This story as told by Leo Knight was written by Richard “Dick” Reed and appeared in the July 2, 1975, issue of the Brown County Democrat.
Leo Knight, at 61, has spent most of his life working in his own and his father’s grocery stores. Its sort of a permanent arrangement now, because he has no thought of retiring or doing anything else for a living.
He was born Nov. 19, 1913, in Monroe County. His father, Arthur Knight. Was a farmer and a grocer who died about thirty years ago. His mother, the former Zella Hillenburg, remarried Harry Westfall. Widowed a second time, she still makes her home in Bloomington.
Knight Ridge was named for Leo’s paternal grandfather and his grand father’s three brothers, who owned land on both sides of the road from the log cabin store, which is down toward Monroe Reservoir.
He was educated in Bloomington grade and high schools and was a miler (long distance runner) on the old Bloomington High School track team. Although intending to enroll in the Indiana University after working six months for his father in the grocery at third and Jordan streets, Leo became caught up in the world of commerce and never did get to I.U.
He’d been laboring and clerking in the store since he was about eleven years old.
In October of 1932 Leo married Louise Roberts, whose father John Roberts lived in the Camp Roberts area of Brown County. Louise’s mother was the former Smary Simons, also of Brown County. And Louise has one sister, Mrs. Helen Harris, of Indianapolis.
For eight or nine years after the couple was married, Leo bought old houses, restored or improved them, and sold them at good profits. He’d make as much on one of those houses, Leo says, as he did in his regular job in one year.
In 1939 for about a year, Louise and I had our own store on S. Walnut Street in Bloomington. Then I went back to work for my father, who shortly closed his own store.
I went over to Cummins Diesel at Columbus but didn’t’ care for factory work and quit after three months. Then I joined Kroger’s, at Indianapolis and managed their market at 38th and, Illinois streets for five years. We bought this corner, (Knight’s Corner) in 1940 and, after I left Kroger’s, built the grocery and opened it for business September of 1946. We enlarged the store in 1970. All together we have 4,500 square feet of store and storage space.
So far as land is concerned, I bought 10 acres from grandpa’s old place, below Honey Jones’, and thought I might build on it, Louise likes it up here. We also have 10 acres where we built our present home last year, less than half a mile west of the store. And there’s nearly three acres at the store. We used to live in the house sitting there directly behind the store. I built that house in 1952. From 1946 till 1952 we lived in the old log home behind the store.
Louise and I have four children. Don is the eldest and owns and operates the sawmill across the road from the store. We bought it 21 years from Winn Moore. Don has had the mill on his own, now, for 12 or 18 years. Jean, our daughter, works at the Brown County Folks shop in Nashville. Her husband Richard Sturgeon works at the Pine Room. Becky Sue is the wife of a carpenter, Gordon Black, in Kokomo. Art helps Don run the sawmill. Jean helps us in the store sometimes and so does one of our grandsons. Otherwise, it’s just Louise and me.
It gets increasingly difficult to take care of the store and make money. Back when dad was in business, about all you had to worry about was a $3.00 light bill and maybe a little wood for the stove. Hardly any taxes, and no sales tax to fool with. Also, the margin of profit was ‘way up there. Like on coffee. It sold any place from 23c to 29c a pound including 10c for profit. Overall, a gross 20-percent makeup was not unusual.
The bigger stores now, the shopping centers and chains, sometimes work on a net profit of less than 1-percent. They depend on volume to stay open. Independent stores have to mark up a bit more. I’ve had a lot of people ask me how we can sell things at the low prices we do, because they know we don’t have the buying power.
Well, that’s right. But I don’t have that high overhead to get the goods across the counter, that they do.
To be continued.
Submitted by Pauline Hoover,
Brown County Historical Society, Inc.
