Mike Pound: Store still serves as gathering place

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August 26, 2010

By Mike Pound Globe Staff Writer The Joplin Globe Thu Aug 26, 2010, 08:33 AM CDT

JOPLIN, Mo. — It was the wooden screen door that did the trick.

There are a lot of things about the Hatfield Grocery and Feed Store near Spurgeon that take me back to a seemingly simpler time, but it was the screen door that really took me back. Not so much the door itself, but the sound the door made when it slammed against the door frame.

Folks of a certain age (old) know the sound I’m talking about. It’s the sound made by folks entering and leaving a country store. It’s the sound made by kids running in and out of a house on a summer night. It’s the sound of a time when air conditioning was a luxury, and screen doors and open windows were the norm.

I drove past the store, owned by Gary and Sandy Hatfield, on Tuesday on the way to another appointment. I made a note to stop by the next chance I got.

That chance turned out to be the next day. When I walked into the store, I let the screen door slam behind me, and I was hooked. The small store was filled with the sorts of things you would expect to find in a country store.

“Good morning,” Gary said from behind the counter.

I thought that was nice, since I’m sure I had the appearance of someone who doesn’t live in the area. But that didn’t matter to Gary. It turns out Gary and Sandy pretty much treat everyone who walks into their store like neighbors, and most of the time those folks are their neighbors

“Until we opened, we didn’t know five of our neighbors,” Sandy said. “Now we know everyone around us.”

The Hatfields’ store was built in 1919 by Wilfred West. Wilfred ran the store for decades, and when he died, his daughter, Bonnie West, took it over. Bonnie owned and operated the store until the late 1980s.

Since it opened, the store was always a gathering place that played a pivotal role in the area’s history. Gary told me that when mining was king, the Spurgeon community once was home to some 1,900 people.

In addition to serving the local miners and farmers, the store also benefited from the nearly steady stream of cars heading to Joplin from Neosho.

But all of that was a long time ago. There really isn’t much to the Spurgeon community anymore, and Route NN doesn’t get the traffic that it once did. So when Gary and Sandy bought the building at auction about seven years ago, running a grocery store was the furthest thing from their minds.

“I really bought it for the 30 acres that came with it,” Gary said.

But one day, shortly after buying the building, Gary was out trying to fix the old front porch when someone stopped and asked if he was reopening the store. For weeks after that, more and more people asked the couple the same thing.

“They kept asking and asking until we thought, ‘Maybe we should,’ even though we had never worked in retail,” Gary said.

As it turns out, the time was right for the Hatfields to open the store. For 20 years, Sandy worked for a dentist in Neosho. At about the time the couple purchased the grocery building, the dentist retired. The couple figured maybe it was time for Sandy to make a career change, so she agreed to take over the bulk of the grocery store work.

Of course, when she agreed to do that, Sandy didn’t know exactly what she was getting into.

“I had no idea the hours I would spend working on the store,” she said.

Sandy spends more than 80 hours a week at the store. Gary, when he can find time between his full-time job at La-Z-Boy in Neosho and working his farm, also logs hours in the store, as does the couple’s daughter, Christy McNabb.

“I’m guessing no one is getting minimum wage,” I said.

Sandy laughed and said, “No. No one is getting minimum wage.”

The store serves as a gathering place for locals in the morning, and Sandy operates a small deli counter that serves up homemade sandwiches for local builders, utility workers and farmers. The local farmers also make use of the feed store, and if you have a sweet tooth, you can pick up some of Gary’s homemade fudge at the store

“Anything to make a buck,” Gary said with a laugh.

The official address for the Hatfield Grocery and Feed store is 9420 NN Highway, but that doesn’t tell you much. Probably the best way to find the store is to take Highway 71 south of Interstate 44 to the Iris Road exit. Head west on Iris Road about two miles to Route NN, and follow NN north until you get to the store.

The store is open from 7:30 a.m. until 7 p.m. Mondays through Saturdays, and from 10 a.m. until 5 p.m. on Sundays.

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Mike Pound: Store still serves as gathering place

A Missouri lawmaker has filed legislation that would allow Interstate 70 to be turned into a toll road allowing a private company to fix the interstate in exchange for tolls. Do you think this bill should pass?

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