They Carried
By
Gerry Niskern
When our family moved to Phoenix in 1942, we stayed in an auto court on West Van Buren while searching for a house. Mom sent my sister and me to the little Chinese grocery down the street every day to buy some items for dinner. The two teenage sons waited on us and what I remember most was how the young guys joked with us. They kept us entertained in our new town. The crackling of the paper bags blended in with our giggles as they sacked up our groceries.
Actually we soon learned that there were several Chinese grocery stores in little neighborhoods in Phoenix. They employed local kids for deliveries, sweeping and stocking. My husband worked for one down on West Lincoln and 19th Avenue. Turned out, my new best friend’s dad owned one of those grocery stores. Their’s was on West Madison and the family lived in the back.
Immigrants to this country have always found that starting a little grocery was a way to start earning a living. My mother used to tell about the Greek man, Mr.Darwishe, who came to town with a sack on his back selling small house hold items to the homemakers. Later on he had a good size grocery on the main street in town. As a child, my mother was sent to the store often. My grandmother refused to buy anything from the “Company Store”, with their bug infested food items, even though Grandpa’s pay was part vouchers for the company store.
When she was only six or seven years old, my mom would gather her items on the counter, climb up a ladder and take down the small receipt book with her family’s name and write down everything she was taking. Mr. Darwishe trusted her completely. Then when payday rolled around on Saturday her dad would go in and settle up with Darwishe.
Every year during the strike (the coal miners “went out” every year) Mr. Darwishe “carried “them, sometimes for three or four months. This was common practice in all the different ethnic grocery stores during those years around this country.
Years later, I remember as a new bride complaining when my young husband swung by Henry’s Chinese store to pick up some items. I wanted to do all our shopping at the big Safeway supermarket. Bult my spouse carefully explained, “Henry “carried” my folks when we first came to Phoenix and once during the Building strike. That’s why we should always come by Henry’s to pick up a few things.”
With the major strikes taking place right now in our country, I’m reminded of those many small grocers of all nationalities of years past. When asked, they almost always answered, “Yes, we carry.”