From These Roots

“Willie had groceries, Willie had clothes, back in the back was a pot-bellied stove. I used to think it was the fire that felt so warm, but it was friends and it was home. I sure do miss it since I’ve been gone. Sweet memory come and take me back once more to Willie’s Country Store.” -Hugo Duarte Jr.

Tradition says that the original section of The Wood’s General Store was built in 1864 by a man named Lemuel I. Jennings making it the oldest building currently on North Greenville’s campus. Lemuel Jennings was a Tennessean who moved to Greenville County right after the Civil War. Jennings became the first postmaster of Tigerville in 1881 and the post office was located in his store.

In 1889, Jennings sold his little country store to Benjamin F. Neves and moved to Greenville where he opened up another store. Ben Neves, one of the founders of North Greenville, named his store “B.F. Neves Store” and owned the building until he died in 1940. From news articles and ads, it seems that from about 1910-1918, the store was called “Tigerville Mercantile Co.” As early as 1910, but possibly earlier, John T. Wood is listed in news articles as the manager of Tigerville Mercantile Co. In 1914, John T. Wood, by then a North Greenville trustee, began to serve as postmaster of the post office. After the Tigerville Mercantile Co. dissolved in 1918, John T. Wood took full ownership of the store and rented the building from Ben Neves. John T. Wood ran “J.T. Wood’s Store” until his death in December 1924. By this time, running the Wood’s Store had become a family business. John’s son, Bryan, ran the store for a while and served as the postmaster.

Eventually, in the late 1920s, John’s son Pralo left Mars Hill College early to come home and help his brother run the store. Soon after that, the name changed to “T.P. Wood’s Store”. Pralo, a 1927 North Greenville Baptist Academy graduate, purchased the building from the Neves estate and doubled the building with a 30-foot wide and 50-foot long section. However, Pralo was a Greenville County Deputy Sheriff and that took up most of his time. With the help of his brother, wife, kids, and hired managers like W.C. Stepp, Pralo ran the store until his son Willie was old enough to run it himself. Willie, quite literally, grew up in T.P. Wood’s General Store. His mother Helen, who became postmaster in 1935, once told a friend that when Willie was a baby, she would bring him to work with her at the store and lay him in a drawer she’d converted into a makeshift crib. Willie started working in the store when he was 8 or 9 years old and it would end up being a career for him. He would run the store while his mom ran the post office which was still located in Wood’s Store at the time. When asked recently if he had ever considered doing anything else for a living, Willie replied, “No, I never really thought of anything else. I always knew I’d work in the store and it’s the only job I ever had, I reckon.”

In 1981, the unthinkable happened. Two men robbed the store and in the process, they shot Willie and fatally stabbed Mrs. Helen when she came to her son’s aid. Willie shot and killed one of the men and the other was later arrested. The robber who survived was sentenced to death, but after a string of appeals that eventually went to the U.S. Supreme Court, he ended up being eligible for a new trial. Instead of going to trial again, he pled guilty in exchange for a sentence of life in prison.

“We needed her more than we could have ever known then. It wasn’t just the mail or her friendliness; it was something more, an inner strength and integrity of character, itself as great an American tradition as that country store she worked and died in that fateful day, Friday, February 13th. It has made me realize how tenuous is our peace, how balanced our lives between the events that form the routine of our every day and the senseless brutality that in a second changes us forever. It will not be the same without you, Mrs. Helen.” – Dr. Bernard Meredith (North Greenville English professor)

Willie survived the gunshot wound, purchased the store from his dad in 1988, moved the Post Office to a building next door, and continued to run the general store until he closed its doors as “T.P.Wood’s General Store” for the last time in 1996. The days of community members sitting on the porch, buying everything from jeans to chewing gum, and filling their tanks with Texaco gas from the store’s pumps had come to an end.

Willie sold the store to North Greenville University in 2007 and in 2012, after renovations to the building, the name was changed to “Tigerville General Store”. The store, at that time, included a Papa John’s Pizza, Hershey’s Ice Cream, general merchandise, and NGU branded items. In 2022, North Greenville turned the building into the school bookstore and post office. The store was also renamed “Wood’s General Store” in honor of the Wood family.

Below is a video of a song called “Willie’s Country Store” by Hugo Duarte Jr., who grew up on North Greenville’s campus as the son of a professor. The song is also available on most streaming services.