|
|
 | |
|
BIRTH: Unknown | ||
| ||
|
Before the days of a weekly trip to the supermarket or drop down to the corner store for a loaf of bread, if you wanted milk, you bought a cow; eggs, get some chickens; meat, go hunting or raise your own. One of the closest stores existed in Kamloops. At about 1890 or 91, Robert and Andrew Seed came to White Valley and opened the first store. It was situated just across the Bessette Creek bridge on the northwest side. When the townsite was laid out, the store was moved into Lumby, where the furniture store is now. Louis Morand built a new store in 1898 (Family Café). At that time it was several hundred feet west of its present location. Walter Woods was the first manager. It was later sold to W. R. Megaw and managed by his son. A native of Goderich, Ontario, he came west by sea and in 1879 established a trading business in the Nicola Valley. Times were colorful then. Just shortly after his arrival, Mr. Megaw witnessed the chase and capture of the famed desperadoes, the MacLean brothers and a younger man named Hare, who had brutally murdered a goverment official and a sheep-herder. Mr. Megaw opened business at several different points on the main line of the CPR during construction of the Onderdonk contract. But, he was also quick to see the prospective advantages of the Okanagan, and particularly of the region that was later to become Vernon. Then it was known as Priest Valley. As a trading centre and distributing point, the settlement attracted Mr. Megaw and there he opened a store in 1885. Success at first was none too encouraging, but he had faith - and energy. He kept not up with the times, but in advance of them. Some years later, according to the Vernon News, he was head of "the largest individual retail general store in the whole province."
| ||
