"spa" = 'neighborhood grocery store', aka 'convenience store'?

Wilson Gray hwgray at GMAIL.COM
Tue Mar 1 20:35:08 UTC 2011


On Tue, Mar 1, 2011 at 11:53 AM, Joel S. Berson <Berson at att.net> wrote:

> In Boston register and business directory, issue 83, allegedly 1918,
> 14 hits for businesses with "spa".in their names.  Some have the
> description "confectioners/ery"
>

_confectionery_

Given that some noted Boston-brahmin families - the Biddles and the Eliots
(some readers may even be aware that T.S. of that latter surname was a
native of Saint Louis) come easily to mind - as well as, no doubt, Boston
families of less renown, have or once had connections to Saint Louis, in
this  may lie the origin of the similar use of "confectionery" in StL.

It was also the case that confectionaries were open on Sunday and on other
days when all major stores were closed and that there was stuff that they
weren't supposed to sell, such as beer, on Sunday. However, if you knew the
owner's son and the two of you shared a single birthday...

--
-Wilson
-----
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"---a strange complaint to come
from the mouths of people who have had to live.
-Mark Twain

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