White Store at Makemie Park is Seventy Years Old

Makemie Park, Virginia -- If it is something for the farm, more than likely he has it.

Harry E. White, who is operating a general store that has had its doors open for the past 70 years, usually has the answer, "Yes I think I have it," when he is asked if he carries a certain item needed on the farm.

Sometimes it takes a little thought to figure out just where an item like a hog scraper or horse brush can be found in the 40 by 80-foot two-story building. But after pausing and thinking and a little searching Mr. White can usually find what the customer wants.

The present store was built 35 years ago on the site of the original store that burned in 1918. Today there are many of the original items of merchandise that were in the store the day it was opened.

One part of the second floor is piled full of kerosene-heated egg incubators still unsold from the days when it was popular to raise small farm flocks. At least 40 or 50 of them are still uncrated. There are sizes with egg capacity of 65 to 600 eggs. And there are metal chicken coops used in the days when eggs were hatched under hens.

Memory plays an important part in the business.

This old merchandise, which remains unsold, still is in its original position in the store. New things have been piled on top. Today there are only two narrow paths to go from the front to the rear of the shore. A center island of merchandise is piled four feet high. Only Mr. White's memory can tell what is on the bottom.

Most of the prices are made by memory, too. Some items have never had the prices marked on them, while others are so old the price tags have been lost.

There is everything for the farmer -- brooder stoves and parts, fertilizer, coal, concrete pipe for drains, horse collars, plow handles, bean planters, seed of all kinds and varieties, clothing, tires, groceries, and even a money order if the farmer cannot find what he needs and wants to order it.

Mr. White is postmaster for a post office on one side of the store that boasts 48 rented boxes.

"Times have changed, Saturday was always the biggest day. Now I sell as much on Monday as Saturday. In days of the horse and buggy, farmers came Saturday afternoon and stayed in the store until bedtime. Now if they want a penny box of matches they will jump in the car and come to the store," said the 67-year-old store-keeper.

Once life in Makemie Park centered around the country store. Mr. White's store was next to the railroad station, he owned a hotel on the other side of the tracks, and he also ran a livery stable.

Traveling salesmen, called drummers by the rural people, came to the community with their trunks of wares to sell to farm families and other country stores. They stayed over night in Mr. White's hotel and then hired his horses and buggy the next day to make trips out into the country.

The general shore was founded by Mr. White's father, Harry T. White. He died 20 years ago. At first, young White was a drummer on the road himself. Today on the second floor is the basket sleigh he used in the winter to make his trips through the country.

Harry Tyndall, who has worked in the store 33 years, said the sleigh was in the same spot when he went to work that first day.

The frame building has felt the effects of the years. A large, hand-operated elevator will not work anymore. A strong west wind a few years ago shifted the building and the elevator is jammed in its well.

The elevator was once used to carry merchandise to the storage space on the second floor and egg crates to the attic. Mr. Tyndall said he recalls storing as many as two carloads of empty crates in the attic at one time. Farmers would bring in their eggs to trade for groceries and merchandise. The eggs were packed in the cases.

Mr. White has a friend in a nearby town who also has a country store. He said his friend often kids him and claims the Makemie Park store isn't a country store at all. His friend is proud of the fact that his store doesn't even have an aisle to get from the front to the back as Mr. White's does.