Tom L. Evans Oral History Interview, November 28, 1962

Notice
This is a transcript of a tape-recorded interview conducted for the Harry S. Truman Library. A draft of this transcript was edited by the interviewee but only minor emendations were made; therefore, the reader should remember that this is essentially a transcript of the spoken, rather than the written word.

Numbers appearing in square brackets (ex. [45]) within the transcript indicate the pagination in the original, hardcopy version of the oral history interview.

RESTRICTIONS
This oral history transcript may be read, quoted from, cited, and reproduced for purposes of research. It may not be published in full except by permission of the Harry S. Truman Library.

Opened August, 1966
Harry S. Truman Library
Independence, Missouri

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FUCHS: The last time we were together, Tom, you were telling about the beginning of your association with Mr. Payne in a drugstore in Kansas City, Missouri. I guess we should start there, now.

EVANS: That's fine. Mr. Payne, during the time that I worked for Fritche-Henderson Candy Company as a salesman, was a salesman for the old Evans-Smith Drug Company. Incidentally, that Evans was no relation of mine; but it was an old, old Kansas City firm and a wholesale drug house--jobbing house--selling to retail drugstores. Mr. Payne and I, of course, were good friends because we were both born in Larned, Kansas, and we traveled the same territory together and were well-acquainted; and had the opportunity of observing retail druggists in their operations and how poor most of them operated their stores. We had often talked about going into the retail drug business. The War came along and, of course, stopped that and then my illness. Mr.

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Payne had been in the service and he had gotten out and taken a job down in Texas with a wholesale manufacturer of drugs selling a product called "Orgatone." He got in touch with me, saying that he was getting tired of traveling and he thought that we ought to consider again buying a drugstore. In December of 1919 he quit his job down in Texas and came up here, and I showed him a number of drugstores that I thought were good locations. One in particular was at the corner of what is now Linwood and Main or 3300 Main. In those days, it was called Hunter Avenue and Main. Linwood then, west of Main Street, was called Hunter Avenue--it's now Linwood. The store was run by a man by the name of Harry Wilkerson. I had called on him selling candy; Mr. Payne had called on him selling drugs--he knew him. He had rather a nasty disposition--ran an awful dirty drugstore. It was a prominent corner, a great transfer point; the old Strang Line interurban railroad, running from Kansas City to Olathe, turned there and it was quite a transfer

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corner. So, we thought that would be a good location. We talked to Wilkerson about buying it and found that we could; the only thing that we needed was money; we didn't have any money. We started out to raise some money and I've already told most of that story. Mr. Payne did have $2500 and, incidentally, was not married. I was married and had a daughter; it was taking all of my money to live on. I went to my old boss, the McPike Drug Company, that I first went to work for, and sold them the idea that I wanted to go into the retail drug business--wanted to buy a drugstore. They loaned me $2500 and that was, incidentally, the first money I ever borrowed. Then Mr. Payne and I made a tour of all the banks in Kansas City trying to borrow another $5000 because the drugstore that we wanted to buy at Hunter Avenue and Main, the cost of it was $10,000. Clive Payne had gone to the University of Kansas with S. K. Cook whose brother was the president of the Columbia National Bank and he (S. K. Cook) had taken a job in the

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bank, and, of course, as I say, he knew Mr. Payne. Well, as I said earlier, we talked him into loaning us $2500 on an open note, of course, we had no collateral. Then we got Mr. Wilkerson, the man we wanted to buy out, to agree to take a mortgage on the fixtures for the balance of $2500, all of which took considerable time. Anyway, on January 15, 1920, we bought the store and closed the deal and took possession. It was agreed between Clive Payne and myself that I would continue on working for Fritche-Henderson Candy Company and he would run the drugstore. He would run it during the day and after I finished my work in the day, I would run it at night, to see how we would get along. The store, at the time we bought it, was probably doing about--oh, less than a hundred dollars a day business, which was not even enough to pay expenses, so we wanted to take it easy. The store as I said before, was dirty, unattractive. There was a lot of old fixtures. I remember a florist's box for flowers was built into the window--fine thing for a drugstore to sell, but anyway, they had it there, and

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between the glass of the flower icebox and the glass of the window there was this vase that I guess had been there five, six, seven years and it was just filthy dirty--it was awful. People, of course could see it--dirty. Well, anyway, I got my brother and my father and my brother-in-law and all my relatives to help us and some of Payne's relatives--we tore out that old icebox and started stocking up the store. We had plenty of credit; we didn't have any trouble buying merchandise and we got the store in pretty good shape. We put in a new soda fountain—bought that on time--and business started picking up. After about forty-five days of Mr. Payne running it in the daytime and me running it at night, we determined that there was enough business for both of us, so I notified Fritche and Henderson that I was resigning my job to devote my full time to my first drugstore, which we did. Well, we had a very fine, successful operation there; I think mainly, Jim, because Mr. Payne or I was on duty all the time. One of us was there all the time and both of us

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were there most of the time and we had little help to hire. One week I would open and that week Mr. Payne would close. The next week, I would reverse and open and he would close. We each put in about fourteen to sixteen hours a day, seven days a week, and the night that I closed up my wife would act as my cashier and the night that Payne worked, Mrs. Payne would work as his cashier; so we had no help. Incidentally, all the money got in the cash register instead of in some of the help's pocket, which I think made it a pretty successful operation.

It worked out--that store worked fine, and at the end of the twelve months period we were both mighty happy to know that we had paid off the bank, the $2500 that we borrowed from them (The Columbia National Bank), and we had paid the $2500 that I had borrowed from McPike Drug Company. We paid Mr. Wilkerson his $2500 and paid Mr. Payne back his $2500 and in addition we had increased the inventory from about $6000 to $12,000, and we put in about $10,000 worth of new fixtures. Actually, the drugstore made pretty good money, at least,

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exceptionally good money for those days. And, as I say, it was mainly because one of us was there all the time and both of us were there most of the time, and we had our wives helping us to watch and see that there were no losses. I've often said that that drugstore probably made more money than any drugstore that I bought in later years, but that was because both of us were there.

They have a great story they tell on me about my first operation at that store. Mr. Truman's heard the story so I guess I better tell it to you and let the young lady, when she transcribes this, hear this story.

After we were in business about a year, and, as I told you, Mrs. Evans helped me at night, I just couldn't get by without help. Whatever amount of business we'd done up to six o'clock in the evening, we would do an equal amount from seven o'clock to twelve, so I needed a cashier. After we were there almost a year, Mrs. Evans was pregnant and

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was expecting our second child and she said, "I just can't come down to the store and work any more, I'm too big."

She felt good and I said, "Well, I can't afford to lose a good cashier and I need you. Wait until it gets dark and you can come down and slip in the front door, right in behind the cigar counter, and I'll build up some boxes of cigars on the top of the counter so people can't see you only just above your waist."

And she did and then she got larger and I put up another stack of cigar boxes. So I had her working for me until the 10th day of January, 1921, and Dick, our boy, was born on February 6th, 1921. They've kidded me about how hard I worked my wife and piled cigar boxes up so she couldn't be seen; but, as I say, I needed her very bad and, of course, she deserves a lot of credit along with Mrs. Payne for our original success in that first drugstore.

FUCHS: Now, this was about 1921 when Mr. Truman and

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Eddie Jacobson were experiencing difficulties with their haberdashery business, largely as a result of what they called the "Harding depression," I guess. Was that felt in the drug business?

EVANS: Yes, it was what we now call a "depression" in general, and it was felt, not only in the haberdashery business, drug business, grocery business, and by everybody. I know there was a grocery store next to our drugstore there at Hunter Avenue and Main and a man by the name of Jessee owned it and he couldn't survive; his business just got so bad that he had to close up. Well, frankly, Mr. Payne and I might have been in the same boat if it hadn't been for the fact that we had bought a store that was a good location, but the business had just been abused and we just had a natural good business plus the fact as I have said, because we employed very little help and very little overhead and we were able to get by and build our business in that depressed year.

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Yes, I knew about, of course, Mr. Truman having the haberdashery and had learned from some of our friends of some of the difficulties that he was having. But, as you can well imagine, I was too busy running a drugstore to pay much attention in those days to the haberdashery at 12th and Baltimore.

FUCHS: You don't recall talking to him about any of his difficulties. You didn't see him much, I gather?

EVANS: No, no. As I say, I didn't have time. I would occasionally see A1 Ridge, whom I think I told you about being a soda dispenser over at 22^nd and Prospect and is now a Federal judge and, of course, we're good friends. He spent a lot of time in Eddie Jacobson's and Mr. Truman's haberdashery and I would occasionally see him. It seems to me that his statement in those days to me, when he'd drop in the store at Hunter Avenue and Main to see me, was that their biggest trouble was that they had given credit to so many of their

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friends, and their friends had lost their jobs and couldn't pay; that that was the difficulty. At least, that was Al Ridge's idea of what was wrong at the haberdashery. As I said, I didn't see either he or Eddie because I was too busy keeping my first drugstore going and trying to make some money and pay off my debt, which I'm thankful we were able to do.

FUCHS: Do you know anyone who might have clerked for Mr. Truman in the store in those days?