BARNOLDSWICK, LANCASHIRE AND NORTHFIELD MN

[Stanley]

BARNOLDSWICK, LANCASHIRE AND NORTHFIELD MN

28 June 2004

(This piece was written by two friends of mine, Shar and Rollie Jacobsen from Northfield who visited and enjoyed Barlick.)
'Back in the early fall of 2003, my wife Shar & I had the pleasure of visiting Barlick. We arrived late in the evening and were greeted warmly by the hospitality of Barbara at Monk House. We were to spend 5 days in your friendly part of the world with a “tough task master” of a teacher/tour director Stanley Graham. We quickly learned that your rich history makes what we grew up with in the States seem like we have just gotten out of primary school. We loved our chance to wander and look at all the stone buildings, narrow streets, smiling faces and marvelled at how you’ve held on to a national train system, something that the US has kicked away. Our rail passes were one of the best purchases that we made in England.
To give you a bit of background about these two visitors to Lancashire you should know that it was the first time either of us had travelled outside the borders of the U.S.A. We had until very recently worked long days in a town that in many ways seems like Barlick, it is located in southern Minnesota and called Northfield.
My Grandparents had come to Northfield in 1947 to buy and run an independent department store. A store that would sell basic items to the local population. Everything from working men's overalls to men’s suits, coats, shirts, hats, gloves, clothing for children and toddlers, basic house dresses, blouses, sweaters, fabrics, patterns, basic domestics items.
They lived out their years in Northfield working with the local population in a community that was made up of farmers, small industries - a maker of cereals, a balloon fabricating company, a maker of small circuits, two fine independent colleges, St. Olaf & Carleton. Jesse James, the famous robber, is supposed to have attempted his last (and happily for the town) unsuccessful bank robbery here in 1876.
The town had a strong business base located along Division Street and the Jacobsen family found many good years there. In 1968 when my Granddad passed away, my family was living outside of Washington D.C. and as a 14 year old I asked if it would be possible to hang onto Grandpa’s store? I thought that it would make for a wonderful way to spend my lifetime. So my father (that B-17 tail gunner that Stanley has written about) who had never lived in Northfield but had grown up in a retailing family as Grandpa was moved by the J. C. Penney Company indulged me and moved the family to Northfield to continue the family business.
In my mind the Barlick that I saw last year was paced more like the Northfield that I moved to in 1968. People moved a bit slower, knew their neighbours, smiled at friends and strangers alike. Life was good in Northfield, it was quite possible to run an independent shop. Mom & Pop businesses, whether they were clothing stores, jewellery stores, dime stores, hardware stores had wholesalers to turn to so that 'special need' items could be bought and delivered quickly, sure you paid a premium price but you helped to fill a need, efficiently and without carrying an excessive inventory on hand.
But as the years passed the wholesalers died out, the independent stores like Jacobsen’s closed their doors, we became a dinosaur, my Dad liked to say that we were in some sense a 'museum store' in that we were a throw back to the past. We saw Northfield grow. Peoples’ shopping habits changed. Shopping became more recreational, something to do to fill free time. Catalogue shopping boomed and offered further varieties, the brown UPS truck that brought merchandise to our store was now adding an extra truck to make deliveries to the residential area. The town was becoming more of a bedroom community new people were moving in, they liked the 'small town feel' but many held onto their old church memberships and the shopping patterns that they had before moving to Northfield.
It became more difficult to make a living with the store, demands grew physically and emotionally. If I had been a young person trying to start up a business using some savings and borrowed dollars from the bank the cash flow couldn’t have worked. Like the family farm, if it was inherited you had a chance to make a go of it but it still called for an incredible amount of time and effort along with an understanding, supportive family. As my parents grew older and needed to slow down, to pick up the slack our investment in hours grew. As the work week grew to 100+ hours it finally was just more effort than we could keep giving, store revenue didn’t allow for additional staffing, so last August we closed our doors for the final time. It was a hard decision to reach, both emotionally and fiscally. For years we had called ourselves 'Jacobsen’s Family Store' hence any time the store was open a family member needed to be present. Closure called for some major changes, the store was the only life that I knew. Relationships that we had built over the years with the community would be missed. Dad’s daily coffee sessions with the locals to 'solve the town’s and world’s problems', the chance to meet visitors to town like Stanley wouldn’t happen.
Please don’t get me wrong, I’m a believer and supporter of the free enterprise system. Growth comes to communities but I’d like to think that growth was managed, not allowed to go with out at least some direction from our community leadership. Big business, as it seeks a bigger piece of the pie moves into smaller towns often demanding concessions from those towns in the form of zoning standards and public subsidies. The 'cookie cutter' approach of chain stores makes the shopping experience feel & look alike, once you are inside their doors you can’t tell if you are in Northfield, Minneapolis, or Chicago, all this comes at a cost to a person's sense of community.
All this brings my thoughts back to Barlick. I feel the need to apologize to the people of England. Shar & I as Americans feel sorry for the invasion of the chains, Starbucks, Subway, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Pizza Hut, et al. To see these glowing plastic fronts amid your classic brick buildings seems a crime, but it could be that maybe the Gods are paying you, the English, back for pillaging in the name of the British Museum? Seriously though, in the States we hear about the dirty American, to wander your country and see these signs of 'home' makes me feel ill.
We enjoyed being able to walk a few blocks from town and find ourselves out in the country wandering along narrow paths, seeing stone fences, lovely fields with picturesque livestock. While in town we were taken with the number of butcher shops, flower shops, news stands, and other independent merchants not to mention the warm, wonderful characters that we met.
Our trip to England & Ireland gave Shar & I the chance to get to know each other again outside the family business and it was my good luck to find that she still kinda liked me. Now back in Northfield we are working at finding our way back into the community, not only in finding new types of jobs, but also reconnecting with people in new ways. The adventure continues, we are doing our best to smile at strangers and keep alive the family spirit that we saw still alive in Barlick. If you are in the neighbourhood stop by and we’ll put the coffee pot on for you.

Rollie and Shar Jacobsen. 28 June 2004