Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, February 11, 1995 TAG: 9502130029
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MICHAEL STOWE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
June Keffer held back as long as she could; but just before 2:30 p.m. Friday, the dam containing her feelings began to crack.
She quietly slipped past the meat cooler at the Catawba Mercantile - stocked with ham, bacon and bologna - and made her way to a sink in the store's back corner.
Standing next to a tiny cubby hole that's been the store's office for more than half a century, Keffer took off her glasses and dabbed at her eyes.
For just a moment, she blocked out the cluster of customers and friends gathered near the store's cash register and let the emotions of the day take over.
They were the first of many tears she would cry Friday.
``I knew it was coming,'' Keffer said later. ``This is all just overwhelming.''
For 54 years, Keffer and her husband, Minor, owned and ran the wood-frame country store located in "downtown" Catawba on Virginia 311.
With its worn wooden floors - which have been replaced three times - and wood stove, the store is an anachronism. It's a place where customers can buy items as varied as house paint, motor oil, work boots, cereal, soft drinks and animal feed.
Minor Keffer, a former chairman of the Roanoke County Board of Supervisors and an active volunteer in the community, died in April. June decided in October that she wanted to sell the store.
``It's just too much work,'' she said.
Friday was the last day the store belonged to the Keffer family - and the last day it was known as the Catawba Mercantile.
New owners Bill and Marie Saul will open the store Monday as Catawba Valley General Store. When Minor Keffer died, he requested in his will that the store's name be changed if it was ever sold to someone outside the family.
Friday was a day of memories, not just for June Keffer, but also for the dozens of friends, family and customers who gathered at the store to help her say goodbye.
Several customers sent flowers. Georgia Ray, a worker at the store, brought a huge cake to honor the Keffer family.
Betty Munsey, June and Minor's daughter, was a teen-ager in 1963 when a forest fire swept across Catawba Mountain, scorching acres of land.
Munsey, who practically grew up in the Catawba Mercantile, remembers that the store stayed open all night to feed firefighters and to provide shelter to anyone whose home was threatened by the fire.
``That's the only time the store's ever been open all night,'' she said.
Gary Myers, who as a youngster bought penny bubble gum at the Catawba Mercantile, said the store has provided a sense of peace to the area.
``When you hit the top of the mountain, this is the first place you see,'' he said. ``You know everything is OK if the lights are on here.''
The store looked a little bare Friday. June Keffer already had packed up many of her personal items.
Stuffed animals no longer sat on the store's coolers, and the Rainbow Bread rack behind the counter had been dismantled.
``It just seems so empty to me,'' she said several times Friday.
A red-and-white Clover brand clock still was hanging on one pole, but Keffer planned to take that down later in the day.
The store changed little in the past five decades.
The wood stove still works, but it sits cold now, replaced by oil heat a few years ago.
Cecil Moses, 85, has fond memories of warming himself by that stove and listening to his hunting buddies tell stories.
``We told some big stories,'' he said Friday, ``and a few of them were even true.''
June Keffer, 73, said the merchandise has remained mostly the same through the years, although the store has stopped selling fertilizer, tires and a few other items in the past few years. The store also stopped acting as a game-checking station several years ago.
Keffer said she and her husband never would have survived in the grocery business without the support of family and loyal workers.
One of those workers was Frances Lee, who has run the register at the store for 21 years.
``I'm a fixture here,'' Lee said, and she's staying on to work for the new owners. Perhaps she will make the transition easier for customers expecting to see the friendly faces of Minor and June Keffer.
June Keffer has no plans for the future. She's lived above the store since 1941 and will remain there until later this year, when construction is completed on her new house in Catawba.
``I'm just looking forward to sitting down, kicking my feet back and reading a magazine,'' she said.
As 6 p.m. inched closer Friday, Keffer pulled out the last item she planned to sell at the Catawba Mercantile. It was a 61/2-ounce bottle of Coke that she kept because the city where it was bottled - Baltimore - was inscribed on the bottom of the bottle.
``We used to collect bottles because they had that written on the bottom,'' she said. ``But the companies don't do it anymore.''
She planned to sell it to Alan Lee, a family friend, for a penny. Lee told Keffer he would keep the bottle on a shelf designated for collector's items in his home.
As much as she's going to miss the store, Keffer was eager for the day to end Friday. Feeling the end so near made her think of the song ``Now the Day is Over,'' Minor Keffer's favorite church hymn.
``That just about sums it up. All good things have to come to an end,'' she said. ``I'm not going any place; It's just a different phase of my life.''
by CNB