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Roxana Illinois grocery store 1998. A 1940s business<\/strong> The family owned grocery store, Harbkey’s, was extremely small, about the size of a large two car garage. There was a butcher shop in the store but I don\u2019t remember there being any fresh produce. The number of items available was a small fraction of the inventory in the supermarkets that began to appear in the late 40s.<\/p>\n The refrigerator replaced the ice box, an appliance that contained a block of ice to preserve food for a few days. The refrigerator, an electric appliance, was much larger. It had a freezer compartment for ice and controlled the temperature so that food could be stored for longer periods of time. Frozen foods were not yet common. My mother planned meals one or two days ahead. The grocery shopping tended to be for one or two days supply of whatever would fit into one or two moderate sized paper bags. There was what we called a dry goods store across the street from the grocery store. It was smaller than the grocery store. The dry goods store contained bolts of cloth for making clothes. There were some toys and other household items like scissors and sewing materials but no appliances. I don\u2019t remember buying any toys there.<\/p>\n View of Roxana Illinois downtown 1952. Supplies for<\/strong> The very compact 2 block downtown area created a social network zone. The drug store, the post office, the barber shop, a small restaurant we called the Sweet Shop, and the Movie Theater, were all within a two block area on Central Ave. Two elementary schools, the High School, and the city offices were also located in the town center. People walked to athletic events, the theater, city offices to pay utility bills, and the barber shop for a hair cut. There were rarely any cars driving on the downtown streets. Telephones were not yet universal and not the key source of local news. The grocery shopping trips created frequent contacts on the street and in the store. Face to face interactions on main street created the social network.<\/p>\n There were many fruit trees on vacant lots and in the back yards of the houses in my neighborhood. Most people who had fruit trees would preserve some for their home use. The canning process used 16 ounce glass jars, called canning jars or mason jars. were sterilized, filled with cooked vegetables or fruit and sealed with sterilized lids. For people in town the quantity preserved might be a few quarts to supplement meals. On a farm the quantity preserved would typically be enough for all family meals until the next season. I remember cherry, apricot, peach, and apple.<\/p>\n I don\u2019t remember anyone complaining about kids picking fruit from their trees. Children just helped themselves to fruit in the vacant lots. Usually people offered fruit from their trees to neighbors since they would not be able to preserve and eat all of their fruit. There were some vegetable gardens on vacant lots in the neighborhood. If there was a house on the lot there was not enough room for gardens. The house behind us on 4th street had an extra lot that they used for a garden. There were gardens on some vacant lots on 3rd street and 2nd street.<\/p>\n A significant part of grocery shopping for fruits and vegetables was seasonal trips to local orchards or “Truck Farms”. The term Truck Farm had a different meaning in 1950 Southern Illinois than the way the term came to be use in the 1980s and 1990s, selling from farm to local markets. Truck Farms sold direct to consumers. We travelled to farms a few miles out of the city for produce such as watermelon, apples, corn. We drove out to the farm, paid cash, and took home a few days supply or a quantity to can for consumption the rest of the year.<\/p>\n Fresh produce was very seasonal. It was not available year round. During the summer we ate local vegetables and during the fall we ate local fruit. In the following decades refrigerated railroad cars, that had huge slabs of ice in the back of the car to blow cold air on the contents, shipped produce several hundred miles to distant markets.<\/p>\n Although we did not frequently eat fresh game or fish it was occasionally on the menu. Wild rabbits were plentiful and during part of the year my dad would have a shotgun in the car ready for an impromptu hunting opportunity. We often saw Rabbits and Quail while driving down a country road. I can remember the taste of Rabbit and that I did not particularly like it. I don\u2019t remember the taste of quail.<\/p>\n Fish from the Illinois and Mississippi rivers was quite common in the local markets. We sometimes bought fresh fish at a market on the Mississippi river in Alton. We lived in between the Mississippi, Missouri, and Illinois rivers. Almost everyone that I knew was a fisherman. Most families consumed fish regularly. I would not compare the fish we got from the rivers to the fish available in supermarkets in the 1960s and later. They were not nearly as good as salmon or halibut.<\/p>\n Sometimes we brought live chickens from the farm, killed them in the back yard and prepared them for cooking. I am sure that still happens in some places but in general it is something that you can\u2019t do anymore. My dad shot two quail less than 100 yards from my grandfathers farm house. He flushed a covey of 4 and brought down two with one shot from a 410 gauge shot gun. Hunting for basic food supplies as a form of grocery shopping was related to the gun ownership culture and explains why guns of various types were always at hand on a farm in the 1940s.<\/p>\n Children make a playground out of a mud puddle after an Eastern Colorado<\/strong> During the previous generation, the 1920s, my father lived near the city of Eads on the Colorado Plains. My great aunt Erma lived on a farm in the same area. Erma lived 17 miles from Eads, the nearest town. The grocery shopping trips were infrequent and only basic staples like salt were purchased. The trip was by horse drawn wagon. One or more of her older brothers drove the wagon and made the purchases for the trip. The pace for the wagon was approximately a fast walk. An early start would get the wagon trip back by sundown. The younger children would monitor the last stages of the trip by pressing an ear to the road to detect the vibrations of the wagon coming back home.<\/p>\n Food preparation and preservation on the Colorado Plains in the 1920s did not use any refrigeration. The house Erma lived in never had electricity until after she left home in the late 30s. Erma ate salted pork, stored in a barrel on the back porch, for her after school snack. The family raised pigs and slaughtered them once per year. Her mother, Julia, cooked sausage patties, salted, and stored them in layers in the barrel. The Icyball<\/a> device was used by some rural families but was not universal.<\/p>\n The grocery store was only one block from our house on 2nd street. We did not have a car for a few years and my mother never learned to drive. We carried groceries from the store to our house in … Continue reading
has adapted to the new retail world.<\/strong>
Photo by Rodger 1998.<\/strong><\/p><\/div>\nDowntown is a social network<\/h2>\n
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making clothes and groceries.<\/strong>
Photo edit by Rodger 2007.<\/strong><\/p><\/div>\nImpromptu munching in the vacant lot next door<\/h2>\n
Menu items are limited and seasonal<\/h2>\n
Optional items<\/h2>\n
Grocery shopping is 17 miles away and the trip takes all day<\/h2>\n
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storm in 1925. An 1885 Illinois farmer’s son has moved to Colorado.<\/strong>
Photo edit by Rodger 2007.<\/strong><\/p><\/div>\n<\/h2>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"