Locals
Where we talk to people who are... well... local.
Locals
Cardy Pursel, A trip up Main St. in (about) 1940
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Today's guest is Charles Pursel (you probably know him as Cardy), retired attorney and lifelong resident of Bloomsburg. Cardy and I take a trip up Main Street as it was in roughly 1940. Time to geek on what was where when in Bloomsburg way back then. Enjoy.
Welcome to Locals, the podcast in which we talk to people who are, well, local. Today's episode is for those who love to geek out on Bloomsburg's Main Street, and who stay up nights wondering what store was in what storefront back in oh, say 1940. Fortunately, we have someone who can help us with that. Charles Purcell. You probably know him as Cardi, was born in Bloomsburg and has lived most of his almost 90 years in town. In fact, his childhood home on Forth is only about a block, as the crow flies, from his current home on market. And parenthetically, the home Cardi lived in with his first wife, Elizabeth, was even closer on market and next door to Sandy Washburn's. Some of you might remember Sandy. She was my mother-in-law's landlady. And even more parenthetically, her partner, Scott Killam, was a bird-watching friend of Pat's my mother-in-law's cousin's husband. Now they lived in Philadelphia, and the bird watching years came long before Sandy knew Scott. And when Scott retired to Bloomsburg for some reason, he gave nature walks for the Greenwood Friends School where our children went. Apologies for that digression. The parenthetical statements are just to make a point about the idea of this podcast that Bloomsburg is the social axis mundi. All social lines converge in this little town, and it is nothing if not a densely woven web of lives and relationships. Now, back to this week's conversation. Cardi is a well-known and now retired local attorney who shared a firm with Al Lucius, current Columbia County Judge Gary Norton, among others. When he arrived for our talk, he brought with him an old blue document with white lines demarcating every storefront on Main Street from about 1940. Having lived here for fifty years, friends and I will occasionally play the do you remember which storefront was Epley's pharmacy game? So I was actually very interested in seeing what was here a full generation before I arrived in town. This means, of course, there's a visual part of this interview that's going to be missing for you. The document. We've tried to edit the discussion in a way that will let you follow us from Railroad Street west up Maine to what is now Steph's Subs, and focusing on businesses with either a memory or a story. Cardi grew up when you could get food from a grocery store in Bloomsburg by bartering clothing from your father's tailor shop. His interview is a fun trip back in time. I hope you enjoy it. Hi, Cardi, it's nice to have you here. Well, thank you. I'm happy to be here. I was interested in talking with you, Cardi, because the Locals Podcast is a small podcast about sort of a small community. Bloomsburg has grown, but it still has, in a lot of ways, the feeling of a very small community. People know people, people know their ancestors, and there's a history, everything from what the stores were on Main Street and who owned them up to you know who are our lawyers and doctors today. And you've lived here for how long?
SPEAKER_01I was born here, and I I lived here in Bloomsburg my entire life. I'm now 88, except for going away to college and law school. And did you go to Dickinson? No, I went to the University of Pennsylvania Law School.
SPEAKER_00Oh, how wonderful.
SPEAKER_01And before that, Haverford College.
SPEAKER_02So I'd love to hear first about you and your life here in Bloomsburg, and then to talk more about Bloomsburg itself and what you've seen change and what is still the same about our community. You grew up about a block from where you now live, right?
SPEAKER_01Exactly. My first home as a toddler was on West 3rd Street. My parents then bought a home on West 4th Street. Most of my growing up was in that property next to the Presbyterian Church. After that, and getting my education and getting married and starting to practice of law, we lived on West 5th, 4th and Market, and now I'm at 450 Market Street, which is between 4th and 5th Street. So you moved down a block. I moved block. I lost my uh first wife, Betty, to cancer in 2007, and then subsequently reunited with a a woman uh I had dated in college, Beth Cassidy. We got married in 2011. So um Betts and I have been together in the house we really enjoy there at 450 Market Street. It's an old like almost Frank Lloyd Wright feel to it. A lot of people say that. It has a lot of characteristics of Wright's designs. The house is a hundred and a hundred years old in 05. For a long time, two women, sisters known as uh the Hausnick sisters, lived there. So you went away to the college and then you came back. Did you join a law? Had you planned to come back? I had no definite plans even in my last year of law school. And then I was invited to come back by uh Cleve Hummel and join up with him in the practice of law. Okay. And we did for a year or two, and then we decided we would prefer to be single practitioners. I joined another attorney, Dale Durr, practice here on Market Street, across the alley from the post office. We we thrived together well, Dale and I. And eventually uh we we hired Al Lucius, and after that, Gary Norton, and we had a a thriving firm. We all got along, and I think we did good work for the community. So, what did your parents do? Were they lawyers as well? My mother was just a homemaker all her married life. My father, his name was Keller Purcil, known as Kell, ran a business that was started by my grandfather, Bart Purcil. And Bart Purcil was born in the Buckhorn area on a farm. He decided he wanted to learn the tailoring trade. I don't know the details of how he learned it, but he became a tailor. He made coats and pants and suits and eventually decided he wanted to have a have a business. In addition to doing tailoring, and he wanted to sell uh men and boys' clothing. And he was quite successful with his store. And my father stayed with the business that my grandfather started, and then my father ran the store for I don't know how many years, but he died at age 60 in 1966. And then my brother Don, who's a few years younger than I, decided that he would come back and take over the store, and he ran the store for uh quite a few years and um decided uh to go out of the out of the business at some some stage, I forget just when. What was affecting a lot of small businesses at that at that stage were was the malls. The malls were attracting a lot of customers. A small re downtown retail business was really really hard to to be prosperous in. But uh so he he went in the insurance business. He was our first insurance agent agent, right, in Bloomsburg. Yeah, motorcycle he insured. Uh-huh. Yep. Yep, Don was at the Hutchison Agency for quite a long time. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Oh, did he work with Dewey Hutchison?
SPEAKER_01I think he he came in just as Dewey was leaving uh an active role in the business. Okay.
SPEAKER_02Elizabeth and I knew Dewey, uh mainly we knew her his mother, Josephine, who was just a wonderful lady, lived up near Miss Krause and Lucy up uh n right near the college. Yes, absolutely.
SPEAKER_01Yes.
SPEAKER_02Up by the Centennial Gym.
SPEAKER_01I remember I remember those pla those places.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, we used to have a garden in her yard, so yeah, wonderful. I wore Dewey's tuxedo to Mini BTE Gala's in the early years. Yeah. Josephine said, you know, Dewey has this, and you're about his size, so there we go. I had no tuxed. I had hardly a suit at that time, so I wore that for many years.
SPEAKER_01Actually, I he gave me a um a pair of gray flannel pants that uh didn't fit him anymore. And I had those for some years. Oh, great.
SPEAKER_02His goodness goes on. Back to Don and the personal business, was that on Main Street?
SPEAKER_01Yes, it was uh west of the uh of the monument, and our law office is law office is there now.
SPEAKER_02Tell me about Bloomsbury, how it's changed over your time here.
SPEAKER_01One thing that that has stuck in my mind is growing up as a teenager, and as soon as I could leave the neighborhood on my own, I was often called upon by my mother and my father. We need bread, we need eggs, we need uh lunch meat. Go up to Stecker's house, a little grocery store on Main Street, right near near where our office is now. And I didn't have to take any money because they settled the accounts monthly and often traded. Uh local uh businesses would would trade with each other.
SPEAKER_02Like they'd barter clothing from the parcels in Stecker's.
SPEAKER_01There were numerous little uh grocery stores around around Bloomsburg. One down on uh West Fifth Street, one on East Fifth Street, another one or two on on Main Street. In fact, there was a a small wise market on Main Street at one time, on East on East Main Street, up around uh between uh Iron and Catherine Street. Yeah. And that was the first so-called supermarket in town. There was an acme and an A and P. That was down in the plaza down near the river on market, right? Uh no, even before that. Oh what is now Salvation Army.
SPEAKER_02Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_01That was uh an AP supermarket. On down makes sense. It sure looks like an an old supermarket. And on down at the uh at uh West Street and Jefferson Street, the north side of the street was another uh large building, and that that was a supermarket at one time. Then it became uh Miller Stationery. Oh, sure. Uh and then it was a it was a pool hall. It was the law boss uh had a had a had a pool hall there.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and that's so interesting to think of the bartering community on Main Street. The Purcil building that is right on the The Monument Square, it's yellow. And were those your cousins who owned? Distant cousins, yes. I had a studio up on the third floor, I guess. There was a big department store and one of the Pat Purcell. Pat maybe was his name Pat.
SPEAKER_01Pat Purcell uh was one of the late owners. Yes. Uh Pat and his uh his cousin uh Bill from Lewisburg uh knew them very well. And uh I when that was a a a department store in my youth, they had a grocery uh aspect on it too.
SPEAKER_02But Pat actually showed me pictures of the store and that uh they would be you'd check out down below, and then there were wires that ran up to like a mezzanine, and change would be made, and they would send that the change back down almost like the bank tubes, but on a wire.
SPEAKER_01I remember that well. It was a unique feature of that uh that business.
SPEAKER_02I was on the little uh wing that looks out, it was on Market Street, I was on the third floor, and it held carpets. I guess they at one point they sold carpets. Uh-huh. And nobody'd been in there for years and years, and they rented to me very cheap, and so I I literally took a crowbar to the walls and took down plaster and painted it, and I loved that space. It was so beautiful, and it's such a great view right over Main Street or the Market Square. Yeah. You said you were set up just to get groceries and didn't have to bring change. What was it like to be a kid back when you were growing up here?
SPEAKER_01It was very easy. It was uh, it was very enjoyable, uh, very few pressures. Um living uh between market and center street, my early elementary school was in 3rd street, and I did three years in 3rd Street. Oh, which is the which is now the uh senior apartments. Yes, yes. Living in near the center of the town, if they needed students at one place or the other, they'd send us either to Third Street or Fifth Street. So my my next three years of elementary school were in the uh in the Fifth Street School building.
SPEAKER_02Which is where the child care center is, yeah. Yes, that's that's right. I remember both of those buildings, and I think they tore them down not too long after I arrived in town.
SPEAKER_01From there we went up to the uh the the school building that's on Center Street, which is now mostly student apartments. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Bloomsburg still uh retains a feeling of a small town, I think. I'm sure it's uh not what it was when you were growing up in that way. It's much more cosmopolitan. Um the whole East Coast megalopolis has just constantly uh stretched out here. So now that when I came here, there were really no franchise stores that I remember. There was Route 11, wasn't built up as it is now. What changes have you seen?
SPEAKER_01I think uh the uh the first uh chain uh store that came, I think was uh it was a hamburger place out on Route 11 to going toward Berwick, and they were selling, I think, 15 cent hamburger. Fifteen cent hamburger. Fifteen cent hamburger. Oh my gosh.
SPEAKER_02Well, let's go over. Uh you brought this um it's framed, it's a document. It's an uh uh it lays out the different stores on Main Street and uh bisected it by Market Street, and it is from 1940.
SPEAKER_01About. That's there's no date on it, and there's no indication of um who prepared it, but it looks like it was might have been done by a surveyor. It's on uh blue blue paper with white lines. Now, where'd you get this? A fellow named Paul Jacobs, who was the son of Paul Jacobs Sr. Paul Jacobs Sr. was a longtime secretary to the Bloomsburg Town Council.
SPEAKER_00Okay.
SPEAKER_01Um and uh he when his dad died, he came across this and he he lived out of town. He said, I have no use for this. Would you like it? I said, sure, I'd like to have this piece.
SPEAKER_02For those who are listening, yeah, there are a block, as as Don said, it's blue paper with white lines, and they're demarcated as in little rectangles with names of businesses. And on one end is East Street, and the other is Railroad.
SPEAKER_01Yep. Yep, it's uh just a pretty much an inventory of all the businesses on on Main Street. Well, let's start down at Railroad.
SPEAKER_02And on Railroad, we've got the hip and steel grocery store. And Snyder's Mill Street.
SPEAKER_01Snyder's Millin' Mill and Reed, that was a hat shop. And my my my grandmother, uh Margaret Purcell, loved hats. And that's when ladies wore hats to church all the time. And she was a good customer of the uh millinery shop.
SPEAKER_02Now these are the ones on the north side of Maine. Am I am I sitting on north here? And this is uh Okay, great. Yes, great, great, great. Baker Funeral Home. Now that is is that Lutz Agency now? Yes, that is.
SPEAKER_01That's uh yeah, yellow brick building painted yellow next to the tire uh shop there. Bomboy Meets. Yeah, Bomboy was at a little uh butcher shop that did many uh many errands there. Berlin Game Heatery, Peg's Beauty Shop. There's a AP store right there. Oh, right, and AP, I missed that. Yep. Sadie Pegg's Beauty Shop. My grandmother was a regular customer there. Sadie Pegg, what a wonderful name. Yep. Um sweet shop.
SPEAKER_02Cook's sweet shop.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that was Grace Cook was the proprietor of that shop, but had penny candy and and some ice cream and uh just a typical s soda fountain store.
SPEAKER_02Okay.
SPEAKER_01Haynes shoe store. Uh our personal clothiers. There you are. Yep, there we are. And then the wise jewelry store. I I remember uh I think the the new Pocket Park there on West Main Street was uh the wise jewelry store was there. Central heating? And central heating. That that is the the little place down there that's got steps up to it. Yes. And central heating was the proprietor of the town steam heating system. I don't know how unique Bloomsburg was in having a town heat heating system, but uh that that company put uh steam pipes up and down Market Street and Main Street and uh some of the other streets, and then they had a big furnace down uh where UGI is now on 7th Street. Yes. They made steam and they pushed that steam through these pipes. If you were uh one of their customers, you had radiators. You didn't have a furnace, you had town steam. It ran basically all winter, starting with Fair Week. Summer approached, they would turn off heat. So you were without heat if you were on that system for a part of the year.
SPEAKER_02We lived on Catherine Street on the same block as Don. Don't over a block over from where we were. We're in Catherine. And in our basement there was a hole. And I asked what that hole was, and they said exactly what you said. That house had been connected to the town's steam. They came up from they said below 7th Street. I just thought that was amazing. Okay, where are we now? Theyceman Connor. Who are they? Wideman.
SPEAKER_01Wideman and Connor. On the corner portion of that property, there was a soda fountain. With the big windows where the cat place is now. Yep. Yep, there was a soda fountain. They called the soda guy, they called him soda jerks at the time. And he was an interesting guy. I would go in there every Saturday morning because my job Saturday mornings was to go down to the store a few doors down and uh clean the windows with a bucket, sponge, and a squeegee. And then I'd stop for a coke or a soda at the soda fountain there and uh play the pinball machines.
SPEAKER_02Did you know Gene Stevens, Dr. Stevens? Yes, I I did. Gene talked about going to that soda shop when he was a kid, too. Yeah. That was Vin Diddy's travel when we showed up in town. I think that's right. For a while. And it I don't remember what it was after that. Yeah. Bloomsburg had that as well, grocery stores, but also the little soda fountains. Yes. Ray and Derrick, uh, Woolworths. They were still there when we got here and then changed shortly after. But they were great little places. Yep. Okay, then we're across the street. Now we're on Market Square.
SPEAKER_01Uh-huh. That's a Moray restaurant. And the Morning Press actually uh operated out of a Main Street location before they their new facility uh along Route 11. WHL M is right there too, right? Double H M was uh On the second floor.
SPEAKER_02Second floor. Because that was also the town liquor store for the longest time. Yes, it was. I remember going up into WHLM. They were great. When we were starting BTE, they let us come in and do our PSA, so Bob Schweppenheiser was the manager, and we I would go in there in the little reel-to-reel and make my little um PSAs for the shows.
SPEAKER_01What year did you come to T? In 77. Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_02In the summer of 77. Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_01I thought I'd be for over one year, and that times fifty. In the early days, the results of local elections would be announced there on the front steps of the morning press. Uh-huh. As soon as they got any report, they'd come out, and and people would gather there to hear the early reports. They would just shout them out like extra, extra uh hit all about it. Yep, yep.
SPEAKER_02Here we're here's our current numbers. Okay, so now we're on Market Square. Yep. On the north side is Pursils, where I talked about having the studio. We talked about the big grocery store.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that was uh that was Bloomsburg's only department store. They sell appliances, they sold embedding, and they sold all kinds of things at Purcells Department Store. Then there's the Farmers National Bank, still there, but different. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Now it's uh Fulton Bank. The courthouse. And then on this other side we have first National Bank, which is now the Historical Society. And you do a lot of work with the Historical Society now, right?
SPEAKER_01Yeah. A fair amount, yeah.
SPEAKER_02And Barton Real Estate.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Barton family is an old old Bloomsburg family. Arkis Women's Shop. Now, is that related to the Arkis brothers? Yes. Okay. Yes, uh the parents of those boys. Well, that's the hotel the Hotel McGee property that's now student housing.
SPEAKER_02Yes, yeah, Western Union, the hotel, the McGee coffee shop, even. Now, Sears and Robux, that was on the other side of the road, though.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, Sears and Robach was was uh over here where the leader store is shown. I wonder if they moved.
SPEAKER_02I had a friend who worked at Sears and Robotick. Uh if you know Lori, you know Lori McCann's. Yes. Her husband uh Rob worked there as a young man. He was in the paint department at one point, and he was said he was being given his introduction to the products, and the man said, Okay, so this paint is$15 a gallon, this is$25 a gallon. And Rob said, So what's the difference between them? He said, This is$15 a gallon, this is$25 a gallon. Yeah, the stories really have moved. It's like a never ending game where the little P ends up under a different Cup. So the little shop.
SPEAKER_01That was a shop a shop for kids. Vivian Kitchen was the proprietor. And then um Rosemary Hummel became the proprietor. Yes. Cleve Cleve Hummel's wife. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And then we get the Martha Washington Cafe on center.
SPEAKER_01That's now student housing.
SPEAKER_02It was for a long time a vacant lot after a fire, right? Yes, it was.
SPEAKER_01It was. I remember the Martha Washington. They had a restaurant there and they had rooms. The BTE is right here, then, right next to the center.
SPEAKER_02On the north side, we have Buckaloo Law, Quince Paint, the barbershop.
SPEAKER_01Terry Werkheiser is now uh uh the owner of that property. Has has been for 30 or 40 years, maybe longer.
SPEAKER_02I remember across the street Rob's shoes on the southern side of Main Street. I remember Rob's.
SPEAKER_01Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_02And I remember the Dixie dress shop.
SPEAKER_01The last operators there were John Thompson's. Yeah. And the Woolworths.
SPEAKER_02Woolworths had not only the counter, but they had a pet section. You could buy parakeets and things like that in the Woolworths store. Helena has her side of what was the Woolworth store. Uh-huh. And sharpening shoes.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, we had several shoe stores, several men's shops, several women's shops. Grant's was a a chain store like Woolworths. Oh, okay. Candyland. I forget who had Candyland. They made candy there. And Rand Derek was another uh big big chain that had a store here in it in its early years. And then a pennies, we had a pennies, we had a I remember. Fred Carr.
SPEAKER_02You remember Fred? The manager of Penny. Yeah, vaguely, yeah. Just a few years, BTE was very involved in that. Uh-huh. He was a good guy. So many little sole proprietor shops on the east side of Iron Street.
SPEAKER_01There's Rackassons. Yep, Rackassons. And this was uh hardware. Schumann's hardware store. Used to buy little model airplanes there made of balsa wood, put them, put them together with glue and whatever. Some of my friends made some really nice models. And then Hess's pool room, that's um now Eric Hess is I think third generation.
SPEAKER_02Oh, Eric, yeah, lives right next door to us up there on. Yeah. It's listed as a smoke shop here. And now it's Hess's bar.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that was a smoke shop and a pool room. And uh I don't know when they they became a bar room.
SPEAKER_02Uh the grocery store, right next to Snidman's Jewelers. The Eagle Dairy store, the Wolf Grill. Well, there's the Texas Lunch, Charlie, who had the Texas Lunch.
SPEAKER_01Yep.
SPEAKER_02Good hot dogs, weakest coffee in the world. Pollock Plumbing. Ray Harley was another barber up in town. Okay. Right there on the corner. That would be where. And on the other side we have Episcopal Church, Economy Furniture, and the Triangle Motor Company.
SPEAKER_01I think they maybe they sold Hudson's. There was a gas station here on the corner where the diner is.
SPEAKER_02Yes, that was still going when we got here to town. Well, that is really wonderful. I hope people listening are okay geeking out on storefronts and proprietors.
SPEAKER_01Oh, this is fun for me going down memory lane, too.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Yeah, it's really wonderful to see how things change and yet uh the the name, so many of the names are still recognizable in people who are still here.
SPEAKER_01I just showed this recently to uh Dr. Fred Miller, who is uh a retired dermatology doctor from Geisinger. He and I grew up together, we went through high school, grade school together, high school together.
SPEAKER_02And did he remember a lot of these as well? Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yep, in particular, he he th we came across the Sadie Peg uh hair salon down in South Sonic. And he always he said he his his mother went to Sadie Peg, and uh he always thought that was a wonderful name, Sadie Pegg.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, my mother-in-law was a beauty parlor woman. It was her every Saturday she was there, it was her tribe, and it was a really hard time. When she moved to Bloomsburg and she didn't have that, that was a hard thing. I think she would have loved Sadie Peggs perhaps. What would you say over your time in Bloomsburg has been or just talk about the changes you have seen over that time?
SPEAKER_01My wife and I both say we lived through grew up in a great time. Maybe we're looking at it from older eyes and saying it was better than the kids have it now. I don't know if that's so, but that's the impression that we have. I wouldn't have traded my early years here for for for anything. It was uh it was great.
SPEAKER_02I would assume you could walk places you were safe. There was not the concern about where are you, keep in touch. No, not at all.
SPEAKER_01We we were roamed pretty freely. And the dogs roamed and also. Yes, when I grew up too.
SPEAKER_02Well, thank you so much, Cardi. It's really nice to go back into Bloomsburg. Just the layers of experience and connection. It's almost like strata, isn't it? You could peel back store after store after store after store and get down to the families that were here, you know, a hundred years ago. Eighty years ago on this map.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02I remember too, up uh I was talking with Bill Bailey about where you mentioned you went to middle school or junior high, whatever the building is that's now student housing, and how the the Molly McGuire's were hung there. Yes, on the playground. One of the and members of the Whipple Gang, this gang of horse thieves, who I may or may not be related to, were incarcerated right up there. That I hadn't known. Yeah, I had a great interview with with Bill about them.
SPEAKER_01They were incorrigible. I'm a big big Bloomsburg fan. I'm disappointed that it's different, but uh that's just the way things go. But there's still a lot of good things that have have come to town, like the like the BTE. Yeah. The YMCA was not here in my youth, and I think that's a great asset now.
SPEAKER_02Children's museum.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. For a small town, we have a number of good restaurants we all enjoy. I would say, yeah. Blue Sky has great restaurants, yeah. Yeah, my brother and I often say we've been very lucky to grow up here. Well, thanks again. I do appreciate it. I've enjoyed this talk. Great. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02That's it for locals, where we talk to people who are, well, local. Join us next week when Michelle Hinz teaches us what it's like to be a teacher. When our schools are being transformed by AI and that little thing I like to call a cell phone. We'll see you then. Have a nice week.