The Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company, whose stores were more commonly known as A&P stores, was the retail giant of the early-1900s. Even more so than Walmart today, the A&P stores proliferated in almost every town across America. Because of their smaller size, it was easy to have A&P stores pop up in any neighborhood so they were within walking distance of homes.
In 1930, Great Atlantic & Pacific was operating about 16,000 stores (in comparison, Walmart operates about 10,500 stores).
A portrait of Millard C. Emery. South Portland Historical Society photo
In South Portland alone, we had A&P stores in Ferry Village, Willard, Meeting House Hill, Knightville, Pleasantdale and Thornton Heights. Our earliest A&P opened in the 1910s, with the peak being the 1920s and 1930s when they had expanded to most neighborhoods.
The early stores were much smaller with a more limited selection, as was the norm with small grocers in those times. Beginning in 1936, Great Atlantic & Pacific began opening larger “super” stores with greater offerings, including meat and produce. We saw the change to that larger format when a larger A&P was constructed on Thomas Street in Knightville in the late-1930s. An even larger A&P was constructed next to that store, at 170 Ocean St., in the early-1960s.
Running an A&P store came with the advantages of obtaining your inventory at more competitive prices. As the success of the Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co. grew, it put pressure on the grocers who owned and operated their own stores. To level the playing field, the Independent Grocers Alliance (IGA) formed in 1926. Smaller independent stores could affiliate themselves with the IGA and, as a member of a purchasing collaborative, obtain their own lower prices.
Another similar organization formed in the mid-1920s, the Red & White Stores. These also were independently-owned stores, but being part of the Red & White collaborative meant help with many facets of operating a grocery, including accessing Red & White-branded products at competitive prices.
Let’s take a look at the life of a grocer who operated the A&P in the Pleasantdale neighborhood of South Portland in the 1930s.
The USS Virginia. Millard Emery was stationed on the Virginia during WWI, from May, 1917, to February, 1918. South Portland Historical Society photo
Millard C. Emery was a popular grocer in his time. Resident Pete Taylor described him in his memoirs as the “genial Millard Emery.” Millard was born in Portland in 1898. He enlisted in the Navy in 1916 when he was just 18 years old. When the U.S. entered the war in 1917, he was posted briefly on the USS Warrington, then served nine months on the USS Virginia.
When the Spanish flu arrived in the Navy yard in Philadelphia in September, 1918, Emery was stationed on a receiving ship there. He returned to Portland at the height of the pandemic, however, and married Ella Batchelder on Oct. 5, 1918.
After he was honorably discharged from the Navy in 1920, Emery worked as a clerk in small retail stores. Millard and Ella lived for a short time in her hometown of Haverhill, Massachusetts, where their first son, Hazen, was born. They soon moved back to the Portland area where he worked at the Sawyer-Barker Company in Portland in the 1920s. In the mid-1920s, they divorced and Millard married Ruth Grant. Millard and Ruth had three children together: Patricia, Russell and Doris.
Around 1932, Millard Emery was hired on to manage the A&P grocery at 866 Broadway, in the Pleasantdale neighborhood of South Portland. The A&P had been operating there since the early-1920s. In 1934, the Emery family moved their home from Portland to Cumberland Road in South Portland. All of the Emery children attended South Portland High School and the Emery family were members of the Elm Street Methodist Church.
A 1935 image of the storefronts at 864-870 Broadway. At left is the Broadway Barber Shop; at right is Ward’s Drug Store, and the A&P store that was run by Millard Emery is at center. South Portland Historical Society photo
When the A&P closed around 1941, Millard decided to start his own grocery. He reopened the store in the same storefront at 866 Broadway and decided to affiliate himself with the Red & White Stores. His new store was called Emery’s Red & White.
He only had about a year of operation before the U.S. entered WWII and Millard decided to close the store and join the Navy, once again in service to his country. When the war ended, Millard returned and became the first veteran of both World Wars to serve as commander of the Stewart P. Morrill Post, from 1946-1947.
After the war, Millard Emery went to work at a grocery in Portland, Economy Market, for a few years. By the early-1950s, he decided to follow a new career path, taking a job as a teller at Casco Bank & Trust. He retired in 1979 after 28 years of working for Casco Bank.
Millard was a well-known and respected member of the South Portland community. He served on the Zoning Board of Appeals for 20 years. He was also a long-time member of the Masons, Stewart P. Morrill Post of the American Legion, and South Portland Lions Club (serving a term as the president).
Millard died in 1982 and is buried at Forest City Cemetery.
Note: South Portland Historical Society offers a free Online Museum with over 16,000 images available for viewing with a keyword search. You can find it at https://sphistory.pastperfectonline.com and, if you appreciate what we do, feel free to make a donation by using the donation button on the home page. If you have photographs or other information to share about South Portland’s past, we would love to hear from you. South Portland Historical Society can be reached at 207-767-7299, by email at sphistory04106@gmail.com, or by mail at 55 Bug Light Park, South Portland, ME 04106.
Kathryn Onos DiPhilippo is executive director of the South Portland Historical Society. She can be reached at sphistory04106@gmail.com.
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