It's A Living - Part 1

Lorenzo

Frank

  My great-grandfather, Lorenzo, had a grocery store in Canton, Maine.  My grandfather, Frank, was in the grocery business most of his life.  After he graduated from high school, he worked in a grocery store in Peru, Maine for three years.  In 1923 when he was 26, he started working in a grocery store in Dixfield, Maine.  A year later he bought the business, that is what I call moving up the ladder! He was a butcher and meat manager for many years in First National Stores and Sampson's Supermarkets around Maine.  He should have retired but because he was raising me, he continued to work as the butcher at Towne & Clark, a country style general store in Kennebunkport, Maine.  Lastly, he was the butcher at the Arundel Market in Arundel, Maine until his passing.  It is said that his motto  was, "I won't sell any meat that I wouldn't put on my own table!" 

  My Uncle Frank was in department store management for many years, starting with J.J. Newberry's as store manager for ten years (where he was the youngest manager the chain ever had) and then he owned and operated Small's Department Store in Derry, NH for three years. Next he was with Mal's Department Stores for nine years starting as a store manager and finishing as the General Manager for the chain. After all that, he couldn't just retire, he bought a little general store in Troy, Maine, which he owned and operated until his passing. After which, his son, Joe, continues the tradition and adding a heating oil business to the mix.

  My Uncle Joe was the Postmaster in Harrison, Maine for many years. So all of these men on my dad's side of the family were very retail oriented, well, a post office is sort of like a store! My profession is also of a retail nature but with a different slant. For over thirty years, I have been servicing and installing cash registers, something you always see in the retail trade.

  More to follow.....