Meat Wagon, circa 1902

It used to be that Mr. Theophilus Goulter would drive his meat wagon into town once a week in the summertime so that housewives could buy fresh meat – a real treat in those days without refrigeration.  My mother used to tell about Mr. Goulter’s big beef cannery up on the tideland between Oysterville and Stackpole.  She said:

I can remember from the time I was a little child that my mother did all kinds of things with that beef, too.  In the winter time we didn’t have fresh meat.  And in the summer maybe once a week a horse and wagon would come, flies all over the meat, from door to door.

I don’t know if there was door-to-door delivery of other sorts of groceries here in Oysterville or not.  And, I don’t know whether there is home delivery by any of our Peninsula grocers today.  I did hear that Pioneer Grocery in South Bend still does some home deliveries for which they get high marks in my book.

UPS Delivery

Most of the “elderly and shut-ins” (as my mother used to call them) have to depend upon willing neighbors to help them with their shopping needs.  When my Great Uncle Cecil gave up driving at close to ninety, my mother would take him once a week to do his grocery shopping. He didn’t have a long list – he walked here to the folks’ for dinner most nights – but those trips to the store to get his few grocery needs took a good part of the day.  He would  carefully read every label, consider the price, and replace the items on the shelf with a shake of his head.  My mother had the patience of a saint!  (She was also sneaky and would put some of those rejected items in his basket when he wasn’t looking.)

I sometimes wonder what Nyel and I will do when we no longer drive – assuming we are able to stay here in the house.  My son told us recently that you could order groceries online!  From amazon.com!  So… we tried it out!   Instead of doing our once-a-month bulk shopping across the river, Nyel sat at his computer and went through the grocery list.  No produce or meat, of course.  We get that here at Jack’s anyway.  But, he was able to get everything else – even the brands we like.

Groceries by Priority Mail!

The best part was that many of the prices were lower than we usually pay.  Actually, there were two best parts!  Low prices AND free delivery!  Some things came by UPS right to the door, but most came to the post office and were carried to the car by Postman Steve.  He commented that this was great business for the post office – which might just be the third best part.

I’m not sure how we’d work out the groceries-by-mail-to-the-post-office in our after-automobile days, though.  We’ll have to think about that…  Hopefully, we have a while to work out the logistics.