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Stationery of William 'Willie O' Mose Ogle Mitchell
9 September 1903
Oyster Pond, Nova Scotia

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Willie O had stationery in his own name as early as 1903, when this invoice to the St. John's Anglican Church was written. By this time Willie's mother would have been 50 years old, and ready to transfer ownership to her 22 year old son.

Mrs. J.D. Mitchell's store was not the only one in business in Oyster Pond during the early 1900s. Arthur Webber's store (which later was owned by P.H. Weary / Jones and Whitman) was located alongside the pond where the sawmills were, and was also a fully stocked store. As described by Mr. Mitchell in this 2004 interview, business must have been competitive, given the number of stores and travelling vendors:

"The two bigger ones would be Hosking's Store which was Willie O's. And then there was a store down where the walk is, P. H.Weary, the store there that would probably be about equal in size. Mr. Howe Day had a store up where the coffee place is now. And there would be probably some smaller ones as well. Besides I can always remember somebody coming around selling by delivery truck. I would say half of the groceries would have come that way, I suppose. And a certain amount of fresh stuff. Meat trucks, generally come once a week, but that was just meat. Meat man that done that most of the time was Johnny Webber from Upper Lakeville. John P. Webber, and we used to call him Johnny Pork Chops. And he was a full time butcher. Most of the meat that he would get would be somebody had a cow that was too old to milk, they sold it for meat. Or if somebody had an ox that was too old to work. Very few would be raised for beef alone."

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'Willie O' Mitchell in front of his store
1915
Oyster Pond, Nova Scotia

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Mrs. J.D. Mitchell, Willie O's mother, died in 1918. She was 65. Although Willie O was already running the business, it appears that his mother kept the accounts up until her death.

Mrs. J.D.'s method of storing invoices was to keep them alphabetically by supplier in a two ring binder. Once Mrs. J.D. passed away, Willie O began storing the invoices in the envelopes they came in. He wrote the amount due, plus other accounting notes on the outside of the envelopes and presumably kept them handy until the bill had been processed. At the end of the year the envelopes were piled into a box for storage.

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'Willie O' with his dog Scamp in the doorway of the store
1922
Oyster Pond, Nova Scotia

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Willie O was the main storekeeper from 1918 to 1949. The store was open six days a week (a half day once during the week so Willie O could run errands) and several evenings as well. The evening openings may have been more social than business; locals gathered around the store to talk and often played checkers.

During this interview in 2004, Doris Hutt describes Willie O as she remembers him in the 1930s:

"Well you would go in and Willie would be behind his. He had a little office. He might come out of his office. And his counter was on the left. He had lots of stuff stacked around, and down the middle, and over on the walls. We used to call him Willie O. He would call me Doris W. He was just a short little man and sort of...you know. Not exactly fat, but a good size. He wasn't tall and slim. He was short and stout. He never carried out very much conversation with people, he was sort of do it, and don't talk."

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'Willie O' plowing his field
1935
Oyster Pond, Nova Scotia

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Willie O was a frugal man. He kept a large garden for personal use and cut hay for his horse. The account books often show him trading labour for goods from the store.

In an interview from 1981 by the Nova Scotia Museum, Willie O's nephew, Garth, remembers hanging around the store as a child, often under the feet of his gruff but kind Uncle Will. He recalls that his Uncle often chastised him for frivolous spending, and had a saying "take care of the cents, the dollars will take care of themselves."

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Hosking Garage letterhead
1940

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Willie O's nephew, Garth Merdon Leon Hosking, grew up in the house next to the store that was shared by Willie O and his sister Roxie. He was familiar with the store and helping out. But his real love was cars. In the late 1930s, Garth responded to the growing number of cars in the area by setting up a Superline Garage across the road from his Uncle's store. Garth was a licensed mechanic and the garage was run as a separate business. Once Garth opened his business, Willie O removed his hand cranked gas pumps outside the store.

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Men in front of Garth Hosking's gas pumps
1938
Oyster Pond, Nova Scotia

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Except for a few years during World War Two, Garth Hosking operated the garage until the early 1950s, when he joined Teasdale & Foote (an automobile dealer in Dartmouth).

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Garth and Mildred (Roberts) Hosking on their wedding day.
23 September 1939
Truro, Nova Scotia

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On September 23, 1939, Garth Hosking married Mildred Edna Roberts. Mildred was a schoolteacher from Truro who came to teach in nearby Ship Harbour. After marrying Garth, and moving to Oyster Pond, she taught the advanced class at the Oyster Pond two-room schoolhouse.

On August 27, 1949, Willie O died at the age of 68. He had tended the store for more than 31 years. The business was now a fixture in the community. Despite Garth and Mildred's decision to "phase out the business" once Garth started working in Dartmouth, the store remained open for another 25 years.

The store was renamed "Hosking General Store" and Mildred took over the daily operation of the business.