TMP Photo by Kelly Hite. Vincent DeGeorge enjoys spending his time putting together model cars such as these. Many of the models he has put together are ones he has either drove or owned in his lifetime.
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Picture it: Sicily, 1900.
A young man steps on a boat to New Orleans for a chance at a new life in the new world
His travels take him from work on sugar cane plantations and the railroad to the St. Louis World’s Fair and, finally, Nashville.
While visiting friends in Nashville, he heard about the sale of a small store in a small town to the southeast and decided to settle down.
The man was Sam DeGeorge and the store stood in the building that now houses Shacklett’s Photography on the Square in Murfreesboro.
“I was born upstairs from where Shacklett’s Photography is now. My daddy had a store there and we lived upstairs,” said Vincent DeGeorge, who was born in 1910.
In 1913, Sam DeGeorge moved his store to the northeast corner of the square next the Princess Theater on the corner of College and Maple streets.
“He opened up his store and had a soda fountain and candy and stuff like that. When the theater let out everyday he really had business. He was pretty smart moving down there,” Vincent said. He remembers his father displaying fruit in the left window and his confections on the right.
When Sam worked at the World’s Fair, he learned how to make candies and ice cream.
“I seen him stand there and make taffy, peanut brittle, coconut brittle,” Vincent recalled. “He had a great big marble slab. And he’d pour it out on that marble slab, but put butter on it first, and break it up.”
It was his ability to make candy most amazes Vincent about his father. Sam had no formal education and, according to his son, the only thing he could write was his own name.
“He didn’t have an education,” Vincent said, “but he had a good memory.”
It must run in the family, because at 97 years old, Vincent can recall a time in Murfreesboro few remember.
He remembers a time before cars, when horses rounded a crowded square full of people shopping at department stores or his father’s grocery and sweet shop.
He remembers his father’s horse and buggy, which Sam would take to Nashville at night to pick up fruit and other merchandise.
“’Course, there wasn’t no way to get things down here except on the train and you had to go down to Nashville and pick up your fruit and stuff,” Vincent recalled.
He remembers the 1923 Ford truck Sam bought to haul groceries, but never learned to drive. Sam’s brother drove it until he moved to Tullahoma to start his own business.
“Papa had to sell the truck because he never learned how to drive,” Vincent said laughingly.
He remembers working alongside his father in the family business for several years during the Depression and after a stint in the army during World War II and then, opening a market of his own on East Main Street.
“I stayed there about 30 years. …” Vincent said. “I enjoyed it when everybody came in. I knew most of the people.
“I was the only one out there on East Main. … I really had a big business out there,” he said, explaining only about eight stores in town sold beer, including his.
Murfreesboro hasn’t really changed much since then, except for the size of the community, according to Vincent.
“I remember one time when somebody told me there were 5,000 people,” Vincent said. He’s amazed at the pace that the small town has grown into a city.
But one thing hasn’t changed; a DeGeorge still has a business in town. East Main TV Repair, owned and operated by Vincent’s son, sits in the building that once held the market.
“Now my son’s got his TV repair place there, East Main TV Repair. It’s right next to the Slick Pig,” Vincent said, meaning the DeGeorges have been in business continuously in Murfreesboro for more than 100 years.
“And there aren’t many families that can say that,” Vincent’s wife Imogene noted.
Michelle Willard can be contacted at 869-0816 or mwillard@murfreesboropost.com. |
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