Page:Brunswick 100 Years of Memories.pdf/120

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c?.binets, and counter tops. There was once a display of seats for outhouses at the Karn store and it was said that Karn at one time produced a wooden leg for a cljent. The mill work shop was transferred to Karn's Maryland Avenue yard at least 50 years ago.The business passed to Edward Hering and Ralph Stauffer about 1948 and to Joel Koehl in 1971. "Bootsie" Barger' s fuel oil and kerosene business, later sold to Economy Oil, was acquired by Karns in 1964. Mr. Koehl installed gasoline pumps. Richard F. Cline sold electrical equipment and plumbing there, also. Some of the contractors who dealt with J.P. Karn & Bro. were H.B. Funk, W. J. and Glendon Demory, Millard and Lee Keller, Levin Cooper, and G. E. Rollins. The 1924 directory contains an entry for another lumber business, the Brunswick Lumber Company, located at 604 West Potomac Street, a company with a store in Charles Town. S - Crace Connor - Betty Stauffer - Ed Hering

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THE LACE STORE

MACE FURNITURE Thomas Mace began a furniture business on East Potomac Street in the area where Moler's Market was located. When Thomas Mace died, his son Harry, took over the business and moved the store to West Potomac Street, where The Berlin Restaurant is now located. If Harry Mace didn't have anything in stock that a customer was looking for, he could go to the supply houses in Baltimore, select furniture, have it billed to Harry Mace and Mr. Mace would give the customer a discount. Mace Furniture also featured Victrolas and RCA Victor Records according to the Maryland State Gazetteer 1909-11. Harry Mace continued in business until the early 1950's.

MEAT SHOPS Since there was no abattoir - or commercial slaughterh ouse-in Brunswick, butchers had todo their Ovn preparation of animals for sale in butcher shops. Dutch Bums recalls how meat reached the refrigerated showcases from his recollections of the 1920's and 1930's: Mr. Charles Hahn, father of"Puncher Hahn and grandfather of "Chisel" Hahn, was quite elderly when Dutch was about seven years old. He butchered hogs and cattle for Bill Wenner's meat market. Every time Mr. Hahn killed a steer, he drank a cup of its blood. This was confirmed by his grandson. A tradition seen through murky glasses holds that such action had the purpose of helping the butcher retain his will and ability to do this task. Charlie Woods butchered for the Beatty meat shop, performing his ritual in the hollow along a creek in Wenner's Field. This creek passes under D Street just west of Second Avenue, and the field is north of there. Abe Hemp's meat shop was in the storeroom (since destroyed by fire) in the east side of the

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The building at 7-11 East Potomac Street that housed The Lace Store was originally called the Mehrling Building; Joe Shilling operated a butcher shop in that building around the turn of the century. After the structure was enlarged and remodeled, Mr. and Mrs. Earl Gordon bough tit and opened The Lace Store, which was a small department store. Some of the early-year employees were Stanley Snoots, Daisey Watts, Frances Brady Orrison, Dorothy Stine, Ivadora Kellly and Mr. anJ. Mrs. Gordon. One side of the store catered entirely to the working man's needs and the other side carried notions, cotton fabrics, Simplicity patterns, ladies' hats, shoes, dresses, skirts, sweaters and children's and infants' wear. The shoe department in the rear area of the store had Brunswick's first X-Ray machine for proper shoe fit. But some of the fondest memories of The Lace Store was the upstairs CHRISTMAS TOYLAND that opened early in December every year. Every young child who lived in Brunswick during those years has been upstairs to visit the Lace Store's Christmas Toyland. In 1946 the Cordons sold The Lace Store to a small chain, COFFMAN-FISCHER, under the managemen t of Frank Sapp. The Coffman Fischer

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store continued until the early 1960's when it was again sold to another chain. Ironically, this new store was under the managemen t of Richard Snoots, whose father, Stanley, was one of Mr. and Mrs. Gordon's earliest employees when they first opened The Lace Store.

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