R.L. Nance is one of the oldest businesses in Ripley

RIPLEY, Miss. (AP) - On a slightly dusty shelf inside R.L. Nance & Co. is a sign that says, “This is no museum; this junk is for sale.”

It may be tongue-in-cheek, but there’s some truth to the statement. The store certainly has its fair share of antique, old and modern hardware and appliances.

Need some galvanized carriage bolts? No problem. Maybe it’s a Lodge cast iron skillet or a rocking chair you’re looking for. If you need a slide projector carousel, no need to go to eBay - the store has more than a dozen available. Maybe it’s a butter churn or a leather bridle or collar you need.

Maybe you need a washer and dryer. There’s also an old console TV on the sales floor, but it doesn’t appear to be working.

There are great finds throughout the store, loosely organized but easily found by Carl Lee Nance Jr., who at 91 still works at the store daily.

And despite what seems to be a hodgepodge of merchandise scattered throughout two buildings, Nance knows where everything is.

“Well most of it,” he said. “Every once and a while I’ll stumble over something I forgot about.”

Tim Long, an avid antiques collector who visits the store occasionally, has found many items he’s needed but couldn’t find elsewhere.

“If you need a new old replacement part, you can probably find it there,” he said with a laugh.

The business on the square in Ripley has been around since the turn of the last century. The hardware store - one of the few independent locations remaining - also was a funeral home at one time.

A photo circa 1921 shows the business with a sign that says “R.L. Nance and Co./Hardware, Furniture, Coffins & Caskets.”

Today, the store is operated by the fourth and fifth generations of the family.

Nance is a fixture at the store, along with his son, Carl Lee III.

The elder Nance wouldn’t have it any other way. While he’s an avid fisherman and hunter, “I don’t know if I could do any more fishing and hunting than what I’m already doing,” he said with a chuckle. “Besides you have to have a place to come to talk to the people.”

Nance is a World War II veteran but had to wait to go into service because he was too young - he was 16 when he enrolled at the University of Mississippi in September 1941. Three months later, the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, bringing the U.S. into the war.

“Being so young, I got to finish two years at Ole Miss before I went into service,” he said.

After the war ended, he returned to finish his degree at Ole Miss and went back to work for his father, Carl Lee Nance Sr. at the store.

BUSINESS, FAMILY TIES

R.L. Nance, Carl Lee Jr.’s grandfather, was a teacher and county treasurer. He fell in love and married Ethel Ray, whose father, Finch Ray, had a leather tannery and saddle shop. Finch Ray’s son, Jimmy, ran a soft drink bottling plant nearby.

“When R.L. and Ethel married, sooner or later they all became business partners,” Nance said. “That was in the late 1800s.”

R.L. Nance started his namesake business in the early 1900s, and the name has stuck.

“He was a great man, and we saw no reason to change it,” Carl Lee Nance Jr. said.

He said the funeral business offered caskets and coffins to grieving families, who, in those days, had the bodies of their loved ones sent to their homes, with services held at the church.

Carl Sr. began offering burial policies under the auspices of McPeters Funeral Home in Corinth, and later set up his own burial association and policies.

“For years, we didn’t build a funeral home because the funerals were held at the churches,” Nance said. “It wasn’t like it is today, where you leave them at the funeral home and both services are held there.”

R.L. Nance & Co. left the funeral side of the business in 1971, but kept part ownership in Ripley Funeral Home. It got out of the business completely a couple of years ago.

Now the company is simply a hardware store, where Nance still likes to spend his days.

“I’ve been here since January of ’48, but I started long before that as a young boy,” he said.

He now finds himself in the same position his grandfather and father were when he was growing up - a town historian of sorts.

“I can’t get used to it . I was a boy when people would come in to check on past history and ask my grandfather questions. Then after he passed, I saw them come ask my daddy. Now they’ve been coming to see me for years. Some of it I know, some of it I don’t.”

Nance could have retired years ago, but said there wasn’t anything on daytime television he liked.

His hours vary, but he keeps mainly to what were once called banker’s hours - roughly 9 to 5.

“But they come in earlier these days,” he said. “I tell people I was born lazy and never got over it.”

Nance said he appreciates the generations of customers who have continued to shop at the store.

“You know, we have people up north who move here and never leave, and I hear all the time it’s the people here locally who are the best anywhere they’ve lived,” he said. “I agree . I’ve been fortunate.”

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Information from: Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal, https://djournal.com