Last year I asked my readers, “Who was T. R. Fletcher?” Here are some of their responses.

Becky Hicks Isaacs wrote, “ We used to live right down the road from this store. When I was a baby my dad walked in a hellacious snow storm to Fletcher's store to get me diapers. We used to always go in and get ice cold coca-cola in a glass bottle there. Great memories.”

Gary Hearn commented, “Talmage Fletcher, he opened the store after WWII and died about 35 years ago. I think he also dabbled in real estate as well. His widow Margaret ran it until she was about 90.”

Talmage became the local postmaster as well and his store acted as the post office, as many stores did and some still do out in the country.

Margaret Fletcher ran the store after her husband’s passing. In her obituary from the Johnson Funeral Home, “Margaret D. Fletcher, 97, passed away March 29, 2018 at Dogwood Village in Orange County, VA. She was born Sept. 10, 1920 to the late William R. Day, Jr. and Rosetta Sacra Day. She graduated from Unionville High School in 1937. She married Talmage R. Fletcher in 1938 and they were married for 45 years. They opened T.R. Fletchers Store at Belmont in 1946. She was a merchant for 68 years and a Postmaster for 30.”

Jon Grubbs, “Talmage Russell Fletcher (1915-1984) was my 2nd cousin 2x removed, and was the son of John Thomas Fletcher (1876-1950) and Clara Christiana Huston (1887-1939). While I never met him personally, my mother told me stories about getting dropped off at his store by the bus after school, and her getting candy from the store.”

There’s an excellent article (Country Store has the Personal Touch) by Jim Kundreskas in The Free Lance-Star, published May 6, 2015. He writes about an interesting delicacy the store offered, “ This time of year, Fletcher keeps a huge wheel of "rat cheese" on top of the counter, and she'll happily slice off a piece and wrap it for you in butcher's paper. Thankfully, she doesn't package it too securely, for my first bite is always taken back at my car before I've even started the engine.

Over the years, I've learned to buy a big enough chunk so there's actually some left when we get home.

That rat cheese is so good, it's worth a trip to the store all by itself. And don't get too excited, you city-folks reading now; "rat cheese" is nothing more than Wisconsin cheddar to a country boy or a gal like Fletcher.”

To read Kundreskas’s article in full, it’ll cost you a $1 for 6 months subscription, but it’s well worth it.
(https://fredericksburg.com/town_and_countymiscellaneous/country-store-has-the-personal-touch/article_6ec7a48f-eb14-5fd9-8be3-35bb9084a3f7.html?fbclid=IwAR0JrV_EtRMxkK4Av6TzsOV-E3oovXV904MsuFxe_hY0rHXM7lxBvfpwGFs)