A Tribute to a Country Store

Gobler Mercantile Company, Gobler Missouri (1937-1956)

A Tribute to a Country Store was written by Virginia B. Branch and is used here with her permission.

Growing up in the cotton fields around Gobler in the 1940's, I accepted the place as one always accepts one's immediate surroundings and gave little thought to its uniqueness. As a fifteen-year-old, during World War II, I worked at the Gobler store. My first job was behind the candy counter and I still recall Mr. Weaver teasing me about my occupation. "Do you know what a candy girl weighs?" he would ask me. And one day he told me the answer "She weighs candy!"

My family moved to Gobler in August, 1942. I grew up there and married the young man who kept books at the cotton gin. We lived the first eight years of our marriage in a little white house behind the big store. I watched as most of Gobler's life story unfolded and was present the day it all went up in smoke. I remember Gobler in l942 when the front yard still contained many trees which were very useful as hitching posts. Wagon-teams and horses outnumbered cars and trucks in those days and walking about on foot one had to keep a wary eye out for rambunctious young horse-back riders who apparently had no concern for anyone's safety. Drunken brawls were fairly common and not to be taken seriously unless accompanied by gun shots.

Dennye Mitchell was a young man at that time, still in his thirties and appeared to be in perpetual motion. His reputation as a salesman derived from his attitude while attending a customer. He was never pushy. He simply had a way of listening attentively to determine what was required and showed a sincere interest in fulfilling the needs of his customers. He was a whiz at mathematics and could run up a column of figures about as quickly and accurately as an adding machine. He was friendly and likeable in a quiet and reserved manner. A personality characteristic most acquaintances will recall was his distinctive style of laughter, a trait also shared by his son, John. These two just naturally got more out of a laugh than most people.

Most of us find it difficult to comprehend the fact that twenty-five years have come and gone since Gobler disappeared into history but people have continued to remember the store and the man. It is this writers aim to present this souvenir-type booklet as a small tribute to "Missouri's Most Famous Country Store" and to the man who made it what it was, a special kind of place.

Virginia B. Branch
December 29, 1980

Gobler Mercantile Company, "Missouri's Largest Country Store," came into existence sometime in the year l937. Located in Pemiscot County on the Pemiscot-Dunklin County line in the "boot-heel" of Southeast Missouri, this famous "farmer's market" became a legend in its brief lifetime. Situated beside a railroad track, Gobler is said to have been named for Gobler Elliott, a railroad man of Caruthersville, Missouri. Attempts to verify this have been less than successful, and we may be forced to turn to a story related by many old-timers who insist the community derived its name from the fact that in the early days a vast number of wild turkeys inhabited the area. This story may be valid as Gobler, even as late as the mid-thirties, was little more than a heavily wooded, frontier-type settlement, populated mostly by blacks who were its original colonists. By l935 a few whites had filtered in and the wilderness was gradually giving way to civilization. Small farms appeared with cotton and soybeans as the main money crops. The muddy dirt roads were later graveled and finally black-topped, which made the community more accessible to the outside world.

In 1937 the Sellmeyer brothers of Knobel, Arkansas, took the giant step which propelled Gobler into motion. Once started, growth was spurred by the general economic upswing which came with World War II. The Sellmeyers bought land and started farming operations near Gobler. They then built three modern homes and a big store. In partnership with Joe Bertig of Paragould, Arkansas, they also built a cotton gin. This gin was under the management of Carl "Buck" Sellmeyer, and the store was the responsibility of Dennye Mitchell. The Sellmeyers had known Mitchell at Leachville, Arkansas, which was his hometown. He was well known as a first- rate salesman. The Sellmeyers had a cotton gin at Leachville, and the two families had become close friends. When the need arose at Gobler for a manager for the new store he was a natural choice, and a better selection would not have been possible. The story of the Gobler Mercantile Company from the beginning was the story of Dennye Mitchell. In return for his services as proprietor, Dennye was to be a partner in the store. The measure of his success is one of the best known stories in Southeast Missouri, and he was probably the best known businessman of the entire area. Scarcely ever addressed as Mr. Mitchell, he was on a first-name basis with one and all. To Dennye, at one time or another, came practically everyone in the area with some problem.

Most of the local farmers traded with him and many depended on "credit' to get their families through the long summers. Crops were usually "laid by" on or near July4th, and the meager earnings from cotton chopping was their last spendable income until harvesting began, usually in early September. The onset of cotton-picking time was the signal for an accelerated pace in the community's life style. "Paying off Dennye" was the first order of the day for nearly everyone. Business in the fall of the year was booming from early morning until late at night.

The cotton gin was located nearby and farmers bringing in their cotton always had business at the store. Saturdays were especially busy as most farm work was suspended on this day. Entire families went to Gobler to spend their money and enjoy a day of rest from their labors. Visiting and socializing intermingled with the transaction of business. It was the golden age of country music and thumbing through the memories of those years, one remembers the sounds of the jukebox as Ernest Tubb and Roy Acuff, followed in a few years by Eddy Arnold and Hank Williams, sang the day's favorite songs. Gobler on a Saturday afternoon was not just busy. It was loud, colorful, hectic.

In the beginning Dennye stocked mostly groceries, house wares, farm implements, hoes, sacks for picking cotton, and other basic essentials required by the farmers who were his chief patrons. He also purchased their excess products such as chickens, eggs, butter, and firewood. In the nineteen years of its life, Gobler was constantly changing. In the beginning there was a simple 3O' X 60' building of corrugated tin containing approximately $900 worth of merchandise. This writer has been able to locate only one photograph of the interior of the store. This picture was made, probably, in 1943, and may not look familiar even to those who were there at the time, as changes were taking place rapidly and one soon forgets how things looked yesterday. We do, however, get some idea how Missouri's Largest Country Store looked in its early days. Through the years as Dennye added departments and new lines of merchandise, buildings would be attached to provide needed space. The growth and expansion of this small country store and the part it played in its community and throughout the Mid-South is still a bit amazing even to those who were there through it all. Regardless of any individual's personal like or dislike of Gobler as a place to live, one always had the feeling that here was no ordinary situation. There was a special, homey quality about this overgrown country store that somehow set it a part. Like wartime buddies, any two people whoever lived there had a lot in common and much to talk over when they met in later years. "Going to the store" at Gobler was not necessarily something to be done simply because the cupboard was bare. One went quite often simply as a social encounter. There was never any way of knowing who would be there or what would be going on.

Gobler during the war years was incredible. On Saturdays, the crowds reached unbelievable proportions. Just pushing and shoving ones way through the store was a chore in itself, and making a purchase usually required waiting one's turn. By 1944 Gobler had become a trade center to be reckoned with. Parking areas on the store and gin yards became inadequate as money and cars became more plentiful. It was not uncommon for cars to be backed up along both sides of the highway almost to the No. 8 Ditch about one mile distant on County Line Road NN.

Occasionally Dennye would sponsor special entertainment to attract even greater crowds. These affairs usually consisted of fairly well-known country musicians or gospel singers. The Slim Rhodes Show was probably the best known group to appear at Gobler. The most consistent method, however, of ensuring a large crowd was the time honored, absolutely fail-proof" drawing". For many years Gobler's citizens planned their Saturdays around the four o'clock drawing. With each one dollar purchase customers were given a ticket, the stub of which went into a large can. As time for the drawing drew near the crowd began to congregate in front of the store and promptly at four o'clock one of the employees, usually Winfred "Wimpy" Isaac, would take the can containing all the ticket stubs, climb on a barrel near the front door of the store and select some small child to draw a ticket from the can. There was always an abundance of available candidates for this job as the day's winner of the drawing usually rewarded the youngster who had drawn the ticket.

As years passed the store continued to expand, eventually covering about five acres and containing special departments for all major fields of merchandise. There was a grocery department and meat market, a drug center, dry-goods section, furniture department, a section devoted to' house wares, a hardware department, a restaurant, and eventually a television shop and lumber yards.

Nineteen forty-eight and forty-nine were probably the periods of greatest expansion. People had begun to joke about the problem facing Dennye when he reached the 84 highway. Would he build an overpass or would he decide on a tunnel?

In the early days Denny's methods of advertising had been rather limited. He depended mostly on printed handbills distributed about the countryside by one of his employees driving a pick-up truck. This same truck was used to make deliveries to customers who had no transportation. The advertising field, however, received a tremendous boost in the summer of 1947 when a radio station was established at nearby Kennett, Missouri. Gobler Mercantile Company now began to advertise on a much wider scale and people began arriving from greater distances to see this big store they had heard about on the radio. Old Camp-Meeting Time, a program of gospel music, was sponsored by Dennye for many years and was a great favorite of the church-folk. The format of this show was the standard procedure of the time-listeners were invited to write in "cards and letters!" requesting favorite songs and dedications were made. Between songs would be spot advertisements and invitations to visit the "Midwest's Largest Country Store".

Though Gobler continued to be a popular place to shop, there came a time when the business apparently began to experience some difficulties. Business still boomed. Maybe not quite as it had once boomed, but there just did not appear to be any logical reasons why the place was not showing more profit. A great deal of speculation was engaged in as to probable causes of the trouble. Generally it was believed to be a combination of many things.

Sometime in the early fifties, Dennye had gone into the trucking business, a field known to be very tough and very competitive. At one time he had over twenty huge tractor-trailer trucks hauling merchandise for his own store and also doing custom hauling. Many people considered this latest undertaking the straw that was one too many. To begin with, there had never been any secret about the fact that Dennye had a drinking problem and this problem was almost certain to be aggravated by this additional responsibility attached to an overwhelming workload. Dennye's time with his family had always been severely restricted. Each new venture embarked upon spread his moments of relaxation ever more thinly. Long hours on the job had taken their toll and concerned friends were beginning to wonder whether this man had not reached very near the limit of his endurance. By 1950 Dennye had acquired a large number of employees. It is very possible he may not always have known for sure just who or how many were actually on his payroll. There was no way to keep satisfactory supervision. Add to this the fact that he was by nature a trusting type of person and it is easy to see what was likely to happen. Probably most of his employees were honest people but a few who are not can make a tremendous difference. When employees had been caught cheating Dennye usually counseled with them, prayed with them, forgave them. Only a very few were ever actually discharged due to dishonesty. Dennye's status in financial affairs of the community was such that quite often he performed services generally associated with banks and loan companies. In emergencies local citizens found him closer to home and easier to approach. It would be interesting to speculate how much of this money is still "on the books!' One day in the early fifties Delmar O'Kelly walked up to Dennye's office and announced his intention of paying what he owed. Delmar was a Gobler citizen who had gone to Michigan to work and had been gone a year or more. Dennye had to tell him this particular record had been among several destroyed and he had no notion of the amount involved. Delmar said he knew what he owed and he was there to pay. In this instance Dennye came out alright, but one wonders how many customers either lacked Delmars excellent memory or simply chose not to remember.

About 1952 television had come to Gobler and each night, out back on the porch of the furniture department, one of these new inventions was displayed for benefit of the general public. It was here that most of Gobler's citizens saw their first TV. A good-sized crowd was on hand every night. There was only one channel at the time so no disagreements could arise as to program choices.

Then almost overnight television became the latest addition to every household bringing with it a new business angle. A short distance behind the store Dennye now built a television repair shop and hired a full-time repairman. This marked the first case of his putting up a separate building to accommodate new business. Always before he had simply added on to what was already there.

As the fifties progressed and business continued to decline, a decision was made to seek outside professional help in an all out effort to get things rolling again. Gobler was about to embark upon a new and completely different chapter in its life. In due time the "business promotion experts" arrived and proved to be a husband and wife team of ex-carnival hucksters. Their first move was the installation of a public address system and from early morning until late at night they kept up a running barrage of promotion gimmicks such as can be seen and heard in any small-town carnival anywhere in America. There were popularity contests, talent contests, raffles, auctions, prizes for this and prizes for that. Crowds jammed the place night after night--mostly to be a part of what was going on. The high point of this giant free show was a new car to be given away at a drawing late in November. The night this drawing was held was extremely cold, but the crowd it attracted was probably the largest in Gobler's history. The car was won by a Mr. Burroughs, a gentleman who lived about two miles distant on the county line road.

Scarcely anyone was sorry to see this phase of Gobler's history move on its way. General opinion was it had fallen far short of its objective. It was, however, a colorful interlude in the story of Gobler.

The fifties moved along and although everyone knew things had changed a bit, there was no real concern. Gobler by now had become a landmark, a legend in its own time, and in such a short time at that. The war years and postwar years were ancient history and the excitement, color, and crowds of those busy Saturday afternoons possibly would not be equaled again. Still no one doubted Gobler would always be there. She might have her ups and downs, but she'd survive.

What no one could possibly know was the fact that time was simply running out in an entirely different direction. Through the years there had always been speculations about the possibility of a really big fire at Gobler. The very nature of the sprawling buildings and the relaxed life-style of the place made one wonder whether luck and good fortune had not protected it to this point. Those families living nearby and likely to be affected probably gave the matter a great deal of thought. This writer lived in a small, white frame house located only a few feet from Gobler's furniture department and well remembers her apprehension on summer nights when huge trash fires lit up the sky and her living room. This was especially fearful during times of drought when grass fires were common occurrences. Directly opposite this line of thought one feared the dangers present if fire came in winter. On an icy, snowbound night, firefighters from surrounding communities would be virtually helpless, if they could arrive at all. The worst fear of all was of fire during some big event when crowds of shoppers might be jammed and trapped inside the store. Fortunately our worst nightmares seldom materialize.

When Gobler's big fire came it was not at all as anyone had imagined it would be. It came at midday on a calm Saturday, the last day of March, 1956, a routine business-as-usual day with no premonitions of the changes it was to bring to so many lives. The newspaper accounts later spoke of "a strong southwesterly wind". This description must be accepted as one reporters opinion. Maybe to him it was a "strong wind" but to this writer, long familiar with March winds in Southeast Missouri, the day was rather ordinary. Two teen-aged boys, employees of the store, had been burning, cardboard boxes that-,day and flames somehow spread to a wooden door which served as a side entrance to the grocery department. From the door, fire jumped to overhead rafters and from this point on there was never any doubts as to the ultimate outcome. Calls for help went out immediately to fire departments of nearby communities and firefighters from Kennett, Hayti, and Deering battled the blaze most of that Saturday afternoon with all odds against them. Water for such a huge fire was almost impossible to obtain. Most families living near the store expected to lose their homes and with help from neighbors, furniture and personal belongings were carried to safety. Actually only one occupied home, that of the Wesley Gaines family, was lost to the fire. Another house, owned by Paul Burns and used as storage, was also burned.

The fire raged furiously for several hours with all manner of explosions and projectiles being hurled into the air. By mid-afternoon the worst was over and damage could be fairly well assessed. According to newspaper accounts of the day, Dennye estimated his losses at one-half million dollars. Small fires continued to burn for several days and tin cans would occasionally explode three weeks after the fire.

The day after the fire small groups of sightseers gathered to view the ruins and recite the usual tales that accompany all such disasters. It was a gray, dismal Easter Sunday. One remembers Dennye and his actions at this crucial time in his life when nineteen years of hard work lay in twisted rubble before his eyes. He walked about calmly, maybe partly in shock He appeared, on the surface, to be accepting the situation more matter-of-factly than many of those who had only emotional interest involved. Several people who owed him money came that day to pay their debts. They knew he would be needing it, they said. Others felt that now that he was out of business they had no obligation to pay and they probably never did.

The few items saved from Dennye's office, the safe, the records, etc., were now moved into the television repair shop which, being several feet distant from the store, had been spared. The post office was installed in half of this same building. Once again, as in the beginning, these two were located under the same roof. Dennye had only a small amount of insurance as business reversals had forced him to borrow on what he originally had. There was no way he could go back into business on a big scale. He did, however, attempt to start again in a small way. He stocked groceries and a few basics in the TV shop and struggled along until the end of 1956 at which time he gave up entirely and the business went into receivership. William 0. "Buster' Branch of Rives, Missouri, was designated as receiver and to him fell the responsibility of settling all official business of the now non-existent Gobler Mercantile Company.

The Mitchell family residence had been located upstairs above the store. They had lost home and business on the same day. After the fire they rented a house at Kennett and began to pick up the pieces as one always must in such circumstances. Dennye made one last attempt to go into business. For a while he had a grocery store on St. Francis Street in Kennett. Friends and former customers who called remember the Mitchell family bravely and graciously putting their best foot forward in an all out effort to make visitors feel at ease and comfortable. But Dennye just did not belong in business at Kennett. Dennye away from Gobler was like a fish out of water. It was an unnatural situation and made everyone sad. Something had once existed in the lives of all who were part and parcel of the old days at Gobler. That something was gone now. It would never return and no one knew how to accept it or anything to do about it.

The Mitchell son, John, had once served in the Marine Corps and after the fire had reenlisted and was stationed in California. He now began an effort to get remaining family members to come west. And that, in the end, is the way it turned out. In January, 1959, Dennye Mitchell and family left Kennett, Missouri. They relocated at Oceanside, California, and Dennye found employment for a time as a stock clerk at the nearby Marine base. His years of specialized training soon enabled him to obtain a job with a large television and appliance establishment. His old problem with the bottle was still around. The new employers were very patient with him and considered him a valuable asset. Apparently his good points outweighed any inconvenience caused by the drinking. Most of Dennye's remaining years of active work were spent with this company. After eight or nine years with them, he suffered a stroke and was forced to retire. By this time the family had moved to a ranch a few miles from Oceanside and had entered as a, family affair into the business of raising and training race horses. Unable to do much else, Dennye began to help with feeding and caring for the animals. While involved in this capacity, he suffered a severe injury on January 3, 1 972. His spinal cord was affected and he is almost completely paralyzed, unable either to walk or sit in a wheelchair. He can move his head and his right hand. His mind is bright and alert. For some years now he has been actively involved with the religious organization known as Jehovah's Witnesses.

The drinking problem which plagued him for years has finally been defeated and Dennye Mitchell has spent his last several years in quiet and contentment. In December, 1 979, the L.V. Elliots, former friends as well as employees during the old days at Gobler, had the following to report after a visit with the Mitchell's. Dennye had appeared to enjoy the visit immensely and had joined in lively conversation, most of which quite naturally revolved around the old days and the store which had been such a big part of his life. His parting words to them were to send his regards to all of his old friends and acquaintances. "Tell them I love them," he said. "Not a day goes by that I don't think of them."

Dennye's address and phone number are listed for benefit of any who would like to write him. Dennye Mitchell, 2438 E. Vista Calway Sp. 7 Vista, California 92083; Phone 714-724-7373

At this time Dennye is 69 years old and has had many problems in recent months with his health. He spent six weeks in the hospital this fall for treatment of an infected urinary tract. While hospitalized for this ailment he suffered a mild stroke. In a telephone conversation with his wife, Irene, this writer learned today, December 28,1980, that he is currently at home and doing fairly well. Irene has several health problems also, including glaucoma which affects her vision. She will be glad to hear from any old friends but cannot answer any correspondence.

The Mitchell children John, Jean, and Betty all live near their parents and according to Irene "If I call, they can be here in ten minutes!". Irene says be very sure to include the Mitchell family's love and best wishes to all old friends.