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.

****

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!

Stone's Grill Ad – 1950

Back in December (here), I mentioned Stone's Grill on my post about the Helfrich building.

From about 1929, Stone's Grill was located at 822 Broadway. Then in 1950 or so, the business apparently moved right next door to 818 Broadway.

And that's where Stone's Grill was located when this ad (below) appeared in the Lorain Journal back in January 1950.

Note that at the bottom of the ad, it says that it is "Next to Russine [sic]."

The ad's interesting for a few reasons. Predating today's ubiquitous sports bars, Stone's had a 'life size' RCA Television with a 6x8 foot screen, all the better to watch wrestling, boxing and other sports, in addition to musicals and dramas. (Although Tom & Jerry were listed in the ad, the battling cat-and-mouse's cartoons were not part of the bar's TV viewing options; for the uninformed, Tom & Jerry is also the name of a drink.)

What caught my eye in the ad was the unusual heading with its negative image.

Of course, I had to take it into Photoshop to reverse it. And here's the result.

A. Helfrich Building at 822 Broadway

Recently I received an email inquiring if I had any information on the history of the building at 822 Broadway in Lorain (above), which is currently undergoing some renovations.

It’s always a little tricky to use city directories to research a building, but here is what I believe to be correct.

The ‘A. Helfrich’ name on the building was Anthony Helfrich, who had a furniture and undertaking business. Up until the 1905 city directory, it was located at 700 Broadway (later the location of the Thistle Building, now a vacant lot). Thus the 1906 inscription date makes sense.

There were two addresses associated with the building: 820 and 822 Broadway. The funeral business was at 820 and a variety of businesses used the 822 address until it became the primary address in the 1980s.

The Shiff Brothers and their musical instrument, hardware and pawn broker business were an early tenant at the 822 address, appearing in the 1912 and 1915-16 editions of the directory. Around the time of the 1919-20 directory, the Helfrich Brothers Pool Room took over the 822 address.

In the 1921-22 book, the brothers were now running a cigar shop. Anthony Helfrich continued to run his funeral business at the 820 address.

By the time of the 1924 city directory, Jos. Stark had a dry goods business listed at the 822 Broadway. It wasn’t until the 1929 book that Stone Malt appeared at that address.

July 13, 1934 Ad from
Lorain Shopper News

Throughout the 1930s, the Anthony Helfrich funeral business continued to be listed at 820 Broadway (Helfrich passed away in 1930) and the restaurant known as Stone's Grill was at 822. Indeed, the two companies stayed put during the 1940s as well.

It wasn’t until the 1950 city directory that the business that many of us remember showed up listed at 820-822 Broadway: Rusine’s, run by Michael Rusine. Stone’s Grill apparently moved next door to 816-818 Broadway (the small brick building that is still there today) and kept on appearing in the  city directory right into the 1980s. (I’m not sure when it closed).

According to the city directories, Rusine’s eventually used the 820 part of the building for storage.

It will be interesting to see the next chapter in the history of the newly refurbished 822 Broadway.

****

Here’s a link to a 2017 Morning Journal article by Richard Payerchin about the building’s deteriorating condition at that time.

****

UPDATE (December 9, 2019)
Local historian and author Al Doane reached out to me today with some additional information about the Helfrich funeral business when it was located in its namesake building.

Al wrote, "I would like to add what I had found years ago about it. I found this information in a Lorain Daily News article.

"The article stated that the funeral business was conducted on the 4th Floor of the building. I had wondered how they got the body up to the 4th floor.” 

But then Al read that one of the problems that the present owners of the building faced is that there is an elevator shaft from the ground floor to the fourth floor. So it all made sense.

"At first when I read the article with funerals on the 4th floor, I could not imagine carrying a body up all those stairs,” noted Al. Hearing about that elevator shaft solved the mystery.

Thanks for sharing your findings, Al!