Partnership renewed friendship
Editor’s note: Margaret Fleming Johnson, who was interviewed by Glenn Tunney for this 3-part series when it was originally published in 1999, passed away in October 2001.In May 1956, 30-year-old Bill Johnson resigned as pharmacist at Brown Drug Store, where he had shared those duties for seven years with owner Grant Brown. Bill purchased Central Pharmacy at the intersection of Bank and High streets. Bill and Grant, formerly co-workers, now owned competing drugstores across the street from each other. In 1959, Bill married Margaret J. Fleming of California. Working together to modernize their business, they introduced free prescription delivery service to the Brownsville area in 1960. Margaret delivered the prescriptions in a 1960 Comet purchased from Joe Curcio’s Mercury dealership on old National Pike East in a building now occupied by the National City walk-in bank.
Customers patronized Central Pharmacy for products other than medicine.
“We were selling garden seeds, which had been sold at that store as far back as the late 1800s,” said Margaret.
“The seed business goes back to Brosius’ time (an earlier Brownsville pharmacy),” said Bill. “Charlie D’Antonio had bought Central from Brosius, who had bought it from D. Fred Robinson.”
“Spring was a very busy time,” explained Margaret. “The bulk seeds, often in 50-pound bags, were stored in barrels in a garage down near the railroad tracks (near the wharf entrance). We had two or three clerks going steady during the spring. They would carry the seeds to the storeroom and weigh them for the customers, some by the pound, some by the dram. Rebecca Chew, who had worked many years for Brosius, was a great help to seed customers.”
When the Western Union office in the Monongahela Hotel closed, the Johnsons operated the agency at Central. Margaret and clerks Thelma Cone and Mary Fleming Saliba handled the Western Union business.
“People would wire money via telegram,” Margaret said.
“How did that work?” I asked.
“They had to have a code on the telegram for identification purposes They’d give you a test question, like your mother’s maiden name. It would always be down at the bottom, a “TQ,” to further identify the person.”
Most telegrams could be phoned, but some had to be hand delivered. Margaret sadly remembered delivering notifications of military personnel who had been killed.
“I remember one time, I had to go out to Grindstone. They called me from Uniontown and told me the telegram was coming, and boy, I never did know how to handle that.”
“I thought the military handled that,” I said.
“They would come later, but the initial notification came from Western Union. The manager called me from Uniontown. I said, ‘How do I do this?’ He said the best thing to do is go to a church and see if you can’t get a minister to go with you. And so I did.”
In 1963, the Johnsons purchased a second store, Reed’s Rexall Drugs, from Ed Collins, who had purchased the store from Bill Reed, son of the business’ founder. Bill Johnson managed Reed’s. To manage Central, the Johnsons hired W. Alan Jones, son of Wilbur and Mildred Jones of Stewart Street. Jones, who has since passed away, left Central later when he purchased a pharmacy in Point Marion.
In 1964, fate arranged a reunion between Bill Johnson and his former employer, Grant Brown, who was still operating Brown Drug Store. Over the Valentine’s Day holiday, Grant’s wife, Evelyn Sprouse Brown, died very suddenly. Margaret received a poignant telephone call from Grant.
“Grant did beautiful windows,” she told me, “decorated with valentines and valentine hearts. Those Russell Stover candies were in beautiful satin and lace hearts, and he would fix up those windows so pretty. Russell Stover candy was franchised at Brown Drug Store and not available elsewhere in town.
“I remember when Evelyn died. He had that store full of candy. He called us and told us to go over and get it, gave us the keys to the store. He told Bill to take it over to Central and sell what he could of it.” Valentine candies in lace and satin hearts were removed from Brown’s shelves and windows while Grant mourned his wife’s passing. Those windows were never again decorated. A few weeks later, Grant called Bill Johnson with a proposal.
“He approached me about forming a partnership and merging his store with Central,” Bill said. “I remember talking to our accountant at the time and we asked him what he thought. He said partnerships very seldom work out.”
But this partnership became the exception to the rule, thanks to a quarter century of trust and respect that had developed between Grant Brown and Bill Johnson.
“It was a good business relationship,” Margaret said. “They closed Brown Drug Store and moved the stock into what we called ‘old’ Central. It was a little store between Pittsburgh Plate Glass and Jane Lee’s clothing store.
“Grant brought the Russell Stover candy franchise with him. Brown Drug Store had also been the only store in town that could fill UMWA prescriptions. That was one of the first third-party prescription plans. He brought that over with him to Central too.”
With the combined customer base, the little store was badly in need of more space. Bill ran Reed’s and Grant ran Central. When Jane Lee, the clothing store next door to Central, closed, the partnership quickly arranged to rent that storeroom. The newly expanded store was remodeled and air-conditioned.
“Herb Mitchell did the contracting work,” said Margaret. “Angelo Cole and Sons of California did the heating and cooling, and Joe Baranti decorated it for us. He used to do Kart’s windows, Miller’s in Charleroi; he did beautiful work.”
A grand opening was held in May 1965, and “new” Central was born. Clerks included Iola Cameron, Thelma Cone, Mary Fleming Saliba, Connie Musar and Irene Gordon. Still the business kept growing.
In December of the same year, Margaret’s uncle Edward J. Fleming, pharmacist and owner of Bush and Marsh Drugs, became ill. Bush and Marsh was in the Snowdon Building, two doors away from Reed’s, which was in the Union Station building. The Brown – Johnson partnership purchased Bush and Marsh in May 1966, merged the store into Reed’s, and closed Bush and Marsh later that year. The two clerks, Joanne Twigger and Mary Caporale, were transferred to Reed’s, joining Eleanor Musar, Mary Sabol and Emily Bakewell, who already worked there.
“When Bush and Marsh closed,” said Margaret, “the telephone business moved to Reed’s.”
“What was the telephone business?” I asked her.
“People paying their telephone bills. That was the big thing at Bush and Marsh. They were the payment agency for the telephone company for years.”
“You couldn’t mail it in?” I asked.
“Oh, yes,” said Margaret, “but people were downtown all the time. They walked all over town to pay their bills. The water company was in Gallatin Bank; the gas company office was on Bank Street, where the municipal authority is now. West Penn was in the Towne House across the street from Bush and Marsh.”
“With Bush and Marsh closing, what drugstores remained in Brownsville?” I asked.
“Thrift, Central and Reed’s downtown, plus Robinson’s on upper Market Street,” said Margaret.
In late 1973, Grant Brown’s health began to decline. On April 1, 1974, Grant sold his interest in the partnership to Bill Johnson. Grant continued to work for Bill when he was able, ironically completing the circle begun in 1940, when 14-year-old Bill had come to Brown Drug Store looking for a part-time job. Grant’s health continued to worsen, and on Jan. 24, 1975, he died at the age of 72. Buried in Belle Vernon, he is survived by two sons, Grant Jr. of Detroit and Ned of Columbus, and one daughter, Carol Brown Townsend, of West Hampton, N.J.
Central’s prescription counter was closed in 1974, and Central was renamed “Central Cut Rate.” Alonzo Foster, a pharmacist who had worked in both Reed’s and Central, now shared the pharmacists’ duties with Bill at Reed’s. Margaret managed Central as a health and beauty aid store for the next four years. When the roof of that building, which was owned by the Kauffmann-Shure estate, began leaking badly, insurance became impossible to secure.
“We finally closed it out of necessity,” said Bill, “because when it rained, it rained harder in some areas inside the back of that store than it did outside. We couldn’t tolerate that.”
Central closed permanently in 1978. Stock was moved to the bulging Reed’s drugstore. The bulk seed business ended. The Russell Stover franchise moved to Reed’s. In the space of 15 years, Brown Drug Store, Central Pharmacy, Bush and Marsh Drug Store and Reed’s Drug Store had all merged into one store.
To make more room at Reed’s, they removed walls. Reed’s took over part of the Union Station waiting room, with the pharmacy department expanding into the station’s former women’s lounge. In 1986, the Johnsons leased the vacant Orsino Jewelers room next to Reed’s to use as an office and stockroom. Bill ran the pharmacy and Margaret was business manager.
Then in May 1996, Bill, who was 70, suffered a heart attack. Forty years after Bill Johnson bought Central, he and Margaret decided it was time to sell. Inventory and prescription files were sold to Eric Amber of the Medicine Shoppe. On June 29, 1996, the long legacy of four Brownsville drugstores ended when Bill and Margaret Johnson closed the door of Reed’s Drug Store behind them for the last time. They now share an active retirement at their Pearl Street home. Their three children, Dr. William F. Johnson III, Mary Grace Johnson Bohna and Muriel Johnson, all live nearby.
In this saga of two pharmacists, there is one aspect of Grant Brown’s life we have left untouched. When I hear the name Grant Brown, I do not think of pharmacies. I think of photographic treasures. Grant had a wonderful collection of glass plate negatives depicting historical scenes of Brownsville. It is that collection, many of which were reprinted in the Brownsville Telegraph, which made his name so familiar to area residents.
Who were the photographers who took those pictures? Do all of those glass negatives still exist? Next week, we will conclude this series by seeing another side of Grant Brown, local historian and collector of historic photographs of Brownsville.
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Comments about these articles may be sent to Editor Mark O’Keefe, 8-18 East Church Street, Uniontown, PA or e-mailed to mo’keefe@heraldstandard.com .