In 1942 my dad, Claude Hawkins, with silent partner Dewey Richards, friend and produce salesman, bought from Dub Williams one of the two grocery stores in Gould, Oklahoma. It was located on South Kennedy Street in downtown Gould. I was four years old. What I remember about that store was that it had a small office in the back with a high desk. Mother didn't work in the store regularly, but she did the bookkeeping, and I got to sit on a tall stool and help! I inherited the adding machine on which "I" added up the credit tickets.
In 1945, my folks sold the Gould store to Tom Scivally and Aubrey Anthony and bought the Louis Hill grocery store and filling station combination from Jewell Thomason.
Then, in 1960, about the time the Louis Hill community lost its school, Mother and Dad sold the Louis Hill store to Roy Lee Owens and purchased the store in Gould from Aubrey Anthony, the same store they had owned in the 40’s. The Gould store wasn’t as large as the Louis Hill store, it was a typical mom and pop grocery store of the time. The market was across the back of the store, there were about three isles of groceries, and one check out stand. Dad spent most of his time cutting meat and taking care of the market. Claude Jr. worked after school and on Saturdays; his main job was to put the stock on the shelves and help in the market. He also delivered groceries to some of the elderly ladies of the town. Mother ran the check stand and kept the books. Other employees through the years were: Jan Royal, Lida Martin, Bill Murry, Eva Lee Cleere and probably others that we don’t recall. Some years the store served as a voting registration site with Mother as the registrar.
We had a good customer base, we knew their shopping schedules and worried about them if they were late coming to the store. Since there were other businesses in town, this store was not "the" meeting place for the men of the community as the Louis Hill store had been; however, our customers did like to visit with each other and keep up with what was going on in the community while they were at the store.
After Dad died in 1970 Mother kept the store open for about a year, then sold the building and land to the First State Bank. The bank eventually tore down the building and put their drive-in on the land where it once stood.
