By Bill Robinson
Senior News Writer
RICHMOND — In 1935, America was still in the throes of the Great Depression, but G.H Thornberry was an optimistic young man of 26. He left his job in a bank and moved to Winchester where he opened a grocery store, following in the footsteps of his parents who had a grocery in Olive Hill.
Thirty-four years later, he opened another grocery store on Main Street in Richmond. He also had another grocery in that era at Mt. Sterling.
Yesterday, Thornberry celebrated his 101st birthday with a luncheon at Arlington House with his two surviving sons and other descendants.
The grocery stores in Winchester and Mt. Sterling are now history, but two of his granddaughters, Dina Flynn and Debbie McIntosh, run the Richmond Sav-A-lot, the successor of the store he opened here 41 years ago.
Dressed in a crisply pressed shirt and sweater vest with neatly groomed white hair, the Carter County native looked as fit as a man 30 years younger as he sat at the head of a long table.
With the help of a great-grandson, Cody, 2, Thornberry blew out the three candles on a birthday cake after family members sang, “Happy
Birthday dear papaw.” He did not eat much of the carrot cake and its rich icing, however, seeming to prefer the fruit cup he was eating when the cake was brought out.
Their patriarch has long favored fresh fruits and vegetables in his diet, family members said. Thornberry said he looks forward to planting a garden soon, just as he has done for as long as he can remember.
“My garden has been plowed,” he said, “but it’s been too chilly lately to get out and work it.”
Reflecting on when he first opened his own business, Thornberry said, “Those were rough times, but we didn’t know it then.”
Among the signs of the times in 1935 were customers who brought fresh eggs or live chickens to the store to exchange for groceries.
Thornberry’s first Richmond store was on Main Street, said his son Larry, who managed the family’s Richmond operation for many years.
It later moved to Water Street and then to Richmond Plaza, where it joined the Super Valu and then the Sav-A-Lot retail associations. Two years ago, the Thornberrys moved their store again, to the Robert R. Martin Bypass.
Thornberry’s was the first Richmond grocery to feature a self-serve meat department, Larry Thornberry said.
Starting with G.H. Thornberry’s parents, the grocery business has been a family tradition.
“Family members have always worked the stores,” the elder Thornberry said, “and we never had an ill word.”
When a reporter expressed skepticism about such an idyllic characterization, Thornberry said, “We’re all family and we love each other.”
Thornberry visits the Richmond store at least once a week to shop, he said, but does not try to tell the younger generations how they should manage it.
Asked what advice he would offer the young,Thornberry said, “Get out there and get with it, and never give up.”
Not an especially talkative man, Thornberry mostly has led his family by example, a family member said.
He seems to have passed his work ethic down at least two generations. His granddaughter Dina was dressed in a buttoned-down Sav-A-Lot shirt for the luncheon that began shortly after 11 a.m. She was headed back to the store afterward and would be catching the 1 p.m. University of Kentucky basketball game only on the radio, she said. However, her grandfather has the leisure time these days to watch games on television.
A long-time UK fan, Thornberry had season tickets going back to Memorial Coliseum and the glory days to the Adolph Rupp era. He stopped attending games only because all of his buddies he once shared the stands with have passed on.
“He gave up golf just a few years ago only because he felt he was too slow and was holding up the golfers playing behind him,” said grandson-in-law Kevin Flynn. “When he was 90, his goal was to shoot his age in golf.”
In addition to his son Larry and his twin brother Jerry, Thornberry had another son, Jay Douglas, who is deceased.
He has nine grandchildren, 15 great-grandchildren and one great-great-grandchild. His wife Virginia died in 1996.
Bill Robinson can be reached at brobinson@richmondregister.com or at 624-6622
