NM Stokes Jewelry Store operated for 36 years on North Walnut Street, owned by Norman Stokes. Stokes was born in 1890 in Pender County, North Carolina to Daniel Jefferson and Anne E. Irvin Stokes. He was a veteran of World War I.
Stokes married Salomae “Sally” Hurysh in 1923, and the couple settled in Milford. The jewelry store appeared in news articles several times over the years. In 1930, Horace Tropea won the Middle Atlantic States Photography Award for photography. His portrait of Connie Mack was displayed in the window of NM Stokes Jewelry Store along with a baseball.
“The baseball was knocked in for a homerun in the last game of the recent World Series by Al Simmons and caught by Dick Collins of Milford,” the article in the News Journal published on October 15, 1930, read.
Then, in 1936, the Morning News announced on April 16, 1936, that the daughter of then-Register of Willis and Mrs. J. Linden Barr was the first child born in the Memorial Hospital in Milford. The child was born on April 15 and Stokes had promised diamond rings to the first six children born there. As a result, the little girl received an infant ring set with a diamond from the jeweler.
Not all the news was good regarding the jewelry store, however. ON October 26, 1940, the Morning News announced that the store had been robbed of 22 trays of rings. The thieves removed the trays from the display window as hundreds of pedestrians walked by. The value of the trays was estimated at $7,000, the equivalent of $156,845 today.
“The thieves gained entrance to the North Walnut Street building by breaking a pane of glass in a rear window and crawling through the iron bars installed to prevent burglaries,” the news account read. “The bars were about seven inches apart. They arrived between 7 and 8 PM while the proprietor was visiting a nearby barber shop after he had temporarily closed the store.”
When Stokes returned to the store, he immediately noticed the trays were missing. Although he had locked both the front and back doors, he had not locked the display case. The thieves did not remove the $40, equivalent to almost $900 today, from the cash register nor did they touch watches or other articles. They left by the back door which was found unlocked.
Sgt. Horace Hickman, a fingerprint expert with the Delaware State Police examined prints left at the scene. He assisted Private C. Seltz of the state police and Captain Wilson W. Moore of the Milford Police Department, in the investigation. There were no reports of whether the thieves were caught.
Stokes died in Milford Memorial Hospital on June 5 after a long illness. He was interred in the Odd Fellows Cemetery. He was survived by his wife and a son, George, as well as two grandchildren. Stokes was a charter member of the local American Legion Post, a mason and a member of the Shrine of Orem Temple in Wilkes Barre, Pennsylvania.
