Sunday, November 9, 2008

Flint in the Fifties: Sears

The Sears Store on Detroit Street Near Fourth Avenue
Photograph by Mary Fisher




6 comments:

  1. This was still here in the 60's too and for the early 70's as I remember going to the moving sale when they relocated to Genesee Valley. We used to sneak over here from St Mike's and shop for clothes during lunch time.

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  2. My father bought my brother's and my bicycles there in the mid-sixties--J.C. Higgins bicycles with lots of chrome!

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  3. My dad got paid on Thursdays and on Thursday evening after dinner we would venture downtown to Sears.

    Corunna to Bradley to Sunset to Third Avenue, circle the building and park in the street in front of the fire station.

    Wow, what a store!! Two stories with an escalator. Always we would get a box of popcorn and my dad peanut clusters. We would spend at least an hour and a half just looking around at all of the new marvels.

    On occassion we would buy something but not very often. My how our parents showed great restraint and did not buy unless they absolutely needed it.

    Little did I know that in ten years I would go to work for Sears and spend 25 years there....please it seems like a horrid nightmare!!

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  4. My mom worked for Sears for 18 years and started at this store. I think she worked there for a year or so before moving to Genesee Valley.

    She had a "funny" story about two guys walking into this store wearing Sears coveralls and walking out with a television. One of the store managers even held the door for them. At least that was the story... Great picture. Brings back wonderful memories.

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  5. Sears had the only and best bridge mix (delicious candy treat that I still crave). Yum. My mom and I would go in and buy a bag at the counter ... of course, then she'd hide it for her own consumption ...

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  6. In the fifties, my mom or dad would buy me a small bag of warm spanish peanuts at the candy counter. Then I would stand at the window looking across the street at the fire station while they shopped. They could have left me there for two days and I guarantee you they would find me at my post waiting for those firehouse doors to fly open and those red trucks to come roaring out with lights flashing and sirens blaring. I like to think that at least once it actually happened.

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Thanks for commenting. I moderate comments, so it may take a while for your comment to appear. You might enjoy my book about Flint called "Teardown: Memoir of a Vanishing City," a Michigan Notable Book for 2014 and a finalist for the 33rd Annual Northern California Book Award for Creative NonFiction. Filmmaker Michael Moore described Teardown as "a brilliant chronicle of the Mad Maxization of a once-great American city." More information about Teardown is available at www.teardownbook.com.