Andrea Halgrimson column: Neighborhood stores marked friendlier era
The Forum - 08/18/1999

In 1905, Fargo's population was 13,050 and the number of grocery stores listed in the city directory was five, down from 14 in 1897 when the population was 9,460.

By 1919, with the population almost 22,000, the number of grocery stores stood at 55, one for every 400 folks in Fargo.

By the time I was born in 1940, the city directory listed one apiarist, one bookbinder, one elocution teacher and one naturopath; two artists, two public baths and two drayage companies; three corsetieres; four blacksmiths, six furriers, seven osteopaths and The Love Teachers Agency - whatever that was.

There were also 92 businesses listed under Grocers - Retail. The population was 32,580. When I was 4 years old, we moved from Broadway and 13th Avenue North down to Broadway and 11th Avenue North. It is in this neighborhood that my recollections begin.

Neighborhood grocery stores were small mom and pop establishments named for the owners or the area in which they were located. Proprietors often lived nearby or in an apartment above or behind the stores. They are treasured parts of my childhood memories.

Grondahl's Fairway Market at 1037 5th St. N. was closest to our house. It was owned by Melvin and Arnold Grondahl whose father Leonard started the store in the same location in 1916.

One block south down the alley was the North Side Food Market at 510 10th Ave. N. owned by Charles J. Hansen; we called it Charlie's.

Mom would ask me to go down to Charlie's for meat for dinner and if the butcher, Mr. Gordhammer, was there she'd say to get something from him. If not, I was to choose some cold cuts. Mom didn't think Charlie cut the meat properly. I remember Mrs. Dutt who worked behind the counter.

When I went to grade school at Horace Mann, there was the Horace Mann Market at 402 10th Ave. N., just a block from the school. And in my best friend Barb Hoaby's neighborhood it was the Third Street Grocery at 727 3rd St. N.

During World War II, bubble gum was in short supply and you had to stand in a long line to buy one stick.

In the middle of the 800 block on Broadway between neighborhood homes to the north and Hank Pederson's Broadway Pure Oil and the Hasty Tasty to the south, was a larger grocery store. One year at Easter they offered customers a live chick with each box of tissues purchased.

I raided my piggy bank and bought two boxes of tissue; my brother Blair bought one. We kept the three chicks under my bed until mom discovered them. Then we had to take them outside and fix a little pen in the yard.

Sometimes Mom ordered groceries from Earl Haeffner's Grocery at 1412 2nd St. S. Earl was a second-generation owner and his mother was often in the store. Earl brought groceries, as well as beer, to the customer's doorstep. John Schneider, now U.S. Attorney for North Dakota, delivered groceries for Earl.

One winter day when we happened to be in Haeffner's neighborhood, Mom stopped for a few things and I waited outside. Cement steps with an iron railing led to the door and I blew on the iron to watch the vapor of my warm breath melt the frost. And then I stuck my tongue on the cold metal. I think every kid does it. Once.

When I started going to junior high at Ben Franklin, it meant crossing Broadway to go to school. It was a very busy street then. One of the best parts of the longer walk was Masse Grocery at 1140 8th St. N.

Owned by Napoleon and Simone Masse, natives of Montreal, the store was a wonderful place to stop. Mr. and Mrs. Masse - as we called them - were warm and friendly and tolerant. Mr. Masse often sang bits of opera and spoke to us in French and we'd giggle. I believe it was the beginning of my Francophilia, a phase I've never outgrown.

In junior high I became friends with Nellie Lockhart who lived on 7th Avenue North between 11th Street and 12th Street North. Here was a whole new world of grocery stores: West Side Grocery at 1201 8th Ave. N.; Roosevelt Grocery at 1017 11th Ave. N.; and Tenth Avenue Market at 710 10th Ave. N. (where Mom and Grandma sometimes had shopped when my mother was a teen-ager).

In high school I found the first block of Eighth Street South to be delicious. Not only was there a mom and pop grocery, McNair's U-Save at 19 8th St. S., here was Jarvis Candy shop and, best of all, Don's Hamburger. One child in each of those families was a high school classmate.

When I began to drive, supermarkets had made their intrusion into the ranks of mom and pop stores, but you still couldn't go more than a half dozen blocks in any direction without finding one of the 50 or 60 small grocery stores left. Front Street had many markets and I remember a little fruit and vegetable store at 221 Broadway.

A special treat was going to Leeby's at 420 Broadway. The bakery, the meat counter, the special foods that no one else carried always took me to far-away places. And I always enjoyed stops at Harry's Market at 1461 11 St. N., owned by Harry Platt, and Melting's Market at 708 10th St. S., owned by Alfred Melting.

A certain smell infused these stores. They were small and close but the odor was of vegetables and meat and cans.

Some with wooden floors had a more distinct odor than those with tiles or linoleum.

The aisles were short and narrow so things were easily and quickly found. All of the people working there wore white aprons.

The brands were limited. The cash register was at a counter close to the front door. They were full-service stores with produce, a meat department, frozen products - just like the supermarkets only so much more manageable.

When I go to Minneapolis, I always visit a small Italian grocery store owned by two brothers. I go because the smell is so evocative of the past and I revel in the store's coziness.

Although there is not much news in The Forum's library files about these little grocery stores, the city directory is filled with their history.

They served as a neighborhood gathering places. And, because the owners knew their customers by name as well as their offspring, children who entered them behaved. They knew that any misbehavior would be mentioned to their mother the next time she shopped.

If you wanted to behave badly you went on your bicycle to a neighborhood far from home. And even then you weren't safe from reprimands. Fargo was a small town and it is likely someone would know that troublesome kid.

As I paged through the old city directories, I noticed some of the same names reappear from decade to decade. Many of these neighborhood stores were taken over by a child of the original owner and the second generation carried on the business.

Alas, there was no third. By that time they were almost all gone, succeeded by first small supermarkets and later by the huge markets of today. I mourn their passing.

(Halgrimson is a food columnist for The Forum. She can be reached via e-mail at: ahh@forumcomm.com)