LIFE ON THE FARM Rural General Stores

LIFE ON THE FARM

The Happenings By Uncle Ran
The General Store










December 22nd, 2013
Edited February 26, 2022
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We moved up to Bridges in the summer of 1952, I was riding on top of a load of our furniture on Grandpa's big red International flatbed truck, which would get you arrested today. At about 8 years old everything was new to me and very exciting; I just don't know how much use I was in lending a helping hand.
That's where I got my first Nesbitt's Grape Soda, that along with the bologna sandwiches which tasted better than anything I had had yet.
Elmer Leaverton the owner of the local Grocery Store there in Bridges was a kind and gentle old man and always happy to see you. He had a gas pump and sold kerosene and all types of groceries. As I grew up into my teen years and driving a car, gas was about 23 cents per gallon. I know because my first car was an old 51 Chrysler and it took one gallon of gas and one quart of oil to go into Leesburg and back, which was only 4 miles and until my graduation year I had to walk it every night coming home from basketball practice with games usually on Friday and Saturday nights.
All the farmers would gather at the store in the late fall and winter months after most of the work on the farms were finished. Elmer had an old pot belly stove and Dane my brother and I would sneak down to the store and sit around the stove and spit, trying to act big enough to get into the conversation. I always especially liked it at Christmas time; Elmer would buy candy in big amounts about 2' square boxes and sell it to everyone including Mom for Christmas in little brown Pokes, man that was the best candy you ever ate. She always bought 8 or 10 bags at a time, so we really had a good variety. Elmers's store was several miles out into the country, but back then there were little stores like this all over the country.
I guess that's why I like taking photos of them they all bring back fond memories of good times long gone, but as they say never forgotten. Sadly, this is the only picture of Elmer's store, sure wish I had more.
Elmer had one of those high porches you had to climb to get into the store that were built a lot back in those days what with so many creeks close by flooding was a problem. Bridges was so named because you couldn't get to it without crossing a bridge, of which there were four at the time.
I'm sadly told the Columbus Dispatch came down to Elmers back in the 70's and did an interview on one of the last old-fashioned stores still operating in Ohio, and a few weeks later some thugs came in and murdered Elmer and burned the store. The Leaverton family has a cemetery named after them just across the road, they were a large family and well respected in the community. As a kid I had the job of mowing that cemetary it took a very long time, I had to use a push mower,but I got paid good money.
I also remember my grandpa's old store down in Kentucky, Grandpa had a store and Post Office over the mountain, In a different valley, whenever we would go down to visit him and my pipe smoking jolly Grandma, he would always bring me some stick bubble gum which was sweet as can be and you could bite off pieces to chew all day long. I would occasionally get to ride on Grandpa's Old mule called Big Dick and go to the store with him leaving before daylight and Mom and Dad would come by later in the car. It was always scary going thru the mountains in pitch dark, we had to leave before daylight to get there in time to open the store. I never could figure out how that old mule and Grandpa could see well enough in the dark to go thru all those big woods and never get lost.
My Grandpa had a 32/20 Smith Wesson pistol that he always wore to the store and back when he passed away he gave it to my Dad, of course Dad had three other brothers ,but Dad got the pistol. I have seen my Dad shoot walnuts out of a tree many times with this pistol and when dad passed he gave it to me. My son and Grandson will get this pistol, it's the best shooting pistol I've ever seen as they say every once in a while everything goes together perfectly to make an exception weapon and this is one.
Of course, when you're a kid everything revolves around you, I never realized my other brothers and sisters probably got to do the same.
There's a few old stores left here and there another old store called Watson's we would pass on route 11 between Maysville and Morehead that still to this day is still open after more than 50 years. Folks didn't make much money from these old stores, but I guess it was a comfortable living. I know of several store owners in our family, including Mom and Dad who had a thriving store in Martinsville Ohio that Dad bought after selling the farm at Leesburg that's when I had to sell my beloved horse Dixie,but thats the way it was living on a farm back then
Uncle Ran.