Head table at the store party, with the entire Turner family present.
Courtesy of the Turner Family that seems most logical— he was, after all, a stranger at many of them.
When theirs was the winning bid, Luther would liquidate the stock quickly, holding a“ going out of business” sale, sometimes hiring someone to handle it, sometimes staying on to do it himself, with Cal at his side. Anything that didn’ t sell he could pack up and take to his own store in Scottsville or sell to another retailer. Now and then he would scout around for another merchant or middleman and sell the whole lot at a small markup. And on a couple of rare occasions, where he thought with the right manager he could turn a store around, he simply bought it outright.
Sometimes he needed short-term bank loans to make the purchases, and the banks were more than happy to work with him. His track record spoke for itself. He used the stock as collateral, and they knew they’ d have their money back in 60 or 90 days. He was“ bankable” in a way that farmers, whose crops might not come in, were not. At other times, he would take on a short-term partner. They would buy a store together, with a handshake as the only contract. They would divide the goods as evenly as possible and flip a coin to see who got what.
Those sales helped make a businessman of young Cal. As he and his dad went from store to store, month after month and year after year, he became more like a partner than simply a helpful son, even though he was still in high school.
In fact, my dad did very well at Scottsville High, even finding time to become a terrific basketball player, all while keeping up a sometimes daunting work schedule in the bargain store and in another that Luther owned 35 miles away in Hartsville, Tennessee. My dad would often get up early on Saturday mornings to make the drive and spend the day, and sometimes the evening, at the store. There were also times when he would leave the house with Luther as early as 1:00 am to drive to a bankruptcy sale.
Meanwhile, Turner’ s Bargain Store continued to do well. The importance of tobacco as a local crop gave my grandfather one of his best early promotional opportunities. Farmers sold their tobacco late in the fall, receiving checks they turned into the only cash many of them saw all year. Luther knew those sale barns were cold, and he came up with the idea of giving each farmer at those sales a good right-hand work glove with a note attached. It said,“ Get the mate to me free at Turner’ s Bargain Store. We will gladly cash your check.” The farmers would go to the store and get the mate to a good pair of gloves, then cash their checks. There they’ d be, inside a store loaded with useful merchandise, with a year’ s worth of crop money in their hands.
30 FINANCIAL HISTORY | Summer 2018 | www. MoAF. org