Scoles Drugstore operated by Shoemaker for 27 years. Photo provided by the Kosciusko Historical Society

Editor’s note: This is part of a series about local historical figures. The following is information obtained  from a 1955 article about Thurlow “Sandy” Shoemaker. The articles are from the files of the Kosciusko County Historical Society. 

CLAYPOOL — Sunday will be the last day behind the prescription counter for Thurlow E. (Sandy) Shoemaker, registered pharmacist at Judd’s drugstore, who retires after 51 years in the drugstore business.

“Drugstores certainly have changed in my time,” Shoemaker said, recalling that memorable July 4, 1904, when Arthur Ervin, Claypool druggist, hired the 14-year-old lad to operate the soda fountain and make himself useful in coping with the crowds of customers in town for the big celebration.

The next month, Ervin moved his business to North Webster and Shoemaker went along for the summer. When school started in Claypool, however, he began working at the Scoles drugstore in his hometown.

Starting as an eighth grader then, he earned $2 per week for part-time work, $5 for full time. This was his wage scale all through high school.

His duties included putting up stock and making ice cream in a five-gallon freezer two to four times a day. Drugstores made soda water in a 15-gallon steel drum on a rocker connected to a tank of carbonic gas. The soda counter offered most of the sodas and sundaes we know today except for banana splits and similar concoctions developed since then. Two favorites that are unfamiliar now were a coffee flavored syrup and fruit nectar.

Packed in Straw

In those days, prescription bottles came packed in straw-filled boxes. They weren’t corked either, so it was quite a task to wash the dusty little bottles thoroughly, setting them to dry on a nail-studded rack.

At that time, a man could qualify for a pharmacist’s license by serving a four-year apprenticeship under a licensed prescription dispenser or by taking two years of college work. Shoemaker had ample experience by this time but he enrolled in the Indianapolis college of pharmacy and studied there for one year. He took the state board exams in March and received his license in April, 1911.

Druggists made many of the items that today come already prepared. The students learned to make up spirits of camphor, essence of peppermint, tincture of arnica and citrate of magnesia.

$15 a week

Shoemaker’s first job as a licensed pharmacist was with an Indianapolis store where he earned $15 per week. He married Miss Raydell Ward, an Indianapolis girl. They went to Claypool for a year, then to Plymouth, back to Indianapolis and then Pierceton where his employer was Harold Switzer.

In 1919, Shoemaker bought the Scoles drugstore in Claypool which he owned and operated for 27 years. Hood’s sarsparilla, Hostetter’s bitters and Castoria were popular items on the shelves.

Like all other drugstores, the Shoemaker establishment had the traditional show globes filled with colored water. Toilet soap, talcum powder and bulk perfume in rose, lily of the valley and carnation fragrance were about the only cosmetic items handled then. Drugstores didn’t stock box candies or magazines either.

Shoemaker recalls that in 1907 or 1908, Scoles was wondering if it would be wise to branch out with a line of Kodaks. His young clerk reassured him and it proved to be quite a moneymaker. The cigar counter offered a wide variety of good five-cent items, many of the brands coming from factories right in the county.

When a farmer had a sick horse, he would more often than not come in for some tonic, made up by the druggist. The recipe for one of these mixtures, Shoemaker said, included copperas, resin, nux vomica, black antimony and flaxseed.

Wanting to ease off on responsibility and long hours, Shoemaker sold his store in May, 1945, worked several years at the Knight store in Warsaw, spent one summer at Dufur’s and joined the Judd staff in August 1953.

His retirement plans include plenty of fishing, puttering around his Yellow Creek cottage and spending the winter in Florida.

— Compiled by InkFreeNews reporter Lasca Randels