Contributed by Maradee Liggin Cryer



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The Albritton Store 

As a small child in the late forties and early fifties I remember Albritton's 
Store. This was a small country store located a short distance down the road 
from us. The Albritton property backed to our land. There was a road that 
turned at the store that went through Middlefork Swamp and on to Dubach. My 
great aunt Bertha Tabor Fomby lived directly across from the Albritton store. 
I often could hear Mrs. Albritton calling her cows in the late afternoon. 
Every woman had a slightly different way of calling their cows or their 
chickens. 

All the men, most of whom were farmers, would gather at the Albritton store 
in the late afternoon. They would grab a coke, or a chew of tobacco, or light 
a cigarette and sit out on the long bench located along one outside wall of 
the store. Then the exchange of local gossip would begin. I can still see 
them, the bench would be cocked back at an angle and they would all have 
their backs to the wall, a wall that contained a giant drawing of a Coca-Cola 
ad. Usually a woman drinking a coke or (near Christmas) it would be Santa. As 
a child I was fascinated by the "cool" way the men held their cokes. Sort of 
casually by the neck and down by their sides. Occasionally they would take a 
long drink. Also they would buy salted peanuts and put these into the coke 
bottle. 

One reason for this daily trip to the store was to pick up the mail. It was 
not delivered to individual houses but to the store. Everyone knew when 
someone got a big package. It was like the "party-line" on the telephones in 
the neighborhood. There was never just the two people on the phone line. I 
remember my mother saying that she called my aunt and had a neighbor (also 
listening on the line) say that Frances had just left for the store. Everyone 
knew everyone else's business but no one minded much.

I also remember the smell of the store. Gasoline mixed with soap and tobacco. 
My mother would buy a large hunk of hoop cheese every week. Mr. Albritton 
would take the large wooden cheese box down from the shelf and cut a slice to 
her request. Near the cheese were boxes of Prince Albert tobacco that came in 
little cloth bags. My grandmother made a quilt out of some of these bags. She 
dyed them various pastel colors and opened up the side seams. One of my 
sisters has this quilt today. She also has a quilt that various of the 
neighborhood ladies made...each quilting a different square of their design 
and embroidering their names into the square. A living memory of the 
neighborhood.

Most of our food came from the garden we had and the cows and pigs that we 
raised. There wasn't much to buy at a store. For this reason the store was 
not large at all. Even to me as a child it seemed very small. It was more of 
a neighborhood gathering place. A place to exchange news.

The Albrittons lived in a large house near the store. The house is still 
there....the store was torn down years ago after Mr. Albritton died. 

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