Grain store closing due to owner’s illness

Friday, September 10, 2010

HOLLIS – For 27 years, Brian Spence’s customers at the Hollis Grain Store gladly shelled out an extra dime or dollar to support the local business.

Now they’re shopping in bulk to help their friend clear his shelves before he closes at the end of the month.

Spence, 53, was diagnosed with cancer about a month ago and is unable to continue running the store.

On Friday, Sept. 3, a sign that was hanging outside the store announced a liquidation sale.

Everything, with the exception of propane, shavings and grain, has been reduced by 20 percent.

But customers, who are also friends and neighbors, say there wasn’t ever a time when Spence didn’t give them more than they paid for.

“You’ll get a better undertanding of this when it’s gone, when people can’t come in,” said Nate Armstrong, a Nashua firefighter and Hollis farmer who worked at the grain store in the late ’90s.

Spence greeted his customers by name, carried heavy packages out to cars for anyone who needed a hand, and delivered and assembled many of the products he sold.

“If you wanted to know what was going on in town, you came to the grain store to talk to Brian,” said Helen Bywater, the office manager.

For most of the year, Spence operated the store seven days a week, closing on Sundays after Dec. 24 and resuming the seven-day schedule in the spring.

“It really attracted the type of person who’s a hard worker and also enjoys people,” Armstrong said.

Spence grew up in town and worked for farmer Al Orde, a local dairy farmer whose son, David, owns and operates Lull Farm here and in Milford.

Years back, the grain store was Orde’s hen house. Today, it’s a squat, red building with pine green shutters and odd-shaped rooms connected like the cars of a train.

“If it isn’t here, it doesn’t exist,” said longtime customer Tom Stawasz, who was shopping for a part for his tractor on Sept. 7.

Until several years ago, Spence grew and sold his own hay, between 10,000 and 15,000 bales a year. He still sells hay purchased from other farmers.

But he’s also expanded his inventory.

In addition to feed for dogs, cats, horses, chickens, goats and other animals, Spence also carries automotive and plumbing supplies, paint, cement, fertilizers, ice melts, mulch, seeds, pest control products, and dozens of other items for farm and home.

He started selling redwood children’s swing sets that came with a lifetime guarantee and quickly attracted customers from around town, across southern New Hampshire and beyond.

And he carved out a niche for himself by selling, delivering and setting up trampolines.

“One of the most remarkable things was how he was able to survive with the Home Depots, the Lowes, the True Values,” Armstrong said.

But Armstrong and others said Spence had the edge where it counted.

“You’d get the extra bit of attention from him,” Armstrong said.

Last week, Spence’s customers and friends told similar stories of Spence’s willingness to go the extra mile, even outside the business.

Spence was the one who showed up at Sue Yamamoto’s home every time it snowed while her husband, Tony, was at a Boston hospital following a freak accident that left him a quadriplegic and later resulted in his death.

“I’d come home and the walk was plowed,” Yamamoto said. “It was Brian.”

It was the same after Keith Adamyk, a local builder, hurt himself on a construction job. Spence would stop by the house to check on his friend.

“He’s helped so many people,” said Adamyk’s wife, Michelle, a nurse at St. Joseph Hospital in Nashua who works with Spence’s wife, Rita.

A man dressed in jeans and a T-shirt wandered down an aisle. More customers entered the store.

“It’s a wonderful place to come and shop,” said Donna Levasseur, a 12-year town resident who was shopping for shavings, a salt block and hay cubes for her two horses. “It’s convenient. It has everything we need, and we’re so sad about the circumstances of the store closing.”

Meanwhile, Armstrong gave his order to employee Owen McDonnell: 200 pounds of chicken food, 50 pounds of sheep food and 50 pounds of horse food.

A sign on a table near the checkout invited customers to write messages to Spence in a blank-paged book.

There were entries from Spence’s daughters, Briana and Karla, and notes from customers including one that said what was on everyone’s mind:

“Brian, Hollis without the grain store just isn’t the same.”

Hattie Bernstein can be reached at 673 3100, ext. 24, or hbernstein@cabinet.com.