I had a birthday the other day and my #1 son and I went for ice cream sundaes, dessert first! The shop was in downtown Phoenix. It brought back memories of other ice cream shops in the valley over the years. One group who made their own delicious ice cream was Uptons. This piece ran as part of my Recollections Series that ran in the Arizona Republic. Hope you enjoy it.

Mary Brady remembers the Upton’s ice cream and candy shop on the north east corner of 58^th Avenue and West Glendale. She worked there in the early l940’s when she was a teenager.  Old Town Antiques and Kathy’s Corner Shoppe occupy that corner now.

“We were busy all day. We were swamped with kids after school, and on Saturdays when the farmers came to town for groceries, the place was jammed.  The highschool kids dropped by for ice cream after the school dances or  a movie date at the El Rey theatre that was right next door.” Rumor has it that Marty Robbins met his wife in Uptons.

“I remember my folks came in one day and I made them chocolate sodas. It was a treat they had never had before; they thought they were really good!”

Mary went on to describe the store with big windows on the front and a large circular counter. “I don’t remember what the surface was made of, but it had wide wooden trim all around.  We girls worked in the middle where the soda fountain was located. The store served a delicious sandwich called the Olive Club. It was ground ham and chopped ripe olives; it was brought in already made up by a vendor.  I’ve never been able to duplicate it.”

Mary and her fellow waitress, Rhea Aaron loved to play the jukebox. A new song came out around that time called, “All, or Nothing at All.” “We always put a dab of red nail polish on our nickels first. That way, when the fellow came in to collect the coins from the jukebox every week, he gave us back our nickels with the red paint on them.”

Mary recalls that she earned $18 dollars a week at Uptons in 1942 and 43. She got off at midnight and there was no car in the family so she had to walk home. “We lived about 2 miles away,

clear out on D street, which is Maryland now. My boyfriend offered to accompany me, but my mother didn’t approve of that arrangement either. When I stepped out on the sidewalk every night, there was my two younger brothers, grumpy and angry at me because they had to get out of bed and come downtown to chaperone us home.”