(Host) Pierce’s General store in Shrewsbury looks like something out of a picture book.
The white clapboard building, with its broad front porch and cast iron wood stove, welcomed customers for decades.
Marjorie Pierce finally closed the store in the early 1990s, and it’s taken nearly the entire community to open it back up.
VPR’s Nina Keck has more.
(sound of bottles in the cooler clanking)
(Keck) A new order of groceries has just arrived and volunteers restock the refrigerator and freezer. After more than 15 years, Pierce’s General Store in Shrewsbury is once again open for business.
(sound of register)
(Keck) Ginny Buckley, who’s lived in Shrewsbury for 30 years, couldn’t be happier.
(Bluckley) "It’s really exciting, it’s breathtaking – we really needed a grocery store of this nature. And this draws people together and we get to know one another."
(Keck) Marjorie Pierce, who ran the store for decades, was a beloved fixture in Shrewsbury. Before she died eight years ago, Pierce deeded ownership of the historic landmark to the Preservation Trust of Vermont. Shrewsbury resident Sally Deinzer says with help from the Trust, Pierce knew the property would be maintained and hopefully reopened
(Deinzer) "Which is really what she wanted to happen. She didn’t want it to become a museum, she didn’t want it to deteriorate and she didn’t have any family who was interested to carry on the tradition and this is the way she could do it."
(Keck) Deinzer says last year, local townspeople began to talk about ways they could help.
(Deinzer) "About 25 residents got together and we said, ‘Hey, could we do this as a co-op?’"
(Keck) The Shrewsbury Cooperative now has over 100 members who volunteer their time to run the store. Co-op president Sally Deinzer says working with the Preservation Trust, they raised about $60,000 to repair, clean and equip the place. Besides selling groceries, there’s a new kitchen, bakery and restroom as well as a seating area complete with wireless internet. Despite the high tech upgrades, Deinzer says they’ve taken great pains to keep all the historic charm – including the dark ceiling.
(Deinzer)"Apparently it’s like a hundred years of creosote and cigar smoke up there (laughs) and they said don’t even try to do anything with that. So we didn’t and I think it’s one of the most charming things about this. And there’s people who come in who knew the old store and there was a guy who came in the other day who’s first comment – was he stopped at the door and he looked around and he put his arms out and he said – Don’t do a thing! Don’t change a thing! It was wonderful (chuckles) 2:30
(Rice) "My name is David Rice. I came to Shrewsbury in 1938 when my grandfather bought a place on Coldham Road."
(Keck) Rice touches one of the antique display cases and smiles as he remembers buying penny candy in the store as a boy. It’s a thrill he says not only to see the store reopen but to know what a community wide effort it took to do it.
(Rice) "The remarkable thing to me when the volunteers began to work was people who hadn’t known each other very well had a chance to work together. Shrewsbury is a big town it’s 10 square miles and we all live a mile or so from each other and we’re all very busy. And we don’t’ see each other as much as we’d like to."
(Keck) Rice says the store will provide a vital hub for the community, just as it did a century ago.
For VPR news, I’m Nina Keck in Shrewsbury.