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Recollections from a Roanoke centerpiece landmark.
Richard Boyd
As late the early 1980s, the Roanoke City Market Building still carried the ghosts of butchers past, as the names of some still hung above the meat lockers in a largely abandoned and rundown space.
When, as a young boy, I first entered the Roanoke City Market Building, the impact was overwhelming. The entire arcade from Salem Avenue through to Campbell Avenue was lined on both sides with individually operated butchers’ stalls, each with the operator’s name in bold letters on the wall over huge stainless steel walk-in refrigerators: Debo, Minton (he became Mayor), Hannabass, Murray, Basham, Peters, 20 stalls, 10 on each side.
It was just before the Second World War when my father took me with him through the double doors of the Salem Avenue entrance. I had never seen such light. It seemed brighter than daylight. The odors were pungent and foreign, the sounds were loud with an echo effect, the pace was swift with purpose, but good natured. Laughter could often be heard above the emphatic thud of the large handles on the refrigerator doors as men came in and out carrying huge slabs of beef and pork for carving.
Richard Boyd
Russell Hannabass was one of the last butchers to leave the Market Building, having manned a stall for 45 years, beginning in 1936. Photo here is 1981, as the market was about to undergo massive changes.
It could have been the opening scene in a butchers’ operetta. All the characters scurrying about in the daily tasks of the village. It was enthralling.
I loved walking through the sawdust covering the wide area which ran the length of the arcade between the twin rows of butchers’ stalls. It was fun to make designs or write your name with the toe of your shoe. The sawdust seemed thicker behind the spotless white display stalls. Drops of blood from the meat were absorbed immediately and seemed to disappear. The men back there made designs too without noticing as they moved from the carving blocks to the scales to the sliding windows of the display stalls to the heavy rolls of white wrapping paper and finally to the cash registers.
If it wasn’t already cut or if it wasn’t already cut just like you wanted it, Mr. Debo would send someone to the huge stainless doors and in a moment a fresh slab of meat would be slammed on the cutting block and Debo himself, like a surgeon who had studied every sinew of every muscle of every animal carcass that ever was, would deftly carve the veal chops or the rib eyes or the pork loin within fractions of an ounce of what was ordered, talking and teasing and laughing the whole while until, with no wasted motion, he had it wrapped in a tight neat package and the deal completed.
Mr. Debo was our butcher. I was fascinated with his name. lt sounded like fun. And he was a very nice, very patient and good-humored man. Years after that first visit, when I could ride alone on the Rugby bus to within one block of “the meat market,” as my father called it, at Salem and Jefferson, he’d always say, “Go to Debo. He’ll get it for you.”
And he would. He always seemed glad to see me. He expected me to ask for veal but sometimes the order would be for calves’ liver or pork chops or brains. Veal was the most common request, I think because my father’s heritage was German. I had an aunt who told me once the Dalhouses had come down the Shenandoah Valley from Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, and had been among the first to raise Black Angus cattle in the Waynesboro area. Maybe. Maybe not, but he sure did like veal and my mother made the best veal gravy I ever had in my life including a try to get some that good in Germany. It just wasn’t the same.
Want to read more of Warner Dalhouse's recollections from the Roanoke City Market Building, including the ways in which he's watched it evolve over time? Check out the latest issue, now on newsstands, or see it for free in our digital guide linked below!
The story above is a preview from our September/October 2024 issue. For more stories like it, Subscribe Today. Thank you!