(gentle music) - [Narrator] Illinois Stories is brought to you by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Illinois Arts Council Agency and by the support of viewers like you.

Thank you.

- Hello, welcome to Illinois Stories.

I'm Mark McDonald on the square in Rushville, in front of the Moreland and Devitt Pharmacy.

Now the Moreland and Devitt Pharmacy is interesting for a lot of reasons.

First of all, this location has been a pharmacy since the year of 1834.

It's never been anything but it started out as a log cabin of course, and we don't have photographs of that because there was no photography then, but that's how old this business is.

It's still operating a family operation, and in fact, they have been able to expand to other cities as well.

Jim Devitt, it's interesting that you have been in this, you and your brother and your other relatives, have been in this most of your life I guess.

And you've recently retired, but it's gotta be a challenge.

We're operating today's business out of an old building like this, but you all actually managed to do it haven't you?

- Yes it is definitely a challenge on many aspects, many levels, but it's home to us and it is a family business and a lot of times they say you know, there's a lot of difficulties with a family business and there can be some dynamics going on there.

- Mm-hmm sure.

- But we have made it work and it continues to work and I hope it will in the future because we're in a new generation.

I'm recently retired, but a new generation is taking over and it's continuing on and actually has expanded in the last few years or so.

- There's been a lot of different uses for this building.

I mean, this building's been here a long time and it's changed a lot over the years.

Tell me since your family has been in this business, how this has changed?

- Well, it's twice the size was when we came to Rushville in 1960 and joined my uncle Clark Moreland in the business.

And there was a bookstore called "Wells Bookstore" next door and they sold magazines, newspapers, all kinds of office supplies and books and things.

And in 19 late '60s, we purchased that from them and expanded into his store.

So basically doubled the size of the store, - Mm-hmm.

- And that took place and finished up in 1970.

So right where it says "Local Brew" there, that used to be "Wells Bookstore."

And you can see up on top where the two different buildings - Yeah.

- The contrast somewhat.

And so it then became all "Moreland And Devitt."

- It's a big building you can see how far back it goes.

Do you use all that space?

- Well, we use a lot of it for storage and various things like that.

We have offices up there on part of it where the windows are on the north side here.

And, but the rest of it's just used a lot for storage and we have so many prescription files that we were required to keep you know.

- Yeah, yeah.

- Mandated to-- - It's changed a lot through the years, but it's remained the same too.

And it's, there used to be a bowling alley underneath?

- Correct.

- And of course you used to have a soda shop in there and it's changed now because you have home healthcare inside, but you still have the snack bar or the coffee shop right?

- Yeah it's a different generation of it.

We actually subcontract that out.

We don't own that local brew coffee house and they've, they pay us a monthly rent, but they manage the whole thing, set their own hours and their own health.

And it seems to have worked out in that community seems to have supported it and appreciates it.

- As a matter of fact, it's, you've also lived through a couple of fires in this building haven't you?

- Yes we have, yes.

- And I guess that wasn't unusual in those times.

- No, I don't think so.

Of course I wasn't present then, but yeah from what I'm told that it wasn't completely unusual, but we had the luck of having the fire department right behind us.

You can still see the building there.

- Oh sure, with the white doors.

- Yes.

- Yeah.

- And as Gary had mentioned earlier, the day we had the one fire, they were having their fireman volunteer meeting and they said, "Hey, there's a fire next door.

"Let's go put it out."

(Mac and Jim Chuckling)It got taken care of pretty fast.

Well let's go inside and meet your family because you have other family members that are involved in the business.

We'll take a tour and then we're gonna look at the history of this beautiful place.

- Okay I'll point out one other thing Mark.

Those iron railings there, those are two stairways that went down to two independent businesses as well.

There used to be a beauty shop on the first one.

And then if you go down to the west, there was an insurance shop down there as well.

None of those are there now, and we still use it mostly for storage, but it's an interesting part.

- It sure is.

- It's called "Outside Entrance."

- All right, let's go over.

- Okay, thank you.

- Well, Scott Stoll this is very much a family operation.

You're not one of the Moreland or Devitts.

- No.

- But you're still related aren't you?

How does that work?

- Still related by marriage.

So yeah I married my wife, Mandy who is actually Marsha Bartlett's daughter and married her about 16 years ago, and about 13 years ago or so we moved down here and decided to help out with the business and maybe take it to the next generation and so.

- Well, and then you are that generation.

In fact we talked about the fact that it has expanded into some other cities, so how does that work?

How's that work?

- Yeah it's been, you know, we'd never planned on having to do, you know, more than one store is, has always been the store.

And we had opportunities that came along and, you know, we've been, we've benefited and we've been really fortunate where other independent pharmacies have gone by the wayside and closed their doors, we've gone the opposite way and we've been able to expand over that time.

- Where are they?

- We are over in Mt.

Sterling, Beardstown and Virginia.

So-- - And it's called Moreland and Devitt?

- Moreland and Devitt-- - In those cities too.

Okay well we have a lot of viewers in those cities.

Let's walk down this side because this was the original building right?

And we talked-- - Yes.

- About this outside, we saw that it was split, that was a different building than this.

- Correct.

- So this was the original building.

What would have been in here?

- Yes.

So if you can see the pillars that are up here now, and that would have actually split the building and where you're standing now there was, where the original soda fountain would have been.

- Ooh is that right?

- And the front counter, was actually over along this side here as well.

So they would have, you know, like we had the bus stop that was out there a long, long time ago.

So you'd have the, you have the soda fountain here and that eventually moved towards the back where we'll be walking here soon I imagine.

But everybody came kind of right down here, right down Broadway, (Mac laughs) and then had the pharmacy right down here until we, you know bought the other building next door.

- And there was a bus, you could sell bus tickets?

- You could sell bus tickets here, and the bus stop would be right out there.

- Yeah, okay - We had a little bit everything.

- Now it's cards, but it was a soda fountain okay.

- Yeah (Scott chuckles) - And then you would have gone straight back of course this would have been product I guess.

- Right, yeah all products through here.

- And then in that case, we're still in this side of the building.

- Yeah.

- And then the back would have been... What would be there?

- At the back at the time I believe would have been the pharmacy, until we moved it over to that side.

So we would have had a pharmacy, maybe a few medical supplies and things like that.

Medical supplies didn't kick in until a little bit later, but yeah, you would have, so it would have been a real narrow run back here to the pharmacy, and it was, you know just a small pharmacy or a small pharmacy area.

- Yeah.

- At that point in time.

- Well, I mean there's a lot more product.

Pharmacies changed a lot.

- Quite a bit.

- Now there are so many drugs available.

- Yeah.

- You can't do it by yourself in a small place.

No.

- Absolutely yeah and that's really the biggest thing is that the expansion of pharmaceuticals across the country and world is just, I mean, you know it's just blown out throughout, you know our pharmacy area.

But we even, when we, so when we got the other place, when we got the other side, then that's when the pharmacy moved over here and we brought this in as our soda fountain-snack bar area.

- Yeah.

- So this whole area back here became the soda fountain and snack bar, and then we opened this up to again more merchandise.

- Okay so the soda fountain's gone as soda fountains have gone are they?

- Yeah.

- It's too bad.

It is, it is unfortunate.

- I know.

- But this is, and this is important product here because not every, some people are in rehab or have special needs.

- Right.

- They need to be able to buy or rent equipment for home health care.

- Right.

Yeah and I mean as our business has grown, so has, you know the opportunity to do more things and being in a rural setting like we are, being able to provide all of those items whether it be medical supplies or you know, lift chairs and things like that, that's what we really wanted to do.

So we, that was the big reason of putting this whole home health demo area and putting the billing area back there as well.

- Let's go next door here.

- Yeah.

- Because this is the other building and we'll just work our way over here.

- Yeah, absolutely.

- Here's the new pharmacy.

- Yep.

- And I think your uncle said that this was a bookstore.

- It was a bookstore all on this side was a, it was a bookstore for a long, long time.

And I wanna say, I can't remember the exact date when they actually bought the other side and moved it over probably in the '50s - Mm-hmm - Give or take.

- But they just realized the need for expansion, for the, you know, the drugs and the medical supplies and your normal over-the-counter items.

So yeah when they brought this down, that was really the big expansion that we had 'cause it's really, hasn't gone through that many major iterations of a demo.

So that was the biggest one was knocking down this whole wall along here and then moving over.

And even in time, we just moved everything around and renovated even as early as a few years ago.

- Yeah.

- Where we decided to make a more of a boutique side over there while still keeping the drug store feel, the old drugstore feel, and then putting all of our over-the-counter medications and things like.

- Well it gives you a chance to market Christmas, Christmas-- - Right exactly.

Well it's, you know I think that's the most difficult part when we look at what our layout is how do you keep things the same, the same feel.

You know how do you keep that same good corner drugstore feel that we've always wanted to be while still updating.

- Right, yeah.

- So that's always the trick for us.

- Well, thank you.

- Well, thank you.

- Marsha Bartlett now you're one of the Morelands right?

- Yes.

- Okay your married name is Bartlett?

- Correct.

- You're standing in front of a place that used to be very familiar to you?

- Yes.

- When this was half the size, the business was half the size, this was the soda shop.

Right?

- Right.

- And you worked there.

- I did.

- What was that like?

(Mac laughs) - Well I was just 15 and worked under Millie Meneely she ran it.

And we had soups and just a regular fountain with the, just red stools.

I think they had a little back on them.

We had three booths and then two bathrooms at the back.

And... - And how much was a soda?

- Oh gosh I don't remember.

- 15 cents maybe?

- Probably five.

- Five cents?

(Mac laughs) - Yeah I think five.

- Okay.

- I'm not sure.

I don't remember.

But not yet, not very much.

And the bus stopped here.

The bus came here, so we would get busy two or three times a day with people getting off the bus to get a drink and use the bathroom and then have to get back on.

- Okay so this wasn't a local bus.

This was a bus that was actually going across country I guess.

- Yeah.

Was a continental.

- Continental?

- Yeah.

- Or Greyhound or one of those?

- Yeah it was continental.

- Okay so they would stop here and you would sell tickets here?

- Yes, yes we sold them.

Well Nell Riding sold them.

The checkout was over here and she would sell.

Well actually it was more in the middle maybe, but we had tickets and I kinda remember doing that, but I don't think I was allowed to do that but that was fun.

- But you did when she was gone and she was-- - Yeah, maybe she ran that.

She didn't work in the snack bar.

She worked in the other part of the store.

So she was a clerk for all her life.

60 plus years probably.

- Do you still work here?

- Yes.

- You do?

- I'm accounts payable.

I pay bills although I'm pretty much retired and Emily Bartlett, my daughter-in-law does it now.

So I really just work on Fridays or when they need me.

- Yeah.

Too bad you don't have the soda fountain anymore.

That would have been a tasty, - Yeah.

- Tasty job.

You got some interesting items up here and you all like to keep since you're a historical place.

You like to keep keepsakes from times past.

- Yes.

- But those are really interesting especially those glass.

- The ones on the left or like show globes I think they call them.

When you bought so many pill bottles, like, you know $1000 worth of pill bottles at once, you got a free show globe.

And then you could fill, put colored water in it we need to refill that one I guess.

- It's beautiful.

- Yeah.

And then that greenish machine is a bow maker.

We used to make our own bows.

You turned, put the little sticky thing in and turn it make it count 20 times or something.

- You mean when you wrapped packages for people?

- Yes when we had gifts, you know - Interesting.

- A box of candy or all our gifts we wrapped, we still do.

- And then over here too.

And you've got, is that a scale for a... - Yes.

- For pharmacy?

- For compounding yes or they used to, of course they used to have to compound everything.

And that was the type of scale they would measure the ingredients and then two other show globes on the corners.

- And those are older, those look older.

- Those are older yes, I'm not sure.

The one on the, first one was probably in my lifetime, but these are probably older.

- Yeah.

- And they might be from Lily if you bought so much, you know dollars worth of drugs.

- Promotional gifts.

Let's walk down this way because there's another item here that has stayed in this building for a long time.

You use it as a table to market items, but that's not what it was built for is it?

- No.

- That's very interesting.

- That's a doctor's table we think.

Yeah we found that upstairs, we're not sure - Mm-hmm.

- What doctor, we used to have a dentist upstairs, and we had an eye doctor upstairs years ago I think before my time.

But, and we just found it and thought that's Emily actually.

- Wait you can see, you would put your feet here and sit up here and then this was a slide out so that you could put your feet up and he could check you out.

- I think it had a little red pad on it too, but it was just kinda, needed recovered.

(chuckles)I'm sure.

- Well we have to see more of this building Marsha.

We have to see downstairs, we have to see upstairs, we have to hear about the history of the cabin and then the fires that occurred.

- Yes.

- And there's a lot that went on here.

- Yes it's been busy.

- Yeah thank you.

- Ahaa, thank you.

- Jim earlier we talked about the fire in the basement and the fact that the volunteer fire department was having a meeting at the time and they were able to get here and like almost no time and it's a darn good thing 'cause this building probably would have burned down.

- Oh yeah as old as it is and you can see from these beams, you know that they would go up just like kindling.

- Well here's the, here's the old boiler right.?

- Right.

- And I guess what happened, was somebody left it like as it is now left a trashcan, next to the boiler?

Is that how it got it?

- That's what I understand.

Well actually I think there was a cigarette or something had been thrown into the trash can and that's how it got started.

- And you can see, look how charred these beams, these joists are at, look here.

- You can see this frame.

- Oh my God.

Yeah Oh, that's serious.

Yeah that thing got hot quick, didn't it?

- Mm-hmm.

- But the building is still here and it's pure really honestly, just a pure luck I think.

- Yes.

- Can we make work back this way?

- Yeah.

- Now we're still at, we're under the old part of the building here but when you double the size of the pharmacy, this was where the wall was.

Right?

- Right.

- Okay.

- And we knocked that out to make access over here.

- This was a bookstore?

- Yes this was under the bookstore.

- And if you look over here, you can see that they still have, they still have some of their supplies here from all day they had you know, office supplies and things.

- Some of them are newer 'cause we took over a lot of the office supply business and tried to carry what was necessary to keep the community supplied but some of this is probably original bookstore - Mm-hmm.

- Equipment.

- And I'm looking at the ceiling here and that's a tin listen to that doggone and that really I wouldn't want to take on a job of de-rusting that, but that could be cleaned up pretty nicely couldn't it?

- Yes a lot of people do that, but not sure-- - I don't think we wanna.

- Not at this point.

- And back over here, this is interesting because back in the day, and some of these might've been from gee whiz the late 1800s.

Some of these portions and compounds - Yes.

- And medicines, which you can see.

- This is the way pharmacy used to operate.

Was if they would combine and compound these ingredients together to make the medicine that the doctor had ordered.

And it's not used much, it's not used at all to speak of here anymore, but we kept it mostly as a historical perspective than anything, but you can see there's some really, really old bottles here.

- Well, you don't a lot to do it.

Actually you would have to follow recipes wouldn't you?

- Yes.

- To make some of these compounds.

- Yes you certainly would.

- Okay let's, I understand there's a bowling alley.

There was a bowling alley here let's go take a look.

- Yep.

- Jim there was a lot going on down here.

I mean we talked about the fire, but there were other businesses here, - Yes.

- That were leased out.

This one was, what was going on?

- This was an insurance office the way I first remembered it.

And then when that ceased to exist, a barbershop moved in and it was a barbershop for many years.

And then they left and we decided to do keep some of our home health supplies, especially with CPAP and supplies and things like that.

And we had a man that would actually work on it.

Bob Wheelhouse was an old TV repair man from Wheelhouse TV.

- Mm-hmm.

- And he came to work for us.

And he was really skilled at being able to fix things like that, so he had his own little work room in there.

- I see.

- This is where he operated from.

- Somebody was operating a one lane bowling alley and this is what I wanna see.

- This is pretty unique.

- It really is.

- But this was a bowling alley.

- And I guess he'd have one pin center right?

- Yes.

- And he or she would work at the back here and just one lane and do you know anything about who operated this?

- No.

- No?

- I certainly don't.

There's some still some graphics here that had to do with the bowling alley and we've left those there for historical perspective - All scores must be beat.

- [Both Mark And Jim] $1 for high score [ JIM] Three straight games.

- [Mark] Okay - [Jim] I think that's something about Domino's but I'm not sure.

- [Mark] Yeah that look like Africa domino's.

That must've been a game they played.

- [Jim] Yes.

- [Mark] And then can you turn the light in here for us?

'Cause this room was, has an interesting pass too.

- [Jim] Get the light over here.

- There it is.

- This was originally a beauty shop.

- Oh, okay.

- And I can still remember the beauticians working in here, and they would go out this door, down the bowling alley and use the restrooms upstairs in the drug store 'cause there aren't any down here.

- Mm-hmm.

- But it was a beauty shop for many years.

- It smells, it smells odd down here where they making down here?

Were they-- - We concocted a horse liniment with a local veterinarian and my uncle Clark Moreland, got together and produce this horse liniment that was shipped all over the country, even into Canada and places like that.

- Huh!

- And it was a big part of the business here for a long time.

Then the ingredients became extremely hard to get.

And the FDA started cracking down on a lot of the different chemicals that were used in the liniment and so we had to cease too.

- They would rub this on the horses, what, on their legs or??

- Yes, mm-hmm.

- And it was successful they actually, the pharmacy mixed it down here and send it out?

- Yes.

- Huh!

- We shipped it out from the store and it was a good chunk of business really.

We'd have trainers, horse trainers that would call us from all over when we stopped making it and say, "I just got to have it.

"It's the only thing that works."

And we wished we could continue to supply it, but it wasn't supposed to be.

- Well thanks.

- Well Gary Moreland we were talking about what a family business this is and how it has been, you know through the years.

And interesting your dad, another Mr. Moreland became a pharmacy here kinda by accident or a pharmacist kinda by accident.

How did that happen?

- Well he, my dad was a pharmacist in Chicago, moved to Quincy and was working there as a pharmacist for not the dental store, but as a pharmacist in another store.

Was headed back to Chicago and stopped here for a Coke he said because he heard somebody might be looking for a job, a pharmacist.

And sure enough, the owner, was a lady named Ms. Vedder and her pharmacist had recently passed away.

And she was indeed looking for a pharmacist.

And as he said, "Be careful where you stop because you may never get away."

So that was in '53, (Mark laughs) and he came to work for her, for Ms. Vedder and a couple of years later arranged to purchase and.. - I'll be darned!

- There it started then and of course as you've met the people here, we're all kind of related, we've all been here and the grandparents moved from Chicago and Pennsylvania and we just all ended up here.

- That's how Vedder became Moreland Devitt right?

- Yes.

- Okay now interestingly too, if we look at those awards up there and they look like bowls to me.

But the top one, was the one that was awarded to your father - Yes.

- As pharmacist of the year in Illinois.

Is that right?

- [Gary] Well, the top one was the bowl of hygiene,, which is for community service, which he embodied.

And he was also named pharmacist of the year.

And fortunately I was able to be named that and also get a bowl of hygiene award so that's-- - [Mark] And that's the bottom one?

- [Gard] Yeah.

- [Mark] And they're very well, they're identical, except one's older than the other right?

They're identical.

- [Gard] Yeah.

And very proud of that because it represents not just pharmacy service and something you've done in pharmacy, but also for your community, which is something we were both very proud of.

- Yeah.

The reason I'm sitting here and you're sitting there is because this is one thing that you can provide to your patients that not every pharmacy can.

You'll sit down and you'll actually discuss with that.

- I think that's the key to our success.

We wanna interact.

If I had my way I'd be here all the time.

We kinda triage, we can interact with the patient, we can find, patients frequently don't know they have a question until they sit down and talk.

And pretty soon they have a question that you can answer.

Whether it's about how to afford medication, what's the right medication, does this problem I'm having need, be helped by medication.

And sometimes we say, "Yeah this is something you may wanna see (telephone ringing) "Your doctor as well."

But it's sort of a triage and of course, if the front door is open, there's a pharmacist here that will help you.

So access is the key.

- Thank you.

- Thank you.

- Well Gary, you know we've made a lot about, and maybe not as much as we should about the history of this pharmacy or the fact that it's not the same pharmacy, but this location has been a pharmacy for since 1834.

- Correct.

- And you've done a little research and you can't find a pharmacy anywhere that's any older.

- Nope there's not in this state so we claim and I think rightfully so to be the oldest pharmacy established in 1884 and still going down 1834 and go on now.

And in fact, I contend that we're the oldest pharmacy continually serving their community from the same location in the nation, because every other pharmacy I see that's older than us and there's only a couple, in the country have moved around in their community.

But there's always been a pharmacy at the corner that this one sits on right now in Rushville.

- Yeah it was The Vedder Pharmacy and then I think we did mention that your father then bought it from then and it became Moreland Devitt.

Devitt was the retail genius and Moreland was the pharmacist.

And that's still the way it is today.

We've got a lot of pictures of your dad when he was not only working in the pharmacy, The Morelands and The Devitts together, pictures of your dad when he was a man in the soda, - [Gary] (chuckles) yeah.

- [Mark] The soda fountain out there, did he enjoy this kind of work?

- [Gary] He loved it.

Really enjoyed working with people and well, a good example of that is he wanted to take care of people.

That was his thing.

"Let me take care of these patients."

So he put a phone in our house every time the phone rang here, it rang at our house too.

That way if he was closed, he could still answer it.

That's the way I grew up, that kind of level of service is the way I grew up just taking care of his patients, 24 7 they would advertise 24 7.

It literally mean "Come knock on my door "And we'll take care of you."

He loved it and people in the community really loved him for it.

- Yeah.

- It's a good legacy for me to aspire to.

- We see small towns, small cities in the case of some of these places, it's hard for retail establishments to operate because the giant retailers of the world kind of tend to take over and it's hard to compete with them.

And you'll see pharmacies in small towns have disappeared largely, but not here.

- Yeah and it's tricky.

It's a tricky business.

The middlemen in this industry are exerting so much influence and extracting so much money from it.

The PBMs that it makes it hard, for independent pharmacies to survive.

They do some things independent pharmacies though, do some things that nobody else can.

That's building the relationship with the patient.

Good health care is about relationships.

And that's what small pharmacies especially can do better than anything else.

And they still do that.

And the pharmacies that they are successful and it's just when the when the playing field's not level, it makes it hard for some of these little ones to continue to be viable.

- Gary, I wanna say thank you to you and your whole family, your whole, almost your whole family here-- - Whole family.

- Helped us putting this story together but they also help run the operation don't they?

- Everyday where it's, it is indeed a family operation.

- (siren blaring)Is that the fire station?

- It must be noon Mark.

- Oh it's noon okay.

(Gary laughs) I say just we're not having another fire are we?

- (chuckles) not today.

That's the noon whistle.

The fire station as we told you, it used to be right next door.

- Okay, well thanks a lot.

- Thank you.

- We mentioned the fact that this has been a pharmacy since 1834, which makes it maybe the oldest pharmacy at this location the oldest pharmacy in the nation.

But they kinda do things in a new way too, because they have, they've grown from one location to four and in fact, at the Virginia location, you can get a service like tele-health where you can, in a distance, you can talk to the pharmacist about what your needs are.

With another Illinois story in Rushville.

I'm Mark McDonald.

Thanks for watching.

(gentle music) - [Narrator] Illinois Stories is brought to you by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Illinois Arts Council Agency, and by the support of viewers like you.

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