DeWitt's was the biggest store
in Bluford. It had a big grocery room with two aisles. The meat
department, ran by Les Esmon, was in the back of that room. There was a
separate room on the east side of the big brick building. It contained
clothing, shoes, and all sorts of household items. The two rooms were
both fairly crowded with supplies.
Out back, to the north of the dry goods, etc. room was the place where
they brought cream and eggs from the farmers and had feed for sale. I
remember the cream-testing room quite well as we frequently sold cream
there. They had a little centrifuge machine which rotated pretty fast.
The cream was put in a little vial and then spun in that. They would
then look at the vial and could tell the butterfat content. The higher
the butterfat the more money it was worth. We had Guernsey cows and
they always produced good butterfat content. There was a loading dock
outside the east door of that back room. DeWitt's was later Osborn
& Clark's and still later Osborns.
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