My Penny Places

There were four photos of my hometown on the Penny Postcard site. I give you Burr Oak, Michigan:

I believe this is looking down Front street from the South, about halfway down the street. The first building on the corner was used as a Grey’s Grocery when I was growing up and a few doors down was Morehart’s Variety Store (The Dime Store).

This shows the Bank building which was still a bank until just a few years ago. I held my first savings account at this bank and Mary Jo Gould was the teller that helped me open my account. The round brickwork on the top of the building is still a visible designation of the building but the window itself has been bricked in I believe.

This picture shows the original school building that still stands at the site of the current public school. The third story has been taken down (which is so sad as it is such a pretty piece of architecture) and the building has been added to on at least two sides with a gymnasium and more classrooms. The building was in use while I was in school and I had a locker on the first floor during my junior high years.

This one is another view of Front street, again on the west side and shows another view of the bank in the distance, the Dime Store and the buildings following which I think are empty now. While I was in elementary school and high school there was a barber shop called the Dad and Lad which became a salon, the Clip Joint. There was also a restaurant that was the only competition for my parents endeavor on the opposite side of the street. No pictures of the building where I held my first job, working for my parents at Granny’s Pizza & Cream. No…they didn’t name it that, they took over management of an existing establishment.

I really wonder who the little boy is on the sidewalk in this picture. There were so many old men who came into our restaurant for coffee and breakfast early in the morning. Many of them had been in Burr Oak all of their lives. My senior year of high school I would open the restaurant at 6:00 a.m. serve breakfast for an hour and then hurry home to finish getting ready for school. I remember some very cold days being warmed up by listening to the candid conversation of these patrons who never grew tired of talking about how things used to be and how they never should have changed.