Christmas Ads – 1950

Well, it’s Christmas week. Let’s start the celebration by taking a look at some ads from the pages of the Lorain Journal in December 1950, and get a taste of the city of seventy years ago. 

Speaking of taste, wine was – and still is – a great gift for many people. This ad for Stone’s Grills (I’m not sure why it's plural) is fun to look at, with many old-time brands listed, including E & K Wines, Virginia Dare, Golden West Wines and Duff-Gordon Imported Wines. (By the way, Francis Ford Coppola literally brought the Virginia Dare Wine brand back to life in 2014, which you can read about here and here.)

I wrote about Stone’s Grill a few times, including this post about the Helfrich Building, and this January 1950 ad.

The other ad with a wine theme is for Zim’s, advertised as “Lorain’s Leading Beer & Wine Stores.” 

‘Zim’ was Willard B. Zimmerman. I like how the ‘Z’ makes up the body of the little mascot. The ad lists two store locations, 1247 Broadway and 1762 E. 28th Street. (I suspect that the ad has a typo or two, because the 1950 city directory had the two locations as 747 Broadway and 1246 Broadway in both the alphabetical, as well as the street-by-street listings).

If you preferred to enjoy your spirits in a comfortable bar setting, then this ad for the well-known Lincoln Park Nite Club would have been of interest.

Of course, Lincoln Park Nite Club and the various bars at that location have been the subject of many posts here on the blog.

Switching over to non-booze-related ads, here’s one for Lee Furniture. It has a particularly nice sentiment.

The company was owned by Joseph and Carl Lepon, and was located at 453 Broadway.

Here’s one for Bazely Cash Market, the subject of this 2017 post. (I guess they didn’t barter or take IOUs)

And I’ve written about Central Bank (whose one forlorn, lonely pillar still stands on Broadway) many times.

Here’s one for a business that I’ve never mentioned before on the blog. It’s a full-page ad for Agnes Kay Ladies Specialty Shop at 433 Broadway. The business was established by Agnes Kay Webber on Sept. 4, 1947 and featured a bridal salon for outfitting all members of the bridal party.

The business moved to 436 Broadway in the early 1960s; it closed around 1966 and its location on Broadway became the Downtown Lorain home of Faroh’s Candies.

The next ad is an interesting one. It’s for a WTAM radio broadcast of “A Christmas Carol” starring Lionel Barrymore as Scrooge. The local sponsor for the show as indicated in the ad was James Renker & Son Plumbing & Heating.

Lionel Barrymore, as we all remember, played the evil Mr. Potter in It’s a Wonderful Life. But did you know that an imitation of his voice was used for the diabolical mad scientist Simon Bar Sinister on the cartoon series Underdog?

The last ad is for Hart’s, a jewelry company that has provided me wth some offbeat, but memorable, posts over the years. Remember the ad with the Marilyn Monroe lookalike? The Wyatt Earp Frontier Marshall Set? The creepy ‘panda doll' that looked like a genetic mistake? The leggy Scottish lassie? All were found in ads for Hart’s.

This time out, the highlight of the ad is the 24” high “Magic Skin” 5 Voice Doll, an exclusive PARO creation.

As the ad notes, “Just squeeze her little right arm and SHE CRIES. Touch her cute, dimpled right leg and SHE SIGHS. Pinch her chubby left arm and SHE CRIES AGAIN. Squeeze her adorable left leg and SHE WAILS. Turn her over on your knee and SHE CRIES LIKE A BABEE.”

Sick, man, sick. This is worse than Ol’ Lanky Long! (Throw him! Drop him! Toss him!)

According to the ad, she has 5 different voices, moving eyes, rubber arms and legs, rose rubber panties, a full size petticoat (what’s that?), Ninon dress & bonnet, lace trimmed shoes and socks.

As usual, I tried to find a photo online of an existing doll – although after all the pinching and squeezing committed in the name of fun, I was doubtful that any doll would still be around with its limbs intact to cry and wail today.

I could be wrong, but this doll currently on Ebay (listed as 22” tall) kind of looks like one.

If you look closely at the doll in the Hart's ad, you can see the raised ridges of the hair on its left temple, similar to the Ebay doll.

I feel like buying the doll just to see if I can get it to make some kind of noise!

At least any abuse or torture dished out to my G. I. Joe "doll” (or action figure, if you prefer) when I was a kid was all in the name of war.

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UPDATE (December 26, 2020)

Longtime contributor and all around good guy Bob Kovach solved my little mystery as to why the ad for Stone’s Grill at the top of this post had the name of the business as plural (as in Stone’s Grills).

Bob wrote, "Yesterday I was looking around eBay and I came across an old Stone's Grill match book. I figured I purchase it for a very good friend of mine, whose father owned the Stone's Grill on Broadway. 

Anyways, when I looked at the pictures I noticed that there were many Stones Grills!” 

Inside of matchbook

Bob continued. " I'm going to ask my buddy about it because he always talks about the place, and I even did some work on the building for him some years ago when he still owned it. So it was really neat this morning when I started to read your article about Christmas ads, and saw that you wondered why it was plural.”

"So I thought to myself, 'I can answer that for Dan!’”

And I’m glad he did. Thanks, Bob!