First Lorain Baby of 1951 Contest

Gee, this blog is slowly turning into an extended commercial for our local electric power utility! (And this ad doesn't even feature Reddy Kilowatt!)

Detail from Modern Troy Laundry ad

The Ohio Edison ad above was part of a group of ads that ran right before New Year's Eve – December 30, 1950 – as part of a "First Lorain Baby of 1951" contest. The rules were that both Mother and Father had to be residents of The City of Lorain; the baby had to be born within Lorain City Limits; the hour, minute and date of birth had to be confirmed by the attending physician.

That lucky first baby was the recipient of a lot of goodies and prizes.

Besides the electric bottle warmer, the lucky tyke could look forward to a wool filled satin quilted comforter from Smith and Gerhart Inc. (see ad below), $10 in merchandise from Sylvester Drugs, a lovely baby blanket from Penney's, a baby scale from Kline's, two weeks of laundry service from Modern Troy Laundry, one can of baby food and one case of emergency milk from Steve Polansky, 100% wood bunting from Lad and Lasssie Shop, a pair of Baby's First Shoes from Art & Kiddie Shop and Invalid Carriage Service from Reidy Scanlan.

The proud Dad could look forward to a box of Student Prince Cigars from Geo. Canalos Inc.

I wonder if new dads still hand out cigars? Or has some new politically correct item replaced them?

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Speaking of First Babies of Lorain, my older brother Ken was Lorain's First Baby of 1958. Unfortunately by then, there was no big newspaper contest that year – so no freebies. In fact, while reading the account on microfilm recently, I noticed that the Lorain Journal managed to make it sound like a bad thing being the first baby – because my parents couldn't claim a $600 income tax deduction! The baby born before midnight was actually mentioned first in the article!

 Oh well. Happy Birthday in advance, Ken!!

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After all that, I forgot to mention the name of Lorain's first baby of 1951. It was a nine-pound, one-half ounce baby boy born to Mr. and Mrs. Pabon Julio Rentos.