"Mom and Pop" Stores to Stimson's -1950's

http://www.standard.net/topics/business/2009/12/27/man-preserves-history-super-markets
At a thrift store, Rusch found an entire bound edition of the Washington Terrace News, a weekly published in Washington Terrace in the early 1950s. It still has the $3 price tag Rusch paid for it.

1950s - Ogden, UT:
Back before Piggly Wiggly invented the self-serve market, and back before Stimson's opened the city's first "super" market, Ogden residents bought their groceries from nearly 100 independent, locally owned grocery stores almost always within walking distance.

Ads show Stimson's Market selling four rolls of toilet paper for 27 cents, 15 cans of dog food for $1, eight cans of corn for $1, cans of corned beef for 47 cents and eggs at 49 cents a dozen. Ten pounds of potatoes cost 23 cents.

Sounds cheap, but groceries were a larger percentage of household expenses in the 1950s, when the average wage was $3,139 a year, or $8.60 a day. At those prices, a day's wages would be easy to spend.

I started working at the Stimson's store in Layton as a meat wrapper/deli in 1969.  I learned how to package meat, weigh it and wrap the packages with plastic... Hamburger, roasts, steaks, all neatly arrayed in the cases for people to buy. I made Henny Penny chicken and the now famous potato logs by dipping them in a special coating and deep frying them to a golden brown. We had a variety of sandwiches, the main one was a sub sandwich with turkey, roast beef and bologna on a hoagie bun. Made many of those every day. On the menu, was pickled eggs which were wonderful, hand-made pizza and cole slaw that was made in large metal tubs and packaged in cartons.

I intended to work part-time because I had three children at home, the youngest not in school. But when I took a break, they would call me back. So finally, I just went full time and had to pay for baby sitters that somewhat defeated the purpose of working. Transferred to cashier which I enjoyed tremendously. Assumed additional responsibilities, ordering merchandise and training employees throughout the rest of eleven years.

I remarried in 1980 when my youngest was thirteen and moved to SLC with my husband, son and youngest daughter the next year. I worked at another neighborhood store for two years. When a new Stimson's was built in West Valley, I went back to the store for another seven years..

My fellow employees in Layton were a wide range of ages, but a bunch of us socialized  occasionally after work. My fiancee fit right in even though he was ten years older than me. We would go bowling, dancing at the local night spot, and make sojourns to Wendover, across the state line for gambling.
One night after work, we told our boss we were going there. He said, "You better be back to work in the morning." Six o'clock the next morning, we were there; not necessarily "bright eyed and bushy-tailed', but there! Ordered take-out breakfast from the bowling alley across the street.
"Independent America,"  - http://www.independentamerica.net/   http://www.localfirst.org/resources/resources

Independent stores are disappearing.....