Hammacher Memorials

This is Hammacher Memorials. Recently destroyed.


Hammacher Memorials is a place in Martinsburg that sells headstones. They've been at their location on Route 45 for as long as I've lived here, which is fifteen years. I've never once been there, taken an interest in them, or even looked their way in a lingering fashion. They do not, to my knowledge, sell comics.

A couple of weeks ago the Martinsburg area was hit by a devastating storm. Our house was relatively untouched, with the amount of branches and pieces of siding brought down in the high winds totaling about two. So on the Saturday morning when this happened, I hoped into my routine as if nothing was wrong and got in the car to head to the gym.

Most of Martinsburg and the surrounding area was without power. The gym was closed. The older, residential neighborhoods were devastated with downed trees, power lines, and street lights. And it was just way too hot to be without air conditioning.

Lorie and I were okay, living in a neighborhood where the power lines are underground and the houses are relatively new. In comparison with the rest of Martinsburg, that is. Again another example of the ways in which we live affected by the decades.



I drove by Hammacher Memorials because I wanted to get some pictures of some interesting older houses that morning. When I saw the old tin roof peeled back and the crushed headstones out front, I slammed on the breaks and got out to take pictures. The surounding houses were fine, and no one seemed hurt.

Hammacher Memorials didn't even seem like it was that old of a building. But that roof...it's pretty much gone.

And... you can see... some history revealed! The "Hammacher Memorials" sign has fallen and underneath you can see...


...the building used to be a grocery store!

Which I thought was a cool find.

Because my brain works that way.

One of the things that gets me thinking this way is because we never lived in one area long enough for me to see the area change and grow. So this sort of 'revealed history' may be boring to life-long inhabitants to Martinsburg. But to me this reveals that this street had an entirely different feel to it at one point. People probably walked here for their groceries from the nearby little Martinsburg houses that dot the center of town. Houses that are now a little older and in disrepair. The idea that this lot, with barely any parking to it, used to be a grocery store is interesting because it opens a little bit of the historical character to this section of street. More and more I think Martinsburg is an interesting little town where you can get strong glimpses of the 1940's and 1950's if you look hard enough.












With the power out, little Madeleine Bline (Valentine Bline to some) had to seek out houses with electricity to beat the heat. We were one of the stops on her whirlwind Martinsburg tour. All was cool.


Maybe I should have done a face-off. But something tells me I would have lost.

Thanks,
DCD