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Tponetom
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Username: Tponetom

Post Number: 183
Registered: 06-2007
Posted on Sunday, December 09, 2007 - 11:47 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

The bulwark of neighborhood food shopping in Detroit during the Thirties and Forties was the C. F. Smith Co. with 600 (claimed) neighborhood food stores. They were , in fact, omnipresent. The main Smith Warehouse was located on W. Grand Boulevard, south of Michigan Avenue. There was a railway spur that terminated in the middle of the six building complex. The railway spur was the parking venue for one or two box cars that came in every morning, bringing in a load of Campbell soups or Del Monte canned vegetables and many other products that would be stored in the warehouse and then dispensed to the 600 stores as needed.
The terminus of the spur was the stage of a sad but constant and maybe necessary practice, of competition.
As early as 3 or 4 o’clock in the morning, men, (day laborers) came in and waited for the “straw boss” of the Smith company to come out and select the men he wanted to work that day. The work was unloading the box cars and transporting the goods into the warehouse.
Each man selected to work that day was given a token, a coin of sorts. At the end of the day, he would return the token to the straw boss and the man would be credited for one days work and paid accordingly. The straw boss would remember, and evaluate what each and every man did that day.
If the man worked hard and diligently, he would be selected the following morning for another days work. If he did not work hard, the straw boss would remember him and not let him work again. Of course, the straw boss had his regular favorites but even they were subject to dismissal if they slacked off on any given day.
Our neighborhood Smith Store was on the corner of McClellan and Moffat. It was a single building serving the Smith store, a Meat market and the ubiquitous, Candy Store. (The plethora of candy stores always intrigued me. I believe my generation survived on penny candy.)
Anyway. My father’s plumbing business suffered like every other business because of the lack of materials and manpower during the war years. He was making a living but that was all.
That all changed with a telephone call in 1944. Omer W. was the head of maintenance for the Smith Co. He called Dad’s Plumbing Company because our location was only two blocks from the Moffat Street Store. He wanted to know if we could send a plumber to fix a water leak in the store. Dad said, sure, right away. It turned out to be a no brainer job and Dad sent Smith’s a bill for a service call for 7 dollars. That turned out to be the biggest ‘Bingo’ one could hope for.
A few more service calls and Dad was on a first name basis with Omer. A few short years later, the National Tea Company, located in Chicago, bought up the Smith chain of stores, remodeled many of them and then closed them all up. (Go figure) Then they began building the National Food Store Super Markets in Detroit and Lower Michigan. That included Port Huron, Lansing and Benton Harbor and all points in between. About 120 stores in all. I worked on most of them from 1955 - 1965. It was the best of times.
Still, I remember the many times I went shopping for my mother at those corner stores: “Mr. Pete, my mother wants a pound of Navy beans.” Then Mr. Pete would take his scoop, open a drawer behind the counter and scoop out some beans, put them in a bag, put the bag on a scale and then write the price on a larger brown paper bag. Other items were gathered and the price of each was written on the same bag.
Mr. Pete had a sharp pencil. The very first time I went to the store by myself, I asked him to check the total that he wrote on that large paper bag. He was off by a dime. Big money in those days. Mr. Pete did not know that I was something of a child ‘savant’ when it came to simple math. In subsequent visits he would ask me if the total was correct. He did not want to lose a customer because of some smart ass kid.
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Ray1936
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Username: Ray1936

Post Number: 2373
Registered: 01-2005
Posted on Monday, December 10, 2007 - 12:59 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Another great story, Tp. I remember the Smith stores scattered about the west side of town, and I remember the (then abandoned) warehouse on the west side of the Boulevard south of Michigan from my DPD days. Those warehouses, after they were abandoned, became a great place to pull a police car into about 4:30 a.m. to give the mice special attention for a couple of hours. Or until the sun rose, whichever came first.

I remember the grocery bill being written on the paper bag. That's something that today's cashier's absolutely could not do. Now they have these fancy-dancy scanner machines that total everything and tell how much change to give. And they usually screw that up.

The good old days were the good old days at that.
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Gazhekwe
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Username: Gazhekwe

Post Number: 1081
Registered: 08-2007
Posted on Monday, December 10, 2007 - 10:11 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Great memories. I don't remember the Smith stores, but we did have a corner store when I lived in Brightmoor. I called it Olga's, and mostly remember the penny candy.

When I went out to work, I learned to total up and count the change back to people. Nobody does that now but you still have to watch them.
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Mikeg
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Username: Mikeg

Post Number: 1312
Registered: 12-2005
Posted on Monday, December 10, 2007 - 12:30 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Here's a photo from the WSU Virtual Motor City Collection:
Picketing outside the offices of the C.F. Smith Co.; 4/4/1941
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Cambrian
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Username: Cambrian

Post Number: 1775
Registered: 08-2006
Posted on Monday, December 10, 2007 - 5:26 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Employers today are salivating to have the same freedoms those straw bosses had. On the upside though if you were sick or wanted the day off, just don't show up. No need to ask for permission.
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Mikeg
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Username: Mikeg

Post Number: 1314
Registered: 12-2005
Posted on Monday, December 10, 2007 - 6:54 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

quote:

Employers today are salivating to have the same freedoms those straw bosses had



Obviously, you've never held a job in management or you wouldn't have made such a broad generalization like that.
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Tponetom
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Username: Tponetom

Post Number: 184
Registered: 06-2007
Posted on Monday, December 10, 2007 - 9:41 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Mikeg:
Yes, you got it right.
The strike was inspired, I believe, by the "cattle call" hiring practices of the "day labor" people as described in my above post # 183.


An analogy to the “cattle call” might be the slave auctions of not too long ago. Anguish, humiliation, desperation, dehumanization and finally, resignation. “No jobs today. Come back tomorrow.”
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Barnesfoto
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Username: Barnesfoto

Post Number: 4544
Registered: 10-2003
Posted on Tuesday, December 11, 2007 - 2:46 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

"An analogy to the “cattle call” might be the slave auctions of not too long ago."
(applause)

Last time I went by the CF Smith Warehouses on WGB (I lived near them for years) they were being turned into lofts.

I have no memory of CF Smith Stores, other than finding a pile of fifty year old fliers for their store on Grand River under the porch of my parents home when I was a kid. Still have them.

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