Sepia Saturday
And therefore all I will say about my archive picture this week is that
you might possibly want to follow, plates, beans, tomato soup, eggs,
coffee, biscuits, baking powder, salt, pepper, breakfast cereals, tinned
fish, spam, or jars of jam as your theme this week. In fact you can
take your pick from the shelves of the grocery section, of Bell and
Macaulay's Store, Drouin, Victoria, Australia. The picture comes from
the digital collection of the National Archives of Australia, made available via the excellent
Flickr Commons initiative.
Alan B.
Alan B.
For my post I choose the interior of one of the early businesses in my hometown of Springfield, Kentucky from the 200 years historical book.
This is the Montgomery Restaurant c. 1923
after the end of WWll and the struggle over the restraints on growing and selling tobacco and prohibition were over.
Cars were beginning to appear on the streets of Springfield and some folks still counted on their horses for transportation and deliveries.
After the settling of the tobacco problems buyers came into town for the yearly auction of the tobacco and this restaurant thrived as the out of town buyers stayed at the local hotel just up the street.
Sorry this is so lopsided.
Cannot tell much about what is on the shelves but pretty sure smokes are there but no alcohol.
I can see several of the men are smoking.
The absence of ladies makes me wonder.
Even after prohibition our little county voted to be what was called a "dry county" since alcohol could not be sold in public.
However, of course, there was no short supply of it around such as just down the street through the backdoor of the local taxi stand.
As a teenager, in the 50s, I remember working as a waitress in our local restaurant and the tobacco buyers were still coming.
A good time for our community.
They were great tippers.
The owner of the restaurant, at the time I worked there, was a married couple with no children who looked after us waitresses as they would their own children.
They made sure no ungentlemanly behavior went on inside these walls.
Go here for more Sepia Saturday
This is the Montgomery Restaurant c. 1923
after the end of WWll and the struggle over the restraints on growing and selling tobacco and prohibition were over.
Cars were beginning to appear on the streets of Springfield and some folks still counted on their horses for transportation and deliveries.
After the settling of the tobacco problems buyers came into town for the yearly auction of the tobacco and this restaurant thrived as the out of town buyers stayed at the local hotel just up the street.
Sorry this is so lopsided.
Cannot tell much about what is on the shelves but pretty sure smokes are there but no alcohol.
I can see several of the men are smoking.
The absence of ladies makes me wonder.
Even after prohibition our little county voted to be what was called a "dry county" since alcohol could not be sold in public.
However, of course, there was no short supply of it around such as just down the street through the backdoor of the local taxi stand.
As a teenager, in the 50s, I remember working as a waitress in our local restaurant and the tobacco buyers were still coming.
A good time for our community.
They were great tippers.
The owner of the restaurant, at the time I worked there, was a married couple with no children who looked after us waitresses as they would their own children.
They made sure no ungentlemanly behavior went on inside these walls.
Go here for more Sepia Saturday
16 comments:
I love the view out of your window at the top of your blog! Interesting picture. I see a sign for cigarettes on the wall in the photo, so they must have been for sale.
I like your lopsided picture. I can almost hear the creaking of the wooden floor and smell the tobacco. I also imagine the restaurant where you worked was a good place.
I lived in a dry county in Mississippi for 8 years. Had to sneak even a bottle of wine for dinner in.
Your memories are so interesting and the photo is interesting, too. No ladies present... It does give one pause.
Nice to hear your bosses were decent caring people who looked after you and your colleagues. I miss that sense of belonging to a certain group, a sense of "family"... Now, you're just a number on a payroll.
;/~
HUGZ
Very pretty picture at the top of your blog.
How great that your employers treated you so well. Just like family. Very nice.
HI!!!I love your pic of this old store..and I also love to hear about stories of when we were young.....We must talk about this stuff or NO one knows it!!!I was a pizza maker for my first job....paid $1.40 per hour!!!!
Have a great day
hugs,
jamie--mimi
Your intro made me realize that the word "spam" does have two meanings. I did not know it was/is? a trademark for canned meat. But I gather it is now a general expression.
O, and your memories! I'm sure it must all seem ages ago. Great post.
I wonder what the tobacco men from those days would make of our 'No Smoking' regulations. They would probably join the legions smoking outside office buildings.
What memories. I always think the great thing about Sepia Saturday is that some idiot comes up with an image which then sparks loads of creative people to blog on an assortment of topics all of which link back in some way or other to the theme image. And this is such a good example of Sepia Saturday at its best.
How neat that you worked there, and found the old picture of it. I used to work at Farrell's Ice Cream Parlour and you have given me a great idea for my own blog post!
We had a dry college town in Oregon, Monmouth, for many, many years, even through the 1970's. Folks slipped to the nearby town to by their alcohol.
I enjoyed your story, and am happy to know that the owners took good care of you gals.
Kathy M.
@ ALAN BURNETT:
And that idiot would be?!?
I don't usually tend to associate with idiots, therefore, I think you're in the clear...
;)~
HUGZ
Great pic - I love visiting and learning about old places, and you do a great job of satisfying all those curiosities.
That is a fascinating photo. I would so very much like to step back in time and snoop around there.
And good to hear about a place that treated their staff well, like family. Certainly not the corporate way of today. Just cogs in a wheel these days.
Peggy it was probably the sort of place where a woman wasn't welcome, and if she dared to enter there would be dirty looks and much muttering! I worked in a restaurant, well a cafe really, called Kardomah, as a teenager, but not waitressing. Upstairs we sold coffee beans and ground coffee and that's where I spent my Saturdays. That's a lovely new blog-header by the way. And as for Alan calling those of us who provide the pictures for SS, 'idiots' Hmmm I'll have to have words with him!
@ LITTLE NELL:
Alan called himself "the idiot", not us. And while he was being humorous about it, I don't like people calling themselves or others bad names. I guess it triggers bad memories of my own. And I like you folks at SS too much for words like this, even as a joke. So, Alan is not at fault here.
:)~
HUGZ
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