Thursday, January 31, 2013

Winning mom over - "seconds" and a lifetime of love


Editor's Note: I love a good love story. I also love hearing about how the candy my family has been making for four generations has played a part in our customers' lives. This blog combines both. The following is an excerpt from an email we received during Christmas time at the candy shop. It was written by long-time Anderson's customer Nancy Meyer to my father, Leif Anderson.

Meyer claims that her four adult sons owe "their very existence" to Anderson's Candy Shop. We found her message delightful and very touching. 


Because we enjoyed Meyer's tale, and because that most-romantic-of-holiday's is right around the corner, we thought you would enjoy Nancy's story, too.

Thank you Nancy, for sharing, and without further ado ... the words of Mrs. Meyer.


Aloha Mr Anderson. It was good speaking to you as I ordered candy for my 4 adult sons who owe their very existence to your shop.


As I related to you, my husband Charles Meyer was the son of Julia and Gerhard Meyer who owned the Meyer Tourist rooms at the south end of Richmond in the 1950's.

Young and in love - Nancy Mellor and Chuck Meyer.

Charles aka Chuck went away to college in Madison, Wisconsin and mutual friends introduced us.


At the time, I lived just outside of Madison and my mother was not particularly enthusiastic about my college boy suitor UNTIL after one fated trip home to Richmond when he returned with a gift for Mom.


It was a box of Anderson's Candy and the reaction was remarkable.


It melted all of Mom's resistance to Chuck.


Nancy's grandfather
Charles Johnson aka Dutch
Mom had memories of your establishment going back to her childhood in Chicago. Her father would borrow a friend's open top car and drive up to your business -- this would have been in the 20's as Mom was born in 1915.



Money was definitely not plentiful for them so my grandfather would buy bags full of "seconds" and take them back to Chicago to enjoy.


Mom had such good memories of those treks and the candy that all resistance to Chuck melted when she realized that he was the way to tap those childhood memories once again.

...


Chuck and I were married 47 years before he died in 2006.

Nancy Meyer and Charles Meyer - happily married.


We had four sons, the people who will receive the candy ordered today.


Throughout our life together Chuck and I lived mainly in Michigan but also in Belgium, France and Japan. But any visit back to the area would absolutely have to include a stocking-up stop at Anderson's.


We bought for ourselves and the sons all remember the time in your shop as fondly as they were each allowed to choose their own personal candy bars.


During each stop, we'd often tell the story of Mom and her "seconds" and ask the clerk if perhaps there were any second of any kind to be had that day.

Nancy's mother Betty Johnson Storie

On more than one occasion the clerk would quietly reach over and thump on a bar that would, of course, break, and say "yes, we have a second."


We would take Mom her second and she would enjoy her childhood memories once again.


Mom enjoyed her last second during the summer of 2004 and died the next year.

...


I do think the existence of your business was quite influential in lessening my Mom's resistance to the brash young college man I had taken a fancy to all those years ago, and therefore is part of the reason we were able to survive our courtship, marry and raise four sons who have their feet firmly planted in the Midwest no matter where else they might live.


Thanks for being part of our lives.


- Nancy Meyer

Nancy Meyer and her sons William (Bill), Steven (Steve), Scott, and Andrew (Andy).