Mom’s Reflections

“All of these negative things that the media keeps reporting on about Wal-Mart remind me how people attacked Sears Robuck when I was a kid,” Mom told me during one of my daily visits to her. She lives only a couple of blocks from my office and I try to stop by each day that I’m in town. She laughingly refers to them as “Jack Stops” because I don’t stay very long, but until I find the door locked I’ll continue to stop by.

Mom and I were talking about how Wal-Mart seems to be the company in the barrel right now that everyone wants to try to take a swipe at. “They did the same thing with A&P and Sears. We didn’t have an A&P in T-Town but my mother used to save a lot by being able to buy sewing material from Sears for 25 cents/yard when it was 50 or 60 cents at the store uptown.” T-Town is short for Teutopolis (population 1,559) where both sides of my family were born and raised. I lived there until leaving for college.

Mom’s family was a typical working class, blue-collar family. George and Clara Adams had eight children and money was tight during the Depression. Being able to buy material to make dresses for less than half the price from an upstart like Sears was a huge savings, even if everyone had on the same outfit for church.

Mom didn’t know that there were actually towns that tried to get the Sears Robuck catalog outlawed in their towns. Evidently there were people back then who thought banning a more cost effective model might slow it down, just as I see people today wanting to stand in the way of progress.

Today’s also my birthday. Fifty-four years ago Mom went thru a very long and difficult labor to deliver the first of her eight children. She’s been giving me sound advice and counsel ever since.