"Manistique Neighborhood Grocery Stores"

Manistique's Neighborhood Grocery Stores

by John B. Anderson

Manistique was particularly blessed with a multitude of neighborhood grocery stores. In my particular neighborhood, we had Harvey's, (Harvey Ekdahl), Lakeside Grocery, (the Eckstrom family), and Barney's, (Barney Johnson).

My first experiences at a neighborhood grocery were at Barney's. I would bring Barney my folk's “Cliquot Club” mixer empties, along with coke empties, and an occasional jumbo. (Jumbos were worth 4 cents, while the Coke bottles were only 2 cents. With cash in hand, I would buy 5 cents worth of penny candy, and that would take at least 10 minutes. Barney would stay right with me, as I pondered by choices, sometimes making other customers wait. Barney's selection of penny candy was mounted on a piece of cardboard, and the selection was enormous. The kindness that I experienced at Barney's has set a standard for me to emulate the rest of my life.

Mr. Cooper, certainly one of my favorite high school teachers, shopped at Barney's as well. He would buy a jumbo at night, after school, to relax him after a tough day with the high school kids. I'll bet his own kids made out well with empties at 4 cents a pop.

When we moved to Arbutus Ave., I had two choices of groceries, Lakeside Grocery and Harvey's. Lakeside Grocery delivered groceries to people's homes, Ralph was the delivery driver. Lakeside Grocery had a complete butcher shop in the back of the store. Sometimes Bill and I would go to Lakeside Grocery to pick up a pack of “Marvels” cigarettes for Bill's grandpa. Grandpa would always give us some extra money for our trouble, (we would have done it for free). John R. and I used to sit on the steps of Lakeside Grocery and suck on “Dreamsickles.” When I got my Milwaukee Sentinel paper route, my mom let me spend 25 cents at the grocery for candy.

Harvey's Grocery was a fun place. Harvey and Bernice were always joking with us when we bought our groceries. One day Mom and Dad sent me to Harvey's for a loaf of bread. As I walked out the back door, I spotted Richard, a bully, waiting for me at the next corner. “He's going to pound my ass,” I thought. I turned around and walked six blocks the other way to Barney's. When I finally returned home with the bread, my parents were concerned. I confessed that I was afraid of Richard. They said that the only way that Richard would leave me alone, was that I had to stand up to him. A couple of weeks later, Richard pushed me, I pushed him back, and we became friends.

In my story about downtown Manistique, I spoke of John's Market, (John and Bertha Vaughan), Heinz Market, Cliff's Market, (Cliff Kool), Smith's Market, (Ernie and Lyle Smith) and Smitty's IGA, (Mr. Smith, father of the twins). On the west side, the big grocery was Schuster's, (Otmer Schuster). Smaller ones included Paquette's Riverside Grocery, Norton's Market, Van Dyke's, and Vaughan's Grocery, (Jim, brother of John's Market). Van Dyke's had complete supplies for making homemade beer, including a capping machine. We brewed up a batch at Gorsche's house, distilled it in chemistry class, and gave a big belt of it to Henry. Henry missed the next two days of school. Outside of town, we stopped at the grocery at Manistique Heights, and at Carlson's Indian Lake Store. Just before the state park, was a camper's market.

There were so many places to shop for groceries. Most of these are gone now, making room for the larger grocery stores. These places taught me a lot about social discourse and kindness.