Seventy years ago, the year 1953 was coming to a close.
The Lorain Journal celebrated the occasion with a detailed month-by-month recap of Lorain news over the past year with its "City News Parade of 1953" feature. It's a pretty fascinating read (with many of the stories appearing as the subjects of blog posts here over the past year). Nine of the year's top news photos were also featured.
As to be expected, in the same New Year's Eve edition there was the obligatory "Don't Drink and Drive" full page sponsored ad. As I mentioned on a previous post, the image of the merrymakers seems to be at odds with the safety theme.
Lorainites didn't have to wait very long to find out the winner. On the front page of the January 1, 1954 Journal, the first baby was revealed to be the as yet unnamed son of Dorothy and Aloysius Prosak of 2602 Elyria Avenue.
In a nice touch, the front page also featured photographs of three "First Babies" of previous years (much like they followed up a year later on my brother Ken, the First Baby of 1958).
I used these "end-of-the-year" summaries to find murders for my books. They're only good for the early years, though. By the time you hit the 50s there are so many killings that only the really "big news" ones hit the summaries.
ReplyDeleteDon - You ought to do a book on drownings. There seemed to be one every other day in those summaries.
ReplyDeleteI did enjoy the rundown of the favorite stories of the year. But my favorite item on these pages was Dr. George W. Crane's medical advice column. Fellow came to him concerned about his tinnitus. The good doctor's response was, "You are traitorous to God when you subordinate your brain to such selfish worry." OK, thanks doc.
Buster - Murders are senseless enough. Drownings, I fear, would be even moreso.
ReplyDelete