On November 6, 2019, when the Ogletree Grocery building was being razed, many people gathered across the street to watch as a piece of Union’s history disappeared. Among those sharing memories were two of Ed Ogletree’s children and a former employee.
First, Lynn Edwards West remembers that the old store had a carousel with seeds piled in open bins from which employees would dip the seeds with a large or small dipper into a brown bag. The small dipper held 25 cents’ worth of turnip greens seeds, for example, while the large one held 50 cents’ worth. They would scoop pea or butter bean seeds into small paper bags and then weigh them. Most farmers back then would look into the bag to see if that scoop was enough.
During Christmas the children bagged orange slice candy, hard rock candy, and chocolate cream drops. Ed would have an assembly line of his children…one filled the bag, one stapled the bag closed, one weighed the bag, and one put the sticker with the price on it. Candy was always measured in one pound and ½ pound bags. They also had to bag the candied fruit for fruit cakes. Lynn recalls that doing both of these tasks would destroy the girls’ fingernails.
The clerks used a regular adding machine to add up the price of groceries, then took that total and put it into the cash register, along with the money. They never entered anything in the cash register except the total of the order. The customer got the adding machine tape.
They used small charge pads with carbon copy sheets and wrote only the date, the customer’s name, and the total of the order. The customer usually signed it and got the carbon copy. Every now and then he or she would forget to sign, but no one ever questioned the charge or doubted buying the groceries. Everyone who charged paid every two weeks (Midland Shirt paydays) and then charged again! Such honest people! In addition, Ed would always carry a balance if the customer needed it.
Lynn loved cutting the hoop cheese with the round, wooden cheese cutter. One click of the cutter was ¼ pound, 2 clicks ½ pound, etc. Then she would wrap the slice in white freezer paper.
Ronnie Smith and Mike Killen helped her brother Tommy Edwards carry out fertilizer and feed for the customers. Stan Walker, Jerry McDonald, and Randy Keen were three of the young men who also worked there. Winfred Keen was a meat market manager in the early 1970s.
Ed’s dream was to have a store with four registers, one for each of his girls. However, only two of them, Lynn and Margie, were still around home when he finally got his Piggly Wiggly. They were both in college but worked on weekends and holidays.
Lynn recalled that her daddy and mama would be the first to say that all of the people of Union were the backbone of the store… just as is true now.
Next, the youngest child who is owner of the store today, Jim Ogletree was 10 years old when the Piggly Wiggly was built, yet he has fond memories of the old grocery store. A youngster full of mischief, Jim and his friend Dal Luke used the seed carousel for pranks. They went to the creek, caught crawdads, and put them in the seed bins. Once, when an employee went to dip seeds, a crawdad attacked his finger. It was fun to the young boys but not to the clerk. In addition, Jim remembers that every week he and Dal put grocery sale flyers on the windshields of all the cars at Midland Shirt Company.
Jim also recalls that before an employee would be hired at the store, he first had to go to their home and work in the yard or in the garden. Ed even put lights on a pine tree to light up the garden at night to accommodate the boys’ schedules. He believed that if they were willing to do outdoor work, they would be good store employees.
Finally, a twenty-year employee, Stanley Walker began working at Ogletree Grocery when he was in high school and made the move with Ed to the new Piggly Wiggly store. He and Delores lived in the upstairs apartment when they first married. Stan worked in the meat market, bagged and carried groceries, stocked shelves - anything that needed to be done. He remembers that Mr. Ed was always helping people. In early years, ladies from rural areas would bring in eggs and butter for trade. Then in later years after he could no longer sell those dairy products in the store, Mr. Ed would continue to buy from them, and Miss Dot would take the goods home and use them for her family.
Although the building was taken for granted as a fixture in Union, time took its toll on the 91-year-old structure. As a result, those who enter Union from North Street today miss having that two-story yellow building welcome them as they approach our town.
