MORE THAN A
STORE The enduring legacy of Coligny’s Piggly Wiggly, the community around it, and the Martin family that lies at its heart.. BY BARRY KAUFMAN PHOTO BY ROB KAUFMAN
. Dedicated to Gene Martin, 1933-2022. , There’s more on the shelves at Piggly Wiggly than just cans of soup and bags of flour. There are memories, decades upon decades of sweet recollections that speak from between each aisle, whispering stories of an island community’s past and of vacation memories. There is a spirit, a tight-knit sense of community that once defined this beach town but can still be found in places like Coligny’s own grocery store. It’s a character all its own, one willed into existence by the vision and selflessness of Gene Martin and carried on by his son David. Founded in the 1960s yet still persisting as the small town around it grew into a thriving oceanfront resort destination par excellence, the Piggly Wiggly reminds us all of the Hilton Head Island we first discovered. Gene Martin passed away just a few months ago, but that spirit of 26
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community and of a gathering place amid rows of dry goods and produce that is his legacy endures. “That’s the legacy, I think,” said David. “Being a part of this community.”
FEEDING THE COMMUNITY
Just a week before Gene Martin’s passing, his son David was answering employee questions and hauling boxes in the stockroom at Piggly Wiggly as he had since he was a boy. With his father in hospice, David would leave briefly throughout the day, but other than that he was right there minding the store. It is, after all, what his dad would want him to do. “My dad worked three days ago with terminal cancer, in a wheelchair and on oxygen stocking beach chairs,” said David with a smile. “And he got really feisty on me because I moved something.”
Up until the very end, Gene Martin was a fixture at the store he’d started in the ’60s. Arriving on Hilton Head on business while living in Allendale, he discovered the Louis McKibben’s Red and White Grocery while working for a grocery warehouse. He would eventually buy the Red and White on a handshake, moving his family including a young David to an island that was just then emerging into a new world as a resort. “It was like Disney World to us, coming from Allendale,” said David. During those early years, there wasn’t much to Hilton Head Island beyond Sea Pines and the Forest Beach area. It was in this small town that Gene rechristened the Red and White a Piggly Wiggly, giving a heart to this small community in the process. That heart wasn’t in his store, however. The heart he gave this community was his own.
