Heber had only the one small store with a limited selection of items. For other shopping we had to go to Holbrook or Show Low. When I was small, our family made a monthly shopping trip to Holbrook. Holbrook had a large Safeway store just around the corner from the old Navajo County Court House.
Mom and Dad would buy groceries at Safeway for the whole month. Because of the canning Mom did and the butchering of animals, we didn’t buy a lot of canned fruits or vegetables but we bought other canned goods. The meat we bought was usually ground beef or bacon. We did buy flour in twenty-five or fifty pound bags. We bought sugar in fifty or one hundred pound bags. We also bought other items like cooking oil, Jell‑O, crackers, cheese, fresh vegetables and other items that might be needed.
One of the good things about going to Holbrook to shop was the fact that they had a Sprouse‑Ritz Store which was called “the five and dime” store. It was a fun place for kids to shop who didn’t have much money to spend. It had one big section where items ranged in price from five cents to a dollar. We could buy caps, pea shooters, sheriff badges, squirt guns, balloons, cap guns, Lone Ranger masks, bows and arrows, dart guns, marbles and probably a hundred other things. We would go there and look and look and look and finally make a decision on what to buy with our dime or quarter.
Holbrook also had a Penney’s store. That is where we bought some of our clothes and it is where Mom bought cloth and cotton or dacron bats for making quilts. Penny’s also had shoes, thread, socks, ties and even suits. When I graduated from eighth grade, I think I got my suit at Penney’s. In those days it was fun to just watch the clerks in the store. The business office was apparently upstairs on the second floor so when the customer paid their money, the clerk would put the money in a small bottle-like container. This would be screwed onto another piece that was attached to a cord that ran from where the clerks were waiting on people to the area on the second floor where the cashiers were located. The small bottle-like containers were moved to the second floor somehow by the clerk pulling on a string or rope. When the rope was pulled, the bottle moved rapidly up the cord to the second floor where change was made. Then the bottle would come back down the line by someone upstairs pulling on the cord, and it would land close to the clerk and they would unscrew the bottle and get the change out for the customer. We spent lots of time just watching the bottles going up the cord and then coming back down. They also had a system similar to what drive up banks have but I think it came later.
Another favorite part of our trip to Holbrook was the bakery. There was a real, live bakery in Holbrook and most times Mom and Dad would let us buy a dozen doughnuts to eat as a snack. The bakery always smelled soooooo good. We would get the doughnuts or maybe they were spudnuts and then go and sit under the trees on the courthouse lawn and eat them. I think that’s where I developed my love of doughnuts.
Also located on the main intersection in Holbrook was the “drug store.” It had all the things a drug store was suppose to have like a pharmacy but it also had a soda fountain. I don’t remember ever sampling the ice cream from the soda fountain but it was fun to walk around in the drug store and watch others sitting at the soda fountain. If we needed medicine, that is where we got it most of the time.
Those shopping trips were not only a family outing, they were also necessary in those days. They took careful planning to be sure we bought what was needed during the month. I’m afraid most of us have forgotten how to plan ahead and shop for a month at a time like we did then.