A few weeks ago, I carved out two hours of time off work for an outpatient procedure that ended up taking ten minutes. I’m the type who’s not exactly eager to show up to work early, so I went for an unexpected breakfast. As stupid as it sounds, memories came rushing back as I sat in the Burger King parking lot eating my Croissan’wich. I had a front-row view of an old Marsh Supermarket I remembered from my childhood! 

If you’re from Indiana, you probably have memories of Marsh Supermarkets. For many of us, Marsh wasn’t just a grocery store- it was an enormous part of our lives. My Grandpa Pop started unloading railcars while he was in high school and eventually worked his way up to Warehouse Superintendent before he retired. For a long time, Marsh was the only place we shopped! 

Marsh was still a vibrant company when my parents divorced in 1993. That November, Mom moved us into Grandpa Pop and Grammy Mare’s house in Pendleton. My brother and I were too young for school, but the rest of the household worked. On weekends, we often went with Grandma to her favorite place to shop for groceries, the Marsh at 2940 Broadway Street in Anderson. 

I’ll never forget the feeling of excitement as I showed the baker my Marsh Kids’ Club Card for a sugar cookie, fresh from the oven. Back in those days or around that time at least, Fielding T. Mouse was the mascot who seemed to rule the kids’ club scene. What I never could have imagined at the time was that one day I’d actually own one of the two mascot heads that Fielding T. Mouse’s “friends” wore at events all over the place!

Anderson’s Broadway Marsh opened in 1980 and closed in 2017, just months before Marsh Supermarkets declared bankruptcy. Today, the building is occupied by a Storage of America facility, as is a neighboring Kmart that closed that same year.

As I sat there finishing the last bites of my breakfast, I couldn’t help but feel a wave of nostalgia wash over me. The old Marsh was more than just a repurposed building- it was a tiny piece of my past, a reminder of simpler times running errands with Grandma and chomping on a cookie. Sitting there years removed from those childhood errands, I realized how much those little moments still mattered. They might have felt insignificant at the time, but they shaped the way I see places- not just as buildings, but as keepers of memories.