Rhonda Ungs said stores like her family’s occupy a unique place within the context of a small town.

“You’re the doughnut shop; you’re the coffee shop; you’re the post office; you’re the grocery store,” she said. “It’s the hub of the community.”

Mike and Rhonda Ungs represent the fourth generation of their family to own Luxemburg’s Ungs Shopping Center, a store that has sold a wide variety of wares since the 19th century.

The store, located at 100 E. Main St., features a sign on an outside wall that lists groceries, pop, hardware, farm supplies, sporting goods, camping supplies, feed, seed and animal health products among the store’s inventory.

Stepping into the store’s main entrance, a glance left reveals shelves of staple grocery items, similar to a well-stocked convenience store. Looking right, taxidermy of deer and other game are mounted along the upper wall of a sporting goods section. Farm supply and hardware articles fill additional sections of the store.

“Working here is very interesting,” said Lue Bockenstedt, who has been a store employee for about five years. “We meet a lot of neat people who come through. We make sure their needs are met.”

Nearby buildings contain Nachurs fertilizer products and stockpiles from three seed companies, AgriGold, Dairyland Seed and NK seed. The store also has housed a U.S. Post Office on the premises since 1940.

“My mom always said if we didn’t have it, it was either illegal or you didn’t need it,” Mike said.

Mike Ungs, 64, said about 85% of the store is devoted to catering to the area’s agriculture-related businesses.

“Our hardware section is pretty much all oriented toward agriculture,” Mike said. “We’ve got the three seed companies (represented). We have a starter fertilizer company (represented). We also have sporting goods and groceries — we carry a line of staple items.”

Rhonda Ungs, 61, said she is unique among the generations of wives involved with the store.

“I don’t work side-by-side with Mike,” she said.

Previous wives worked alongside their husbands in operating Ungs. Instead, Rhonda has spent the past 40 years working for a dental practice in Guttenberg.

“I’m off (work) on Fridays and I’m often here in the store visiting,” Rhonda said. “You see people come in to grab their mail and they will stay for an hour because they run into (people they know). We also have some of our regulars who come in at the same time every day and do the exact same thing every day. (The store) is their comfort zone.”

DEEP ROOTS IN THE COMMUNITY

The first settlers of Luxemburg were immigrants from Europe — including Luxembourg. They founded the community in the middle of the 19th century, and Clem Schroeder opened Luxemburg’s first store in the 1860s. Schroeder sold the business to Nick Andre in 1880. Andre in turn sold half interest in the store to Henry Ungs in 1886. Once called Central House, the store began operating under a new name, Andre-Ungs. When Andre died in 1888, Henry Ungs partnered with his brother, Charles J. Ungs, in the ownership of the store.

By 1919, Edward Ungs Sr., Mike’s grandfather, and his cousin, Henry Steffen, purchased the store from their uncle, Charles J. Ungs. Henry Ungs retired in 1962, and Edward Ungs Sr. brought Edward Ungs Jr., Mike’s father, into the ownership.

The father-and-son partners changed the store’s name to Ungs Shopping Center, and soon Mike and his five siblings were working in the store while they grew up.

“At that time, we were a full-fledged grocery store,” he said. “Dad was the chief meat cutter and also the postmaster for 35 years.”

Store staff once delivered groceries.

“People would call up and tell them what they wanted,” Rhonda said.

One of Mike’s youthful jobs was to help with the store’s egg business.

“We had a regular egg route and we picked up three days a week,” he said. “Ladies graded eggs in the basement and the eggs got shipped to Chicago.”

Mike said he and his siblings worked hard but also had time for evening activities — with some help.

“Everybody did their job but there was still plenty of time to do baseball or something at night,” he said. “Sometimes, kids in town would come and help us so we could get done.”

THE FOURTH GENERATION TAKES OVER

Mike went away to Kirkwood Community College and returned to the store in 1980, after he graduated.

“I knew all the way through (college) that I was coming back,” he said.

Mike went into partnership with his dad.

“In 1980, we only had (the products of) one seed company and groceries were probably 50% of our stuff,” Mike said. “We went from one seed company to three, and we went from (concentrating on) groceries to an agricultural role — that was the market that we had.”

Mike and Rhonda took on full ownership of the store in 2000. Ed Ungs Jr. died in 2010. He was 78.

“My dad would come up to the store (to help) for two or three years before passing away,” Mike said.

LEARNING A WORK ETHIC

Rhonda said the store faces a challenge shared by other small businesses.

“One of our challenges is staffing — just trying to maintain your staff,” she said. “We’ve been very lucky. We had D.J. Jaeger as the manager for 35 or 36 years.”

Duane “D.J.” Jaeger died in 2021. He was 70. Jaeger had worked at Ungs for about 35 years.

“He had to retire because of his health,” Rhonda said. “Then, we were able to get Lue in. She has taken our whole store and repainted it and put (historical artifacts of the business) throughout our whole store. She has been a godsend for us.”

Currently, the store has two full-time employees and a pair of part-time employees. Two or three additional employees work during the store’s busy season, which coincides with spring planting on neighboring farms.

“We could probably use two or three more people,” Mike said.

Mike and Rhonda’s four daughters — Abbie Petsche, Leah Krogman, Anna Ungs and Chloe Ungs — all worked in the store growing up.

“It was a good education for them,” Rhonda said. “They learned work ethic and they learned how to work with people and good customer service.”

Now, the three older daughters work in education, banking and health care and the youngest daughter, Chloe, is in college studying business and human resources.

“(Chloe) helps us when she comes back (from college) in the summer,” Rhonda said.

Mike said he isn’t thinking about retirement yet.

“Everybody asks me when I’m going to retire, but I love waking up every day and doing what I’m doing,” he said. “Some people in this community, I have done business with four generations of their family.”