Memories Are Always in Stock

Newsday's Time Machine
Sunday March 5 2000

• On March 22, 1914, James Agnew wrote a letter to his mother in Ireland, telling her about his new and unexpected business venture.
• You will be surprised to hear that I have bought a store of groceries and general merchandise, a business that has been established for about 14 years. It is located about 50 miles from New York on Long Island, Agnew wrote.
• He said that he had paid Walter E. Coleman about $3,000 for his stock, and had a 10-year lease on the Lake Ronkonkoma store, which had been built in 1888.
• It is quite a big venture take wholly on my own shoulders, he wrote. I did not get much encouragement from any of my friends but believing I was doing the right thing, took it upon myself. Never venture, never win, they say, is a very good motto.
• Shortly afterwards, Agnew was joined in the business by his brother-in-law, Ike Taylor, and the store became known as Agnew & Taylor.
• They were partners until Ike passed away in the late 1940s, says Paul Weber, who, with his wife, bought the business in 1984. After Taylor's death, Agnew was joined in there by his sons, Jim Jr., and Bill, who still lives in Lake Ronkonkoma. James Agnew died in the early 1960s, Weber says.
• Until around the same time, the Agnews lived above the store. There's an old dumbwaiter here that the family used for their meals, Weber says. The Agnew family sold the store in 1972 to Harry Powell and Roland Baum, who ran it for a dozen years before selling to the Webers.
• Were still an old-fashioned hardware store with the creaky wooden floors, says Weber. The area around the store, meanwhile, has filled with about two dozen stores, including a pizza parlor, deli, real estate office and flower shop.

Lake Ronkonkoma, Suffolk County, Long Island, New York