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Downtown Temperance 1900, Courier & Monroe Ad-Venture 3/9/1971

"I've made ten thousand dollars in ten years!', was the proud claim of A.H. King when he sold his general store in 1905. That is Al himself standing in front of his home which was attached to the store. Mrs. King, her neighbor Mrs. Hetller, Mrs. Hetller's daughter, Edith, and Anna Verdon, who worked for the Kings, are posed on the porch. In 1905 Al King sold the store to Harvey Venia. Lydy Montri Venia had worked for the Kings for two years. The first floor of the store held groceries and the second "hard goods" such as shoes, clothing and hardware, the man in the buggy with the milk cans was Henry Blair who sold milk door to door. The housewife would bring her own container and Mr. Blair dipped milk out of the can and into the container. The dark building on the left was Al Johnson's blacksmith shop and Ezra Armstrong's wagon shop. All of these buildings stood on the south side of East Temperance Road, west of McClanathan Street. The store and house were torn down to make way for two apartment buildings, one of which still stands. The picture belongs to Mrs. Lydy Venia of Toledo.

For those familiar with the Temperance Michigan area, the apartment building still stands today across from the Village Pizzaria. Ironically nearly 100 years later my sister had moved into the apartment building not knowing that the Venia General store once sat where she lived.