I unashamedly stole this idea from the original TV program “Things That Aren’t There Anymore,” produced in 1993 by Philadelphia PBS station WHYY channel 12. As Bill Campbell stated in the introduction, “All of these places, and many more, defined the pleasures of life in the Delaware Valley… and they are all things that aren’t there anymore.”
While the WHYY program looked at Horn & Hardarts, Willow Grove Amusement Park, grand movie theaters, and the bygone Market Street department stores, we have our own version of Things That Aren’t There Anymore, or TTATA, that are no less significant or memorable to the scores of present and former residents who experienced them firsthand.
A generation born in the late 1800s must have been amazed by the progress seen in Riverton through the 20th century. In 1974, Therese Spackman Barclay Willits wrote a poem to her lifelong friend Marjorie Marcy Crowell on the occasion of her 80th birthday. The nostalgia she must have felt in composing a poem about “The Riverton of yore” is unmistakable.
That nostalgic tug is no less strong in the minds of Rivertonians alive today.
The difficulty in illustrating some of them is the lack of photos and written information. I have had some luck in the past with soliciting things from our readership.
Having heard stories of the Nelly Bly express train that once barreled through town at 60mph on the rails now traveled by the NJ Transit’s light rail line, I asked in a May 2009 newsletter for some help. Any image of the Nellie Bly train remained elusive until Pam and Don Deitz found a negative depicting the locomotive that Pam’s father, Benjamin Percival, had taken c1939. Find more about that discovery here.
Another hard-to-find photo for a fondly remembered business surfaced in 2016 when Jill and Hank Croft let us scan several photos of Klipple’s Fine Pastries.
Bob Foster’s 2018 Facebook post served as icing on the cake when it showed a color photo of Klipple’s that elicited a flood of nostalgic memories.
The landmarks and businesses mentioned in Therese Spackman Barclay Willits’ “Rhyme of Old Riverton,” such as Dreer’s Nursery, the Lyceum, and the steamer Columbia, are those of an earlier generation. Today, a newer generation reminisces about the things that they experienced back in their day.
So I’ll ask the Universe again and try to crowdsource information and photos of three businesses in particular that readers continue to bring up in their comments – the Sharon Sweet Shop, The Victorian Thymes, and Mary Lou’s.
I am convinced that some of the best examples of Riverton’s history lay tucked away in attics, junk drawers, garages, and basements forgotten in old family albums and shoeboxes of Kodachrome slides.
What scenes of your youth might motivate some lines in a ballad like the ones Therese Spackman Barclay Willits composed for her dear friend?
Let’s collaborate. In a poem with the rhyme scheme abcb, the second line rhymes with the fourth line, but the first and third lines don’t rhyme with each other. One stanza – four lines – you can do that! Send yours in a comment below, in a Facebook comment, or in an email. I’ll stitch them together. -JMc
ADDED 3/21/2023: My challenge to readers to compose a quatrain poem about a scene of their youth in Riverton was met brilliantly by Tom Parry. He wrote four, and together they depict a vivid scene from “back in the day.”
On the corner of Main Street and Broad,
Stood Cottington’s General store,
Was I in 6th grade or 7th,
Those details don’t come to the fore.
I went in with a friend, Mackie,
To buy a pack of cigs,
Came out with a pack of L&M,
Man, we thought we were the bigs.
The folks, they both smoked Winston,
Didn’t give it much of a thought,
But with their friends over one night,
I found out that I’d been caught.
Mom rarely lost her cool,
No yelling, no stomping the floor,
Just picked up my pack of L&M,
And said, ” Care of I have one of yours?”
Ah, Klipples , still have not found Danish I like better
Joe d
Sharon’s Sweet Shop was owned by Helen when I was a kid. I was there drinking Take-A-Boost, Drink-A-Toast or Cokes so much, she put me to work dipping ice cream cones for the little leaguers after their games.
Remember the local grocery store, the Nu Way? Milanese Pizza is still around, but it used to be a few stores down. I have fond memories of getting lunch there. You’d have to be careful not to get pizza grease on your homework, or the teachers would know you did it right before class!
I found this photo of the Nu Way being demolished:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/cameragirl/215262457/in/photostream/
Mike! Thanks for tracking down this photo of the NuWay grocery demolition. Keep a look out for any other elusive photos of the Sharon Shop and the MaryLou Shop and other long gone businesses. It’s funny that I can find 75 year old photos of Riverton in our postcard collection more easily than ones from the 1970s-present day.
On the corner of Main Street and Broad,
Stood Cottington’s General store,
Was I in 6th grade or 7th,
Those details don’t come to the fore.
I went in with a friend, Mackie,
To buy a pack of cigs,
Came out with a pack of L&M,
Man, we thought we were the bigs.
The folks, they both smoked Winston,
Didn’t give it much of a thought,
But with their friends over one night,
I found out that I’d been caught.
Mom rarely lost her cool,
No yelling, no stomping the floor,
Just picked up my pack of L&M,
And said, ” Care of I have one of yours?”
Brilliant, Tom! All the more so because this is the first and only submission. Unlike the Willits poem, consisting of a lot of separate stanzas, your four quatrains taken together depict an entire vivid scene from your youth.