A LOOK BACK -- Jerry Person

Two weeks ago we looked at the father-and-son team of Frank and

Harold Schuth, who operated the meat department in the Chamness & Schuth

Market in December 1933. This week we’ll look at the elder Chamness,

Austin, who ran the grocery section of the store.

Austin Chamness was born in Marion, Ill., in 1885. In 1907 he went to

work at a small country store in the town of Chamness, Ill., a village

his father founded years earlier. He returned to Marion a short time

later to operate his own grocery store and marry Maud Heartwell. This

union produced three children -- May, Leland (Lee) and Roberta (Bobbie).

After selling his grocery store in Marion, the Chamness family moved to

Denver, where Austin operated his own dairy farm. Four years later, he

sold the farm, and the family moved to Hereford, Texas, where he was a

cattle rancher for four years. In 1922 they moved to California, settling

in Fresno, where he was route manager for an ice company. After one year

in Fresno they finally moved to “paradise.” Yes, they moved to Huntington

Beach.

Looking around town, he went to work in the fruit and vegetable

department in the old Safeway Market on Walnut, where he worked alongside

Harold Schuth. After staying for three years at Safeway, he joined forces

with his son, Lee, to open their own meat store inside Chamness grocery

at 209 Main St., in 1926.

If you wanted to phone in your order to them, you called Central, the

operator, and asked to be connected to 1211. You could then order a pound

of Hills Bros. coffee for 31 cents, a 10-pound sack of Gold Medal flour

for 48 cents, maybe a pound of butter at 24 cents, a pound of Brookfield

cheese at 16 cents a pound. Or for the sweet tooth, you could get a

100-pound sack of sugar for $4.90.

From 1926 to 1933 the Chamness & Schuth market was a fixture at 209 Main.

The two families worked hard to keep the shelves stocked with food during

those growing days of the Great Depression.

Austin’s daughter, May, married, and in later years worked in sales in

Santa Ana. But she still lived at 918 Main St. Austin’s daughter, Bobbie,

attended college in Santa Ana. His son, Lee, married and lived across

from May at 917 Main, with his wife, Effie. In the late 1950s, Lee and

Effie ran a small restaurant on Main Street called Lee’s Place.

Next week we’ll finish by looking at Lee’s life and the market’s

employees, and at the three-day opening of their new expanded grocery and

meat market at 205 Main in December 1933.