Edgar Belbin started Belbin's Grocery with his father, Robert Belbin, in the front room of the family home on Quidi Vidi Road at the foot of Signal Hill in downtown St. John's in 1943.
"It was just another neighbourhood store," said his son Robert Belbin. "What's significant is that we survived without changing our focus on groceries. Most who survived switched to beer and lotto tickets."
In an era of big-box stores and super centres, Belbin's remains a family-run neighbourhood fixture, but it now offers updated conveniences such as on-line ordering.
It is a hub for local products, from breads and jams to dog food and garbage bags. This adaptability, and a dedication to DIY commerce and industry, was present from the start.
Edgar Belbin was born in what was a bedroom and is now the office of Belbin's. His father worked as a floorwalker with the Ayre & Sons grocery store, and his mother, Lillian Cook, came from a farming family. He was the second eldest of five children. He went to the East End School and then graduated from Grade 11 from Bishop Field College. He worked a series of jobs: ushering at the Capitol Theatre, delivering messages for lawyer E. S. Pinsent and working weekends with his grandfather Cook and uncles George and Joe on the Cook farm on the White Hills, which produced dairy products and vegetables.
He was working in the claims department of Newfoundland Railway when his father developed such severe rheumatoid arthritis he needed to change jobs, so the Belbins opened their own small store. Edgar's brother Fraser soon joined them, followed later by their brother Douglas.
A few years later they started their own farm, primarily for vegetables and eggs, which were sold at the store.
When their father died on Boxing Day, 1946, Edgar and his brothers carried on. The business was never incorporated and functioned as a simple partnership for decades.
Edgar worked 6½ days a week, and many nights. Most people had charge accounts, which he tallied in a ledger. Customers dropped off their orders, which would be filled, boxed, charged, and delivered by horse and wagon. Edgar might do any of these tasks, as well as keep inventory, order stock, liaison with sales people, and hand pick the fruit and vegetables from Canada Packer's and Swift's.
Nothing was frozen - blocks of ice provided the only refrigeration. If there was a shortfall, one of the other groceries, like Halliday's Meat Market or Caines Grocery, would loan them stock, a favour that would always be returned.
As the store flourished, the living space in the house got smaller and smaller, absorbed by the commercial needs. By the early 1960s Belbin's filled 1,200 square feet and built on a meat room.
Edgar Belbin studied charts and taught himself to cut all the meats. He was careful to say he was not a butcher, but he was skilled.
By now, he was married to Shirley Guzzwell. They had known each other all their lives, and may have been somewhat fated for wedlock, as Edgar's two sisters, Ruth and Vira, married two of Shirley's brothers. "So we could never get together to talk about our in-laws," Shirley says.
In the 1970s, Mr. Belbin was persuaded to take one day a week off - Wednesdays. His family had moved first to New Cove Road, where he had small gardens of gladiolas, roses, lettuce and tomatoes, and then to St. Philip's, where he had 4½acres of flowers and vegetable gardens.
He loved to garden, an endeavour he supplemented with a little drink of gin. He also played golf and fished - on May 24 he was known to make his wonderful fishermen's stew in an old iron pot, with fresh fish, potatoes, onion and fat pork.
He retired in 1986, but continued to come in and work the cash.
Belbin's is still a family-run operation, employing 21 people.
"There was," says Robert, "a good foundation laid."
Edgar Belbin Edgar Belbin was born in St. John's on May 30, 1921. He died in St. John's on Dec. 15, 2009, following a broken hip and other complications. He leaves his wife Shirley, daughter Patricia, and sons Robert and Peter.