On Harrison Street , between Wesley and Clarence Avenues, was a little store named Wallace's, but we all called it Molly's. Molly Wallace was an old widow who owned the store, and she lived in an apartment behind the storefront. It was a small neighborhood grocery store, sort of a relic of the old days before supermarkets; she stocked some canned goods and boxed goods, and she even had a meat cooler in there. I suppose some people from nearby apartment buildings came in to buy those things when they were in a pinch. But we went to Molly's for the penny candy.
All the neighborhood kids knew Molly's; we'd stop in on the way to and from Ascension school, and trade our pennies for various little candies and gum she had on display in a large glass case. In the warmer weather the entry door was always open, except for the wooden-framed screen door that swung closed behind you with a slap. Then you'd walk down five heavily worn wooden steps to the worn wooden floor of the store, and in about the time it took to count to 8, Molly would emerge from a back door that separated the store from her apartment.
She had an antique manual cash register sitting on a marble counter to the right, and to the left was an equally antique glass case in which she displayed the candy in small glass bowls-- Sputniks and MaryJanes and Red Hot Dollars; Sixlets, Smarties, SweetTarts, Necco Wafers, Flying Saucers, Twizzlers, Dots (the little candy drops that were dried onto a length of what resembled adding machine tape)... and, of course, Candy Tabs. Candy Tabs were little rectangular candies that fit into Pez dispensers. The official Pez candy cost a nickel, but you could fill your Pez dispenser with Candy Tabs for a penny. Such a deal.
During the summer Molly also sold popsicles and ice cream bars, which she kept in a floor-size freezer next to the candy counter. The freezer had four top-opening doors, which were usually covered by little display boxes of penny candy that she couldn't fit into the candy case. When someone asked for a Pop-Ice or a Choc-O-Malt, Molly would have to move the boxes of Lik-M-Aid and Fizzies and about 4 flavors of Candy Tabs to open up the freezer. Then as she opened one of those freezer doors, the cool smoke would come billowing upward and Molly would disappear into the fog to retrieve the chosen item. It was a summer ritual, repeated many times a day.
"Thank God for the kids," Molly once said to one of the parents. "If it weren't for them, I wouldn't be able to pay my rent." The old neighborhood market was a thing of the past, and it was only the pennies and nickels of the school children that enabled her to eke out a living. But Molly earned every penny she got.
When a large, noisy group of children came in all at once, it was common to hear Molly say, "All right, where's the fire? One at a time!" And the kids would form a single-file line along the candy counter to wait their turn. Molly would carefully unfold a miniature brown paper grocery bag, into which she would place each kid's candy choices, which weren't always rattled off so quickly. Sometimes kids can take a long time to decide what's the best value for their penny. And sometimes the kid didn't know the name of a particular kind of candy-- he'd merely point toward the candy and say, "One of those," and Molly would play "20 Questions" with him until she deduced which kind of candy he was pointing at. Looking back on it, she had an amazing amount of patience.
Some of the older kids, though, would go into the store for a little amusement at Molly's expense. I remember seeing one kid go in and pick 3 cents' worth of candy, and then hand Molly a $10 bill just to watch her get flustered. Another time, an older boy kept asking for certain kinds of candy, and then changed his mind a half dozen times after she had already loaded up the bag. He also asked for a popsicle, and after she had moved all the candy off the top of the freezer and dug it out for him, he suddenly had a change of heart and decided he didn't want it after all. That was the last straw, and Molly threw him out of the store empty handed. He whined back to her through the screen door in a sing-song voice, "Aw, gee, what's the matter, Molly?" And old Molly bounded up the steps yelling, "You mind your P's and Q's, sonny!" I made my candy choices quickly, paid exact change, and left quietly after that.
I was in high school when Molly finally decided to close the store and retire to Fond du Lac , Wisconsin . A couple of the grade school moms and their kids organized a "Molly Appreciation Parade" for her before she left; they paraded around the neighborhood carrying thank-you banners and signs, and the whole entourage ended up in front of her store, where they gave her some little gifts and a lot of good wishes. And with that, our childhood had officially come to an end. In many ways I feel sorry for the young children of today -- that their childhood experience will never have included the wonder of a little neighborhood penny candy shop, or a kindly old lady like Molly.
Mark Sobie
Ascension School class of 1974
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