Imagine going to the grocery store in Elmwood in the 1940s or 1950s and finding the door locked – even at noon on Saturday, with no sign in the window: “Closed,” “Be Back in a Minute,” or “On Vacation.” Actually, the owner, Frank Schulz, was on vacation with his buddy Ralph Kilpatrick, the local accountant, who had arrived earlier that day announcing with great fanfare – “The fish are really biting on the Spoon.” Frank grabbed his fishing pole, locked the door, and they headed for the river.

Imagine returning a week or two later in the morning to buy some lunch meat or a head of lettuce and finding the front door open – no one was minding the store – even the money in the cash register. You see, when the weather was so pleasant that June morning, Frank opened his business but got sidetracked by the blue skies and headed to his garden behind the store to hoe the weeds growing in his sunflowers or tying up some flowering bush.

Imagine going to the Schulz Grocery some evening at 9 or 10 to pick up something for breakfast or even lunch. You’d help yourself but have to wait for Frank in order to pay for your purchase. You see, you were interrupting a card game, and he was in the middle of deciding which queen or which king to discard to one of his cronies in the back of the store.

Frank Schulz, a 1914 graduate of Elmwood High School and a 1918 graduate of the University of Illinois in business, never learned to run a business. He did everything wrong. Or did he do everything right?

Notes

After Dad passed away (September 2024), my sisters and I had to clear out his house in preparation for an estate sale. In that process, we uncovered this undated sketch, which was never published. As soon as I read it, I remembered hearing Dad tell stories about Frank Schulz.

Dad’s father, Harry Taylor, also ran a grocery store, The Penny Super Market, which was just down the street. I wondered about the history of the Schulz store. A quick search on Ancestry.com I learned that Frank inherited his store from his parents, John & Johanna Schulz. John was born in Germany in 1861 and immigrated to America in 1874. He began his career in Cleveland but eventually moved to Elmwood in 1891 where he started working as a baker with A.P. Hall, but soon bought out the store of H.A. Smith and started Schulz Grocery. Sadly, John died when his son Frank was still in high school. (I wonder now if Dad knew this.) Frank helped his mom run their store and kept it going after she died.

I don’t believe Frank ever married or had any children. Perhaps, as Dad suggested in his essay, Frank Schulz may have been too busy enjoying life.

– David K. Taylor