Mom and Pop Grocery Stores
by Barry Bauer
This photo, purportedly taken in 1955, shows one of the many Mom and Pop grocery stores that used to dot the neighborhoods in St. Johns. I don’t think anybody knows exactly how many of them we had. A lot of them were residences with a store on the enclosed front porch.
I posted the photo on Facebook and readers believe it was the Peoples Store at 302 W. McConnell. Manzer Hunt and his wife, who ran the store, lived next door at the northwest corner of Ottawa and McConnell.
The store changed hands and was sold to Art and Esther LaBar.
This is what it looks like today. It is owned by John and Judi Thelen.