Date of Birth: 
About Charles Crouch
- Charles Crouch, merchandising executive, was born in Augusta, Georgia, Sept.
- 15, 1898, son of Joseph William and Lily (Strom) Crouch.
- In 1932, he purchased six of the former Clarence Saunders stores in the San Francisco peninsula area and founded Peninsula Stores (later Lucky Stores, Inc.), of which he became the first president.
- When he retired from the presidency of Lucky Stores in 1947 there were thirty-three stores in the chain with an annual gross of $30,000,000.
- At the openings of his various stores Crouch used such devices as simulated carnivals, also hiring popular jazz bands to attract customers.
- He engaged Raymond Loewy Associates of New York City to design what was considered to be a new type of supermarket, employing color psychology to attract customers and providing each customer with a lightweight aluminum shopping cart on which was mounted a printed directory to all merchandise in the store.
- In 1949 Crouch was named man of the year in the merchandising field by Operations, Inc., a national research and sales organization serving large chain stores, manufacturers, and wholesale grocers.
- Charles Crouch was considered to be one of the primary forces behind the development of the modern supermarket. In 1950, with N.
- Clark Earl, Jr., Crouch bought control of the Childs Company New York, then operating its chain of fifty-three restaurants.
- He became executive vice-president of the company at the time of the purchase and shortly thereafter was made president.
- Two months after purchasing Childs, the new owners also bought 90 per cent of the stock in Louis Sherry, Inc., New York, makers of fine candy and ice cream.
- Crouch became president of the company upon the purchase. Throughout his life, Charles Crouch was an avid horseman and polo player.
- On May 18, 1921, in Vicksburg, Mississippi Charles Crouch was married to Nancy Carol Brabston, daughter of a prominent Mississippi planter and direct descendant of the Earl of Arundel, the Duke of Norfolk, and King Edward I of England.
- They had one son, Charles Lanham Crouch, Jr. Charles Crouch died in San Francisco on December 11, 1957.
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