It's Ham for Easter, Ma'am - April 1955 Grocery Ads

Have you decided on your menu for Easter dinner yet?

I guess it might depend on how traditional you are. According to the AI Overview on Google (which we know is always right), "Ham is a popular Easter dish, and the tradition is rooted in practicalities and historical customs, not necessarily specific religious meanings. Pigs were often slaughtered in the fall and cured throughout the winter, with the ham being ready for the Easter meal in the spring. 

"Ham also became a more affordable alternative to lamb, which was traditionally the main Easter meat." 

I don't remember Mom making lamb more than once – if at all – when I was growing up. I don't think Dad was all that crazy about it. So Easter dinner was always ham. 

Seventy years ago, ham was very popular as well, and all the local groceries featured it in their weekly full-page ads. Here's an ample sample from the Lorain Journal of April 6 and 7, 1955.

Not everyone had to go out and buy a ham. Those lucky enough to have purchased a major appliance at Sears Roebuck and Company (remember when it was called that?) received their Easter ham free, according to this ad which ran in the Journal on March 31st, 1955.

Muir's Ad With Vintage Easter Toys – April 1955

One of the things that I remember about Easter when I was a kid was that Mom and Dad would sometimes put a little toy in our baskets along with the candy and hardboiled eggs. They were often just little inexpensive windup things, the equivalent of a stocking stuffer at Christmas. I don't know what we did with them after Easter.

You can see the 1950s version of little Easter toys in the ad above for Muir's Cut Rate Drugs (a favorite topic on this blog), which ran in the Lorain Journal back on April 7, 1955. Here's a closeup look at one of them – a wind-up bunny.

And here's one, courtesy of eBay, that somehow survived over the years. It's quite nice, actually.

Another toy in the ad is this 'Egg Laying Chick.' (Hmmmm, should that say 'hen'?)

And here's the real thing, also found on eBay. It has most of its hen fruit.

And lastly is this bespectacled bunny bank.

There are a lot of these things still around, in various colors. It was part of a set, with a matching girl bunny. Some of them seem to be missing all or part of their glasses – leaving two holes between the eyes on the boy bunny, and a weird ridge across the nose on the girl bunny (that would not look out of place on one of the alien races found on the newer Star Trek shows).

Vintage Easter Egg Coloring Kits

Courtesy Garage Sale Finds blog

Will you be coloring Easter eggs this year – if not for yourself, maybe for your grandkids?

Maybe not. I know the price of a dozen eggs had gone up again, although I have no idea what it is now. It takes me months to finish off a carton anyway. Sometimes when I get around to frying an egg, I notice that the expiration date stamped on the carton was at least several haircuts ago. (For the record, I go every five weeks.) But I do like hardboiled eggs.

Anyway, coloring Easter eggs has always been a big part of the holiday. Unfortunately, when I was growing up, our eggs never really turned out that great. The colors were usually pretty drab and uneven. Designs applied to the eggs using the waxy 'magic' crayon usually resulted in an unattractive, illegible design. 

Finally, my siblings and I would pollute some of the eggs with the goofy stickers that came with the kit, or insert them in the little paper wraparounds. 

Of course, Mom always bought the PAAS egg coloring kits. You can see the front of one of the boxes at the top of this post. 

Here's the back of the carton (below). There's also a sheet with one of those wraparound stand-ups. They were pretty cute.

Anyway, I was surprised to see that egg coloring kits have been around for a long time, and that PAAS wasn't the only company making them. Here are some vintage boxes and kits that have somehow survived through the decades to make it to eBay.

This kit from the late 1930s provides kids with colorful transfers of famous King Feature comic characters to be applied to the eggs. There's Popeye, Wimpy, Olive Oyl, the Jeep, Blondie, Maggie and Jiggs, the Little King, Krazy Kat, Officer Pupp, Ignatz the Mouse and – Barney Google!

I see there's also Flash Gordon and the whole Katzenjammer Kids gang (Hans and Fritz, Mama and der Captain).

Here's the back of the box, featuring an oddly-proportioned Popeye.

This PAAS kit is from the late 1940s. It still has Popeye and Dagwood transfers, but now the Disney menagerie is included, including Donald Duck, Pluto Pup, Bambi, Thumper and Br'er Rabbit (from the Song of the South). Oh, and a cross is tossed into the mix as well.

Here's a much later PAAS kit. Sorry, Popeye – no fisk fighting on Easter eggs any more.

Like I said, other companies besides PAAS produced coloring kits. Here's one from RIT.

I much prefer this RIT package with a Wild West theme. Sort of a GRIT RIT kit.

And finally, J.J. Fleck of Tiffin, Ohio produced a set of 'Easter Egg Trims." Apparently you moistened them and placed them on the end of the egg.

Apparently the concept never caught on – possibly because of the nightmarish clown design. 

Click here to read a comprehensive, well-written history of J. J. Fleck and his company

1918 Fruehauf Trailer – April 1965

Fruehauf Corporation is probably a little neglected on this blog, so it's a good time for this post. Sixty years ago on April 5, 1965, the big news out of the plant in Avon Lake was the acquisition and display of an antique Fruehauf trailer.

As the Journal article above notes, "A four-wheel stake and rack trailer, built 47 years ago for one of the first customers of Fruehauf Corporation, has become a permanent display piece at the giant Fruehauf plant here.

"The trailer, equipped with solid rubber tires and wooden spoke wheels, was reconditioned to look like new for its final resting place in the concourse leading from the administration building to the plant.

"Josef Weber, plant manager, said the trailer of two and one-half ton capacity is a far cry from modern Fruehauf semi-trailers of aluminum and steel capable of carrying payloads in excess of 25 tons.

"The antique trailer was built in 1918 in Detroit by August Fruehauf, founder of the corporation, and his fellow workers for the Ogden and Moffett Co. of Port Huron, Mich.

"It was used for many years hauling general freight between Port Huron and Detroit.

"When the company redesigned its building in the late 1950's, no suitable place could be found for the old trailer.

"The company contacted the late Harry Fruehauf, a son of the founder, and arrangements were made for the trailer to be turned over to the Fruehauf organization in 1958 at a sales conference in Detroit.

"After being consigned to an outside area for several years, Fruehauf officials decided it should be on permanent display at the Avon Lake plant, the largest trailer assembly facility in the world."

I often forget that my mother was working at that plant as a secretary when she married Dad in 1950.

Click here to visit the website of the Fruehauf Trailer Historical Society.

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Anyway, the rest of that 1965 Journal page has plenty of ads related to topics that I've written about over the years, including Steve Polansky Market; the Hoop Family Restaurants; Benny's China Gate on West Erie; Manners Restaurants; and Ohio Edison.

What? No ad appearance by Reddy Kilowatt?

There's some interesting movies as well, including the great Elvis in Roustabout and one I saw recently on the Outlaw channel: The Rounders, with Glenn Ford and Henry Fonda.

It sure looks like Elvis was just retouched into this photo.

Hard to believe Barbara Stanwyck is in Roustabout, I'm used to seeing her co-star with the great Joel McCrea in some wonderful Westerns. And I like that pretty Joan Freeman. Any actress that co-stars with the Three Stooges is okay in my book.

From "The Three Stooges Go Around The World in a Daze."

Lorain Journal Comics Page – April 10, 1935

Ninety years ago today on April 10, 1935, this was the comics page of the Lorain Journal. 

A quick look at the page seems to indicate that there aren't too many comics that are still around today. The only ones appear to be Blondie and Barney Google (now called Barney Google and Snuffy Smith). Popeye is still around, but it's pretty much just in classic reruns.

Popeye was hugely popular back then. Here's a closer look at its panel on the page.

It wasn't a gag-a-day comic back then; it was a continuity strip with elaborate storylines that often went on for weeks or months. The Journal even encouraged its subscribers to have their newspapers forwarded to them on vacation so that they wouldn't miss any of the Popeye strips (which I wrote about back here).

But the reason I posted this page was because of the Barney Google strip. I noticed that it included Snuffy Smith and his wife Loweezy. 

Snuffy had just been introduced as a character in the strip the year before. Eventually he became so popular that he basically took over the strip, with Barney fading into the background! In recent years, Barney has made a comeback and is a regular character again.

Why is this interesting to me? Because I read Gasoline Alley online, and Walt Wallet has been visited by Snuffy and Barney for the last week or so in a neat crossover storyline. It was all part of the celebration of Gasoline Alley's 106th Anniversary. Classic comic strip characters Mutt and Jeff were part of the fun too. Here are a few of the panels.

As you can see, Barney Google and Snuffy Smith will be celebrating its 106th Anniversary as well. The comic itself is still going strong, with great art and humor. This image from the King Features website shows the whole cast, including Sparkplug the race horse, Tater (Snuffy's son) and Jughaid (his nephew).

Many of us Baby Boomers grew up watching those King Features cartoons on TV, which featured Beetle Bailey, Krazy Kat and Snuffy Smith. Here's the well-remembered introduction to the Snuffy Smith cartoons.

Why not sit back fer a spell and enjoy a few episodes while you eat your grits? 

Although today's surviving newspapers seem to run mostly the same (lousy) comics, it's nice to read the old favorites each day online on such websites as GoComics.com.

Tale of Two Houses – April 27, 1953

The 1950s and 60s were tough on stately old homes in Lorain County. A lot of changes were taking place at the time, with massive population growth and development. That meant a lot of old houses were sold by their original or longtime owners. Some of these homes were demolished to make way or something else; others were unflatteringly repurposed.

Above are two examples of what I'm talking about, which appeared in the Lorain Journal on April 27, 1953. The larger photo notes, "A well-known Erie Avenue home, in the Nichols family since is construction in 1896, was recently sold to Universal Cleaners, Inc. for use as a drive-in station. To be extensively remodeled, the building was originally built by Byron G. Nichols, Lorain's leading real estate dealer at the turn of the century."

Ever since I was a kid, I've wondered how that house became the home of a dry-cleaning business. I guess the location made it a natural for commercial use. Lorain didn't seem to have any problem then – or now – rezoning properties from residential to commercial on West Erie Ave. Drive through that area today and you'll see it's still going on, and making the neighborhood a little less attractive (in my opinion, at least).

Anyway, here are two views of the building, courtesy of Google Maps. It still looks great.

2013

2022

The other building on the 1953 Lorain Journal page is out my way, and I pass it to and from work. Unlike the house on West Erie in Lorain, however, this one merely changed hands.

The photo caption notes, "The former Henry B. Kishman home, on Lake Road between Lorain and Vermilion, has been sold to Robert G. Bachman of Beaver Park. For the past 33 years, the stately Victorian home has been owned by the late Fred E. Ranney and his heirs. Reported sale price was $12,000."

And here's a view from Sunday. 

I knew the house must be pretty old, and it's nice to know that it was a landmark, connected with the well-known Kishman name. Henry B. Kishman was a business leader, President of the Kishman Fish Company, and a charter member of the Vermilion Rotary. He passed away at the age of 90 in December 1948.

Henry B. Kishman