The Potomac Highlands Dispatch - the online newspaper

Photo 1: Just as the day it opened, Harry M. Shryock Groceries serves Hershey's ice cream.

Photos 2 and 3: Views of the store from across Maryland Route 51.

Photo 4: Proprietor, Harry Shryock conducting business with Robert (Bobby) Mallery at Harry M. Shryock Groceries, Oldtown, Maryland. The store has been in continuous operation since January 1947.

Photo 5: Harry and Marie Shryock Married for 66 years (67 years this July). Operators of Harry M. Shryock Groceries, January 1947 to the present. The store is open from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. each day.

Photo 6: Harry and Marie serving another generation after 64 years in business: Alyson White of Cresaptown is happy to get a "Sponge Bob Square Pants" ice cream bar.

Shryock family grocery a hub of the community
Harry and Marie Shryock being honored on Saturday

By Kevin Spradlin
The Potomac Highlands Dispatch
OLDTOWN, March 4 -- There seems to be no one moment to define the more than 60 years of commitment to being a good neighbor.

Instead, those attending the recognition dinner on Saturday at the Oldtown Volunteer Fire Department to honor two Oldtown natives, Harry and Marie Shryock, will recall everyday stories from any given year.

The celebration begins at 4 p.m.

You see, there wasn't a specific, major disaster through which the Shryocks and their family grocery store and gas station becamem well-known. Instead, the couple, now 88 and 87 years old, respectively, have served as a bastion for decency and integrity with friends and strangers alike for more than six decades.

"We're expecting at least 400 people," said daughter-in-law Bunny Shryock, who married Harry and Marie's son, David. "It's really a big thing. The whole community is doing this."

Family members, she said, "can't believe that they're doing this for them. They don't know why. Between me and my husband and sister-in-law, we're just stunned that they are doing this."

The couple wed on July 20, 1944, as reported in a Hagerstown newspaper. Harry served in the U.S. Army from December 1944 until the war ended the following year.

There were 32 stores and gas stations between Cumberland and Paw Paw, W.Va., along state Route 51 in January 1947 when the Shryocks opened Harry M. Shryock Groceries.

"And their's is the only store that has survived," Bunny Shryock said.

It almost didn't. A personal tragedy struck the Shryock family in September 1956. On Sept. 1, oldest son Thomas Harry was struck and killed in front of the store by a passing vehicle.

Following the death of their son, Marie wanted to close the store, but Harry asked to keep it open one additional year. It hasn't closed since and of more wonder, they have never had an employee; one of the two is always present to serve its customers.

It could be that the Shryocks' willingness to go above and beyond to serve customers is a primary reason for the store's survival.

People heading home from a late-night party, but short a gallon or two of gasoline, would knock on the door of Harry and Marie - their home is attached to the store - and request their. The Shryocks always obliged.

The Shryocks knew their customers - so they knew when times were tough and worked with them to ensure both sides got a fair deal. Bunny Shryock said the pair would regularly extend credit to those who needed it. Going one step further, the Shryocks sometimes would require collateral - an odd assortment of this and that which had meaning to those who needed goods from the store.

"They knew they could go there," Bunny Shryock said of customers in need. "You'd think they were a bank instead of a little grocery store."

"The whole community is doing this," Shryock said. "Between the churches and the organizations down there, I know there's 13 of them that are putting this together. We are so happy and thrilled that they are doing this for them."