This story begins thirty-five years before the marriage of Dick and Leann Denning.   In fact, it starts prior to their births, back in 1919.   My Grandpa Denning, George W. Denning, had returned from World War I in late 1918 and was married to Grandma Denning, Zoie Telford, on January 8, 1919.  While enlisted in the war, my Grandpa was not able to pay for the farm that he owned and so on his return, he lost most of his land to the bank.  That meant that he, like most other soldiers returning from the war, was looking for work.

After his marriage, he built a small home in Iona and he and his new wife would work odd jobs to make ends meet.  In 1924, Grandpa Denning was appointed as the Postmaster in Iona.  The Post Office was located in a rented building on Main Street.  Later it was moved to a building next to their home.

Because the new Postmaster position did not generate a lot of income (in fact there was no salary, just a percentage on stamp sales), Grandma Denning mostly ran the Post Office while Grandpa was off doing other odd jobs.  Along with her postal duties, they had a small eating place called the “Do Drop Inn” Cafe, where my Grandma would make hamburgers and shakes for anyone wanting a meal.  A few years later, the status of the Iona Post Office was moved from Fourth Class Post Office to a Third Class Post Office, at which time Grandpa started to receive a salary.

Around 1949, my grandparents built a new home on Main Street.  Just north of their new home they also built a new building that housed the new Post Office and a grocery store, called “Denning Grocery”.  During the 1950s my grandparents worked both the Post Office and grocery store, along with my Uncle Bill, my dad’s older brother.

The following picture is of those that helped my Grandpa build his store and what the finished building looked like.

Here is a picture of my grandparents standing next to the P.O. Boxes, taken around 1960.

George & Zoie Denning

Toward the end of the 1950s, my uncle Bill decided to move to Idaho Falls and open up a business there and so he left the partnership he had with my Grandpa.  My Dad had just returned from his mission, married my mother and they were living in Rexburg, Idaho.  He was attending Ricks College.  A week after school had started, he got sick and was not able to attend school for two weeks and decided that he had missed too much school, so he left school and they, my father and mother, moved in with his parents in Iona.  While there, my Grandpa’s health started to decline and so my parents decided to buy the grocery store from my grandparents in 1960.  My Dad also became a Postal Clerk and would work in the Post Office with my Grandpa and later moved to Idaho Falls to become a Postman.

This is where Doug and I enter the picture.  This grocery store, known as “Denning Grocery” would be our life for the next 8 years.  This was my school, outside of school.  Looking back on these formative years of my life, I really had no idea what it took to run a small grocery store.  This store was our playground, and where we learned how to work.  Since there was a lot to do in running a small grocery store, a lot of the smaller tasks would be assigned to Doug and me.  We were young, but my parents trusted us and basically gave us work to do.  As young children, we would complain that we had too much work to do and not enough time to play.  Wait, I believe adults do the same thing if they feel their playtime is being reduced!!!

What follows is a list of chores that Doug and I were responsible for completing during these years.  I cannot list what my sisters did, because they were younger and honestly, I don’t believe Debbie did much but follow us around.

Here are a number of tasks that I can remember doing in those years of my life:

1. Sorting Soda Bottles.  In those days, there were no cans, all soda was sold in bottles and when empty the customer would return the bottles for a cent or two refund.  All these bottles had to be sorted in two groups, Coke or Pepsi, for the soda delivery man to pick up.  The bottles would go back to the bottling company to be washed and reused.  There was a third smaller company, RC (Royal Crown) cola, but there were not a lot of bottles sent back here.  To this day I can tell you what company produces the major brands of soda, because of the many hours of sorting through these bottles.
2. Bagging Potatoes.  You may wonder what this means, so let me explain.  My parents would purchase potatoes in the 100 lbs bags, to save money.  These larger bags would then need to be reduced down to 10 lbs bags to be sold.  Doug and I were asked to pull the potatoes from the 100 lbs bags and put them into the 10 lbs plastic bags.  Not a bad job, unless we were lucky enough to put our finger through a rotten potato in the 100 lbs bag.  Not sure if you have ever smelt a rotten potato, but that pungent smell does wonders to the nostrils and lingers on the digits.
3. Burning Cardboard.  In those days, we did not have recycling of cardboard boxes.  So, after receiving new product for the store, Doug and I were asked to take all the boxes behind the store and burn them.  There was a cinder block burn area.  I would stack all the boxes as high as I could and then start them on fire and stand and watch them topple and burn to where there was nothing left.  I guess my parents should have been concerned that I would grow up to be a pyromaniac.  One day as I stood and watched the boxes burn, a burning piece of cardboard floated up and away from the fire and landed on the back of my neck.   It burned and hurt.  I believe after that, my fascination waned and I lost those tendencies leading to pyromania.
4. Mopping the Floors.  Since we were closed on Sundays, Doug and I were tasked with mopping the floors for the upcoming week.  After church, he and I would let ourselves in the back door, fill the mop bucket with soapy water and spend a couple of hours mopping the floors in the store.  Since we were the only ones there, sometimes we would help ourselves to candy.  I remember once we found a box of snickers in the back and thinking that our parents would never know, we would help ourselves to them.  There was an unwritten rule in the store, we could eat the penny candy, but for anything that cost more than a penny, we had to ask.  Looking back, I am pretty sure that our parents knew where those snickers were going, since there were no mouse dropping in the box.  I remember one Sunday afternoon Doug and I were mopping the floor and there was a knock on the front door.  It was locked, so I opened it and a man stood there.  He had just come out of church, which happened to be across the street.  He started to tell me that we should not be open on Sunday and I told him we were not open, that my brother and I were just mopping the floor.  He then said, “Well then, you need to turn your OPEN sign off.”  Whoever had closed up on Saturday night had forgotten to turn the sign off.  I find it interesting that someone in the community had taken on the responsibility to tell us to close our store on Sunday.   And, what I find even more interesting is that the door was locked and he had to knock to get our attention.
5. Mouse Traps.  Being a grocery store and the doors opening and closing all day long, and the back door could be open for hours, based on what was being delivered, there were always mice running through the store.  Doug and I were asked to set and check mouse traps throughout the store.  I guess that is why today I have no problem setting traps and disposing of dead mice.  Trust me, I saw a lot of dead mice during that period in my life.
6. Hamburger.  Another cost saving measure was to buy beef in larger chunks and then Mom would take a sharp knife and cut it down to smaller chunks.  I was never allowed to do the cutting, but I was tasked with putting those smaller chunks through an electric meat grinder, creating hamburger that was then packaged and sold.  I found it fascinating that a chunk of meat would go into the top of the grinder and then these squiggly worms would come out the other end.  Every once in a while I would taste the worm portion of the meat, just because I could.
7. Selling Candy.  Through the front doors of the store and behind the registers, were the candy shelves.  There were various candies, ranging from 2 for a penny cinnamon bears to 10 cent candy bars.  After school, there would be a mad rush of children coming into the store to buy candy.  Mom and Dad would be busy with customers or other jobs requiring their attention, so Doug and I were responsible for selling the candy.  We would take their money and give them the candy.  We had to learn the value of all the candy and how to give change back.
8. Stocking the Shelves.  At times, we were asked to take the price stamper (put the price on the product) and stock the shelves.  Mom has told me that as a toddler, I was very helpful in re-arranging product on the shelves.  But, as we got older Doug and I would pull product from the back room, set the price marker, stamp the price on the product, and stock the shelves.  We were taught to always put the newer product to the back, so that the older product would be purchased first.  I am sure that there were times that we would have miss marked product and my parents ended up taking a loss.
9. Tarring the Roof.  After a heavy rain, we would find that there were holes in the roof.  Since the roof was flat, with a slight incline to the rear of the store, there were times when the water would work through cracks in the tar and leak into the store onto product.  Dad and us boys would climb up on the roof, find the source of the leak and spread tar down on the cracks.  At times, Dad would buy a number of tar buckets and we would spend a couple days spreading tar on the roof.
10. Mowing the Grass.  Since my grandparents had built their house just south of the store, we as children would spend a lot of hours at their house.  Behind their house and behind the store there was a large area of grass.  My grandparents had purchased a small tractor lawn mower.  Doug and I would get on that mower and mow the lawn in front of my grandparents’ house and then the large area of grass in the back.  After having completed the mowing, we would then have to sweep up the grass.  There was a grass sweeper that we would pull behind the tractor.  Sometimes for fun, we would put the tractor in 3rd gear and pull the sweeper in circles.  Others would hang on to it and basically be flying in the air.  Now, this was frowned upon by the adults and we would get in trouble for doing this, but it didn’t stop us when they were not around.

I am sure there were a lot of other tasks that I am not remembering at this time.   But, what I do know is that my parents gave us a very valuable gift during this time period, that of the value of hard work.  Even after my parents sold the store (another story, for another time), my parents were able to find jobs for us to do (as Debbie has already mentioned in her post).  Through our teenage years, Doug and I worked at the cemetery, hauling firewood, mowing lawns, digging ditches, hauling hay and straw, and other jobs that would pop up in that small farming community of Iona.  All this, along with sports, snowmobiles, motor cycles, and biking all over the area.  Oh, we would also spend time watching TV, one of the three local channels, if the antenna was working correctly.