In the Archives: William F. Steinke

A trip down the rabbit hole can have many jumping off points. This trip was inspired by a slip of paper from 1936. Tara Florist posted a picture of this receipt from W.F. Steinke's Cash Market on its Facebook page earlier this month, saying they found it while cleaning the basement. My mom asked them about it, and they sent it to me. Before I pass it along to another family member, I thought I'd see what I could find on old William.

W.F., as he was often known, was born in 1883 in Volhynia, Russia (present day Ukraine) to Eduard and Christijane Steinke. Eduard was my great-great-grandpa Julius' brother, which makes W.F. my ... uh ... relative.

W.F. came to America in 1902 with his father, mother and siblings. They boarded the SS Braslau, a German ship, with 2,000 other passengers and made the 13-day journey. They arrived in Benton Harbor in June. In 1909, W.F. and his father became American citizens.

In 1906, W.F. married Minnie Ott. They had 2 children, Alfred and Arnold. Alfred was a star lineman for the University of Michigan football team and was also a conference wrestling champ, so I'll have to look into him more later.

William and Minnie were married for a good long time: Nov. 17, 1906 until W.F.'s death on Jan. 9, 1966 at home.

According to the research I received from a family member, W.F. died in a car-train crash, which pique my interest. But it's simply not true. He was involved in the accident at an unlit crossing in Benton Harbor in September 1957. By October, he was lobbying for a light at the crossing. Apparently it wasn't the first, or the last, accident at the intersection.

W.F.'s death in 1966 was newsworthy, because he was a prominent businessman in St. Joseph and Benton Harbor. He had been in the grocery game almost continuously from 1910-1966, taking a short break in 1914 as World War I broke out and another "five-year try at farming" somewhere along the way. Obviously farming wasn't for him.

His real career started in 1910, when he and his brother, Ed, started Steinke Brothers Grocery Story in Benton Harbor. The next year, his brother dropped out of the partnership, according to news reports, and W.F. went it alone until 1914. Looking at advertisements in the newspaper, he didn't bother to change the name of the store. The store also, apparently, closed during the winter months.

After selling the store in 1914, he became a manager for another store in the area that same year.

In 1925, W.F. and Oswald Ziebart bought the Eckert Market in St. Joseph and renamed it Economy Cash Market.

By mid-1928, Ziebart's name stopped appearing on their advertisements, and W.F. was listed as the sole proprietor.

After awhile, the store just became known as W.F. Steinke's Cash Market, as you saw on the receipt from 1936.

I'm not certain when, but W.F. moved his operation, or closed the cash market and opened a new store, to Benton Harbor. From what I saw, it didn't appear to be the only Royal Blue store in the area, so it must've been a franchise of some kind.

The grocery game wasn't always a safe one. On more than one occasion, the store, or W.F. himself, was robbed. In this story from 1959, it says he was robbed at gunpoint. That didn't stop the 75-year-old W.F. from trying to grab the gun from the robber.

By all accounts, W.F. was a hard-working man. In this story from just 15 months before his death, the 80-year-old was still working 70 hours a week at the Royal Blue. The story even takes a swipe at the "shrinking work week when a 40-hour stint is standard." I'm not sure if that's a jab from a cranky old-timer reporter or a barb thrown by W.F. himself. I'll let you decide for yourself and end my post with this quote from W.F.: "I don't plan to retire until I have to."