Siblings Peg Price, Trish Miles and Pete Reynolds will share memories of their Great-Grand-Aunt Ella Ehrhardt, who owned Ehrhardt’s General Store on Main Street in Newfoundland for more than 60 years until her retirement in 1974 at the age of 98. They are the fifth generation to operate the family business that has become a Newfoundland icon. With a treasure trove of historic photographs and artifacts from the early days of the store, they will give us a glimpse into Newfoundland’s past.
Ella’s parents, Frederick and Angelica Ehrhardt, built their general store in the 1870’s and, with nine children, never hired a clerk outside the family. Their daughter Ella began helping in the store while still a schoolgirl in the early 1890s, and eventually purchased the business. Customers still remember how Miss Ella, a petite lady, would whisk the moving ladder along the wall and run up its steps to reach the goods on the top shelf. In 1974 Miss Ella sold the store to her grand-niece Harriet, stating at the time, “I watched the whole world change from behind the plate glass windows of my emporium.”
All Greene-Dreher Historical society events are free and open to the public. This program is sponsored by Holley Ross Pottery, 2019 Business Partner.
