NOSTALGIA OUTSIDE THE BARBER SHOP

A Tribute to the Styer Family

      During the Korean War, Elmer was a Master Sargeant with 800 soldiers under his command. There is a lot of experience under that hat, and seventy nine years of patronizing Zerns Farmers Market. The Korean War remains strong in his reminiscences: "there ain't a day that I don't think  about the war, the men that you had to kill and the men that you had to protect. It was you or him." Styer went  all over Korea doing just that for thirty-six months. When he got back to Pennsylvania, he smiles, "you can imagine, I was in heaven."

"I would like to go back again to Korea, I would like to see what is like now," Elmer says. He took his wife Florence, back ten years after the war. "I took her all over South Korea I wanted to show my wife." It wasn't built up like it is now, it was the, same old South Korea, and we stayed two weeks out on the road." Now Elmer imagines, it is all manufacturing plants and skyscrapers.

Though his memories of Zerns began at age five - - - seventy-nine years ago - a few years after his return, the seasoned veteran became fire chief of the Sassamansville Fire Company and Elmer and his crew were first on the scene at the 1958 fire at Zerns.  "The fire was so strong," he recounted, it burned and blistered the paint off the fire engine. The whole community celebrated when it [Zerns] was rebuilt."

His brother Eugene Styer also has a lot of life experience and a lot of wisdom. More than that, he has a firm grip on the nostalgia many of us feel about Zerns Farmers Market. For seventy of those 92 years since Zerns has opened in 1922, Eugene shares, "Zerns has always been a meeting place. In the early days, Dad would meet up with his friends and he and his Mom would go round and buy a lot of produce, and visit with all her favorite vendors. She could  buy a whole stalk of bananas for a dollar," Eugene exclaims. "We bought shoes from Mr. Merkel and dungarees - no sleek designer designs then, just plain old jeans."

And as Eugene and Elmer recall, "Everyone remembers Dolly and Ruby and the refreshing cold pineapple drink these two pleasant ladies concocted for many years for Zerns customers, repeat customers, every weekend!"

This holiday season we salute with pride and grateful thanks, these two brothers and other Veterans who have protected our home for so many years.

Happy Thanksgiving from Zerns Farmers Market staff and management.