While driving through town I noticed this plaque on the front of the Liberty Foods building.
Beatrice Blomfield
Beatrice Blomfield arrived in Fruitvale in the early 1930s and opened Beatrice Blomfield's General Dry Goods & Ladies Ready to Wear Store. The doors of her store opened on the corner of Main Street and Columbia Gardens Road (Borden Street). Her white hair, white stockings, and a precise neat way of dressing set her apart.
She became the first woman merchant in the Beaver Valley. Beatrice's 'emporium' boasted everything imaginable from stockings to buttons to frilly panties. Every 24th of May she raffled a large beautifully dressed doll at 100 per ticket. Fruitvale's first library began inside her store as a book swap. In 1954 she closed and retired to Winnipeg.
The Beaver Valley and Pend d'Orellle Historical Society
Beatrice Blomfield
“Let's see, what was next - oh, Bloomy's, on the corner where Liberty is - old Miss Bloomfield. She was the cutest little thing you ever saw, 4' 9", little white hair, precise and neat as could be, and she had everything under the sun: frilly panties, buttons, and God knows what in that store.
It was a huge place, actually; every morning at quarter after six she'd pop down the hill - she always wore white stockings – whether it was rain or shine or what, and she never had a car; a little old spinster.
And every 24th of May, I think, she had a huge great big doll for a raffle, and we used to beg our mothers to buy raffle tickets; you know, the more frills the better.
I'll tell you how eccentric or sweet she was. She rented this little tiny house on Nelson Avenue from my dad [Andrew Nelson]. She must have lived there 12 or 15 years. She never wanted anyone to clean or paint or anything; she'd do things herself. After she moved out, we went in there and the walls were painted yellow. She had pictures on the walls; all her pictures had little lace doilies around them. She had painstakingly painted around everything, so that when you took the picture off you could see where the lace doily had been.
She also had the first library: she had a little library swap in her store. I can remember getting a few books.”
Excerpts: “Beaver Valley and the Pend d’Oreille
Oral histories from early settlers of Fruitvale, Beaver Falls, Columbia Gardens, Montrose, Park Siding, and the Pend d’Oreille River Valley 1892 - 1945"
Mrs. Genevieve (Jen) Heitman, Fruitvale
(Interviewed - June, 1979)
Pages 98 and 99
Published by;
Beaver Valley and the Pend d’Oreille Historical Society
Copyright 1997