Missouri Life September 2023

STORY Glory Fagan

F ifty years ago, during its inaugural year, Missouri Life featured an article on roadside stands. Even in 1973, roadside stands were nothing new. Generations of hucksters, as they were called, had long hawked their wares from makeshift markets along pedestrian thoroughfares, city streets, and gravel roads. These stalls sold fruits and vegetables—perishable produce brought directly from field to market by individuals and families just trying to make a living. My grandfather, Paul Christensen, was one such pavement merchant. Along with my grandmother, Maxine, and their children, and like his father before him, Grandpa peddled apples and tomatoes and his signa ture horseradish from stalls along the north end streets of St. Joseph. One early 20th-century census even listed my grandfathers’ occupation as “hucksters,” which derives from a Middle English word meaning “haggle.” My dad refers to times during which a family photo was taken in front of their makeshift market as “our Grapes of Wrath days.” Following the Depression, when economic prospects improved, Grandpa moved his produce venture, by this time called Payless Fruit Market, to a cement block building on St. Joseph Avenue. I spent nearly every Sunday of my early childhood amid the pungent scents of potatoes, watermelon, and root vegetables. By the time Missouri Life was founded in 1973, and at the height of the Blue Laws in Missouri that restricted Sunday liquor sales, Grandpa had expanded the market’s offerings to include a cooler filled with 3.2 beer. Fifty years later, the roadside stand model is seeing a resurgence as families opt to eschew the brick-and-mortar model for a more flexible operation that fits their lifestyle. Some are still true roadside stands. Others can’t be found on any map but do business on the internet. Still others hearken back to the lemonade stands of our youth, as enterprising entrepreneurs in their teens and younger raise, market, and sell wares produced by their own toil. These are their stories.

Opposite , Erma Evans, of Three Chicks & Co., is the youngest of three sisters who operate their Gower area chicken-and-egg business. From Top , The Valley Wagon at Grain Valley offers a colorful array of seasonal, fresh produce. Writer Glory Fagan’s father (far left) grew up helping out at his family’s roadside fruit stand. The beautiful floral offerings of Rudy Lane Flower Farm near Linn change with the seasons.

THE VALLEY WAGON, GLORY FAGAN, MEGAN RUDOFF

CREDIT

31 / SEPTEMBER 2023