Thanksgiving in Lorain – 1975

Looks like the hunter became the hunted
in this illustration from a Lawson's ad

For my last installment looking back at Thanksgivings of yesteryear, let's drop in on 1975. 

The big story on the front page of the Thanksgiving edition of the Journal on Nov 27, 1975 was the $2.3 billion bailout proposal by President Gerald Ford to rescue financially ailing New York City. 

Elsewhere on the front page was the traditional kickoff of the Clothe-A-Child campaign, which replaced the Mary Lee Tucker Christmas Benefit Show in 1969. (I've written almost two dozen posts about the Mary Lee Tucker program, including a 5-part series about its history starting here.)

The Page of Opinion included another well-written and inspiring editorial about Thanksgiving.

For eating out on the big day, there were more choices than in previous years, including the Elyria Holiday Inn, the Oberlin Inn, the Showboat in Huron and – a favorite of the Brady Bunch – the Brown Derby on Kolbe Road. For several years around that time it was our special place to celebrate a big event.

However, if you were thinking of a nice Thanksgiving Roast Beef Sandwich, you were out of luck, pardner.

If you wanted some entertainment beyond Thanksgiving TV specials, you could head out to The Joker at Midway Mall and see the Michael Stanley Band in concert.

For those that prepared their own Thanksgiving meal, the grocery and convenience stores ran the usual ads about a week before. Looking at the A&P ad, I had forgotten about the goofy Price and Price campaign.

Good to see Lawson's was offering its iconic Dutch Loaf for those that planned a more eclectic Thanksgiving menu.

And for those who wished to enjoy a cocktail, the late great Cotton Club offered a coupon towards any of its products, including Less Sweet Ginger Ale (with Big Ginger on the label) and 50/50 – two favorites in our house.

Lastly, the days of the Thanksgiving-themed ads seemed to have ended in the mid-70s. I had a hard time finding any at all around the holiday, until I found an old reliable: First Federal Savings of Lorain.

Harvest Value Time at A&P – October 1962

Where do you like to buy your groceries these days?

With all of the options available today, many people wouldn't even answer with the name of a grocery store. According to www.foodindustry.com, Walmart is the leader in grocery sales in the United States, followed by Amazon (with both online and physical stores), Costco, the Kroger Company, and Albertsons. Further down the top ten list is Meijer at No. 9 and Target at No. 10.

It's quite different from sixty years ago, when true grocery stores still ruled the roost. Back then, all of the supermarkets ran full-page ads (often double spreads) in the newspaper, crammed with listings of what was on sale. It was all in glorious black and white, with a few photos or illustrations included, but it was very informative. Surely a shopper (most likely a housewife) could find something in the ad that would draw her into the store to save some money.

And most ads had a theme, like the "Harvest Time" umbrella heading that A&P utilized in the spread below, which ran in the Journal back on October 4. 1962. 

It's always interesting seeing what sale items were deemed worthy of a prime locations in their ad. Here, we find the spotlight on potatoes, apples and (yum!!) steak. 

A&P also used its ads to plug its house brands: Ann Page, Eight O'Clock Coffee, and Jane Parker. (Believe it or not, Jane Parker is still around, but only selling its iconic fruitcake. Click here to visit its website.)

Today, A&P may be long gone, but shoppers in Lorain County have all sorts of grocery options. Besides a few of the top U. S. top ten members (Walmart, Costco, Meijer and Target), we also have Apples, Marc's, Aldi's, Fligner's and of course, Giant Eagle.

It would be nice to have one go-to place for all my groceries, but I tend to buy certain items at different stores. I do what I can to save a little money.

Now, who has potatoes on sale this week?

A&P Happy New Year Ad – Dec. 29, 1971

Fifty years ago, grocery giant A&P ran this full page New Year-themed ad (complete with two chubby Baby New Years) in the Lorain Journal. The ad seems to include all of the items needed for a traditional New Year’s celebration: pork, sauerkraut, potatoes, wine, champagne – and Alka-Seltzer.

Alka-Seltzer? I haven’t thought of that product in years.

But it’s still sold, although not in the classic glass cylinder (below).

Courtesy Pinterest

Now it looks like this (below). Alas, no retro charm at all.

Anyway, I’ve written many times about how the mighty A&P chain is no more. 

And what about its former stores indicated in the ad? It doesn’t seem like very many of the former locations are still grocery stores. The address for the Vermilion A&P is home to Steinacker True Value Hardware; 1600 Kansas Avenue in Lorain is the address for Lorain Metropolitan Housing Authority; the Sheffield Lake store was located in the part of Shoreway Shopping Center that was later demolished; a Rural King is located at 430 Oberlin Road in Elyria.

On the other hand, Apples is carrying on the A&P tradition, with one of its grocery stores at 209 E. Herrick in Wellington, as well as one at 250 Abbe Road in Elyria.

Lorain Gets an A&P Super Market – July 1951

A&P has a history in Lorain going back to July 1919, when the first two stores in the city opened – one at 859 Broadway and the other at 500 E. Erie Avenue.

Over the years, the chain had outlets all over Lorain. During the 1920s, thirteen A&Ps opened in Lorain. But these were the small, old-fashioned neighborhood stores that competed with the independent Mom-and-Pop grocery stores and small chains like Food Fair.

The first, modern A&P supermarket in Lorain was at 3809 Broadway, the subject of the teaser ad above. It ran in the Lorain Journal on July 12, 1951.

The ad is quite charming with its use of illustration. It has a children’s book vibe to it; you half expect to see Curious George floating over the building, holding a balloon.

It’s interesting that A&P selected that location for its first supermarket in the city. I guess the decision makers thought that it was centrally located, and would draw customers from the East side as well as South Lorain. 

Eventually, A&P opened more stores in the area, including the one on the East side on Kansas Avenue (1957), Shoreway Shopping Center in Sheffield Lake (1959); the main West Side store at Lorain Plaza (1960); and Vermilion (1961).

Perhaps because the chain became so ubiquitous in the area, the Broadway location was unable to attract enough customers. It was closed by the early 1970s. 

And today, the mighty Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company (or A&P for short) is no more.

New A&P for Vermilion – 1961

Here’s another ad that didn’t quite make it onto the blog last month. It’s for the Grand Opening of Vermilion’s brand-new A&P grocery store, and it ran in the Lorain Journal sixty years ago on Feb. 28, 1961. 

The A&P was located in the South Shore Shopping Center.

The ad is kind of funny, with the large clip art of a woman’s face (not unlike the one emblazoned on the Cavalier China storefront) and the odd illustration of the man, which looks like it was created on an Etch A Sketch.

A&P has been a favorite topic on this blog. It’s still incredible to me after all these years that the mighty A&P chain is no more. 

My mother dragged my siblings and me to at the Lorain Plaza A&P many times back in the 1960s. I still remember one shopping trip during which a friendly cashier commented on my ‘chubby cheeks’ and gave one a good pinch. (Today the same thing would probably result in a lawsuit and extended coverage on social media.)

A&P hung on in Canada for a while, right into the 2000s. For many years the one in Niagara Falls (now it’s a Metro store) was our final shopping stop before heading back over the border to the good old U.S.A. I would fill the car trunk with all our Canadian favorites: pea-meal bacon, Billy Bee honey, Kraft Peanut Butter, Tim Horton coffee, etc. (The U. S. border agent peeked in our trunk once and said, “What, did you go to Canada just to buy groceries?”)

A&P “Irish Sweepstakes” Ad – April 8, 1968

Here’s a vintage A&P ad that I probably should have posted around St. Patrick’s Day. It ran in the Lorain Journal on April 8, 1968 and promoted a contest loosely based on the Irish Sweepstakes.

I’ve heard of the Irish Sweepstakes many times through the years, usually as a plot device in movies, TV shows or comic strips. (Jiggs in Bringing Up Father became rich after winning the Irish Sweepstakes.) So what was the Irish Sweepstakes anyway?

According to this Wiki entry, the Irish Sweepstakes was a lottery established by the Irish Free State in 1930 to finance hospitals. It notes, "Potentially winning tickets were drawn from rotating drums, usually by nurses in uniform. Each such ticket was assigned to a horse expected to run in one of several horse races, including the Cambridgeshire Handicap, Derby and Grand National. Tickets that drew the favorite horses thus stood a higher likelihood of winning and a series of winning horses had to be chosen on the accumulator system, allowing for enormous prizes.”

The A&P contest was similar in that the results of weekly steeplechase races determined the winners of the cash prizes.

How did it work? Free game cards were available at the store each week. Each card contained numbers corresponding to a horse in each of five races, with a cash prize designated for a first place finish for each. Cash prizes varied, with amounts from $5 to $1,000. (If your horse finished second, you won a buck.)

It was a clever promotion. If there’s one thing that never goes out of style, it’s the opportunity of winning good ol’ American greenbacks in a contest.

I love the look of pure, unadulterated avarice in the eyes of the people in the illustration. I also like the June Cleaver-like Mom with pearls, wearing a jockey hat and clutching her winnings.

Kansas Avenue A&P Ad – Nov. 4, 1957

I’ve written a few times about Lorain’s A&P stores on this blog, including the opening of the one at the Shoreway Shopping Center in 1959, and the one in the Lorain Plaza that arrived in 1960.

Well, here’s an ad for the store that predated both of them, the Kansas Avenue store. The ad – which ran in the Lorain Journal on November 4, 1957 – thanked the community for its support of the new store.

There’s plenty of goodies offered as prizes as part of the big celebration, including a Schwinn bike, a Bell & Howell movie camera and projector, a mink stole, an Emerson TV console and an Edsel Pacer.

I love the illustrations of the smartly-dressed female shoppers at the top of the ad. I suppose a similar ad today would depict mostly men, since we have regained our role as hunter/gatherers and seemingly do most of the shopping.

A&P Ad – January 16, 1952

Ad from the Lorain Journal of January 16, 1952

It’s hard to believe that the great A&P grocery store chain is no more.

According to this Wiki entry, it had struggled since the 1990s, and been in and out of bankruptcy – before finally closing all of its remaining stores in late 2015.

That’s why it’s strange to see the nearly full-page ad above, which ran in the Lorain Journal on January 16, 1952 – 65 years ago yesterday. It reminds me of its one-time market dominance, with its great in-house brands (such as Eight O’Clock Coffee, which is still around today).

It’s no wonder that Mom shopped regularly at A&P in the Lorain Plaza shopping center in the 1960s. The chain had a long history in Lorain.

According to an article in the June 21, 1955 Lorain Journal, the first two outlets in Lorain celebrated simultaneous openings on July 1, 1919. One was located at 858 Broadway and the other was at 500 E. Erie. A third A&P store opened on August 1, 1919 on Pearl in South Lorain.

During the 1920s, an incredible thirteen A&Ps opened in Lorain. These small, neighborhood stores were followed by six more in the 1930s!

At one point, Lorain's biggest A&P was at 3809 Broadway, which opened in 1955. A&P even constructed an extension of W. 38th from Broadway to Elyria Avenue. (Don’t look for that street on a map today; somehow it disappeared after that store closed in the early 1970s.)

Sheffield Lake’s A&P opened in August 1959. It was followed by the Lorain Plaza store, which opened in August 1960 (which I wrote about here).

Like I’ve said before, I remember seeing Ann Page products on pantry shelves in our house in the 1960s, never realizing that it was an A&P house brand. I thought Ann Page was a Betty Crocker-like cook who specialized in preserves.

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I still buy Eight O’Clock coffee once in a while. The gimmick of grinding it in the store – and smelling its rich aroma – works for me.

That’s why I could never own a Keurig®. I want to sniff that coffee, man.

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Although I don’t shop for antiques anymore (since I’m rapidly becoming one myself), I still have a few doodads on my shelves at home. That includes the two A&P souvenirs below.

I used an identical A&P scoop for years to make coffee every morning, until it cracked. I then broke down and reluctantly started measuring with a tablespoon.

Lorain Plaza A&P Opens – August 1960

Just four days after the Grand Opening ad for the First Federal Savings Oberlin Avenue branch appeared in the Lorain Journal, this full-page ad was featured. It promoted the Grand Opening of the brand new A&P at the Lorain Plaza. (Notice how the ad says Oberlin Road instead of Oberlin Avenue!)

It's fascinating how much hoopla the event generated back then and how many incentives the store offered to get you to drop in. $430 of food certificates were given away, and special prizes were awarded that included radios, cameras, hair dryers, bicycles, coffee makers, waffle makers, toasters and scales. Hundreds of other free gifts were distributed, including Jane Parker angel food cakes, boxes of Jack Frost sugar and jars of Ann Page salad dressing. Non-food gifts included balloons, measuring glasses, plastic rain hats and key chains.

Does any supermarket chain do anything like that nowadays when they open a new store?

The new A&P boasted air conditioning, moving belt checkouts, wide aisles, automatic doors, decorations and wide selections of meat and frozen foods.

My mother shopped at that Oberlin Avenue A&P, and I remember being in there at a very young age. (One of the particularly friendly checkout women used to comment on my chubby cheeks to my mother!) I also remember the gum ball machines at the exit and the tiny charms, toys and prizes (such as miniature trolls).

Ann Page products – A&P's house brand – also filled the shelves of Mom's pantry, especially spices and preserves.

Who would have thought that more than 50 years after that store opened on Oberlin Avenue, A&P would be pretty much kaput as a chain – not only in Lorain but all over the country?

Shoreway Shopping Center A&P Opens – August 1959

I don't get to post too much about my current home – Sheffield Lake – in this blog, so when I do find something of interest, I try to get it up here pronto.

The Sheffield Lake store in the 1960s

Here's a full page ad that ran on Tuesday, August 18, 1959 in the Lorain Journal – 53 years ago – heralding the opening of the new A&P in the Shoreway Shopping Center.

From the ad, it looks like the store gave away a lot of goodies during the grand opening celebration. Also notice in the ad that Lake Breeze Road was designated Route 301 back then.

It's strange that the mighty A&P grocery store chain seems to have faded away, except for stores in New York and the surrounding states.

My mom shopped at A&P in Lorain for years. I still remember seeing those Ann Page products in the cupboard, never realizing that the name's initials stood for A&P!