ROCKDALE, Texas — Rockdale residents are sharing their memories of an old grocery store on social media after the historical building collapsed following heavy rains over the weekend.
- A historical store's roof collapsed after heavy rains Sunday in Rockdale.
- McVoy's served the community for over 50 years as a grocery and feed store.
- Now, people are sharing their favorite memories about the store on Facebook.
BROADCAST TRANSCRIPT:
To cousins Jenny Gebhart and Melanie Todd, this building at the corner of Main and Milam Streets wasn't just any building in Rockdale.
"I remember drinking little cokes with my Aunt Winnie, sitting in the back with my grandma, sitting on the bench with my grandpa," Gebhart said.
It was their childhood.
"It was my mother, Winnie, my uncle, Adolph, and my grandparents, Alfred and May McVoy, and also my aunt, Hilda, Adolf's wife. They all went to business in 1946 and founded a McVoy Grocery and Feed Store," Todd said.
But now, it's gone.
The roof collapsed after heavy rains Sunday morning.
"They had police out there, they had the fire department out there, they had the street department out there all before the break of dawn to ensure that the utilities were cut off so that we didn't have a downtown fire," Rockdale's City Manager said.
I met with City Manager Barbara Holly who tells me the building represented Rockdale's history, dating back to the 1800s.
"Well, it had been a feed store and before that, it had been a hotel that had burned down, so there's just a lot of history with that corner," Holly said.
McVoy's was a grocery and feed store for over 50 years serving hundreds of families in Rockdale.
"The people that shopped here became like part of our extended family," Todd said. "Everyone took time to visit and enjoyed one another."
"We harassed everybody down here as we got older and like I said, I started working here," Gebhart said.
These memories they say is all they have left of the store.
"It's just sad," Gebhart said.
