Photo courtesy Carolyn Fernandez Cheezy Fernandez behind the meat counter in 1957 at Fernandez Store on the corner of Water and Union Street Dog River Crier, #41, July 1987, Julia McIntire, Editor, and the Northfield News, July, 2006

Arsenio Fernandez was born in 1886, in San Tander, Spain, the son of a hardworking farmer. When he was fourteen years old, unable to speak a word of English, he came alone to this country and found work in a Montpelier stone shed where he worked for ten years. In 1910 he returned to Spain and married Jovita Soto. Jovita was a young woman, living with nuns, learning as girls typically did, cooking, housework, and other domestic duties. They married when she was 23, and he was 25. They returned to America where they could watch World War I come and go, far from their native land.

They came to Northfield where he was a granite cutter for Cross Brothers. Jovita, all her life a wonderful cook, ran a boarding house in a building where the Day Care center used to be located, next to the RR tracks. Arsenio eventually started his own granite business, on the side, while working in the sheds. They bought property on Holton Road. Jovita took over the task of raising the first five children, without the benefit of running water, central heat, plumbing or electricity.

Arsenio began to notice that many of his friends and co workers became ill and died from the lung diseases common after years of breathing granite dust. He decided to leave the sheds and become a business owner.

He had heard that the Kerrs were looking for a place to retire, so one of the earliest Fernandez real estate transactions took place in 1919 (6 years before real estate agent, Fel, was born). It was a oneon one trade of the farm for the store. Arsenio and Jovita would take up the grocery trade, and the Kerrs would retire.

Arsenio's original farm on Holton Hill was the farm he traded for the Kerr Meat market. When the children were young, they lived over the store. Later, he bought a farm off Union Brook Road where he raised beef which he packed in ice from Bolus Union's icehouse and delivered around town. The Fernandez couple had six children:

Julia (mother of Mike Popowski, Nina and Jon)

Arsenio 'Sam'

Julio 'Cheezy,'* (husband of Carolyn, father of Vincent, Steve and Peter)

Irene, the only surviving sibling

Jovita 'Nina'

Ralph, 'Fel,' (husband of Mary and father of David, Ramon, Lisa and Linda)

"In 1930 the family closed the store and went to Spain, put the children in school and planned to make Spain their permanent home. It was a time of political unrest under King Alfonso with turmoil and difficulty making a living. So, the following year, the Fernandez family came back to Northfield for good, putting their time and energy into what became Fernandez Market.

"At home, Spanish was the language spoken, but Arsenio insisted that English would be spoken in the store. He reportedly told Jovita, 'Speak English. If you speak Spanish, they will think you are talking about them.'

"Hard times would again fall on America with the Depression, but the Fernandez family working together, and by making sound business decisions through those difficult times, would continue to prosper.

Life in those years still centered on farming and operating store. It was truly a family business. All of the children worked in the store, and Friday night was generally devoted to dressing and plucking chickens for sale on Saturday. If the chickens didn't sell on that day, the chickens came back home and the family ate chicken on Saturday night.

"World War II crept in when Fel was a 14 year old freshman in high school, the same age his father was when he arrived on American soil. His brothers, Cheezy and Sam, were off to war, as did his sisters' husbands (Julia Popowski and Nina Platt).

"Food shortages became a nationwide issue. Arsenio set up a system to buy cows from farmers, butcher them on the farm and market the meat from the store. Fernandez was the only store in town during the war that had meat. Every day, Arsenio would cut the meat orders and the girls would help wrap and get the delivery ready. Fel would deliver the meat around town, a pickup load every day before school to such places as Norwich University, the Margaret Holland Inn, restaurants and boarding houses.

As the children grew up they all took turns running the store, and the girls even ran it while Sam and Cheezy were in the service. Later the three girls married military men and moved away. The father ran the store and sons, Sam and Cheezy, gradually took over the store. At the time of this writing, Cheezy and Carolyn Fernandez and son, Steve, are owners of the store (Crier, 1987).

According to Mike Popowski, the family farmhouse on Union Brook has been renovated and is now occupied by Mary, Fel's wife. The hired man's house was rebuilt and is now occupied by Rose Audet. Fel's sons now own the original homestead property on Holton Road, now Aseltine Road, off Union Brook. A close look reveals the foundations of both the house and the barn.

My memories of the Fernandez Market: Sam was always at the register and kept the yellow charge slips. My Mom telephoned her order in, and one of Cheezy's boys delivered the groceries, putting the cold things in the fridge. The other groceries were left on the dining room table, along with the yellow slips. We never locked our doors. My Mom paid her bill once a month. Sam was known for his cooking skills as well as his people skills. His grocery bag recipes were "his bag." I have one to this day, a delicious yellow squash casserole in his handwriting, in pencil. Cheezy was always in his apron, ready to help everyone with their meat cuts. My Mom just asked Cheezy to "cut up a roast for 5." When I grew up never knew what cut of meat to buy. To this day I'm not sure what to pick out. Thanks, Cheezy!

*Carolyn explained to me how Cheezy got his name. When Julio was a child his non-English speaking uncle visiting from Spain, renamed him "La-Chi spa." which in Spanish means "a sparky, lively person." He became Cheezy to his family, and it stuck. My computer translation comes up with "The Spark." That certainly was Cheesy.