A Peek into Summers County’s Past: The Talcott Lunch Stand Part 2

TALCOTT W.Va. (Hinton News) - My father was in the 1974 graduating class from Talcott High School, and he attended the recent all-school reunion on Saturday, June 1. My mother and I attended the church service for the reunion held in the Dallas “Bud” Mann Gymnasium in Talcott the following day.

While there Shirla Ballard came up to me and started talking about my column in the paper and how nice it was to see stories about Talcott and the surrounding area. Turns out Shirla is from Talcott.

She was raised in the little Victorian-style home near Rollynsburg Church in Talcott that has been turned into an Airbnb. Shirla and her husband Dave are the Grand Marshals for the 2024 John Henry Days Parade. They have been involved with the committee in some fashion or another for over 25 years.

I just happened to ask her what her maiden name was, she said “Kittinger.” I stopped her because when she said it, it rang a bell. Granddad was a huge collector, especially of local artifacts. I got my love for antiques and local history from my mother Cheryl and especially from her parents.

Growing up grandma always kept the two Tom's Peanut jars you see here on her kitchen counter in Tornado, West Virginia. I was always happier talking to my grandparents and just the “older folks” in general about things that other kids my age found boring. Growing up I was and still am an “old soul” or as my friend Josh now calls me “pawpaw” haha.

I remember her and Granddad telling the story of how he had acquired them from a business that used to be in Talcott, he always just called it “Kittingers”. When Shirla said that was her maiden name I started to put two and two together. I had previously written a story on The Talcott Lunch Stand on January 2, 2024.

In it, I shared what information I had received from the Lowry family that they had it in the mid-1940s when Loyd Lowry started conducting business there. Shirla is unsure when her parents started the Talcott Lunch Stand but remembers being around 3 or 4 when her father returned from the service and then them closing the restaurant. Her mother was Pearl and her father was Garnett. He more commonly went by “G.W.”, which was quite common back in the day for gentlemen to simply go by their two initials.

That would have been in the mid-1940s, so that must have been when Loyd Lowry acquired it and took it over. One can assume when Mr. Lowry purchased the business from the Kittingers that he replaced some of the supplies with newer fixtures at that time. Granddad was good friends with the Lowry’s and that must be how he got ahold of the two Tom's Peanut jars and the Lantz potato chip jar you see here.

I have dealt in antiques since I was 10 years old, so nearly three decades, and I have never seen another Toms jar quite so large. I have seen many of the smaller ones over the years, but the other one is exceptionally larger than the standard jar. It measures 8” in diameter and 13” tall.

Now I will talk a bit about some facts about Mrs. Ballard's life that I found interesting, some of which related to local history I uncovered while interviewing her. Orville and Wilbur Wright, more commonly known as the “Wright Brothers” were trendsetters in the world of flying aircraft having conducted the first successful air flight in 1903 with an airplane they invented and then built themselves. Turns out the Wright Brothers were either G.W.’s second or third cousins.

She had two siblings that she was raised with in Talcott; Peggy Joyce and Rachael Ann. Her husband Dave is from Wyco, West Virginia. He asked her out for the first time on Valentine's Day. They chaperoned the Valentine's dance at Talcott High School on their first date. Dave ended up teaching at Talcott from 1962 to 1965.

Let me depart and finish up my talk about Talcott Lunch Stand. My mother also has a 1940s chalkboard from this business that the menu for the day was written on for the public to see. My grandfather being the…hoarder he was (I referred to him as a scavenger) and collector of local history saved it from the garbage.

It now hangs in the kitchen of my family's future Airbnb in Pence Springs, the Hines Boarding House 2.0. With a photo of the Lunch Stand and the history hanging beside it. The 1951 advertisement you see is a Christmas promotional piece after Mr. Lowry took it over.

One last thing to add in regards to this piece is we are unsure of the years or between which owners these other two men were involved, or in what capacity. William Humphry just told me at the time I was writing this piece that Bill Tyler and a member of the Roach family had their hands tied in with The Talcott Lunch Stand at some point.

The post A Peek into Summers County’s Past: The Talcott Lunch Stand Part 2 appeared first on The Hinton News .