1940s - Fuel and Produce Store 360 High St Kew

Michael Martin Carrucan (1866-1954), the fourth child of Peter and Hannah Carrucan, married Margaret Lynch at the St Thomas Aquinas Church in Clunes in 1891. After the marriage, the newlyweds came to Melbourne and settled in Kew, an eastern suburb of Melbourne. There they bought an office/shop as well as a place to store goods and they started a fuel business which was to last over 60 years, until its eventual closure in 1958.
During WW II, a two-storey building was erected at 360 High St kew. The lower floor was a residential dwelling - kitchen, lounge, dining room, laundry - and a large shop that fronted High Street. Upstairs there were three bedrooms and a bathroom. The remainder of the land was a closed-in back yard with storage space for wood, hay etc, stables for the horses, and space for the delivery carts as, by this time, the business had grown beyond Michael's first cart. This postcard shows the front facade of this building.