Belleville History Alive!

Customers queue at Clark and Miles, part 3

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ClarK Continued from Page 1. es She worked in the store that day and every other day, answering the phone and taking orders. She remembers Mrs. Miles called the shop worried no customers had come through the doors. Her fear proved unfounded. At that time, Clark remembers four pounds of sausage sold for $1 and two pounds of pork sold for about the same. Cheese came coated in heavy wax in round, wooden boxes and dill pickles were supplied in wooden kegs. Eggs and butter were also sold in the store. Kathleen Clark Most of the meat was ormuch easier as Clark and dered from Canada Packers in Toronto, but Clark and Miles Miles supplied meat to the Onalso went to sale barns and tario School for the Deaf, the farms outside the city. From hospital and the large jail that there they took the meat to stood behind the court house Clark's abattoir on North St. across the road from Belleville James Street (now Prince of Collegiate Institute. Clark remembers her husWales Drive) which was then band had a "wonderful sense of outside city limits. There used to be a few Though the abattoir is now humor. characters in those days to gone, the house Jack built for Kathleen near the slaughter- liven people up." One such character came to house is still standing and still the store every Saturday. He her home. threw open the front door, Before long, Clark and Miles looked at Jack and hollered, outgrew the little shop and "Hey Jack, what time does the mov-.-J into 184 Front St. De- 4:30 bus leave for Deseronto?" sk! o Ed Thomas' tobacco store. Jack always cried back, "At They rented for a while, and 4:30." eventually bought the building Like clockwork, the man which is now the Limestone thanked Jack, turned on his Cafe. heels and walked out, Clark recalls with a laugh. Regular customers came to the store daily and customers placed orders by phone. The furthest request came from Italy. Brigadier Don Ketcheson was on his way home from Saigon after serving with the East Asia. Truce Commission when he stopped in Italy en route. He wrote his sister in Belleville, mentioned the date of his arrival and requested "an eight-pound standing roast of beef from Clark and Miles." Orders also came annually from Kingston from customers requesting hind quarters of beef for winter consumption. Leonard Sweet, Clark and Miles' right hand man, made deliveries. "He started at 16 on a bicycle," Clark recalls. Eventually they bought a truck, making Sweet's job that Order for roast came from Italy Jack Clark and Bob Miles in their store. i The first Clark and Miles delivery truck. The Clark daughters, Betty, Kay and Nell, also helped out in the store. Nell, who now lives in British Columbia, remembers her father was extremely picky about cleanliness and quality. She recalls her father saying, "If it isn't good enough to hang in the window, i# isn't good enough to put in the counter-." The sawdust that blanketed the shop's floor came from a nearby sawmill. After 30 years of extremely successful operations, Clank and Miles had trained, through apprenticeships, most of Belleville's butchers, Clark said. Then, in 1966, Clark died. "We didn't have anything more to do with it. Mr. Miles paid me rent and I never worked in the store a day after Jack died," Kathleen said. Miles ran the store for a while longer, and eventually sold the building to the Coles who kept it as a butchershop. They later moved their shop to Picton. Almost 30 years after her husband's death, a tear still comes to Kathleen's eye as she remembers his life. Many, many Belleville residents also remember with fondness the good food and service available 12 hours a day, six days a week, at Clark and Miles.

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