Friday, January 6, 2017

Last Baby of 1946 / First Baby of 1947

Well, it’s just about the end of the first week of the New Year, so I’d better post this article (above) posthaste. It ran in the Lorain Journal on January 2, 1947 – 70 years ago this week.

It celebrates Lorain’s first baby of 1947: Michael William Kuhar, son of Lorain army recruiter Sgt. William Kuhar and his wife, the former Eileen Ardo. Kuhar was a veteran of World War II. He and his wife resided in a quonset hut in Kew Gardens.

The charming photo in the article, however, is of Lorain’s last baby of 1946, the son of Mr. and Mrs. John Matchison. Matchison was also a veteran of World War II.

By being born in 1946, the Matchison baby (who I believe was eventually named John Matchison) entitled his parents to claim a $500 income tax deduction.

But even though the Kuhars did not get the tax deduction, at least they got the usual gifts and goodies from area businesses (below).

It’s kind of comical that even though the mother does all the work of delivery, apparently there’s no gift specifically for her! Even Dear Old Dad gets 50 bus tokens!

4 comments:

  1. "Comical?" Sigh. Perhaps.

    Of course, at that time, the father had to be The Provider, so his bus tokens helped ensure that he could get out and about and do just that while the mother stayed at home.

    To be fair, the gifts for the baby did help simplify his/her care. To that effect, they were helpful for the mother. But wouldn't she have appreciated a "beautiful chenille robe" from Goodman's too?

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  2. I went back and checked my old blog posts. When my older brother was born (Lorain's first baby of 1958), Dad got a new hat! I guess that's why I found the bus tokens amusing.

    It wasn't until my 1963 First Baby post that the mother received a nice ring of her own from Seymours. It was about time!

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  3. Kew Gardens?
    Where was that?

    And "ALL wool" legging for baby?
    Are they nuts?

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  4. Phil, Kew Gardens was a low cost housing development on the south side of Colorado Ave at Euclid. It started out as homes for disabled veterans after WWII, then was for any veteran, then was finally open to anyone. It was a large development of 40-50 Quonset hut type duplex houses. It became a problem area and was razed in the late 1950s. Elyria had a similar development called Valley View on Gulf Rd. Dennis

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