Derelict P. H. Lodge and Sons storefront prior to it being bulldozed
The following picture shows the primary part of the P. H. Lodge & Sons storefront not too long prior to the whole structure being bulldozed by the shire. By my working out I think that this picture was taken in the first half of 1985.
As I remember it, I went up to Morawa and got this picture of my dad’s old store and the following year when I went back to Morawa the store was gone. No trace remained.
I only wish—as did the rest of the family at the time—that the Morawa Shire had contacted someone in the Lodge family before bulldozing the store. I am not sure how that might have changed things, but I just feel that it could have.
At the time my dad was still alive and he was extremely distressed that the structure had been bulldozed and that nothing now remained but the dirt. Even the beautiful big peppercorn tree at the back of the shop, planted by my father’s father, had been dealt with. Gone.
My dad suggested we might have been able to save the façade (i.e., the front of the shop) and paid to have useful repairs done to it and in some way have fenced it off. This would have saved the double-glass bay windows that his dad had brought up from Perth. It might also have saved the side wall built using rock brought in all the way from Koolanooka (see this post). Just so that, as time went by, Morawa did not forget or completely lose the very first general store that was established there. Established before the hotel and before the railway station. Before any shops or building were put up on the ‘wrong’ side of town (i.e., on Winfield Street, on the west side of the railway line—when it went in).
P. H. Lodge & Sons had supported hundreds of local farmers, because back then there was no Bankcard, Visa Card, or personal loans (from banks that didn’t exist in Morawa or anywhere within 150 miles). P. H. Lodge & Sons, like many country stores of the time, would ‘carry’ farmer’s debts on the books for months, even years, before they got paid. And, unlike a bank, no interest got added to these unofficial loans. When the farmer’s made money from their produce they came in and ‘squared up’—i.e., paid their debt on the ledger and started with a zero balance again.
I have tried to come up with the year I took this picture. At this stage I am thinking 1985, but I am prepared to be wrong if someone has a better guess. Just leave me a comment.