Photo from the files of the Carleton Place Canadian at the Carleton Place and Beckwith Heritage Museum
I wrote about Danny’s and Bennett’s Meat market a few months ago, and when I came across this picture of Ruth Ferguson I had to smile. There are quite a few generations that remember Ruth as she began to work at the meat market in 1954 when Austin Bennett hired her.
Ruth began working at a point in time I personally remember well. Once a week you ordered what you needed, and some stores in those days allowed you to keep a running tab. Back in those days grocery stores delivered and Bennett’s was making 4 deliveries a day around the town of Carleton Place.
I remember the back of my local grocery store having a trap door to go to the basement and Bennett’s had one too. Ruth told Mary Cook that she remembers having the need to go down into the basement one day only to have boxes were piled on top of the door when a delivery was made. It took a little while, but they soon noticed Ruth was missing.
Lynnette Stanfield remembers back-filling for Ruth during that snow-filled winter of ’70/71 at the then Bennett’s Meat Market while she recovered from heart surgery. She said that Arnie and Bill Bennett were quite the characters!
Ruth got up every morning at 5:30 am to help her husband in the barns at their 400 acre farm in Scotch Corners. Then it was off to the meat market to spend a full day working until 5:30 doing about just every job in the sun in that meat market. There are not many that can say they worked for three owners of the meat market that on the corner of Bell Street and Bridge in Carleton Place.
CBCBCC