The General Store

Annie Stiles, now in her 90s, wrote a brief memoir a few years back in which she recalled pulling up to Avery’s General Store with her mother in 1912. They parked the horse and buggy out front and she ran up the stone slab steps into the store to gaze with dancing eyes at the wondrous candy counter.Annie no longer travels by horse and buggy, and her running days are waning, but shopping trips to Avery’s are more than nostalgia to her and her husband, Philip—and to countless neighbors of so many years. The trips are part of daily life in the town, as they have been since the store’s founding in 1861 by Amos L. Avery.

The town of Charlemont, Mass., pop. 1,250, where Avery’s still does business, consists of a main street from which winding roads diverge into the surrounding countryside. Avery’s Store is at its epicenter, literally and figuratively, providing a sense of community and other necessities of life—as general stores have done throughout America for generations.

These icons of hometown life are rarer now than they once were. The decline began after the Civil War, as large-scale merchandising began to flourish in the United States, according to Richard Ohmann, a professor of American studies at Wesleyan University in Connecticut who owns a home near Avery’s Store.

The stores hung on in small towns away from population centers, however, and while the decline accelerated after World War II, Ohmann says many general stores found a new life through adaptation.

Such changes have included catering to the tourist trade with nostalgic, old-fashioned products such as racks of penny candy, oil lamps, and long underwear—a route taken by Mast General Store in Valle Crucis, N.C. A recipient of its state’s highest business-oriented preservation award, this store fosters ancient crafts by sponsoring demonstrations of soapmaking, basketry, and folk toy construction.

In contrast, the general store known as The End of the Commons in Mesopotamia, Ohio, has adapted by gearing its merchandise toward the flourishing Amish community nearby. The Schaden family sells and delivers reasonably priced bulk merchandise and whole grains to their Amish neighbors. They also sell old-fashioned products to the general public in person and through their web site, www.endofthecommons.com.

Avery’s, meanwhile, has survived by retaining its ties to the community and listening to its customers’ requests. Dennis “Denny” Avery and his wife, Karen Hogness, represent the fifth generation of Averys to run the store. The fourth and sixth generations can frequently be found there as well. Denny’s mother, artist Fran Avery, creates seasonal window displays. Denny and Karen’s children, Luke and Tessa, help out on college vacations. The Averys also employ five part-time and four full-time workers, who feel like family.

The store itself, like its owners, has ties to both the past and present. It sports an extensive hardware department manned by Denny and his staff, who know how to do just about anything, from glazing a window to installing a watch battery. It stocks as many groceries as the Averys can cram onto the shelves, including a custom butcher’s section. Karen selects and sells reasonably priced contemporary casual clothing.

The store’s look and service, however, are engagingly old fashioned, and not an inch of space is wasted in the 2,400-square-foot retail area. Paint color chips are surrounded on one side by greeting cards, on another by hose, on a third by pet food. Bird feeders, lamps, and even a sink or two hang from the ceiling.

Customers at Avery’s form conversational clusters in different corners. The meat counter offers a chance to catch up with gossip and try samples of new meats and cheeses. The line behind the cash register never seems long because those waiting always have something to say to each other. A small group always is in the back of the store consulting with Denny or his associate, Ken Hall, about paint colors, water filters, or insulation materials.

Shoppers can load their goods into hand-held shopping baskets or steerable carts, but most choose to carry their purchases; the aisles are too stuffed with merchandise to allow for easy steering. Such density of wares is linked to the store’s tradition of service. “We choose to run a service-oriented business,” Denny says. “We think that’s our job. The place is so full and so tight—we have so many things—that you simply can’t find stuff on your own in a lot of cases. Our regular customers know not to bother to look. They just ask. It’s much easier.”

The Averys estimate that they have about 2,000 regular customers, many of whom have charge accounts at the store. Old-timers recall that Denny’s father and grandfather helped neighbors get through the Great Depression by allowing needy families to keep their accounts going. The Averys and their employees continue that tradition of community service.

The store has delivered since its beginning. In the days of Denny’s great-grandfather, Oscar Avery, two people in a horse and buggy journeyed to customers’ homes to write down orders, then returned later in the day with merchandise. Today, shut-ins may phone in orders, and they’re delivered each Friday at no charge. Neighbors rushing home from work can call and have their orders ready when they arrive late in the afternoon. One notoriously tardy shopper routinely asks Denny and Karen to charge her groceries and leave them on the store’s steps when they leave for the evening to go home—right next door.

Alice Parker, 75, of nearby Hawley (pop. 340) has been going to Avery’s since she was just two months old. “I call it Avery’s mall, and it has almost everything I need to live,” she says with a smile.

Running the store requires hard work and long hours for Denny and Karen, but they joined the family business because they wanted to raise their family in Charlemont. “The decision was driven more by the desire to make a living in a small town than the desire to be a storekeeper. I was fortunate to have an opportunity to make a living here,” Denny says. “Dad never put any pressure on me. He wanted me to do what I wanted to do. That’s all you can do with your children.”

The couple cherish their relationship with the store and the community. “It’s a great life for us,” Karen says. “For me, fulfillment comes from connection to something. We deal with the people who are here. We see them every day. We’re dealing with real things, things that people really need and services that people really need.”

The best part? “I think for both of us it’s the problem solving,” she says. “And meeting the people.”

Indeed, meeting people is key to the whole Avery’s Store experience. Mick Comstock, a local minister who writes and preaches about the changes in American communities over the past half century, treasures the experience of shopping at this local general store.

“To go there is to be guaranteed to meet somebody you know, by accident,” he says. “To my mind, that’s the basis of community.”

Tinky Weisblat is a freelance writer living in The Berkshires of western Massachusetts.

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