Above photo: Guiton’s Drug Store in the late 1950s. Above second photo: Gerald Hege and pharmacist assistant Bob Munns in the late 1950s. Munns worked with Hege for five years before moving to Lumberton. Below photo: Hege today.

Photos (2) from the Mabel Maultsby Prevatte Collection

By FULLER ROYAL
Staff Writer

The then-new druggist Gerald Hege almost didn’t stay in Whiteville.

He arrived in town for the first time on a cold winter’s night in December, 1946 – hired away from a pharmacy in Fayetteville by Guiton’s Drugstore owner Dr. J.A. Guiton.

His first impression was of streetlights made of light bulbs and corrugated tin and sidewalks without curbing.

Originally from Lexington, Hege earned his pharmacy degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
His first job was in Greensboro. Next came the Fayetteville position where he worked for H.R. Horne & Son.

He said that Guiton, who had opened the store in 1928, had made him such a good offer he couldn’t say no.

Hege never dreamed that he would settle in Whiteville, get married and raise four sons here.

“I almost didn’t stay,” he said. “It was different. I was sure I would never stay here. I didn’t think I could live here.”

But he did stay. He had already been courting future wife Betty, who graduated from Flora MacDonald College in 1946. They married in 1947.

“Downtown was busy,” Hege said of the decades that followed his arrival. “It was busy all of the time. People from throughout the county were all along the streets.

“This was just a good country town and the people were good people – hard working people,” he said. “A lot of people were poor, but poor and honest.”

He said what sticks out in his mind about downtown Whiteville was the layer of peanut hulls on the sidewalks during tobacco season.

“That was the most prevalent thing,” he said. “Boiled peanuts were everywhere on the streets. They were only 10 cents a bag. The shells were all over the place.

“I miss the people. There are still some of them here,” he said. “Some children – a lot of children have moved away.”

Guiton’s has defied the odds, remaining open for nearly 80 years in the same location. It was the first business to occupy the Seth Smith Building when it was built in 1928.

“This store is very much an exception,” Hege said. “We’ve been able to compete with the chain stores because we offer something they can’t – personal service, delivery and a most unusual thing – we still have a soda fountain.”

McNeill’s lost its soda fountain when it moved. Columbus and Simmons drug stores are closed. The other drug stores began after the days that soda fountains had died.

“There was a lot of high school traffic,” he said. “They came after school and sat in the booths. It was a social place for students to meet.”

Up through the 1960s, Guiton’s and the drug stores took turns being open on Sundays to handle prescription needs.

That didn’t mean the druggists didn’t have to open their doors in the middle of the night. They did.

Other tenants shared the Seth Smith Building. Braxton-Warren was next door for decades selling appliances and furniture. It later became a sporting goods store and then an agency for underprivileged children. Drs. Thigpen and Traylor were there.

In the back was the office of Dr. W.A. Greene. Upstairs was photographer Leslie Baldwin and dentist Dr. Johnson. There was also a beauty parlor and John Ward, an accountant.

After Guiton died in 1951 at the age of 50, Hege purchased part of the pharmacy from his widow. He would later buy the remainder.

Seth Smith died in 1954 at the age of 78. After Smith’s widow died, Hege bought the building from her second husband, J.T. McIntyre.

Today, Hege still draws a salary and considers himself semi-retired.

“I work when I want to,” he said. On this particular day, he was “holding court” with several other retirees at the small tables next to the soda fountain where folks can still buy a homemade milkshake or a heated and pressed Mrs. Bright’s ham and cheese sandwich.

Betty died earlier this year after 59 years of marriage. Son Dean is a pharmacist, still working at Guiton’s. Son Richard owns a restaurant called Hege’s in Kiawah Island, S.C. Son Ben is a timber buyer and seller for Georgia Pacific.

Youngest son Kenneth is an architect in Miami, Fla.

Hege is a lifelong member of the Whiteville First Presbyterian Church. He has been a Civitan since 1947, along with friend and fellow downtown businessman Hyman Kramer.

Kramer’s is ending its long tenure as a downtown store with only a few weeks remaining.

Hege said he will miss Kramer’s as well as the dozens of other stores and shopkeepers he worked with since World War II.

Hege maintains a positive outlook for Whiteville and the county.

It’s amazing,” he said. “Somebody always came in to replace the leaders as they passed on. Someone always comes into replace them.”