Reflections: The lost era of small-town grocery stores

The era of small-town, family-owned grocery stores is pretty much dead. Time was, every small town and most hamlets had a grocery store, sometimes the descendant of a former general merchandise store.

During the 1950s here in Oswego, we had two Main Street grocery stores, Bohn’s and Denney’s. Up in Montgomery, they were served by Michaels Brothers Grocery Store. Some of these family-owned stores were large and were known for the quality of their goods, like Paramount Heights over on Ill. Route 31 (owned by the Calamaris family) and the Yorkville Y at the intersection of Ill. Route 47 and U.S. Route 34 in Yorkville. Paramount Heights, especially, was a destination grocery store, known for its meat and produce.

My folks shopped at all of them at one time or another, but when we moved off the farm to town, Bohn’s became “our” store. In Oswego, you were either a Denney’s or a Bohn’s shopper, just like those Chevy or Ford families.

But before we moved to town, Michaels Brothers was our store of choice. Which might seem odd, because we farmed out in Wheatland Township. But with Michaels’ it was for reasons I’ll explain in a minute or two.

William Beher opened the first grocery at Michaels’ location, the corner of Main and Webster streets in Montgomery’s tiny downtown in the latter half of the 19th century. Beher engaged in the grocery trade with his wife and son from a wooden frame building that sported a then-fashionable false front (looking a lot like a refugee from a cowboy movie) architecturally adorned in the Italianate style. In their business, the Behers probably operated much like other similar small groceries in small towns up and down the Fox Valley. Along with canned goods and staples, such as the flour milled at the Montgomery gristmill, the Behers also likely sold fresh poultry and meats purchased from area farmers and eggs and milk, also purchased locally.

The Behers sold the store to Albert Esser and his family, who carried on the operation. The Essers painted the store in the colorful tri-color style popular at that time, and advertised the sale of groceries and meat.

Then the Michaels Brothers, Felix and Barney, purchased the store. The family continued its ownership until it finally closed in 1995.

When I was a youngster growing up on that Wheatland Township farm, my mother would load up my sisters and me and we’d drive into Montgomery where my two sisters took piano lessons from Lorraine Sampson at her house, about a block from Michaels’ (I suspect Lorraine taught most of the kids in Montgomery how to play the piano).

After we’d drop them off, we’d head up Main Street to Michaels’ to trade the eggs my mother collected from her chickens for groceries. One of the Michaels brothers would meet us around back of the store where the eggs, in their special slatted crate, were carefully examined for quality – my mom’s were always first rate – and a credit slip would be issued. Then we’d go up front and do our shopping, with the bill reduced by the amount of the egg money. In those days, we really did “trade” for groceries – eggs for staples.

Small grocery stores were the norm in the mid-1800s before the concept of the supermarket had penetrated small-town America. At these small stores, customers would give the clerk at the counter a list and he’d go collect the groceries from the shelves. At the counter, they’d be either wrapped up, put in the customer’s shopping bag or delivered right to the house.

Shortly after the turn of the 20th century, “basket markets” were invented, offering customers self-service for the first time. My wife’s grandfather was co-owner of a basket market in Ottumwa, Iowa, said to be the first one in that railroad and industrial town. The big innovation with such a store was that customers would grab a basket at the door, wander around the store and pick out their own groceries. The items would be taken to the counter by the front door and the cost totaled. Basket markets remained the norm in small towns until larger supermarkets came along in the 1950s.

Oswego’s two stores as the 1950s got underway were Bohn’s on the west side of Main Street at Washington (where the Marmalade Tree is currently located) and Denney’s across the street. Then in the early 1950s, Carl Bohn bought the vacant lot adjacent to the Nineteenth Century Club’s old library, and built Oswego’s first supermarket. Opening in 1954, it was a marvel of its time with wide aisles and actual wheeled grocery carts just like big city stores.

But Oswego’s stores were unable to compete with chain stores and newer family-owned supermarkets built on large parcels outside downtown areas. First Denney’s closed, and then in 1981, Bohn’s closed its doors. And one by one, the other local independent groceries closed their doors, too. Paramount Heights in Oswego Township just south of Montgomery, Groners at Douglas and Montgomery roads in Montgomery (the old Buikema’s Ace Hardware), and finally the family-owned Boulder Hill Market in the Boulder Hill Market shopping center all closed due to fierce competition in the grocery business from large chains that left scant room for the little guy.

During all that time, though, Michaels’ had remained open, having expanded into a new addition and abandoning the old wooden frame wing on the corner of Webster and Main. But family-owned grocery stores and the narrow margins they operate on make it extremely difficult to compete financially, and the competition from nearby stores that can sharply undersell the locals while staying open 24 hours a day, plus Saturdays and Sundays, only add to those difficulties.

The disappearance of local groceries isn’t just a Fox Valley phenomenon, of course. Small towns all over the country lost their stores as the economy changed and as huge aggressive retailers like Wal-Mart invaded. In some areas of the country – northern Wisconsin immediately comes to mind – local chains are at least nominally successful. But down in these parts, Prisco’s Finer Foods on Prairie Avenue in Aurora is one of the last of a once numerous and hardy breed still standing.

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