> wrote in message
...
On Thursday, December 25, 2014 6:41:20 PM UTC-8, Ed Pawlowski wrote:
> On 12/25/2014 2:47 PM, jmcquown wrote:
> > On 12/25/2014 2:02 PM, Jeßus wrote:
> >> On Wed, 24 Dec 2014 04:21:40 -0800, "Julie Bove"
> >> > wrote:
> >>
> >>> Well, I wasn't alive in those days but from what I have read, they had
> >>> little shops nearby and they bought things as needed.
> >>
> >> ROTFL. So, basically you're saying that everyone everywhere had
> >> "little shops nearby" and could buy things as they needed them. Thanks
> >> for that, I might not have ever gotten around to reading that
> >> information.
> >>
> >>
> > Sounds to me like she's reading historical romance novels where the
> > kithen maid finds an excuse to go to town every day.
> >
> > Jill
>
> There is some truth to that in the city. My grandmother wled just over
> a block to the bakery for bread, stopping at the meat store on the way
> home. A small grocery store was next door. It was common for the store
> to sell "on the book" and settle up at the end of the week.
>
> There were many small stores every couple of blocks. Grocery, variety,
> clothing, etc. Everything you needed in walking distance. The
> popularity of the automobile and supermarkets started to change all of
> that in the 1950's.

Reference to an R L Polk directory will show perhaps hundreds of grocery
stores in cities like Chicago in the 1920s. A friend's wife recalls
horse-drawn carts carrying all manner of things down the alleys of
her Chicago neighborhood as late as 1954. And, my FIL as a young man
helped a produce peddler in the 1930s -- they would go to Eastern
Market in the morning, load up the wagon, and go down the streets of
a particular neighborhood, until all their wares were sold to the
housewives.

---

Thank you! I don't know why people think I am making this stuff up!