Small Business, Big Heart

Caring for people is part of the deal at family-run shops

- Scott Grills

I GREW UP in and around Sharp’s department store on Front Street in Campbellford, Ontario. It was run by my maternal grandmother, Mrs Sharp, and when I was growing up in the 1960s and ’70s, I was one of various family members who worked there occasionally.

I learnt the difference between nylon and metal zippers, which fabrics should be cut and which needed to be torn, and how to sort patterns and match colours of embroidery floss. I also learned something much more important: the place of a family business in the community.

Mrs Sharp knew her customers. She heard the rumours of domestic violence; of women who had little money to buy essentials; of families struggling to care for sons who had returned from war suffering with what was then called ‘shell shock’; of unplanned pregnancies and the need for the discreet purchase of certain sewing patterns to help prevent gossip.

End-of-the-bolt fabrics and discarded patterns made their way into the hands of mothers whose children needed clothes for the start of the school year. Widows without cash for undergarments bought them on credit, sometimes in tears: “I hate to ask. It has been so hard since Charlie died. You know I am good for it. Thank you. God bless you.”

When my partner and I were still in university, we became parents. Our budget was tight—at the time, inflation was more than 11 per cent and interest rates were above 18 per cent. Still, we saved so we could afford the occasional splurge.