Moving Back to the North End

1252 N. Main Street

In August, after finally selling the store and house on Second Avenue, the same day Mom and Dad found that the house at 1252 Main Street was for sale was a stroke of luck, or a blessing, according to Mom. We’d be back in the North End when less judgmental, more enlightened people lived. And just in time for the beginning of the school year. That meant that I could look forward to rejoining the class I was in from first to fourth grades in this my last year of grade school.

Riding the Mahon Restaurant Supply Circuit with Dad: Walworth, Lake Geneva, and back

Today parents sometimes have their kids take part in “Bring your child to work” days. I had that experience most of my life, walking into stores my Dad managed or working in stores we owned. And even when he was “between jobs” I got to join him in work. One of those occasions was after selling Wentland Grocery in 1950. During the summer of that year, Dad had work driving a delivery truck for Mahon’s Supply, peddling condiments to restaurants in Northern Illinois and Southern Wisconsin. There was a regular route that went from Rockford to Lake Geneva and back. And all along the way were a number of restaurants where Dad would deliver gallon jars of pickles, mustard, catsup, mayonnaise, boxes of paper napkins and the like. One summer day Dad asked if I’d like to go along. I remember the route covered regular stops at what seemed every drive-in and restaurant between Rockford and Lake Delavan—Poplar Grove, Capron, Walworth, Darien, Fontana and then back. My job was to watch the van while Dad went in to deliver the condiments or paper supplies the owner had ordered and to get the restaurant owner's order for the following week’s delivery. Dad was happy to have the work from his friends from the food business. He didn’t see himself doing this for the reminder of his working years.

Northwest Market & Jimmy Guinn

The opportunity for Dad and Mom to have their own store came about at just the right time. Dad had known Jim Guinn since A&P days. In the 1950’s, Jim owned the grocery store on the northwest corner of Rockton Avenue and Auburn Street [now the site of a gasoline station].

When the butcher/owner of the shop next door to Guinn's decided to leave the business, Jim, knowing Dad’s food store background, alerted Stan to the opportunity. It seemed a perfect fit. Dad was cut out for more than being a delivery man for restaurant supplies. He and Mom took the opportunity and began with sprucing up the store with a fresh coat of white paint.

One of the guiding principles Mom and Dad followed as a result of their retail experience was the importance of presentation. The showcase always had to make the products appealing to the eye. Mom was in charge of the display case of cold cuts (pictured left). For her, it was not enough to put the cold cuts in the show case. She had to go around front and see what the display looked like from a customer’s point of view. The plastic price tags had to be accurate, placed on the correct item and standing straight. She taught me to do the same when I was working at the market in the summer months.

And Dad always made sure the steaks and chops were displayed neatly on the crushed ice bed he’d replace every few days. Even though the display cases were refrigerated (pictured left), Dad had learned from his days at the chain stores that crushed ice in the display case kept the meat from drying out. Another pointer he learned, probably from a salesman purveying butcher supplies, was that displaying the meat on green colored paper created the illusion of the meat looking redder, and therefore, more attractive. Customers at meat markets of that era were noticing the display of meats on this florescent green paper, perhaps not aware that this illusion was the desired effect.

One of my less desirable duties during my summer employment at the store was defrosting the walk-in cooler. But what a delight when a salesman came to the store to demonstrate for Dad the beneficial effects of ultra-violet Pasteuray light on the meat—both sealing and breaking down the enzymes of the meat so that it would age safely. But there was a side effect of the UV light that delighted me. The rays of the light kept the ice from building up on the refrigeration coils located above where the sides of beef and pork hung making defrosting unnecessary. All I had to do was make sure the catch-barrels were kept from over flowing as the coils shed their moisture down the trough above the meat hanging in the cooler. Cool! really cool!

For some time, Mom and Dad made their own potato salad and macaroni salad until they found that buying it prepared by Mahon Foods was more economical. During the winter holidays, it was their choice to prepare cooked shrimp in a large vat on a stove in the backroom. I remember the smell of that process. And as much as I always loved eating cooked shrimp dipped in seafood sauce, I found the smell of shrimp cooking with bay leaves was not one of my favorite fragrances.

There were always two large jars of pickles—kosher and plain—available for sale in bulk on the top of the refrigerated display case. And to the left of the door as customers entered the store was the shelf case displaying an assortment of prepared meats—everything from the ever-present Spam to jars of Hormel tamales in a jar. Many years later I discovered how artificial these commercially prepared tamales were by comparison to the authentic tamales made in the kitchens of the talented Mexican cooks who plied me with the products of their work. Deee—licious! But then, the tamales on the shelf of our market preceded by years the significant Mexican-American population I was to discover in Rockford in later years.

While the large grocery chain stores carried mostly packaged meat, our customers would come all the way from the East Side to Northwest Market for aged steaks custom cut to their preferred thickness. Guinn’s grocery store, having only a small area, was limited in the selection of groceries that could be offered and could not compete with the chain stores. In addition, Jimmy Guinn was more enamored of his golf game than he was of his grocery store. He’d hired a couple to run the store and would look in every now and then to see how the business was going. Jim and Dad owned the businesses independently but cooperatively—well, mostly so anyway. Dad and Jim agreed to keep the same business hours. The individual stores had their separate front door entrances, but there was an inside walk-way between them.

Dad and Mom gave their all to make Northwest Market a going concern. The one-week vacation to Michigan City each summer was the only time they had off together. Jimmy’s absentee management of the grocery became a bone of contention. The people Jimmy depended on to run the grocery store created a dichotomy in customer service and cleanliness between the grocery store and meat market. Dad and Mom would hear comments from their customers about the grocery store’s lack of service, cleanliness and lack of stocked items. Our customers wanted to make their grocery purchases as one-stop shopping—grocery and meats in the same store, like the big chains. But customers were not pleased with the business practices at the grocery. I can remember only one time when the friction between Dad and Jimmy showed. There may have been other times of conflict when I wasn’t there. But I always wondered how Dad could keep up the pace for those fourteen years—standing at the block for most of the 10 hours of business, five days a week and 8 hours Saturday, boning out the week’s worth of the remains of a hind- and fore-quarter of beef, as he saw his customer base and volume drop over the years because customers—while deeply grateful to have a real butcher shop where they could get quality meat products— found the grocery store a less attractive stop for their needs, especially with the big new Piggly Wiggly opening a couple of blocks down Auburn Street. While some would begin to make their one-stop grocery purchases—including their meat needs—at Piggly Wiggly, many continued to purchase meat from Northwest Market and the rest of their groceries at Piggly Wiggly.

Never wanting to see a doctor

Dad was not one to frequent the doctor. Dr. Roseborough, our family physician, lived across the street from us in the 1300 block of Ridge Avenue, but Dad saw him only to wave a hello to him. And even that was infrequent since the “doc” was seldom in his yard.

The one comment I remember hearing Dad express about doctors was, “Doctors, humph, all they’re out to do is take your money.” Now that may have been just an excuse or a bias because of an experience in his family in younger days. His father died at home after an extended illness which kept him bedridden for some days before he died in 1943.

There was one time I remember Dad having to go to the doctor after which he went to the Rockford Sanitarium building on Parkview Avenue for some kind of procedure. The only impression I have of this illness was what I saw in Mom’s anxiety.