I recently had a message from a reader asking about the store of C.J. Tucker. Whose name shows on a crock they own.
Charles J. Tucker was born in November 1862 to Samuel and Abigail Tucker. He grew up in Sparta Michigan. In 1891, at the age of 29 he married his wife Frances. A few years later he opened his store on South Bridge Street.
While most stores at the time specialized in one type of merchandise, CJ Tucker offered a wide variety. He had an early example of a Department Store. He offered furniture, carpets, rugs, linoleum, china, household items and dry goods.
In 1911 he built a new home for his wife and adopted daughter Alice at 328 E. Jefferson St. Just a couple years later he retired from the mercantile business and began selling insurance and real estate. Frances died in 1917 and Charles around the same time.
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I thought I would share one of my own Christmas memories. This involves my sister Pam and her life-long friend Charisse Pryor (now Mullins). Now Pam and Charisse were quite the pair and their youthful adventures are legendary, not only in our family but I dare say in our neighborhood and beyond. Even as a child I knew they were a pair to watch out for!
Now back in about 1972 I was a young student at Neff Elementary and they both were in High School. There was apparently at that time, a service that allowed you to submit a child’s name and sometime before Christmas, Santa himself would call on the phone and speak to the child and see what gifts they really wanted.
Well, one evening I was home with my sister and the phone rang. She answered it and then told me it was for me. This was suspicious to me right away, I was only a kid and no one ever called me except my parents or grandparents. Then when I wanted to know who it was, she wouldn’t tell me. Well this put me on my guard.
So reluctantly I took the phone and on the other end I heard a merry “HO-HO-HO Merry Christmas David. Have you been a good boy?” I remember I didn’t say anything at first. I was trying to figure out what was going on. Certainly Santa would never use anything as modern as a telephone.
I remember my sister saying, “its Santa, he wants to talk to you.” It then hit me what must be going on, so I said into the phone “Is this Charisse?, Charisse I know your voice- this is you isn’t it?” Of course on the other end the confused Santa was saying “No, No, this is Santa Claus..Its Santa”. Well I was having none of it, I said “No this is Charisse!” and gave the phone back to my sister, who was looking confused and disappointed at this point, and left the room in triumph. Pam and Charisse thought they could pull one over on me—I was too smart for that!
Of course looking back years later I realized Charisse had nothing to do with it, and my sister was just trying arrange a nice call for her little brother from Santa. And poor Santa didn’t know what was going on with this strange kid. I can look back now and laugh at myself, but at the time I was so sure I had put one over on the two of them.
