Brown's Grocery Store

Anson, Jones Co. Tx

Info & Photo submitted by Ed Brown

This is a picture of W. E. Brown in his Grocery store at Anson, TX. (This W.E. Brown) Picture of was made around 1922-1929.

I am not sure when Uncle Oscar went to Anson, but he went before my grandfather William.  E. (Ed) Brown did and was instrumental in getting my grandfather to move to Jones County about 1922 and opened the store in Anson. Previous to that time (1920) my grandfather lived in Weatherford and was a traveling salesman there for the Bradfish Flour and Grain Company.

In 1929  my grandfather sold his grocery store in the town of Anson and bought the country grocery store at Union.  This occurred because there had been several years in a row in which the area farmers had no crops to bring to market or there was no market for them.  A mini depression occurred at this time before the Great Depression that effected the farmers and those that they traded with. As he sold his groceries on the credit and collected in the fall he made no collections for two or three years and eventually could not pay the wholesale company for his groceries.  He had to take bankruptcy and was forced to sell his store.  But he was able to purchase the store at Union.  There he made enough money to pay off all his debts and
paid back everyone that he owed when he was forced into bankruptcy. In 1940 he took all the notes (and there were many) that he held on the farmers in the Jones County area that still had not been able to repay him and burned them forgiving the debt of everyone that still owed him money.

Because of the asthma attacks, the Doctors recommended in 1932 that he move to higher ground, he sold the Union store to Mr. Albert Story who lived near the store and moved back to Parker County which was over 900 feet above sea level.  He was still plagued by asthma attacks, however, until he was nearly 70 years of age, when they left him.