituary in the January 20, 1940 edition of the Portsmouth Herald.
So let us pause for a moment of silence to remember the independent grocer with this clip from the newspaper:
“The funeral of George H. Joy was held from his late home, 921 Middle street, Friday afternoon at 2 o’clock. Rev. Arthur Rouner conducted the services during, which Norman Moulton Leavitt. sang “Beautiful Isle of Somewhere” and “Abide With Me.” The bearers were Harold Duke, Raymond Andrews, George Sumner and Waldo Freeman. Temporary interment under the direction of J. Verne Wood, was in the receiving vault at South Cemetery, final interment to take place later in Central Cemetery.” Amen.
Copyright by J. Dennie Robinson, all rights reserved.
Busy Market Square in 1853