The return to Marsh is meaningful

To some observers, the changing of the sign on a supermarket from MainStreet Market to Marsh might not seem like a big deal.
But to folks of a certain generation, it’s a big deal indeed.
Talk to Jay County residents over the age of 65 or, better yet, over the age of 75, and they’ll tell you about the roots of the Marsh organization in this part of Indiana.
They might talk about the first store in New Pittsburg, just across the Jay-Randolph county line. They might recount legends of hold-ups at rural country stores in places like Salem in Madison Township.
Or they might remember shopping at the Marsh “foodliner” on East Main Street in Portland in a building that’s now the home to a gun shop. Some of them will remember knowing Estel Marsh personally.
That’s why, when the Marsh organization decided about 15 or 20 years ago to re-label the Jay County store as a Lo-Bill supermarket, some folks felt hurt.
It was as if they’d gone to a family reunion and hadn’t been recognized as a part of the family.
Feelings were bruised, and there was a sense that the company had lost sight of a bit of its heritage.
And maybe those folks weren’t wrong.
It wasn’t too much later that the family-run operation went off the rails. New ownership and new leadership needed to take over.
The good news is that the new ownership and new leadership seem to know what they’re doing and where they are taking the company. They’ve made tough decisions, and they’ve undone some mistakes that had been made.
In Jay County, they’ve also reconnected the company to its heritage, branding the Portland supermarket as Marsh once again. By doing so, they brought smiles to local faces of a certain generation or two.
Ironically, restoring the family name comes after the family had to be removed from leadership. But that doesn’t make it any less meaningful when it comes to a community’s pride. — J.R.