On the corner intersection northwest of the courthouse in downtown Fairfield, Texas, county seat of Freestone, stands The First National Bank. When I was a kid growing up, Fairfield had “the bank”, officially known as The Fairfield State Bank, headed up by Mr. Fred Hill.
The First National came along later, maybe thirty-five years ago, a transplant from Streetman, a nice town slaughtered by changing times, including the departure of small farming, by better transportation, and the consolidation of public schools during the fairly recent times when bigger was accepted as automatically better.
We are having another hue and cry now amongst the self-appointed experts about school-room capacity being too big and the absolute necessity to reduce class sizes down to private tutor status.
Perhaps the rural one room school house wasn’t such a bad idea after all. It sort of fit into the “it takes a village” concept so championed by the lady Senator from New York via Arkansas via some other state.
The First National Bank, in setting up shop in Fairfield, utilized a building occupied once upon a time by a piece of Fairfield business dear to the hearts of those of us growing up in the thirties and forties, and well into the fifties or better.
Mr. Ernest Steward and Miss lone, his wife, ran the RED & WIITE Grocery Store. They lived long after the store closed, and were loved by the people of Fairfield and surrounding area.
The Red & White was typical of the times, before shopping carts and self-service changed forever the shopping patterns of post-war Americans. Mr. Steward accommodated the country people who came to town, carried them on credit until the first bale of cotton was ginned and sold, and welcomed them to park their wagons in the back and came in the back entrance to the sitting area set up for the country folks.
There was soda water in boxes filled with blocks of ice, and the temperature of those carbonated drinks was about two degrees above freezing. Blocks of cheese with brown paper and a sharp knife were situated for handy use, along with bulk crackers. This was the one item of self service.
It was a big deal to go in the back entrance with my dad, weigh up some cheese and crackers, open a soda water and listen while he joined in with other men in discussions of weighty subjects, like hog prices, boll weavels, the dry spell, and politics.
Once in awhile a “drummee’ would be in the crowd, a term for a traveling salesman, likely there to sell wholesale groceries, or just to take a rest with the other men making up an audience for his fresh supply of jokes and news of other parts.
Mr. and Mrs. Steward had a full service grocery and market of the times. My dad would have had a hard time with a modem shopping cart. He relied on my mother’s “bill of groceries” which he handed to one of them.
They filled the grocery list into one or more paste board boxes, an apple box once in a while. Once in a while my dad added a couple of frills, like a Three Musketeers, which at the time was actually three pieces of candy, each coated with chocolate, one vanilla, one strawberry, and one chocolate; some fruit, maybe a dozen bananas, and on rare occasion, a genuine roast for Sunday dinner after church.
While he and the Stewards were busy with the order I had time to inspect the best knives for sale located near the front entrance to the store. I suppose every boy of that period of time yearned for a good pocket knife, and I spent lots of time viewing those knives and making mental choices about a favorite.
When I graduated from high school in 1942, the Stewards gave me an unsolicited gift, a beautiful, two-bladed knife. They wrote a note and told how they had observed me admiring those pocket knives through my growing up years and they wanted me to have one. They couldn’t have done a nicer thing!
I’m glad I grew up during those times. The home-town merchant knew your name. I miss that part of America.
