Hartman Frank Hartman Funeral Service

This is a big deal,” said Mike Hartman, son of Sonny and Mary Hartman, the late owners of the store who died in 2016 within six months of each other. “I think most of these people are his friends. They were from buying and selling antiques his whole lifetime from the East Coast, West Coast, and everywhere.”From the Weaver Markets parking lot where most parked, a blended, monotone hum was heard from the historic property as three auctioneers sold simultaneously.Hundreds of unique country store advertising pieces from their private collection had buyers bidding as high as $2,100 for a Sunbeam Bread sign and other store displays and signage.“They were colorful because that was their only mode of advertising in those days,” said Hartman. “There were few magazines, so they competed for your money at the general-store level. That’s why everything is so beautiful and designed well.”The Hartmans bought the store from the Graeff family in the 1970s and it appears the inside and outside of the building have not changed — possibly from the 1800s.“This is exactly how it was when I was a kid, it hasn’t changed. Same shelves, same everything,” said Frank Lorah, born in 1940.The property, which was a busy general store, belonged to his great-grandparents and he lived across the street next to Adamstown Eye Care which is now an antique store.“My grandmother (Dora Lorah) lived next door where the eye doctor is,” said Lorah. “My grandmother’s sister, Mabel, ran the store.”A bumper sticker on the front door window reads: “I’ve got Moxie.”“She was the sister that never got married,” said Lorah. “She lived to be 106, or something. She was a little, feisty lady. She went up in a balloon at 100-and-some years old.“I’d go to the store to get sugar and she’d weigh the sugar on a scale and take string from the ceiling and wrap it up,” said a neighbor.The stringer is still hanging in the same place with the string dangling, ready to wrap-at least until auction day.A correspondent of The Ephrata Review stood inside the general store and talked to George Wertz III... (EphrataReview.com)