Berte George’s William’s Grocery Lethbridge

The building seen in today’s post is located in Lethbridge Alberta and in the neighbourhood of Staffordville. It was a grocery store for much of its history, with numerous owners over the years, but it’s now a home. We’ve come armed with an old photo showing it in 1980 and our goal, as always, is to shoot something similar for inclusion in a Then & Now article here at BIGDoer.com. Here you go and enjoy!

This comparison was originally published in 2015 and here, we brought it back from the dead after a website database crash a few months back. What a mess and rather than restore from a backup for this one, we though it could use a do-over anyway. The original photos were reused, but the write up is all new. We thought of reshooting it too, but one key element seen in both images is now gone. That rustic picket fence is no more and it really completed the scene.

Corner grocery stores (this one is actually mid-block) were once a fixture in older sections of nearly every city or town. Some neighbourhoods had a couple and they were fairly commonplace into the 1970s or 1980s. They’re just down the street, convenient, local, personal and typically staffed by the family who owned it. These folks usually lived upstairs (like here) or behind in an attached residence.

You stopped by when you needed a quick loaf of bread, some milk, butter or a slab of Bologna. Any small this or that. There had a little bit of anything and everything for sale. General groceries, meat, produce, housewares, hardware, smokes, the newspaper, sometimes flowers and that’s just off the top of our heads. The stores were small and chaotic, with shelves jammed full of products, often all the way to the ceiling.

For kids they were a slice of heaven and say it with me…CANDY! Bags of candy and walls of candy…candy is joy and candy is life…must have candy! Mojos, Black Cat gum and those hot red-coloured jelly things – yes!

Corner stores were not just a place of commerce, but also a social centre of sorts. Want to keep up with the latest news, the hockey scores or juicy gossip? Go there. They were the heart of any community and they knew you by name.

Most of these businesses are now gone and for this we should all shed a tear. So many memories and all of them pretty darn sweet. Thinking back to one’s youth, a quarter in hand and on a mission…we’re corner store bound!

Now for the small stuff people visit brightly-lit 24hr gas bars and for the big ticket items patronize city block-sized megastores. Perhaps it’s just us, but the current offerings seem a little hollow and not as friendly.

There’s conflicting data on the build date of the old store and this is not unusual. The further you go back, the more likely there’s to be a scenario like this. The city states it’s from 1918, as do other sources, but 1910, 1911 or 1917 also came up during research. Old directories speak of something here going back to 1910 (an earlier store, a post office and a residence), yet 1918 keeps popping up as the date. This suggests an earlier building once stood on the property and perhaps the current structure replaced it.

This hints at just such a possibility: “John Berte opened his first grocery store at 920 7th Street North, until he built his store at this location in 1918.” – Alberta’s Historic Places (emphasis is ours).

We’ll state is cautiously, knowing that it means reading between the lines and that’s sometimes bad. Not playing with fire bad, but “ass out of u and me” bad.

The location here is the north end of Lethbridge and just a bit east of the Oldman River Valley. This section of town was formerly the village of Stafford (founded early 1900s) but present day just another Lethbridge neighbourhood. The city annexed it in 1913. It was a working class place, with a large Italian population and with most able bodied men finding employment in nearby “Galt” coal mines.

Some information to follow comes thanks to a plaque on the building (compliments of the Lethbridge Historical Society), and we supplemented it using old phone books, Henderson Directories and some city records.

From 1918 to 1942 it housed Berte Grocery (sometimes listed as J Berte or John Berte Grocery). Mr Berte and family lived upstairs most of the time, but directories also show them at a different address some years.

Natalini Grocery (owner Natale Natalini) operated here from 1942 to 1949 and from 1950 to 1954 it was General Grocery and Meat (owners Michael and Mary Swidinsky). Directories show that both Natalini and the Swidinskys lived upstairs.

Staring in 1954 and lasting until 1969, it functioned as George’s Groceries and Meat Market (owner George Cong). From 1970-1975 it was Yien’s Grocery (CW Chan) and from 1976-1997 William’s Grocery (or William’s Grocery and Meat) with William Lam and Yee Wah. Presumably they all lived above the store as well, but some current records are missing.

The building stood vacant for a time after but for a spell around the early 2000s the Tumbleweed Café operated here.

Since 2004 it’s been a private residence. The stucco present on the building in the Then photo is gone now and removing it exposed old signage. One is for George’s Grocery and on the far side of the building is one faded and incomplete advertising Stag Tobacco. The latter is from the Berte era and a photo from ca 1920 found during research clearly shows it back then.

The building still looks like a corner store and kudos to the owners for keeping this legacy intact. It’s of brick and is constructed in the “Boomtown” style of architecture. That’s characterized by a simple form and a prominent false front.

The Then photo captured the William’s Grocery period and it instantly evokes a wave of nostalgia. Every corner store looked something like this and due to obsessive candy fixations, it’s burned into every kid’s memory.

The shed seen beside the car is gone today and the stucco removed at some point which exposed the old signage. Overall, however, the building is little changed since 1980 and that’s pretty cool. You have to love that old neon sign and the Canada Dry sandwich board in the old photo.

The picket fence was still there on our 2015 visit, but got removed sometime since.

The car to the right in the Then image is hard to see, but appears to be an early 1970s era Ford Country Squire Wagon. That green paint and the fake wood side panels were considered stylish at one time. I guess.

These giants of the road, land yachts with a big thirst for fuel, a could have seating for up to ten. It’s like a big green bus. Country Squires with the max-seating option came with two flat-folding bench seats facing inwards back in the cargo area. Seating for four, but tight quarters meant they were best suited for kids. Sure…give a group of road-trip fatigued children a few hours back there and guaranteed it’ll devolve into some kind of Lord of the Flies scenario.

Country Squires had a unique tailgate (the Magic Doorgate) which could drop down flat or swing out like a huge barn door. Older folks might recognize the bright yellow Alberta License Plate seen on the car and these were in use from the mid-1970s to the mid-1980s.

The Then photo comes thanks to the Lethbridge Historical Society collection and it’s greatly appreciated. Readers are invited to send in old images (print or scans are fine – we’ll help you along) to be used this way. If you have an old family photo showing a street scene like this or a broad landscape send it our way. We’ll visit the location, shoot a photo composed like the original, and do a little write up on it all.

Credit will be given for use of an image and prints can be returned.

We’re sometimes forced to present Then & Nows in a horizontal format, like here, which we don’t usually do. If in the normal stacked form, this pair doesn’t look well lined up, even though they are. It’s a sort of optical illusion and it sometimes happens when dealing with closer-in subjects.

The system crash mentioned earlier affected hundreds of old articles and while some deserve to never be seen again, others will get reposted over time. Some will reuse original photos, and for others, where possible, we may shoot new ones. All will get a rewrite to some degree or another, so stay tuned! What’s old is new again.

More: (new tabs): Lethbridge Alberta Historical Society and Village of Stafford Alberta (Lethbridge).

They’re saying…

Chris and Connie’s posts are among the best of the blogs out there (and) in fact this is my go to guide for where to explore in the summer…” Glen Bowe.

More Then & Now…
Robsart Saskatchewan 61 Years Apart.
Fort Macleod Alberta ~75 Years Apart.
Then & Now: Foremost Alberta.

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Date of adventure: 1980 (original) and 2015 (Team BIGDoer).
Location: Lethbridge, Alberta.
Article references and thanks: Lethbridge Historical Society, City of Lethbridge, old Henderson Directories, Hermis.Alberta.ca and the Medicine Hat & District Genealogical Society.

Berte, George’s, William’s Grocery 1980 & 2015 (orig: Lethbridge Historical Soc).

Made into a home and old signage is now visible.

George’s Groceries and Meats operated from 1954 to 1969.

This Stag Tobacco sign dates to the Berte Grocery era.