R.I.P.?: Mary Ann Hannon writes us from Grand Junction, Colo.:
“Are you aware that Feb. 12’s Round the Square is with the
obituaries? With all the reminiscing, is this a Freudian slip?”

MORE STORES: With that rhetorical questions behind us, we begin
more reports on those old stores:

Thomas McAndrew Jr. of Tampa, Fla., writes, “In the late ’30s
when I sold the Bradford Evening Star for a nickel, across from the
Holley Hotel was Jock Holleran’s cigar shop and the Bay State
restaurant where my father Happy McAndrew was a bartender/short
order cook. They had live entertainment on Saturday nights one of
which I believe was in 1937. I met Jack Dempsey, the heavyweight
champ while he was enjoying the entertainment.”

Cheri Campbell of Sheffield Lake, Ohio, writes: “I remember the
‘Barbie Doll Lady’! – at least, I think I do. I had a large
collection of Barbie dolls and have a strong memory of being taken
with my mother, Sandy (Everly) Berlin – now Hudspith, and who just
moved back to Mount Jewett after living in North Carolina for the
last decade – to, I think, Seaward’s Variety on East Main street to
buy some handmade outfits for my Barbie doll.”

“I think Mrs. Warner herself might have even been in the store
at the time. It could have been a nearby store, but I’m sure it was
in the East Main business district. I remember being thrilled at
the chance to buy pretty handmade Barbie clothes, and I dearly wish
I still had those little outfits.”

Kathy Thomas passes along a short list of stores: the Town Bar
which had apartments on the upper floor, Taschler Loan Co., and the
Bradford Inn – which her dad Matt Bain had owned before moving his
establishment to Marshburg. The Town Bar, she notes, was owned by
Joe Thomas. Kathy’s mother Rita Bain worked at Walter Neely’s.
Meanwhile, Kathy also tells us that Bain’s Bar – which came up in
another discussion a couple years ago – was not a speakeasy as we
had reported at the time.

Tony Grill of New Philadelphia, Ohio, writes: “Watching Around
the Square and thinking back to Bradford and all the stores that
once were, and wonder if anyone remembers the popcorn guy with his
cart on the corner of Pine and Main on those warm summer
nights.”