Scope and ContentThe Sessions IGA Store in the 30s and 40s by Margaret (Sessions) Clark [NoteL Margaret (Sessions) Clark lived in Saugatuck from her birth in 1927 until 1945. Her recently written recollections are rich in description of life in Saugatuck in the 30s and 40s. This excerpt is about the Butler Street grocery store (later Francis Foods) that the family owned. Portions of the manuscript describing Butler Street in the 30s, schools, the Big Pavilion and other amusements will be published in subsequent newsletters] -- In August 1928, my parents, Stuart and Ruth (Douglas) Sessions, borrowed from Dad's Prudential Insurance Policy and also from Maggie Bos and bought the grocery store at 308 Butler Street from Stephen Newnham. This was in the Heath building, with Bird's Drug Store on the corner. At one time during the depressions the average total sale was 18 cents a day, with some day's total sales as much as $12. At one time the current bills payable was greater than the total assets. When the folks took over the store we moved to the apartment above the store. It is here that most of my Saugatuck memories begin. Before I was old enough to be out on the street by myself, I was at one time tied to a pole in the alley behind the store where there was a sandbox. I don't know if my older brother Donald was tied too, or if I was just by myself, h being a small town people stopped and visited with me, and everyone helped keep track of me. A stairway with a door opening between our IGA store and Bird's Drug Store on the corner, led to the second floor. Up the stairs to the left, over Bird's Drug Store was the telephone office. When the fire siren blew we would run to the telephone office and listen while the operator told the firemen where the fire was. We had volunteer firemen who had to call in, then go to the fire station and get the truck and head for the fire. The first one who arrived would take the truck and the others would drive their vehicles behind the truck with their horns blowing. If the fire siren blew in the evening we left supper or whatever we were doing and followed the firemen to the fire. Farther down the hall, beyond the telephone office and over Bird's Drug Stare, was an apartment where the head telephone operator lived. I remembered visiting her there. I think her name was Mrs. Shaw. Down the hall, in the back corner also over the drug store was another apartment. Aunt Virginia and Uncle Cordon lived here at one time when Cordon worked in the grocery store. I remember Aunt Virginia inviting me to lunch one day and she offered me watermelon, which I said I didn't like and some other things that I also declined. She told my mother and I got a scolding and was told to never again say I didn't like something. At the top of the stairs to the right was the entrance to our apartment, right over the grocery store. I can remember Dad trying to help people to eat as well as they could, or make their money go as far as possible during the Depression. One day he suggested to a woman who lived behind Parrish's Drug Store and had a big family that she buy a five pound bag of corn meal and make corn mush. That seemed to be a good idea, but then they came back to buy milk and sugar. This ruined the idea of feeding the family on the money they had. All our produce came by truck from Grand Rapids two or three times a week. We ate the overripe produce because customers didn't want it if it had a spoiled spot. They often bought produce that was not yet ripe. One afternoon when I went down to the store my father was very sharp with me and told me to go back upstairs immediately. I was quite hurt, but later I learned that there had been a tarantula in a box of bananas and he was afraid of my getting bit by it. Dad was able to put it into a bottle where I later saw it. Bananas came in a large box with the bananas still on the stalk. He hung the whole stalk from a chain in the front window and cut them off as they were purchased. We got our wholesale bread from the Dutch Boy Bakery in Zeeland. The folks bought shares in the bakery. I remember going to the bakery one night and seeing the bread being baked and they gave us fresh bread samples. Much of the business during the depression was conducted on charge books. Customers would buy their groceries and most other things on credit and when they got their WPA checks they would pay their bills. I am sure that most families never had enough to pay all their bills. Our IGA store was independently owned but we got our wholesale groceries from the warehouse in Holland and they would not extend credit. Cash flow was a real problem. I remember that Dad said one day that the cash intake was only $15. The rest of the day's business was one credit. I was less than six years old when I was aware that ours was a hand-to-mouth existence. We were better off then some because we had food from the grocery store. The grocery store seemed big when we had to run from the front of the store, where the counter was, to the back to get item by item as the customer asked for things. When self-service came into use, and the customers waited on themselves, it was really great. The last couple of years I was mostly at the check out. Then I got tired of standing in one place. Almost everything was sold in bulk, other than canned goods and cold cereal. Sugar came in 50 pound bags and we would sack it into five-pound bags. I think flour came in cloth bags and was not repackaged. Rice, beans, nuts, etc., came in large quantities that needed sacking in smaller paper bags when purchased. Cookies came in a 12 to 15 pound square box. We had glass tops with a metal edge that fitted over the top of the box and allowed one to see the cookies, but keep them covered. It also made it easy to open the cover and help ourselves to one when we passed by. We had big rounds of cheese, which we bought in wood boxes and would store four or five to let them age. We also had a kerosene pump from when we would fill the customer's can when needed. I remember at one time we had the cheese sitting near the kerosene and either we spilled some or it leaked, making the cheese worthless. We also sold home bakery goods made by a German family which lived in East Saugatuck. They made the most delicious chocolate eclairs as well as breads and cakes. Two things I remember happening at the store. One was the day the eggs exploded. We had no way of candling eggs at that time. We put a dozen eggs in small brow bags and kept eggs on the back side of the bread rack without refrigeration. I don't know how long they had been on the shelf when one bag exploded. The mess and smell was terrible. The other experience was when a can of molasses exploded. The smell was not bad, but the mess was very hard to clean up. When the weather permitted we put benches in front of the store on which we would pile watermelon in season and other produce. In late summer we had gladioli that were grown on a farm halfway between Holland and Saugatuck. The flowers were really beautiful. When I was 10 or 11 I would sit out in front and sell these flowers for 25 cents a bunch for the smaller blooms and So cents a dozen for the larger blossoms. I carried cases of canned goods, 25-pound bags of sugar and flour and all other groceries, from when I first started working at the store. Dad was a good boss to work for, but we all worked hard. He did not complain or care if those who worked for him ate some of the merchandise. I got paid at the same rate as non-family clerks. The store had a wooden floor we swept regularly with a wide broom and oiled sawdust and from time to time we mopped it with a huge cotton mop. This was no small task. Sometimes when the folks left me in charge of the store with the butcher, I would mop the floor to gain the folks' added approval. I cashed up at night and was given lots of responsibility. By the start of World War II I was working at the store most of the time, that is, after school and on Saturday. We had a butcher who did most of the meat cutting, but Dad was able to cut meat toy. In the summertime we would grind as much as 50 pounds of hamburger at a time for the restaurants. This was often my job. I liked working with John Biller, the butcher. Weekdays during the summer when there was a lull at the grocery store, I would go next door to Bird's Drug Store and go behind the soda ` fountain and help them make sodas, sundaes, etc., for customers. Then after helping the customers I would make myself a sundae and sit at the bar and eat it before returning to work at our store. Because of the war and rationing food coupons became a part of everyday life. We had meat stamps, sugar stamps and canned goods stamps. These all had to be counted and put in books and turned in for us to buy from the warehouse. Some food items were hard to get, like pineapples and bananas. Sometimes folks would have to take their food stamps with them when they were going to visit for more than a day or two, so their hosts could get enough food. We sold the grocery store in May of 1945 and the folks packed up most of our household furnishings and moved them to Albion where Dad had a new teaching job. They left two beds, one for me and one for a deaf lady who was to stay with me for the summer. I went to work at one of the restaurants on the main street. When Sunday morning came around and the church bells rang, I knew I didn't want to stay at the restaurant and work Sundays. The man who had bought our IGA store was floundering, not knowing what to buy and how. He was glad to have me back and help him know what and how to order what was needed. Because certain items were still hard to get we had stockpiled such things as salad dressing, so there would be enough for the summer trade. This was one of the items he had sold out without continuing to order more and so came up short before the summer was half over.