Walton Q. Jue; Owner of Ventura’s Oldest Grocery Store

Walton Q. Jue, the founder and owner of Ventura’s oldest grocery store, died Wednesday after a brief illness. He was 89.

Jue came to the United States from China in 1922, and helped his uncle run a grocery store in Fresno until 1927, when a cousin persuaded him to move to Ventura. His cousin used the weather as the lure, promising it was neither too hot nor too cold.

Jue fell in love with the city and set to work to establish a business of his own. He opened the National Market a block away from San Buenaventura Mission and ran the store until 1946.

Jue then moved the store to its present location, on the corner of Santa Cruz and Main streets. Jue and his first wife, Mary, chose a site on the eastern side of the street because she wanted the sun to come in the store’s windows.

His daughter, Dorothy Jue Lee, said her father was a true believer in the American dream.

“He thought America was a wonderful place,” she said. “You could open a business and people would come.”

Lee was there for the opening of the new store in 1946. “Stores then always had their grand openings on Fridays, but that week was Friday the 13th,” she said. “My dad was superstitious, so we had to have the opening on Thursday instead.”

The business endured, while others came and went. In 1978, Jue retired, and turned the store over to his sons, Allen and Edward.

But his retirement was hardly complete; until he was 86, Jue was still driving his pickup truck to Oxnard to pick up fresh strawberries and vegetables for the store.

One rainy day, his son Allen said his father did not return from Oxnard at his usual time. Worried, he called emergency rooms around the county looking for him. Finally his father turned up, after dark, his pants covered in mud.

“I said, ‘Where have you been?’ ” Allen Jue recalled. “And he said, ‘Well, it started to rain, and all the workers left. So I had to pick the vegetables.’ He just had to make his customers happy.”

Jue is survived by his wife of 31 years, Betty, of Ventura. His first wife, Mary, died in 1960. Also surviving him are four sons; Tony and Gene Jue, both of Los Angeles, Allen and Edward Jue, both of Ventura; three daughters, Dorothy Jue Lee of Ventura and Daisy Jue Yang of Thousand Oaks and Jeanne Jue Luna of Westlake Village; 17 grandchildren; and five great-grandchildren.

Services are scheduled for 11 a.m. May 14 at the Ted Mayr Funeral Home, Ventura.