Remembering Norma Crouch

~by Bob Gustin

When we moved to Brown County in 1999, I felt a bit like a stranger in a strange land: New job, new house, new neighbors, new community.

In a way, that’s just how it is in Brown County. If you weren’t born here, and can’t trace your family roots here for at least two or three generations, you’re always going to be a newcomer to some folks.

One person helped ease that transition right away. That was Norma Crouch.

Norma died in January at age 82, leaving behind a family and a lot of grateful friends and customers. She ran Crouch’s Market in the Pikes Peak area for more than 40 years, beginning in 1972.

Our new house was about two miles from Crouch’s Market, so my wife Chris and I made it a point to stop by and get acquainted.

That first day she welcomed us, going so far as to say that if we had any favorite food items, just let her know and she would try to carry them in the store. Norma, who was the one behind the counter nearly every time we stopped by the store for years after that first meeting, made a difference in people’s lives.

What a joy it was to find the market and its bounty in the middle of the forested beauty, 10 miles from Nashville and 18 miles from Columbus.

You could pick up all your essential groceries at Crouch’s, along with lottery tickets; home-cooked food; fishing worms; plumbing and electrical repair parts; screws, nuts, bolts, nails, and locally grown produce. You could fill up your gas tank or buy fishing and hunting gear and clothing. Rent a movie. Drop off a UPS package. Refill a propane tank or get a bag of ice. Donate books to the Brown County Literacy Coalition. Drop off a bag of trash for pickup. Sometimes you could buy local artists’ work there, or a walking stick carved by Norma’s husband Harry.

You could get a cold bottle of pop or a hot cup of coffee. On nice days, you could sit on picnic tables in front of the market and shoot the breeze with your neighbors. Or you could get one of Norma’s sandwiches and sit in the back room. For a while, you could even get fresh-baked pizza.

Most importantly, however, you could say hello to Norma, interrupt the program she was watching on RFD-TV, and catch up on the latest gossip.

Norma married Harry in 1961, and they opened the store at Bellsville Pike on land they purchased from Harry’s parents. They built the store only after getting permission from Eleanor Clark, who was closing her general store in the area. Crouch’s Market started as a pole barn and went through four building expansions over the years. Harry died in 2013.

Crouch’s Market was a community center for Van Buren Township, and Norma was the unofficial mayor. It seems like she knew everyone in the area and most of the good and bad things going on. She had a wall of photos in the back room, memorializing new babies, hunting trophies, family moments and community events. That back room also hosted birthday parties, unofficial breakfast clubs and genealogy meetings, along with a pool table and an old-fashioned scale.

Her son Wendell recalls the blizzard of 1978, a time when lots of farmers still lived in the Pikes Peak area and a group of them took it upon themselves to clear snow from the roads. Of course, they congregated at Crouch’s Market, and Norma mapped out the routes for each to take. Wendell said she would also sometimes give the farmers a sack of groceries to deliver as they plowed, and residents would come to the store and pay for the groceries when they could get out.

Norma didn’t hesitate to lend a hand, whether it be posting a flyer about a lost pet on her community bulletin board, pitching in on the latest charity effort, passing out maps for the studio tour, or getting behind a petition she thought was worthwhile. She sponsored Little League teams and 4-H projects.

And yes, even in the early 2000s, you could cash a check or run up a tab at Crouch’s if you happened to be caught short in the wallet. Wendell remembers how she carried accounts for those on monthly incomes. So, Norma also became the community banker.

Norma was a good soul. She was generous, friendly, and giving—a good neighbor.

Crouch’s closed on November 30, 2015, and an auction was held the next year, selling off all those plumbing and electrical parts, along with the picnic tables and table cloths, hats and T-shirts emblazoned with the store’s name. I saw Norma a few years later in Columbus, and it seemed a little of her spark was gone. My guess is that spark came partly from the interactions she had with her customers, friends, and neighbors.

Wendell also remembers the kids who hung out at the store in the 1970s, many of whom showed up for her funeral, still a tight group 40 years later.

“Essentially, the community became an extended family for her,” he said.

As for the store itself, Wendell says there’s no chance it will reopen, given the way things are nowadays, with the Wal Ma, Amazon, and the prevalence of the internet. And that doesn’t just go for Crouch’s. Little general stores in the middle of rural areas selling a little bit of everything are rare now.

“I don’t think there will ever be another Crouch’s Market,” Wendell said.

And so we lose a little community and a little of the light that came with it. Rest in peace, Norma.