The Richardson - Community Coffee
Connection
One of my earliest memories of my maternal grandparents -- especially my grandfather, Clarence J. Richardson (Granddad) -- is drinking coffee. Not just any coffee. I grew up drinking Community Coffee, a dark-roast coffee roasted, ground, and sold by a family-owned company in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. In this age of Starbucks, lattes, espresso, and "gourmet coffee" on every street corner, there still is no coffee that can compare with Community Coffee Dark Roast.
When I was only a few months old, Granddad would mix Community Coffee in milk and feed it to me in a baby bottle. I drank coffee at an early age, in fact, I don't recall a time when I did not drink coffee. In 1951 my father's business moved us from Mississippi to Knoxville, Tennessee. My grandmother mailed Community Coffee to us about twice a month and it was the only coffee we drank.
The Community Coffee Company
The Community Coffee company was founded by H. N. “Cap” Saurage (rhymes with “garage”) and the company is now (2011) headed by the fourth generation of the Saurage family. H. N. and his wife were from Plaquemine Parish, LA, where they had a sugar plantation and a couple of other enterprises that did not do so well. In 1919 they moved to a little community north of Baton Rouge and opened a grocery store where they sold dark roast coffee that they purchased from a local coffee roaster and put into their own bags. The coffee became so popular that in 1924 they closed the store, converted a barn in their backyard into a coffee grinding mill and went into business packaging “Community Coffee,” so named because of the community support for their coffee. In 1941 they started roasting their own coffee and later started buying the green coffee beans directly from Brazil. You can read the history of the Community Coffee company in a book sold on their website, The Community Coffee Story, 1919-2009.
The Richardson - Community Coffee Connection
My grandfather's first job was as a salesman for Cohn Flour and Feed Mill, Baton Rouge, LA. In 1920 he left Cohn and went to work for Bridges & West Mercantile, a regional group of general merchandise stores that sold everything from clothing to groceries to hardware. In the early 1930's, because of the Depression, Bridges & West laid off many of their employees, including Granddad.
Granddad took out a loan from the National Recovery Administration, one of Roosevelt's New Deal organizations, and used the loan to open a grocery store in Centreville, MS. My mother -- Annie Lee Richardson Schlatter, 1924 - 2007 -- told me several times that Granddad was the first merchant in Centreville to sell Community Coffee because he was good friends with someone at the Community Coffee company. I always assumed this was one of those family stories that I could never track any further. In December 2011 I found more about this story.
I order Community Coffee over the Internet and make a few cups several times a week. I’ve always wondered about the Granddad-Community connection, so, the last time I ordered coffee, I ordered a copy of their book “The Community Coffee Story, 1919-2009,” where I found what may be the Richardson - Community Coffee connection.
Granddad and Cohn Flour and Feed Company
My mother had a lot of family "stuff" -- letters, photos, grade cards, family bibles, newspaper clippings, and the like. In this collection is a letter dated May 14, 1920, from COHN FLOUR & FEED CO, Front Street, Baton Rouge to Mr. C. J. Richardson.
The letter reads:
Mr. C. J. Richardson,
City.
Dear Sir:I am sorry to see you go, but wish you God speed, and should you ever need a friend, and I am living, come to,
Yours,
( signature seems to be ????? Cohn )
Joseph Albert Dupuy and the Cohn Flour and Feed Mill
In the Community Coffee company history book is this entry from 1922. Joseph Albert Dupuy was married to the sister of H. N. Saurage (the founder of Community Coffee); Dupuy had worked for H. N. as an overseer on a sugar plantation in Plaquemine Parish, LA. In 1922, H. N. Saurage decided to hire his first Community Coffee salesman. Albert Dupuy was working as a salesman with COHN FLOUR AND FEED MILL – he left Cohn and came to work as the first Community Coffee salesman.
Is this the connection?
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My grandfather went to work for Cohn Flour and Feed Mill before 1920 and left Cohn in 1920 for Bridges & West.
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Albert Dupuy -- the first Community Coffee salesman -- left Cohn in 1922 and went to work for Community.
So -- it appears likely that Granddad Richardson and Albert Dupuy both were employed at Cohn Flour and Feed Mill at the same time. They may have maintained contact. Granddad was a buyer for Bridges & West and, in the early 1920's, likely would have encountered his old friend Albert Dupuy, now a salesman for Community Coffee. This may be what my mother was talking about when she said that Granddad had a friend in the Community Coffee company.
Now I think I'll go brew a pot of Community Coffee, Dark Roast, the world's best coffee!!