A visit to the past at Jennings Store

It is a great thing that there are still places like the old Jennings Store. It is an even greater thing that such a place should be located in Iredell County. Let us count our blessings.
Honestly, you wouldn’t be surprised to see buckboard wagons pulled by mules, or Mr. Ford’s Tin Lizzies parked in front of the old store at Jennings, or farmers standing around in brass-buttoned bib overalls, their wives in calico dresses and sun bonnets. Morning glory vines frame the doorway. It’s that kind of place.
I’m told that the original Jennings Store, a log building, was built in 1857 by Thomas Lawson “T.L.” Jennings, sometimes known as Rev. Jennings, and that it was across the road and a little south off the current store’s location. The current store is only 121 years old, having been constructed in 1889 by T.L.’s son, James Turner “J.T.” Jennings.
By the time of the First World War there were also a cotton gin, a saw mill and a grain mill in operation near the store.
School teachers Lois Jennings and her sister, Pattie Jennings Hoskins, daughters of J.T., were next to run the store. Jack Creasy and his wife Gretchel, ran the store for about 10 years, from 1968 to 1978, then closed the place. Jack is a Jennings relative and he and Gretchel live in the old home place and own the store.
David Hicks, 59, Gretchel’s brother, said that people frequently drop by and tell him that they haven’t been in the store for 60 or 70 years, that they used to come in when they were young’uns. He remembers walking the mile or so to the store when he was a teenager to get a soft drink and a candy bar.
The store, says Hicks, was the Wal-mart of its day. Besides being an old-fashioned general store, it was a U.S. Post Office as were many of the rural stores of those days. The post office was established in the store on Feb. 15, 1872, as “Jenning’s Mills.” In 1892 the “Mills” part was dropped and the store continued as a post office through the summer of 1933.
“This place sold everything from baby clothes to caskets,” said Hicks. “In fact, there’s still a couple of caskets in the attic. If the store didn’t have it, they could get it, and if they didn’t have it or couldn’t get it, you probably didn’t need it.”
Once upon a time the shelves groaned under the weight of tinned goods, produce and other perishables. Since 1982, when Hicks reopened the place, the shelves have held an eclectic collection of antiques, thing-a-ma-bobs and objects d’art. Hicks, you see, is a Renaissance man, doing photography, mixed media painting, pottery, sculpture and woodworking. He displays his creations in the old building, along with art produced by area folks.
“I have arts and crafts and antiques and collectibles, sell ’em here to keep this old building alive,” he stated. In effect, Hicks has recycled the building.
He recycles, reclaims and refurbishes old wood from barns and lumber yards and turns the wood into usable art. He uses what wood he finds and a resulting piece could be fashioned for 100-year-old poplar or red cedar or a combination of the two.
“People like art they can use,” he said. A bench of yellow poplar, curved like a rainbow, was originally a piece of scrap he dragged from a pile of leavings at a lumber yard. It was too curved for them, but just right for Hicks. Under his hands, it was turned into “good, solid, organic furniture.”
Hicks was kind enough to allow me into the basement where I saw a work in progress, a 6-foot long root that looked like the hip and leg from a prehistoric monster. Hicks plans, if I remember correctly, to sheathe the piece in copper.
Another of his works is upstairs, a large painting that incorporates a real deer skull into the work. Hicks calls it “Nature’s Spirit.” He said he found several deer carcasses in a ditch. Hunters had killed the animals and cut off their legs to make rifle racks and left the rest to rot. He recycled the skull of one and the vertebrae of another into pieces of art with a message about what we are doing to Mother Earth.
Hicks said he he grew up in north Iredell, but left the county after high school. He has had a show at the Iredell Museums, the High Museum in Atlanta, studied at the Art Students League in New York and at the Guggenheim. When he takes a break from his work he can often be found sitting in an old rocker on the front porch of the store, reading Our State magazine, thumbing through an art book, or enjoying the verse of Eudora Welty.
Hicks is the type of person the late Charles Kuralt would have enjoyed interviewing.
I know I did.
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Directions: An easy way to get to the store is to go north on U.S. Highway 21 and take the exit to Jennings Road. Keep going about 14 miles on Jennings Road. Enjoy the scenery. The store will be on your left.
Hours: 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday and 1 to 4 p.m. Sunday or by appointment. Call (704) 539-4058.