Dear Vance: While I was researching the history of the Memphis Zoo, I came across an unusual advertisement in a guidebook from 1908. There’s no photo or illustration, just the words: “DEARIE. What is it? Where is it?” Can you answer those two questions? — t.f., memphis.
Dearie — oops, I meant, Dear T.F.: Indeed I can, though there is one question about this interesting establishment that I cannot answer and … well, I’ll get to that later.
I know the old guidebook you mentioned, for I have a copy in the Lauderdale Library and was able to find the ad you mentioned. The booklet itself is a tiny thing, barely 2 by 5 inches, so the Dearie advertisement, at the top of the “opossum” page, is barely an inch tall.
As you noted, it doesn’t offer much information, does it? Far more useful is a vintage postcard from the same period (the very early 1900s) shown below, revealing the interior of this establishment. As you can see from the somewhat grainy image, at first glance it looks like a rather fancy, old-timey soda fountain, and the card shows that it was located at 51/2 N. Main Street, and A.J. Oakey was the proprietor.
An old photograph shows Dearie's location on a busy Main Street in 1912.
But this wasn’t a drugstore, where you might find many soda fountains of the day. Instead, Dearie was a shop offering “the purest fruit beverages and finest candies,” according to a listing I turned up in a 1908 Memphis city directory. Now that seems a rather limited selection, but Dearie featured a fancy mosaic tile floor, marble-topped tables, and glass cases stocked with boxes of candy. It’s hard to see, but the counter to the right has a massive brass cash register, jars filled to the top with candy or gumballs, vases filled with flowers, and rather elaborate painted decorations on the walls and ceilings. Massive wooden pillars hold up another marble-topped counter, and rows of mirrors make the tiny space seem larger than it really was.
The owner of this cozy shop, tucked away in a two-story building at Main and Madison, was Archibald J. Oakey. Born here in 1868, Archibald was the only son of John Oakey, who had ventured here from England sometime in the late 1800s and opened a saloon on Beale Street. Ads for the Oakey Saloon announced, “A dealer in the best brands of Lincoln, bourbon, and rye whiskey. A specialty of imported gin, brandy, wines, ale, and porter. Schlitz beer on draught. Also cigars and tobacco.”
A vintage postcard shows the interior of Dearie.
In other words, if you wanted something to drink, you would probably find it at Oakey’s, though I have to admit I had never heard of “Lincoln whiskey” until now.
Archibald went to work for his father sometime around 1885, when he was only 17 years old. Starting as a clerk, he became a bookkeeper and watched as 111 Beale expanded to a full-scale eatery called Oakey’s American Kitchen. Ads now proclaimed, “Our table service is unexcelled. Game, oysters, and all the delicacies in season.” By 1902, although his father still owned the place, Archibald was listed as the manager, with both of them at first living above the restaurant, but later sharing a house at 122 Hernando, just a few blocks away.
For whatever reason, in 1908 Archibald struck out on his own and opened his candy and fruit-drink store on North Main. This would have been an extremely busy location in the early 1900s. Just around the corner was Banker’s Row, a three-block stretch of Madison lined with the oldest and largest banks in the city. Along that side of Main Street were such popular establishments as the oddly named EEE Shoe Store, the Great A&P Tea Company (as the grocery chain was first called), and Fortune-Ward Drug Company (offering one of this city’s first true soda fountains). Across the street was the D.T. Porter building, considered our city’s first “skyscraper” and giving visitors a rare chance to take Memphis’ first elevator to various offices in the 12-story building overlooking Court Square.
I managed to turn up a photo of Main and Madison as it looked in the early 1900s (left). You can see the “Dearie” sign in the corner, and you certainly get a sense of how busy this section of downtown was in those days, with the sidewalks jammed with pedestrians and a steady line of streetcars rumbling along Main.
Dearie was surely a success in such a prime location. But Archibald Oakey died in 1917 at the age of 52, succumbing to a kidney ailment. With his father still running his own restaurant on Beale, there was no one to take over the candy business.
What does “Dearie” mean? I simply don’t know.
In 1918 the little shop became home to the Standard Fashion Company, which I presume was some kind of clothing store. It later housed the Martha Washington Candy Store, the Sarnoff-Irving Hat Company, Jean’s Hosiery Shoppe, and the Betty Maid Shop. After a fire in the early 1960s, the cluster of old buildings at Main and Madison was demolished and replaced with a more modern structure, which housed the Lerner Shops for years. Today, the former site of Dearie is home to WellWorx, a health and fitnessestablishment.
Now, T.F., I admitted there was one question I can’t answer, no matter how hard I peer at old postcards or advertisements: What does “Dearie” mean? I simply don’t know. At first I thought the shop might be named after a member of the Oakey family, but I turned up nothing (Archibald never married, so it’s not the name of a wife or daughter). I also considered that it might be the brand name of a candy, or perhaps a fruit drink they sold from that period, and again I hit a dead-end.
So regarding Dearie, I can tell you who, what, when, and where — but the “why” has stumped me.
Got a question for Vance?
Email: askvance@memphismagazine.com
Mail: Vance Lauderdale, Memphis magazine, 65 Union Avenue, Suite 200, Memphis, TN 38103
