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The Clifford Co-op
Written By: Judy Korpela Schoch as published in Finn Talk, Central Wisconsin Finnish American Club Newsletter. Autumn 2010, page 3. Reprinted with permission.
(Click on thumbnails to view photos)
The Clifford Co-op Store was a wonderful store. I remember riding my bike over to get something for Mom and never needing any money. We had a tab that we paid once a month. They sold everything at the Clifford Co-op from shoes, jeans and other clothes, fabric, patterns, food, hardware, livestock food and even make up. I ordered my wedding cake from the Clifford Store and posted my invitation on its bulletin board. My mother decided that I could get some lipstick after I told her my neighbor, Donna, got her first lipstick in Tomahawk. I very excitedly rode my bike to the Co-op looking for a nice soft pastel pink like my friend had but only found a very, very bright pink which I bought and took home. It was a lovely color but I was so disappointed after I tried it on that I hardly ever wore it again. My best memories of the store were the smells. The smell of flour or chicken or cattle feed in the cloth bags was wonderful as was the smell of cheese and fresh sausages in the meat section but my favorite was always the smell of leather in the shoe section of the store. Then there was the smell of new denim jeans which were always too baggy, but sturdy, and the wonderful smell of jelly filled doughnuts on a certain day of the week. I can remember going to Grandma and Grandpa’s house and they would have some fresh jelly filled doughnuts that Grandpa just bought. You never tasted anything so good. Now-a-days the jelly is just flavored juice thickened with starch; then it was the real thing – umm umm. When I was a little girl, Dad would buy flour and feed in fabric bags that were printed in pretty designs. I remember my mom saving up enough bags (probably 50 or 100 # bags) that were green with a large leaf/flower design to make curtains for our dining and living room. We were so proud of those curtains. She made me many pretty calico dresses out of the feed sacks too, adding lace or embroidery or rick rack to make them fancier. My grandmother made my cousin and I warm pajamas out of heavier muslin sacks. These were little white union suits with long legs and sleeves and the button flap in the back. Though I was very young, I remember them because they were stiff and itchy. Perhaps that was only when they were brand new as they would get softer with washing but I do remember not wanting to wear them. I also remember wearing some of them until they were ragged. Talk about recycling, in the “old days” that was a fact of life! Flour sacks were recycled into clothes, towels, etc; big clothes were made into little clothes. I remember my mom making a pair of bibbed pants for me out of a pair of her slacks that she turned inside out. The fabric was like new on the inside. One time the Clifford store had a drawing for a Doll House, perhaps it was a raffle prize. I remember it being on display in the store for a long time as I always admired it. Was I ever surprised when my daddy brought it home one day; we had won the drawing. My friends and I had lots of fun playing with that dollhouse. It was a two story colonial house made out of a very sturdy cardboard type of material with the decorations printed on and doll house furniture to go with it. I was one lucky girl.
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