Heyday of Grocery Stores in Middletown — Every Other Street Had Mom And Pop

I've been thinking recently about neighborhood stores. I live up the street from the Neon Deli and I pop in there regularly. In various forms, a store at this site has served the Cross Street neighborhood for more than eighty years.

When I was a kid growing up in the Farm Hill District, I had two stores I could walk to — Wilderman's and Ridge Road Market.  My mother did her weekly grocery shopping at Wilderman’s Market in the 1960s, which was at the southeast corner of Russell and South Front streets.

I remember she‘d give Mr. Wilderman a list of the things she wanted, and we’d go back later to pick up the items that the clerk had gathered and put in a box for us to bring home. Then she’d sign the receipt and pay the grocery bill once a month.

How fabulous was that! From what I remember, Wilderman’s only had about four aisles of goods and, therefore, a limited amount of choices. Sometimes they didn’t have the trendy cereal that I wanted, and I had to choose from what was available. But the meat was freshly cut and wrapped, and the place smelled terrific.

I did some research to find out about Wilderman’s Market and found out so much more. In 1930, before Wilderman’s opened, there were 92 (YES, 92!) grocers in Middletown. Most of the stores didn’t have names, just the listing for the owner. The Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company (A&P) was only major grocery store in town; the rest were mom-and-pop, neighborhood stores.

Before Wilderman’s opened, there was the Farm Hill Market on the north side of Russell Street, at the corner of Fowler Street. This building has most recently been the Jackie Lynn Dance Studio (36 Russell Street). Another store was located on East Main Street, at the corner of Hillside Avenue.

Jacob Wilderman (1909-1972) was a German immigrant who arrived in Middletown after 1930, but before 1933, the year that he and his wife Dorothy opened the market. They lived up the hill at 96 Russell Street. After Prohibition ended, Wilderman opened Farm Hill Tavern on the first floor of the building at 37 Russell Street, shown here. In 1940, Farm Hill Tavern was one of 35 "bars" in town, all opening after the Eighteenth Amendment was passed in 1933.

My mother, Barbara Warner, lived on Front Street during the war, when my father was overseas with the Navy. She had a 1-year-old, and meat was rationed. Jacob Wilderman always gave her a little bit extra to help her out. She has always told me that they were a great help to her in those tough times.

Jacob Wilderman died at age 63 in 1972 and his widow Dorothy closed the store. An era seems to have come to an end with it.

Today, we still have small stores in many neighborhoods, but they serve more as "convenience stores," with higher prices in exchange for avoiding the giant super markets. The neighborhood stores provided an opportunity for a family to make a living by running a neighborhood establishment. The owners and the customers developed relationships, knew each other by name, and trusted each other completely.These were good times.