MAY 28, 2009 ISSUE
Boone Drug Honors Babies Born Above Downtown Store
The staff was pleased with the turnout of 20 babies that had been born above the downtown Boone Drug store. The youngest baby at the dinner was born in 1945 and the oldest, in 1933. Photo by Tommy White
“The Biggest Little Chain Around,” with 14 locations in all, celebrates its 90th year in business this year.
As part of the store’s monumental year, Boone Drug Downtown observed its history by hosting a birthday dinner program last Thursday to honor the babies who were born above the store.
Before a local hospital was easily accessible, from about 1919 to at least 1945, local mothers delivered their babies in the doctors’ offices located above Boone Drug. A dentist’s office was also located on the top floor for years.
“I knew I was born at the Hagaman Clinic, but I always assumed it was a kind of house,” said Linda Ralph Wolfferts (formerly Combs).
Her birth certificate, still perfectly legible after 64 years, simply states her place of birth as “Hagaman Clinic” in Boone.
“I only found out [the clinic] was in Boone Drug recently,” she added.
The staff was pleased with the celebration’s turnout of 20 “Boone Drug babies,” said Carrie Phillips, marketing and advertising coordinator for Boone Drug.
The youngest “baby” in attendance was born in 1945 and the oldest was born in 1933.
“We’re going to do some different things throughout the year,” Phillips said. “This is our big [event].”
She began organizing for the event 2.5 months ago.
Joe Miller, John Stacy and Jim Furman (left to right) headed up the program last Thursday at Boone Drug. The store, celebrating its 90th year, honored the babies who were born above it with a dinner and time to share memories. Photo by Tommy White
“We were just kind of looking at [Boone Drug’s] history and we wanted to do something special. We wanted to make the event memorable for Boone Drug babies as well,” Phillips said.
After dinner, attendees were each given a chance to share their memories of Boone Drug, or the stories surrounding their births.
Wolfferts joked about how she was party to B&Es (breaking and entering) before she was even born.
“When I was born, no one could find the key to the delivery room,” she said. “The nurse went out and drug some man off the street to help the doctor break into the room, so she could deliver me.”
Wolfferts’ mother was married at 15, and by the time she gave birth at age 17, she was already a widow. Wolfferts’ father, Ralph Combs, was killed in Luxembourg in World War II.
“Mother knew she was pregnant before father left. That’s how I ended up with the name of Ralph; he wanted a boy, named after him,” she said. “With kids growing up, it was a little like ‘A Boy Named Sue.’”
Joe Miller shared how did not quite make it inside Boone Drug to be born. “My father pulled up front, and while he went to get Dr. Hagaman, I popped out,” Miller said, adding that he came into the world in a car in a parking space right outside, during a snowstorm.
Boone Drug continued to play an important role in Miller’s life; he started working at the store’s soda fountain in high school and later worked as a pharmacist there.
“I went away to pharmacy school, [and then I] practiced pharmacy at Boone Drug from ’62 to ’95, when I started Cheap Joe’s,” he said.
Miller showed event attendees a stack of original prescriptions from the pharmacy. Yellowed and curling with age, the prescriptions were all spiked in numerical order on a metal wire that formed a hook on top, so they could be hung up for easy accessibility.
“Pharmacy prescriptions were stamped with a number,” Miller explained. “The bottle was stamped with same number, so you had to bring the bottle back for a refill.”
Others attending the event reminisced about their siblings that were born at Boone Drug; getting a broken arm set in the doctor’s office there; how the store was the primary after-school hangout and courting spot; and how it served chocolate, lemon, orange and cherry Pepsi long before soda companies manufactured flavored products.
Boone Drug also can lay claim to having served the town’s first mixed drinks: Cokes with spirits of ammonia mixed in, a remedy thought to cure headaches.
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