Thursday, February 22, 2007 Older Editions

The Back Page: Firm hand, firm mind helped run early town supermarket

By Bill Dalton

James E. Greeley was quite a man. The April 4, 1946 issue of the Andover Townsman has a full-page picture of him on the front page. He's wearing a butcher's apron and boater, and he's sawing a piece of meat. I never met him, he was a little before my memory, but Mr. Greeley was well known, well respected and well liked. In the picture, he's 76 years old, and there is a caption under it that says, "A Firm Hand - A Firm Mind." The occasion for the picture is that he's retiring, leaving behind the largest independent retail grocery business in the Merrimack Valley, a business he'd started from scratch 30 years earlier.

Inside the Townsman is a full-page story devoted to "Jim" Greeley, as he was known to his friends, and a half-page editorial. There's a second picture of Greeley with the full-page story. It's a formal picture. He's wearing a dark suit, beautiful tie and collar pin. His moustache is neat, as is his carefully-barbered, combed-back hair. He looks like the successful business man he was. There is such a dichotomy between the two Greeley pictures that it took a little time to convince myself it's the same man.

He was so well known the Townsman didn't feel the need to put his name under either picture. The stories in the paper are such good ones that, more than 60 years later, I can't help admiring and liking Mr. Greeley.

Betty Boudreau sent me this Townsman. She had it because her husband, Ted Boudreau, as a boy, did odd jobs for Mr. Greeley. When young Ted got his driver's license, he delivered groceries for James E. Greeley Co. (Mr. Boudreau became a teacher, coach, or mentor to thousands of Andover's youth, and two columns about him can be found at my Web site, www.andovertownie.com.)

James E. Greeley was born in Lowell in 1870. His mother owned a grocery store there. Jim learned the grocery business and meat cutting from her. His family moved to Nashville, Tenn., where he worked in stockyards and packing-houses, all the while saving money. Greeley moved to Andover in December 1916 and opened a fish market at 20 Essex St., calling it the Rockport Market. He was not known in town, and it made sense to give the fish business a name associated with the ocean. In less than a year he took over 22 Essex St., knocked down a wall, and expanded the business by selling meat and poultry. A few years later, he took over 24 Essex and expanded again, adding groceries. To quote the Townsman, "A customer could now do all her shopping without leaving the store, and Mr. Greeley could don his white coat and straw hat and become one of the town's best friends and respected citizens." He eventually bought out all his competition in Andover, including William Wood's market in Shawsheen. At the peak of his business, Greeley employed 28 people, and before the 1930s he changed the name of the business to James E. Greeley, Co.

Mr. Greeley told the Townsman his favorite stories when recalling 30 years in business. One Saturday afternoon, when he had many orders to deliver, none of his five trucks were anywhere to be found. On a hunch, he went to the Playstead where Punchard was playing football. All five of his trucks were in the parking lot. In those days, every home game drew a big crowd and the stands were packed. Somewhere in the mob were all five of his drivers. Greeley managed to hail one of them. As the Townsman said, "Word travels fast via the back fence and by the time he returned to the store all five trucks were parked innocently out front."

Mr. Greeley recalled another football-related story involving an important Phillips game. On game-day morning, he said to one of the academy professors, "If Andover wins, I'll provide all the wood that's needed for a bonfire." Toward evening, after a Phillips victory, 200 students marched into the store to pick up the wood. The Townsman said, "Always a man of his word, Mr. Greeley donated 200 fish barrels to the cause and the students went off, happily rolling their scented barrels up Essex Street."

Was there a secret to Mr. Greeley's success? Probably not. It looks to me that it was the time-tested formula: hard work, attention to detail and good customer service. When the store was open, he was there. The day before he retired, a reporter from the Townsman interviewed him. Mr. Greeley said, "No two customers cook or serve meats in exactly the same way, and so we have tried whenever possible to cut each individual order as it was requested. You know, little lady, a butcher is sometimes closer to the people he serves than a doctor or even a minister because the average person visits his butcher twice, sometimes three times a week." The reporter noted that as he spoke, "Greeley's eyes were bright with friendliness that he felt for each of his customers." The reporter finished her story by saying, "To see the many notes, flowers and visitors that he has received at his Summer Street home since his retirement is to know that a mutual feeling of friendship exists among the many people who have been served by 'Jim' Greeley." (Mr. Greeley lived with his daughter, Anna, at 7 Summer St.)

Immediately following his retirement, according to the Townsman, "Mr Greeley and his daughter, Atty. Anna Greeley, will drive to Hot Springs, where they will stay for a few weeks while Mr. Greeley takes treatment and a deserved rest. From there they will travel across the country to the West Coast and they will visit many of Mr. Greeley's friends still in the food business whom he met while attending national conventions."

The business was taken over by three long-term Greeley employees: Mary C. Connor, William J. Scanlon, and Francis T. Kelly. They took out a quarter page advertisement in the Townsman that thanked Mr. Greeley "...for the opportunity of carrying on his business." From the ad, it appears that the name of the business reverted to "The Rockport Market" upon Greeley's retirement. I don't know how long the market stayed open after he left. I remember the name but not the existence of the business.

The editorial in the Townsman mentions that Mr. Greeley hoped to get the "OPA poison" out of his system while at Hot Springs. I scratched my head for a minute on that one, wondering if Mr. Greeley had retired due to illness. Then I remembered that the OPA was the Office of Price Administration that was created during World War II to control inflation and ration commodities, including meat and groceries. It froze prices at March 1942 levels until 1947, two years after the war ended. This was tough on businesses, and by the time Mr. Greeley retired the number of his employees had dropped to 15.

Mr. Greeley's daughter Anna was the treasurer of his business, and she later became town treasurer from 1956 to 1972. She served on the School Committee in the early '50s and practiced law in Andover for 16 years. Her office was on Punchard Avenue, and her practice was taken over by Andrew Shea, Esq.