IGA, Food Center, Food Liner, Or Was It A Combination?

Now, we are going back in time a bit to when Cedar Street was actually home to the "Food Center" grocery store.Yes, it was located right in the middle of Cedar Street between Fonks and Morrows.Back in those days, it was owned by John Lovelace and the Cantemessa family. Mr, Lovelace was our next door neighbor on Cedar Street. He later became the superintendent of the Mullan School District.

The Food Center was tightly jammed into two buildings, One side had the  meat market and the other side had general groceries. It is hard to picture nowadays, but I remember going there many times to shop when I was little. Wallace was always jammed with parked cars, and getting parking in front of a grocery store in the middle of a block was no easy task.

The Food Center eventually  moved to a new location and is now known as Harvest Foods. I still call it the Food Center, and when we are in Wallace, I always go in there for old times sake.

Now, it could get a little confusing at times because we had the Food Center, and  we also had a second grocery store in those days that was located on the site where the Depot sits now. Yes, it could get rather confusing at times because that store was called ' The Combination IGA/ Food Liner"
Yep, I am not making that up, I swear. It was a lot newer store than the Food Center, and I much preferred to go there with my parents when they went grocery shopping. The Combination, as we reduced the name to, was a modern building, brightly colored, and was stocked with lots of toys on the upper ledges surrounding the store. The Combination had a delivery truck, and yes, you could call in an order of groceries and have them delivered to your house. Oh, for the good old days!

I mentioned the toys in the Combination because several of my prized Christmas gifts came from that grocery store. Christmas time in Wallace was always special to me. ( I blogged about that several years ago. )Well, each Christmas, the Combination rolled out the toys, and one year there was a set of fire trucks and firemen. This was no ordinary set of the truck, no sir, these were huge, shiny and bright red.
I saw them and asked my mother for them for Christmas. She told me that money was tight, and that Christmas was already bought for that year. Well, I was very disappointed, but I understood.

Christmas finally arrived, and our family gathered under the tree. My dad always passed out the gifts one by one after we sang Silent Night. My brother and I got some very nice things, and I was happy. Dad handed me one more  package. I tore it open, and yep, you guessed it, there was the complete set of fire trucks and firemen. OK. OK, so I was spoiled a little bit. My mother always made sure that we had nice Christmases, even when money was tight, and those nice things came because she would take on extra work, and one of those jobs was in the Five and Dime Store, "Fonks".  She ended up working there for many years.

Anyway, there you have the grocery store scenario when I was growing up in Wallace.

Next-Honk if you love Fonks.