RELICS: THE FAMILY
STORE AND THE GREATEST GENERATION
(a story told to me by Katherine)
Miss Eloise and Mr. Monroe Rutland lived in Roseland and had
six children. Miss Eloise had no money
and no transportation. She rode the Eldridge Bus to Amite and got a job working
at The Green and White Grocery for Tony Guzzardo. She would later work for Wesley’s on the
other side of town. She walked to the
bus stop in Roseland and then from the bus stop in Amite to the Green and
White. She worked 6 days a week and
saved her money, her goal was to have a store of her own. In 1948 she had enough to build the little
store on Highway 51 just North of Roseland, very near her house.
Miss Eloise ran the store 7 days a week from early in the
morning until 7 at night. Customers
would sometimes come to her house after she closed and she would go back and
open to get them what they needed. The store served many families that lived
close by. Cindy Allen remembers that Miss Eloise sold cookies out of a big jar
for 1 cent a piece and also raised tomatoes behind the store. She also had
sliced meats. Katherine, her daughter, who visited with me,
said she was in the 5th grade when her mother’s store opened and she
went after school to help. Later she would be left to run the store while her
mother worked to raise cattle. (At one time she had nearly 100). Meanwhile Mr. Monroe bought a gravel truck
and Eloise took the calls at the store for him.
He would later get a truck for his son, and Eloise handled the orders
for both from her store.
