Monday, May 23, 2011

Purity Stores

Both the town I live in now and the one I grew up in used to have Purity grocery stores. The buildings had rounded (arched?) roof lines, which gave them their own very distinct look. I was tickled to find this vintage advertising needle book here in the house - in an old sewing basket that belonged to my mother-in-law.

Then, just recently, I found an old ad, too! It was in among some old magazines in a box up high in the closet. You can see the store shape again here on the letterhead of the store circular from May 29th, 1946:

I like looking at the prices from 65 years ago:


And just in case you needed some recipes, here's one for Strawberry Shortcake, along with a few others:

Save me a serving of that shortcake, will ya?
(P.S. I found a neat website Groceteria.com, that shows some pictures of buildings that used to house Purity Stores, some of which now house other businesses. It's interesting to see, if you want to go have a look.)

4 comments:

Tina Dawn said...

Super cool post. I have one of those big needle packets. I love that you mentioned our old Purity store. I might do a post on it and its transformations one day. The kind of building is called a quonset hut, and they have always fascinated me. There is one for rent in Kelsey on Hwy 193 near the church, and before we moved here we thought about buying a house on Grizzly Flat Road that had a quonset hut on the property, it housed a large wood pile and a work shop and could hold about 10 cars besides! I think they came into use in the 40s during the war because they were easy to put up. Thanks for all the thinking that this started for me! Love T

Jennifer D said...

Learned something new today! Thanks

yosemite faith said...

new for me also - great post.

Unknown said...

Great to find your post!! My Grandpa and three of his friends started the Company when they moved from back East! Lots of memories growing up, and love going through the "back country" to see the old stores and what they have become! 👍