Harvesting Timber on the Baumhart Farm – May 1938

When I think about lumberjacks, the image of Paul Bunyan lumbering about the North Woods (and laying waste to it) immediately comes to mind. I certainly don't think of the Baumhart farm on its namesake road as a place for Paul and his crew to create a lot of stumps.

But that's exactly where the story below takes place. The article about about the logging operations of a South Amherst timber firm called Parker and Bechstein appeared in the Lorain Journal on May 20, 1938. It's an interesting, behind-the-scenes look at how the firm does a great business cutting its hickory and oak right in Lorain County – on the Baumhart farm.

Children’s Digest – Dec. 1958

I think I'll keep the kid’s stuff going for another day here on the blog.

At one of the book sales held this year at the Lorain Public Library, I picked up a couple of vintage issues of Children’s Digest. It was published monthly by Parents’ Magazine Press, Inc., a subsidiary of the publishers of Parents’ Magazine.

Above you see the cover of the December 1958 issue, which cost a whopping 25 cents.

It was quite an ambitious little magazine. According to its Wiki entry, the magazine was published from October 1950 to May/June 2009 and was conceived as sort of a Reader’s Digest for children, reprinting the best material from other sources.

As described in an ad that ran in the December issue, it was “124 gaily illustrated pages with a wealth of wonderful stories to be enjoyed again and again. Dickens, Stevenson, Kipling, PLUS best new stories by modern authors. Each monthly issue is full of exciting fun – games, things to do, pictures in color. Good comics, science features, jokes and riddles. Printed on green-tinted “eye-ease” paper.”

Anyway, this issue has all kinds of great stuff. Here are the jokes and riddles mentioned above. I really like the little cartoons accompanying the text.

A Christmas-themed rebus was featured.

This page (below) was aimed at those kids interested in science.

(In case you’re wondering what the answer is, here it is as it appeared in the magazine: “It is not possible for a star to be inside a crescent moon. The crescent is simply an edge of the moon illuminated by the sun. The rest of the round moon is still there, only it is dark and you cannot see it against the dark sky. To be inside the crescent, a star would have to be between the moon and the earth, but no star is that close to us.”

For stories, this issue had some good ones. Our pal Paul Bunyan is featured in a winter-themed tale. 

And Leo Tolstoy,  the author of War and Peace penned this nifty story. (Hmm, maybe it’s not a good time in this country to be promoting something Russian.)

But the story is a good one (you can read it here), and stresses the importance of working hard to get ahead, comrade.

If Communist fairy tales aren’t your thing, there was also a classic story from the Brothers Grimm.

For me, though, the best thing in the magazine was the reprint of Babar and Father Christmas by Jean De Brunhoff. We had one or two books about the famous, cultured pachyderm when I was a kid and it was nice to revisit an old storybook friend.

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I’ve mentioned a few times on this blog how I work for a printing and direct mail company. It was interesting to look at this book from a printing perspective.

The ‘eye-ease' paper seemed kind of low-quality. I’ve never seen so many particles and bits of ’stuff’ in paper before.

I got a kick out of the two-color illustrations throughout the issue. Back in those days, the art had to be separated by hand using overlays, giving the finished product a rough, offbeat charm. We were still doing it that way back in the early 1980s when I started at the company.

From a mailing perspective, the business reply card bound in the magazine was pretty outrageous compared to what we are used to seeing now. No zip codes yet at the time when this issue came out; they were still a few years away.

Sheffield Lake Fantasy Fair – May 1969

Remember fun festivals?

Sure you do, if you grew up in Lorain County in the 1960s. Fun festivals were miniature school-sponsored ‘carnivals.’ They were held at the school, where there were tables set up with little games where – for the cost of one ticket – you could try your luck and win a prize, such as a live goldfish (much to Mom’s dismay).

There was usually a “pick-a-pocket” lady, who wore an big, colorful apron with a lot of pockets, each containing a small prize. For one ticket, you could select (sight unseen) something out of one of her pockets.

I remember going to a fun festival at Charleston Elementary School, and coming home with several of these small ‘walker’ toys (below), mistakenly thinking it was supposed to be Mickey Mouse’s pal Pluto. (Why are the kids on the package a martian-like green?)

Courtesy the Internet Antique Shop

I seem to recall that the walking dog didn’t work particularly well. Instead of “walking” to the edge of the table, Rover was dragged right over.

This “jumping frog” was another typical prize at a fun festival that I remember. There was a little spring-loaded lever in the back that you set by embedding it in a small blob of sticky gel material attached to the back of the frog; eventually the lever would loosen and release, cause the frog to “jump” into the air.

Courtesy of Bay

Anyway, here’s an article promoting an upcoming festival at Tennyson School in Sheffield Lake. It ran in the Journal on May 12, 1969 and highlights the creativity of Mrs. Ronald Lemke.

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Sheffield Lake To See Paul Bunyan

By BETSY WATSON
Staff Writer

SHEFFIELD LAKE – Tennyson PTO is writing a new chapter to the Paul Bunyan legend.

Dominating the scene when Tennyson opens the door on its gay Fantasy Fair Saturday will be a giant Paul, ready to tramp through the Minnesota woodlands with his powerful ax.

The 10-foor high figure is the creation of Mrs. Ronald Lemke whose talent for costume design has brightened the Halloween parade for the past two years.

Working with chicken wire and a two months’ supply of The Journal, Mrs. Lemke says she spent an average of ten hours a day for two months to make the paper mache giant.

While the Lemke family ate dinner in shifts at a card table, Paul took his ease on the dining room table. Now that he is completed he has been shifted to the Sheffield, Sheffield Lake Board of Education Office where he stretches across the corner of the room waiting to make his Saturday debut.

OUTFITTING Paul became a family project. Elaine Lemke, a sixth grader at Sheffield Middle School, gave up her red sweater to make his hat, and Mrs. Lemke sacrificed her husband’s scarlet stocking cap to make sox for his tree-like legs. “OK woman, anything for the cause,” said Lemke as he watched his cap top Paul’s sturdy lumber jack boots.

The folk hero is complete in detail, even to a red checkered bandana that is stuffed in his back pocket. His eyes, after a long search, were made from Italian glass grapes, the hair on his chest and head is black yarn and his shoe laces were also a donation from a patient Mr. Lemke.

Another clever creation of Mrs. Lemke that will entertain children at the fair is the costume of the Pocket Lady. Tennyson’s pocket lady will be a brown tree with a realistic headdress made of green and orange leaves. Something that should especially appear to all is the next of scarlet cardinals that rests in her branches.

The mother of five daughters, Mrs. Lemke worked on her man-sized project while involved in another back-breaking task... moving from the family home on Brockley Ave., to a new residence in Knickerbocker Knolls at the east end of the city.

There will be other clever story book characters walking the halls at the fair, including a black and white skunk with inch-long eyelashes and an emerald collar made by Mrs. William Lyon. 

Hours for the Fair will be from 1 to 5 p.m. with tickets available at the door. Inside will be games, refreshments, a quaint country store and movies. Ways and means chairman are Mrs. Alfred Wynek and Mrs. Kennethe Deshuk, but all members of the PTO as well as the teachers at the school worked to make the festival possible.

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Sheffield Lake’s fantasy-themed fair seemed to be a notch above the Lorain version (no pun intended in view of Paul Bunyan and his axe). But I’m not sure that having the pick-a-pocket lady costumed as a tree was a good idea, with the famed lumberjack of folklore lurking nearby.