Dedication to Country and Community: The Legacy of Thomas Earl & Brownlee's Grocery Store
By M. Todd Manuel
Ink Spot Contributing Writer
Today, I could identify Brownlee's grocery store by the smell of candy and brown paper bags reminiscent of my childhood. That smell brings me to a place where my cousins and I would save up our coins and walk up Monroe Street towards the small brick building we all love. On August 20, 2022 the community joined in thanking Mr. Thomas Earl Brownlee the current manager and owner of Brownlee's grocery store on Oxford Street. There is perhaps no other retail space that holds more reverence in the collective eyes of us all here in Southeast Fort Wayne. For many of us, Brownlee's is more than just a grocery; it is a pastime that we cannot forget. I was honored to attend the celebration and asked its attendees about the festival and what Brownlees means to them.
"This is a great anchor for this community. It is a great thing to see black people come out and enjoy each other. There is so much negativity surrounding the area that we may have forgotten what it's like just to enjoy each other in our community," says Mr. Grady Pruit. He was the former principal of Ward Elementary, just yards away from the grocery store. "I think we have lost this. Some people have come to this community, grown from this community but move on to other places," said Mr. Pruit. The celebration felt like a family reunion where all were welcomed, fed, and enjoying themselves.
Speaking with Mrs. Glynder Brownlee, Mr. Thomas Earl Brownlee's mother, brought even more insight into why the store she helped start and her son's legacy is so remarkable. She explained how "the world is so different now. I grew up in Houston, Mississippi, where we were told how to behave and were also told how misbehaving could place us in danger...today this is different," said Mrs. Brownlee. Her words reminded me of the generations that came north in troves for a new life during the great migration. Fleeing from the Jim Crow south was a sacrifice that she and many of our grandparent's generation took to provide a better life for their posterity—for us. So one could only imagine the courage it took for her and her husband—Mr. Thomas Larry Brownlee--to raise their children while running a business in a new place.
While speaking to Mr. Thomas Bownlee, I began to receive quite the history lesson on how Brownlees got started to begin with. He explained to me how his father was one of the first to allow blacks to purchase on store credit and to deliver groceries and fresh produce to its customers who were sick or shut in. His father—started with a van, then moved into the building we all know today. Mr. Thomas explained that his "father would give groceries to the needy, making sure that if you were poor, you didn't go hungry... But my passion was to play music, I enjoyed making music," said Mr. Thomas. "We played music during little 500 down at IU [Indiana University] a couple of times, and we were popular around town here too," he continued. They were called Tyrone and the Upsetters.
When our discussion went further, he told me, "The reason why I took this store over is what my dad did for me while I was in the war and that's why I keep the store open...It was during the war that I was drafted into Vietnam in 1967. I didn't want to go because I knew it would mess up the band, and at that time we were playing three times a week, and people were happy to see us play." After doing a little research, I found that the band was not only popular but an officially recorded group from Gateway records, with at least 33 recorded and released songs. One could only imagine how hard it was for Mr. Thomas to sacrifice his music career for his country, but he did.
Preparing to go to war, Mr. Thomas Brownlee had only thirty days to pack. After moping around that month, his father and mother insisted he take his guitar with him. Thomas Brownlee is proud of serving his country and this community, which shows through his contributions to both. He reluctantly took his guitar as his parents insisted. And to Thomas's surprise, he was able to use it to help others through his music while serving in Vietnam. Mr. Thomas described how hard it was for soldiers to sleep with the constant fear of a bomb or missile that could kill them. Thomas used his music and gifts to comfort others through the terrors of war. And before he knew it, he had become quite popular amongst his fellow soldiers in the division and company.
Later in his military career, Thomas was summoned to the battalion commander, who told him that his father had written several times to various high-ranking military leaders and even the president of the United States. In all of these letters, his father asked him one thing: please send my son Thomas home.
His father's persistence and love changed Thomas, but his loyalty to his company and fellow soldiers ultimately kept him in the military.
The Vietnam war could have taken him along with over 58,749 other soldiers who lost their lives fighting for this country. Instead, seven months after Thomas' encounter with the battalion commander, he returned home.
"My dad did all that stuff for me, and when he came back in his last days before he passed away, he shook my hand hard and said to me, 'Thomas Earl, son, you keep that store open as long as long as you can for me", repeated Mr. Thomas in his father's voice. Keeping Brownlee's grocery store open meant keeping a commitment to the health and needs of our community and honoring his father's legacy. Thomas has managed the store and his independent tax preparation business for nearly 35 years. The celebration was not just for Thomas but for the Brownlee legacy: the community presence that the store has kept for us for over fifty years, built on love for the community and this country.