Jack Harris remembers when he first started working at a Piggly Wiggly.

“It was Sept. 12, 1953,” he said of the time he worked at an Illinois store. “I put the first case of green beans on the shelf.”

DRC/Karina Ramirez

Shelves sit empty at the Piggly Wiggly grocery store on Sherman Drive on Thursday, June 12, 2009. The two Denton stores are scheduled to close on Saturday, June 13.

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Now, 56 years later this week, Harris finds himself without a job.

He worked three days a week at the Piggly Wiggly store on Sherman Drive in Denton as a stocker. A week ago, the 80-year-old learned he would no longer be an employee at one of Denton’s two long-established Piggly Wiggly stores — both slated to close Saturday. The two are the last of five Texas stores that carried the Piggly Wiggly name under the ownership of Affiliated Foods Southwest Inc. of Little Rock, Ark.

Harris said he would not only miss his customers but also working alongside his friend, cashier Malynda Allen.

“There are a number of elderly ladies that come up practically every day,” he said as he was packing to leave for Indianapolis for the summer.

“I believe it was part of their social life; I really do,” he said.

What Harris and Allen say they have treasured the most from working at their store is knowing their customers by name and sharing their stories.

“We would joke with them. When I wouldn’t see them, since I worked only Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays … then, when I would see them, I would say, ‘I miss ya, like I miss a good funeral,’ but we would all do that,” Harris said.

Allen said she would miss her regular customers, especially those who wanted only her to ring up their items each time they checked out.

“People will even come in line and there’ll be another cashier open, and they would say, ‘No, I want to go to Malynda.’ They’ll wait until I finish to come to my line. It made me feel good,” said Allen, who has worked at the store for three years.

Piggly Wiggly has been more than just a grocery chain for many — it has been almost like a longtime family business, especially in smaller communities such as Denton.

H.S. Osborne, former owner of a number of small-town Piggly Wiggly stores, including several in Denton, once described his 14-hour-a-day job as president of the Osborne Grocery Co. and managing partner of the Piggly Wiggly store in Stephenville in 1959 as “more fun than work,” according to Denton Record-Chronicle archives.

Osborne started the Osborne Grocery Co. and bought the first Denton Piggly Wiggly store in 1947. It was then located at Hickory and Cedar streets. In 1953, he opened another store at Mulberry and Austin streets. In 1957, he began construction of a Piggly Wiggly on North Locust Street with an estimated cost of $35,000, according to the newspaper’s archives. A 1963 ad showed that Osborne owned, at one time, four stores in the area, including one in Lewisville. By 1990, he had closed the Lewisville store and managed 10 others in several communities, including Gainesville, Sulphur Springs, Cleburne and Stephenville.

Osborne was known for helping out in the community. For his efforts, he received the Otis L. Fowler Award — an annual award given to individuals who provide something notable to the Denton community — from the Denton Chamber of Commerce in 1992.

A team effort

From the beginning, the family-owned and family-friendly stores have been surrounded by loyal customers and faithful employees.

Like Harris, the employees at the Piggly Wiggly stores often did not leave for other careers.

If they did, they often returned.

Larry Arnett, produce manager at the Sherman Drive store in Denton, started at Piggly Wiggly 38 years ago and later returned after working for other grocery store chains.

DRC/Karina Ramirez

Shelves sit empty at the Piggly Wiggly grocery store on Sherman Drive on Thursday, June 12, 2009. The two Denton stores are scheduled to close on Saturday, June 13.

View larger More photos Photo store

“I have worked at all of them, some of them twice. I have worked here twice,” he said of his history with the Pig, as some customers call it.

“I was here when they opened this thing,” Arnett said. “I helped build this thing.”

Now, he says, if anyone needs a produce man — the main job he held during his Piggly Wiggly career — they should give him a call.

In 38 years, he has only missed three days of work.

Sitting in the customer service area, Arnett said, simply, “Give me some job.”

Maria Gallardo, a scan coordinator at the Sherman Drive store, has seen several of the grocery chain’s stores close in the area.

“I used to work at the Lewisville store and that was closed, and then I came here and now this one is closing,” she said.

Gallardo said she would always be grateful to her boss, Chris Gibson, for allowing her to spend time with her daughter, who underwent liver transplant surgery five years ago.

She missed six weeks of work and thought she would be fired, she recalled.

“But he was always willing to work with me and the family,” Gallardo said. “I will miss it.”

Allen said the store employees always help each other in times of need.

“Mr. Jack [Harris] gave her money to buy new tires,” Allen said of the time Harris helped Gallardo by getting tires for her truck so she could drive her daughter from Denton to Dallas for chemotherapy sessions.

Another loyal employee, Coy Sturdivant, a manager at the McKinney Street store, said the closing of the supermarket chain in Denton “was a shame for the town, the customers and the employees.”

“The regulars were upset and so sad,” he said. “They were mostly in tears; some of them raised their kids in the store.”

Employee Stormy Steward, 19, now finds herself out of work for the first week of summer.

“It’s my first and only job, and I’m a bit nervous,” she said.

Like most of the longtime employees, Steward started working at the store at the age of 16.

She remembers playing with the red squares on the floor as a child.

“I know it’s a weird memory,” she said. “But that’s all I can remember right now.”

Customer queries

Since last Tuesday, when corporate officials announced that the stores were closing, many customers have asked employees the same question: “What are you going to do?”

Bettie Ann Huggins, a faithful customer, asked Allen that same question recently. The answer? Apply somewhere else.

Huggins, who has visited the Sherman Street store since it opened years ago, hugged Allen when she found her on the way to the register to pay for garden gloves.

“There are not many places in town, and it’s too far to go to Albertsons,” Huggins said of the lack of another grocery store in her area.

At home, Harris prepared for his paid vacation — offered to all employees at Piggly Wiggly. That same day, he was also celebrating his fifth wedding anniversary.

“I’m going up north to a cabin in Indianapolis I bought five years ago with my wife, Amy,” Harris said.

He is not leaving Denton permanently, just going away to his cabin for the summer to spend time with his family.

But he plans to find another part-time job when he returns.

“We need something different to do to supplement my income,” Harris said.

Like Harris, managers, cashiers, meat cutters, grocery and produce people — some 46 in all, will find themselves without a place to work Monday.

Sturdivant said the store’s motto, “Down home, down the street,” pretty much described the overall feeling — it was the town’s store where people knew each other by name.

“I hope we all show up in another store, so we can keep seeing each other,” he said.

Eduardo Alvarado, a bilingual teacher in Denton, said the stores are symbolic for older generations.

“It represented an old way of life, a slower type of life,” he said. “It is not just a building with shelves; it is a connection of a more innocent time, when people would say good morning and be more polite.”

KARINA RAMÍREZ can be reached at 940-566-6878. Her e-mail address is kramirez@dentonrc.com