by Gladys Smith Totten

In Damascus, the Brown Drug Store is gone—did you know it once was The Wingfield Drug Store? That is how I knew it best — let me tell you about it.

I grew up in Damascus. My father (Emmett F. Smith) was a druggist in the Wingfield Drug Store, owned by Dr. J.L. Wingfield. For a short time we lived in the upstairs apartment over the store before building our new home by The Methodist Church. We played in a big yard at the store apartment, had a “summer house” and three big home made swings.

The Wingfield Drug Store was the part of my growing up that I remember best. Though Damascus had movies, a baseball team, hiking, dancing and the ole swimming hole (later a pool) — life seemed to revolve around the drug store - it was the place to meet, the place to buy.

I can still see the long bunch of bananas hanging in one of the front windows and the crates of lemons and oranges lined up in front of the jewelry and watch cases.

The high prescription counter was in the back of the store with shelves above containing medicine and a tiny window to look through to see a customer come in. Here Dr. Wingfield and my Dad used the mortar and pestle; weighed, measured and folded the powdered medicine into little papers and poured the liquid medicine of all colors from gallon jugs into bottles of every size — I think castor oil and paragoric were the best sellers. Daily they filled the prescriptions written by our two doctors, Dr. Charles Clendenen and Dr. Frank Fortune.

Many fancy-labeled patent medicines, liniments and tonics were placed in rows on open shelves in the front section of the store where they could be seen and bought by many.

Then — there was the all important fountain — here we bought “Eskimo Pies” and our favorite “Tin Roofs” - do you know what a Tin Roof is? Ice cream in a glass with lots of chocolate syrup and peanuts on top. Here, too, we bought the strawberry, chocolate and vanilla ice cream which we ate in big cones or carried home in square pint containers with little wire handles. The ice cream had to be “packed down” each night with ice from the large ice box behind the store. The ice was in 300 lb. blocks covered with lots of sawdust and a heavy lid.

Ice cream parlor chairs and tables were placed in the center of the store just in front of the cosmetic cases and there was a little table and chairs just like the big ones. An over head fan droned away on hot summer afternoons while we drank milk shakes or coca-colas.

The drug store provided many other services too. Each September extra tables were brought in and stacked high with school books where we took our lists to be filled.

And there was the big canvas bag in a wooden frame where once each week the men brought their detachable stiff shirt collars to be sent away, laundered and made stiffer.

Out front stood the little lone red gasoline tank with the handle to turn and where we stopped often with our “Overland” car (which was one of the first cars in Damascus).

On summer evenings my brothers and I found the most beautiful moths, as they clung to the wide screen doors at the front of the store.

Now the store is gone—only the “loafers bench” remains, reminding one of the tall-tale stories, the world news, and the local gossip that passed among those who gathered at The Wingfield Drug Store!

Damascus, a beautiful little town surrounded by mountains and rivers, was the best place of all for growing up — but in living one sees the old things and old ways go, and the new take their places—so it was with The Wingfield Drug Store — but our memories remain with us.

Photos from the Smith family albums
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