JASPER PROFILE

"FOR MRS. TURNER'S STORE - AN ERA IS PASSING"

by Lucille Harvey

(Transcribed by Suzanne Forte (suzanneforte@bellsouth.net) April 2005, based on information

furnished by Benny Hawthorne from a copy of an article in The  Monticello News )

Mrs. Bessie Mae Turner's store with the Hillsboro Post Office located in one corner is a Hillsboro institution - or perhaps it is Mrs. Turner who is the "institution" if by tht we mean an important and prominent part of the community for many years.

The Turner store, which Mrs. Turner says regretfully may close in the not too distant future, has been in operation for 60 years and is like few remaining today.

A few years ago, the store with its shelves of staple groceries lining the wall, ice cream chest and soft drink machine, and dark wood counters with glass front displaying a wide assortment of items, was not unlike many other around the county.

Such stores were, a Mrs. turner's still is, a gathering place for visiting with neighbors, discussing politics and crop prospects and yarn-spinning, as well as to purchase needed items and in Millsboro, to pick up the mail.

A comfortable sitting are around the huge stove encourages visitors to stay and talk.  "it will just kill me to leave the store", Mrs. Turner says, adding that she "loves to see people" and talk to them when they come in the store.

She even has her sewing machine in the back, to make use of her free time.  It is a vintage Singer treadle machine - Mrs. Turner doesn't want an electric model.

The post office was presided over by Mrs. Turner for 21 years, as postmaster.  She was assistant postmaster before that, for a total of 43 years.  Virginia Turner, her daughter in law, is officer in charge now.

Upon her retirement from the Post Office last year, Mrs. Turner was honored a "day" in Hillsboro - a total surprise to her, she says.  She did get an idea something was "afoot" when the noticed several visitors at church.  "Well", she thought, "maybe they are going to give me a little speech or something".

It was "or something" as Hillsboro said thanks to Mrs. Turner for years of service as postmaster, store proprietor and Hillsboro advocate.  She remembers with a laugh that she was prevailed upon to tell several of her locally famous stores - one of which has a single "bad word" without which the story loses its punch.

"Oh, no - I can't tell that in church!" she told the crowd.  But they insisted and somehow no one was terribly shocked, and the walls of the church stood firm.

Mrs. Turner recalls that when her family moved to Hillsboro when she was about seven, it was a larger community than it is today.  There were two banks, a number of stores, a cotton warehouse, a depot, grist mills and even a millinary shop and a soda fountain!  She regrets that all the old buildings, including the Ben Hill school, are gone and is hopeful that the community project to save the old Hillsboro school building as a community center will be successful.