**This research was first published in the August 28, 2024 edition of the Chatham Star-Tribune newspaper as part of Kyle Griffith’s weekly segment entitled “Heritage Highlights.”

Aerial photo of Oscar’s Store in the early 1980s

Before the mid 1980s, an old fashioned country store sat on the corner of Dry Fork Road and Pleasant Gap Drive. The store was built by Vernie Talmadge “V.T.” Crane, Sr. in 1928. He ran it for a number of years before renting it out to a few different people. The building was a typical frame country store with a front gable roof, a long shed addition on the left side, and knotty posts supporting the porch roof. Instead of a traditional porch, the roof simply extended over the bare clay ground, with a few steps leading up to the doorway. The late historian S. Dail Yeatts wrote in Along the Dry Fork Road that the store’s merchandise consisted of “groceries, seed, feed, provisions, dry goods, notions, shoes,” and more. 

In a field behind his store, V.T. served as the community baseball coach in the summertime. The team competed against players from other nearby community teams such as Whittles, Whitmell, Riceville, and Callands. Local farmers stood by in their work overalls, cheering on their boys and enjoying the entertainment close to home. The Dry Fork team existed for decades and The Pittsylvania Tribune regularly covered the winning and losing scores of the county teams. 

Sometime after V.T.’s death in 1953, a couple of rooms in the back of the store were furnished as a living space for Mrs. Lola Stowe Crane. There she grieved her husband as the cold storerooms felt so empty. Her son V.T. Jr. picked up his father’s business and ran it until the early 1960s. The back part of the store stayed sealed during operation.

Eventually the store was rented by Oscar F. Meadows (a great-granduncle of mine, born in 1908). Oscar previously operated a store out of a couple locations near Tightsqueeze before renting from the Crane family. He kept using an old McCaskey brand adding machine & cash register from the 1920s. Out front, the store had two pumps for gasoline and a wooden bench against the wall. Oscar sold what was considered necessities for the local farming families, including milk, chewing tobacco, work gloves, paper towels, brooms, gasoline, and oil for cars and tractors.

Oscar Meadows perched on the counter next to the register, 1983.

For the most part, Oscar opened the store at 7:00 AM and tried to close at 7:00 PM. If things were slow, he closed around 6:00 PM or he would stay open a bit later in the summertime for busy days. Every day Oscar returned home at 11:00 AM for lunch where his sister Nettie served a home cooked meal from the wood stove. At noon, the store reopened, and my grandmother Margaret (born Grant) typically followed him back to help with stocking shelves, working the register, and counting the money. She remembers, “A lot of the local farmers ran a tab for a week to get gas and snacks for the workers every day.” Their credit was paid weekly or sometimes monthly. 

Oscar’s adding machine & cash register, with his grocery scales in the background

As a young girl around twelve years of age, my mother Lisa Powell helped out at the family business too. She turned over a metal milk crate as a platform to reach the counter. When farmers came in for a snack, she’d get them a pack of nabs and a cold drink, or a pack of crackers with a can of Beanie Weenies and a spoon to eat with. She helped cut, weigh, and wrap up slices of hoop cheese. Many of the farmers would pour a handful of peanuts into their soda bottle for a salty and sweet refreshment. 

Oscar carried this 9-shot revolver to work each day and kept it under the counter in this green bag

Oscar ran the store for about twenty years and continued the baseball playing tradition on the property. By the time Oscar passed away in 1986, the store had seen better days. The walls appeared dilapidated and scarred by the sun, the metal roof brown with rust, and a hole in the floor of the back room. It was torn down shortly thereafter, and the spot has remained bare for nearly four decades. Today, the site is just to the west of Heritage Academy. Though the store is long gone, the memories of Oscar’s store and its role in the community endure among those who grew up in the area.