S. Bladen Yates, owner of the oldest business on Ellicott City's historic Main Street, died of congestive heart failure at his home Wednesday. He was 84.
A sign taped to Samuel J. Yates & Son Grocery's front door yesterday said it will be closed temporarily because of Mr. Yates' death. "As he would want, we will reopen Tuesday, Dec. 17."
His grandfather started the store in 1885. Until July, the grandson, Bladen Yates, made sage sausage from the family recipe.
Now the famous secret - and the shop itself - will live on with Mr. Yates' daughters, Pauline Elizabeth "Betty" Jacobs, 51, of Ellicott City and Cheryl Libertini, 57, of Cooksville. Their brother, Clifton, died in 1969 at the age of 22 in a car accident.
The store changed hands twice in Mr. Yates' lifetime. Mr. Yates' father, Samuel Irving, inherited the business from his father, the founding Samuel. The three men went by their middle names "because there were too many Sams," Mrs. Libertini said. Mr. Yates grew up in and around the store.
"Dad started as a little kid sweeping floors and sorting Coke bottles," Mrs. Jacobs said. His family lived above the shop as well.
After graduating from Ellicott City School in 1935 and Strayer University with a business degree in 1937, Mr. Yates started a hardware store next door to his father's shop in 1938.
In 1941, he married Dorothea E. "Ditty" Schaub of Catonsville, his wife of 51 years. Soon after in 1942, he left for a Navy post in Washington.
Mr. Yates served for four years and returned to Ellicott City in 1946. He helped his father with the shop while his wife ran the hardware store, teaching herself to cane chairs. She died in 1992.
The shop still performed many of the services that the founding Yates initiated, including free home delivery of the meats that Mr. Yates freshly cut. He and his daughters would put the groceries directly into the freezers of older customers.
Enalee E. Bounds, who owns Ellicott's Country Store, has shopped at S.J. Yates and Son for years. She said Mr. Yates would always leave her groceries on a counter waiting for her, and she would pay him once a month.
"He was the ideal neighbor," said Brenda Franz of Attic Antiques. "He was sort of a walking historian."
Ms. Franz said that from time to time, she would ask Mr. Yates questions about the history of her building. He could rattle off a list of all the businesses that came before hers, including an antiques shop, florist, beauty parlor and oil painting gallery.
"He even told me that downstairs in my basement was a restaurant, and they'd serve crab cakes downstairs," Franz said. "Every town has a legend, and he was our legend, and he's going to be missed by everybody."
Mr. Yates was also a member of the Odd Fellows Centre Lodge No. 40 in Ellicott City. Since joining in 1953, he held all positions there and several on the Grand Lodge, or state, level, said member Edwin Bulson.
In addition to his daughters, Mr. Yates is survived by three granddaughters and two great-grandchildren.
A viewing will be held from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. and 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. Saturday and Sunday at Slack Funeral Home, 3871 Old Columbia Pike, Ellicott City. A funeral service will be held at 10 a.m. Monday at First Lutheran Church, 3604 Chatham Road, Ellicott City.