09/23/2026
❄️ This past winter the kids and I started reading through my grandmas journal of “Growing up on Bear Creek in the 1930’s-1950’s”
📸 It quickly became a highlight for us and a humbling reminder of how hard life really was back then. One of the things wrote about often was the Lawrence Waterman Store in Elkport. My grandma and her family did all of their trading in this very store (pictured below) on Saturdays. They would bring 15 dozen eggs collected over the week, extra cream, and milk in exchange for their groceries.
🏪 To this day, the store is no longer around, but was bought by the government and demolished after the flood in 2004. But this store was the place to barter and trade for “country folks”. It had candies, meat cases of bologna, rolled minced ham, whole cheese to be sliced, wrapping paper, racks of bread, dry goods, fabrics, men’s clothing, milk pales and farm tools. Eggs were stacked and stored and waited for the produce truck to come and move them to the city.
🪧 I often tell my husband I think I grew up in the wrong generation, as I long for a place and time that is no more. And as you look around our world it feels we get further and further! So, that’s where the farmstand and the farmer’s market on the farm idea came from. A longing for what was. And bringing back something that doesn’t have to be lost in time. A place for people to connect with their producer, support local, gather with friends, & enjoy the outdoors.
