February 2012

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enerations past would be surprised to find the drawers of a now-antique sewing machine stuffed with marbles or the Savannah Mixes in old cornbread muffin tins. The spirit of another generation is kept alive and put to good use, displaying merchandise, old-fashioned and new, in country stores, such as Arrow Rock Country Store in National Historic Landmark, Arrow Rock, Mo. At Arrow Rock and in several other country stores scattered throughout the northeast and Midwest, customers cross the threshold into the past with the aid of sundry antiquated motifs.

Besides running and baking for the Arrow Rock Store for the past three years, assisted by a few employees, and handling maintenance and CPA services, sole proprietor Lisa Smith finds time to scour flea markets and estate sales. She keeps her eyes peeled for the types of furnishings that graced the historic town homes when she was growing up. Alongside the sturdy old sewing machine are butter churns, crocks, cast iron cookware, Coca-Cola trays, kettles, wooden boxes and cases, old furniture, and stoves. The display pieces are all laden with Splatterware, crystal ware, paper products, ranging from the nostalgic paper dolls to a wide selection of greeting cards, old teapots, and children’s collectible cars. Folks beat a path to the old-fashioned candies and Smith’s bakery goods, from snicker doodles and sugar cookies to pastries. There is also a new twist, espresso for sale.

History books about Missouri and the town of Arrow Rock, plus hard-to-find children’s books, do not gather any dust. The University of Missouri Journalism School in Columbia has recently published the second book on the historic town, due out soon, which Smith will stock.

Smith’s store has won third place two years in a row in the Best of Rural Missouri Best Old Stores Award.

Sometimes known back in the day as a “hoosier” cabinet, the one-stop baking center with several drawers and pullout flour bins transforms into an ideal display unit for kitchen products in today’s country stores. This is the case at Frogmore Country Store in Andover, N.J. Two other iron stoves, a potbelly stove, and several other pieces of antique furniture, are stationed throughout the two-story shop, said owner Kate Frogmore’s mom, April Kaprelian.

On and around the reminiscence-driven furniture fixtures are Amscan dishes, Park Design clothing, linens, rugs, and Mountain Weaver tablecloths, which are hand-woven in Vermont. Lang Company calendars, Paper Country products, and Yankee candles and accessories are also for sale, and framed country primitive prints adorn the walls. Additionally, single-artist produced Santas, handmade by a New Hampshire artist who uses antique fabric for the Santa suits and crafts the one-of-a-kind hands and faces are offered to customers.

Swarovski crystals embellish the fronts of new Terra Traditions albums, guest, and baby books, based on old prints of Santa Clauses, babies, and brides. “They’re uniquely gorgeous heirloom pieces, taking old prints of say, children sleigh riding down a hill,” Kaprelian said.

Winning attention from scores of customers are Vera Bradley quilted fabric pocketbooks, the Amscan dishes, top of line Dem Deco items, garland wreaths, and candle rings. Old Santa keys pose the question, “How does he get in?” Hung on doorknobs, they appear to be oversized skeleton keys.

The Stoystown, Pa.-based Duppstadt Country Store site itself sets a nostalgic mood before turning the knob to enter. It has been a country store since 1904 and the Duppstadts have continued the tradition since they purchased it in 1970. The store sells everything from groceries, household accessories, hunting equipment, leather goods, and oil lamps to Hearthstone Stoves and tourist items. Owner Carole Duppstadt noted that the cast iron skillets and pots, and the graniteware, sell equally well. She displays the old style kitchenware prominently on shelves amidst modern products.

The country look is achieved easily by stacking up wooden apple crates in Grandma’s Country Store in Gettysburg, Pa. Owner Barb Tomko’s daughter, Heather Buhrman, described the store as 90 percent comprised of her mom’s baked goods. “She does all of it,” she said. The store is known for the baked goods, but Frederick McCutcheons Jellies also have many fans, along with décor items and locally sewn towels and aprons.

The sign says Hauseman’s Country Store, but shoppers might think the shop is a museum at first. People often say that entering the store is like taking a step back in time, said Jane Huaseman of her Boyertown, Pa.-based store. The old bureaus, tables, and other antique furniture pieces hold an assortment of candles, wreaths, antiques, rustic tin stars and animals, Christmas trees and fresh wreaths, antique and reproduction country pictures, cans of pretzels and chips, milk bottles, and much more.

If nothing else, many patrons will at least pick up an ornament or two, which are stocked all year round. Hauseman staged an open house for her daughter’s Creative Memory scrapbooking that fit the setting like a glove.

Though wood is timeless, wooden fixtures, hurdle shelving and floors, together with an antique stove for displaying cast iron kitchenware, lends an old time feel to Mast General Store in Asheville, N.C. Mary Beckman, general manager of the Asheville store, said some of the fixtures were retrieved from the local Grove Park Inn when it was remodeled. She tends to theme-base displays with perhaps all rooster-related items together, or she might group by category, such as all enamelware.

There are nine Mast Stores, and the shops have their beginnings in 1883. The restored Asheville store building was constructed in the 1940s. It is packed with cast iron cookware, pottery, baskets and other crafts, old fashioned toys, and a candy section featuring over 500 old-fashioned hard-tofind candies, unusual door hooks and knobs, locally made bird houses, and popular selling nostalgic tin signs for familiar names like Sunbeam and the I Love Lucy show, cast iron cookware, and enamelware.

More than a place to buy needed or wanted goods, country stores and the antiquated furnishing and fixtures within, preserve the past just by being there.