My mother-in-law has a bit of dementia. I am sitting with her today. Yesterday we spent the afternoon looking at old photos so that she could identify some of the people in the photos for me. So when I walked in today, her brain was reminded of her life in the coal fields in the early to mid 1900s. Her first comment after we made small talk and had some Colonel Sanders was: "I don't know why I got this notion in my head. But I was thinking that Mrs. Rucci is closing her store. I always get a lot of what I need from this store. " After quizzing her a bit, I figured out that she was talking about Welch WV. She said that her mother bought a lot from the store as well. So, of course, I googled the Rucci store and she agreed that that was definitely the place!
I found the photo of Mr. Rucci in his store on-line. Someone had posted it on Ancestry. Sue said that the store was close to where she lived and was in a large building of some sort. Sue said that she he liked most of all to sell authentic Italian food that he bought from special dealers.
Later in the day, Sue added that her mother went in one day for a piece of pie. Apparently they also served food in the store. She said that two of the waiters were arguing and one of the waiters through a pie right into the face of the other waiter.
2 comments:
Thank you for this post! The Mr. Rucci in the picture was my great-grandfather. I just happened to google "Rucci grocery" and your post came up. Nice to see him and his store remembered here.
That day was so much fun. Because of my mother-in-law's dementia, the store was so real in her mind that I almost felt that I was there as well. Be sure to look at some of my other posts about Welch, WV and the surroundings. I was very lucky to have had such a good peak into the lives of the coal towns in the early 1900s.
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