Grocery Shopping In the 1950's

Across the Fence #499

Do you remember when there were several grocery stores in every small town in rural America? When I was young back in the 1950’s, Westby, Wisconsin had seven that I remember. There was Storbakken, Ballsrud, Goettle, Hagen, Skundberg, Southside, and Jefson’s Meat Market. 

Now there’s only one grocery store in Westby, Hansen’s IGA. We’re lucky, many small towns don’t have any left. It’s hard to believe that a small rural community could support seven grocery stores. They all seemed to have plenty of customers to keep the doors open. Everyone had their favorite places to shop. Our family went to Storbakken’s and Ballsrud’s most of the time. On Sunday after church we’d often stop at the Southside Grocery to pick up some items and get a treat, like a popsicle or candy bar. It was located just down the street from the Coon Prairie Lutheran Church. 

My mother never learned to drive a car so Dad had to pick up the groceries when she couldn’t ride along. She would give him a list of things to get. When we got to the store, Dad would give the list to the owner of the store, who was usually the clerk too. Ed Storbakken or Mr. Ballsrud would then go around the store collecting the items on the list and setting them on the wooden counter. If things were on a higher shelf, they used a wire hook to snag the item, pull it off the shelf, and then catch it. Needless to say, those weren’t cans or breakable items.

Can you imagine giving your grocery list to a clerk in a big supermarket or big box store today and expect them to round up the items for you? They’d probably show you where the carpenter made the door and tell you to use it. Life has certainly changed a lot since those days of the friendly, small town grocery stores where everyone knew your name and what kind of food you ate. If you didn’t have enough cash or your checkbook with, they’d even put it on a tab for you, unless you were known to be a real deadbeat.

 Hagen's Grocery Store

My favorite part of the grocery store was the cookie display. I guess I’ve always had a sweet tooth. The various cookies were in large, glass jars for your viewing pleasure. When you finally decided which cookie you wanted, they lifted the lid, selected the cookies, and gave them to you in a paper bag. It was a far cry from the sealed, sanitary packaging we buy cookies in today. One of my favorites was the chocolate pinwheel with marshmallow filling. I still love them today. I know what some of you are thinking — That’s not exactly a healthy food and Howard doesn’t need any extra calories. He should be munching on lettuce and carrots. Sometimes you’ve just got to select something from the “That’s a No-No” shelf of life, sit back, enjoy the cookie, and wash it down with a big glass of cold “whole” milk, not the watered down, no-fat kind, because you only go around once in life. Never allowing yourself that piece of pie you love or enjoying a chocolate chip cookie, is like saving your best china to use at your funeral lunch, what’s the point? 

Another attraction at the grocery store was the pickle barrel. It was just as it sounds, a barrel filled with pickles. You could reach in, select a big juicy pickle and eat it right there if you wanted. You had to pay for it, of course. 

Either I was too young to remember lutefisk in a barrel sitting on the sidewalk outside the store, or my mind has conveniently blocked out the memory as being too gross. This was usually around Christmas time. I’ve been told by a reliable source, that dogs could roam freely around town in those days and didn’t have to be on a leash. Sometimes a dog would mark his territory on a barrel of lutefisk. They probably had poor eyesight and mistook it for a fire hydrant. The wonderful lutefisk wasn’t thrown out after such episodes. Today we’d have to discard the entire barrel as unfit for human consumption. Just remember, lutefisk is a lye-soaked fish and has to be soaked in water for several days to rinse out all the lye, so what’s a little puppy pee to go along with it? Just thought you’d like to be aware of all these pertinent facts before sitting down to your next delicious meal of lutefisk.

As long as we’re talking about food and shopping, Saturday night was the big social night in rural America. That’s when all the farmers came to town. After the chores and milking were done, usually around 7:30, it was time to head for town to shop and visit, but not exactly in that order. You had to arrive early to get a parking place on Main Street in order to observe all the activity. Men visited on the street or in the bars, while the women sat in the cars, visiting and watching all the goings-on. The later the evening got the more interesting the activity on the street became.

Much has changed since the days of seven grocery stores in a small town. Those days are gone and I doubt if they’ll ever come again.

*