Easter Parade of Ads – 1953

Well, Easter is only a few days away, so I'd better serve up this final helping of warmed-over holiday fare, circa 1953.

Easter used to mean (and still does, I guess) lots of flowers and corsages, so it's not surprising to see that the local florists sponsored this nearly full-page ad. It appeared in the Journal back on March 31, 1953.

It's good to see that at least one business – Zelek's – is still around. I remember going to Marge's and Carek's for flowers for my date for the music formals and the Prom at Admiral King High School.

I like that wheelbarrow wabbit, er, rabbit clip art.

At least one jewelry store decided to offer an Easter promotion. Seymour's at 633 Broadway offered this large, 24 inch Easter Bunny available on a layaway plan. "Hmm.. should we spend the money on a ham or a stuffed bunny this year?" some families may have had to decide. The "big, huggable" bunny doesn't have a name; but since he's almost as big as Big Georgi in the Marshall's ad, we'll just call him Big Guido.

Journal ad from March 25, 1953

And speaking of ham (and its affordability), here's an ad for a grocery store that I'd never heard of: Henry's Food Center, located at 22nd and Reid. The ad ran in the Journal on April 2, 1953.

And lastly, while some stores today feature a live-action costumed Easter Bunny for kids to have their photo taken with, back in 1953 apparently that idea hadn't quite caught on yet. Instead, Penney's in Downtown Lorain offered up Peter Cottontail.

Like many of you, I remember the little song about Peter Cottontail. Here's the hit version by Gene Autry.

I assumed it was the same character as Peter Rabbit in the stories written by Beatrix Potter.

Not so. According to this Wiki entry, the name 'Peter Cottontail" was a name "temporarily assumed by a fictional rabbit named Peter Rabbit in the works of Thornton Burgess."  

But Gene Autry's song version came out in 1950 and designates Peter Cottontail as the Easter Bunny, so he became the de facto holiday hare, for at least a little while.

Rusine's Easter Ad – March 28, 1953

While many of us grew up looking forward to lots of Faroh's Candies in our Easter baskets, there's another brand that's been synonymous with the holiday: Russell Stover. The individually wrapped candies were always well-represented in our baskets.

One of the stores that carried the Russell Stover line of sweets was Rusine's, at 822 Broadway. According to the ad above, which ran in the Journal on March 28, 1953, apparently there was some sort of exclusive arrangement.

Click here to visit the Wiki page on Russell Stover, which has an interesting history of the company. Did you know that it got started right out of the Stover home? The company website is fun to explore at as well, with no calories gained by merely looking.

Anyway, Rusine's has been a recurring topic on this blog, with several posts devoted to the store.

Hammin' it up at Easter – 1953

Are you planning on a traditional Easter Sunday dinner of ham?

These days, traditions seem to be dying out. I remember last year at Thanksgiving, there were more people at my work planning on having ham on that day instead of turkey. A few said it was just too much work to prepare the traditional stuffed bird.

But ham is different. With the popularity and availability of the spiral-sliced, pre-cooked variety, I don't think it's going away as the definitive Easter choice anytime soon.

Seventy years ago, ham was the featured item in several local grocery store ads. First up is this ad for longtime Lorain grocery store Fisher Foods. The full-page ad ran in the Lorain Journal back on April 2, 1953.

It's interesting how all of these full-page grocery ads disappeared from the newspapers many years ago. But the stores print their own circulars now. I'm sure the Journal misses the revenue. 

It's quite a meaty lineup. Besides the whole or shank ham, there's oven-ready turkeys, stewing chickens, fresh pork sausage, fresh ground meat (beef?) and oven-ready ducklings. 

And if you prefer your ham from a can, there's Armour's Star Cooked Canned Ham. Here's a full-color 1954 ad for your viewing enjoyment.

But getting back to the ad. There's plenty of great bunny clip art, with one triumphantly lifting a whole platter of ham with hare-culean strength.

Here's the second full-page local grocery store ad from Easter 1953 with the emphasis on ham. This one's for the IGA chain and ran in the Journal on April 2, 1953.

Like the Fisher Food ad, IGA ad promotes a carnivorous Easter menu, with rib steaks and pork sausage. And that's no baloney (which is also featured in the ad for 45 cents a pound).

There's a nice listing of the various IGA stores at the bottom of the ad, with Arti's, Ridgeview, Jay's (on Oberlin Avenue), Pazder's, Carl's, Central and Mischka's (in Amherst).

One last thing. I know it's in bad taste (my observation, not the ham), but the rabbit in the ad kind of reminds me of World War II-era caricatures of, uh, Hitler. He's missing his trademark mustache, but that big lock of black hare hair... oh, forget it.

Continuing our Parade of Ham, here's an ad for Polansky's, a favorite repeat topic on this blog, since I shop there once in a while. The ad ran in the Journal on April 2, 1953.

Once again, a meat-market employed rabbit is stuffing the grocery bag with ham – instead of his own kind, at least. I wonder how many people have even eaten rabbit in their lifetime? I guess watching too many Bugs Bunny cartoons where someone (Elmer Fudd, Yosemite Sam, etc.) wanted him for a stew (or hassenpfeffer, if you prefer) probably made me not too game to the idea.

Rigbee's Kiddieland Easter Ad – 1953

Lorain Journal ad from March 25, 1953

Although very young kids probably associate candy with Easter, Rigbee's Kiddieland was hoping that toys could piggyback onto the holiday as well. 'Easter Toys' are front and center in the ad for the store that ran in the Lorain Journal back in late March 1953.

It's an odd assortment, that's for sure. The uncomfortable-looking Kiddie Pedal Kar for $3.98 is more of a trike or scooter than a car, and looks like it was gathering dust in the Rigbee basement since 1918. The Cowboy Bicycle for $24.88 is interesting; it comes with a cork gun, saddle bags and a leather saddle. It's more expensive than the Child's Auto, which ran $13.88 and looked pretty cool. Other Easter-rific gifts include Archery Sets, a Table & Chair Set and a Wading Pool. 

I like the illustration of the toddler looking out of his wooden Pres-Toe Alcatraz.

Anyway, the only real Easter toys in the ad are the Plush Bunnies, Chicks and Dogs. I don't know what an Easter Dog looks like, but the bunny looks good.

It's much more appealing than today's modern, top-of-the-line Gund Easter Bunny (below) – which looks more like a dust bunny.

Journal Front Page – April 1, 1953

 

We'll kick off the month of April here on the blog with a look back at the front page of the Lorain Journal of April 1, 1953.

Of course, the big story is the freighter Paul H. Brown running aground at Lakeview Park. As the photo caption notes, "The lake freighter Paul H, Brown, anxious to get into Lorain harbor, missed the breakwater entrance by a mile in last night's fog and made a one-point landing near the refreshment stand at Lakeview Park. Efforts to remove the intruder from the park were proceeding smoothly this afternoon."

Other items on the same page include: A committee of church, fraternal and veterans' organizations was formed by Mayor John Jaworski to create the rules "under which bingo will be permitted in Lorain," including maximum limits on prize money; PFC Ronald Morris was the 10th Lorain man to die in action in Korea; President Eisenhower signed an executive order eliminating civil service protection for hundreds of government officials appointed by Presidents Roosevelt and Truman to allow the new incoming department heads to fill key positions with their own choices; and a story of a colorful Lorain character, Conrad Horn, smoking his pipe during his hospitalization at St. Joseph Hospital.

All that and a small article noting that it was only a little less than a week before Bike Tag Day. That's when the auditor' office was going to begin selling bicycle tags, which had to be on bikes by May 1 or they would be impounded.

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Three days later, the "Log of Lorain" column included this news nugget: "The Log is still hearing about people fooled by The Journal's April Fool's Day picture of the lake freighter grounded at Lakeview Park. We heard about one man who saw the picture, called his wife and told her to get ready, picked her up and drove to Lakeview Park to see the wreck.

""I felt pretty foolish when I got there and realized it was a gag," he said. "But I wasn't alone. There was a crowd of 50 other persons there ahead of me.""

Marshall's Drug Store Easter Ad – March 27, 1963

We'll close out the week (and the month) with this Easter-themed ad for Marshall's, which ran in the Lorain Journal on March 27, 1963. Next week I'll be posting some more Easter ads, since the holiday is coming up fast.

I don't have any warm and fuzzy (or clean-shaven for that matter) memories of Marshall's, which was a big regional drug store chain out of Cleveland. The ad says there were stores at Westgate in Lorain and  Shoreway Shopping Center in Sheffield Lake. (Marshall's became Cunningham's 21 around 1972.)

The 1963 Journal ad is interesting, because it includes the Mafia-sounding "Big Georgi" Easter Bunny promotion that was still going strong two years later (as seen on this blog post with a 1965 ad). 

There's also plenty of other little items of interest, such as the Hoppy the Bunny plastic pull toy. The wheel-outfitted rabbit is on eBay right now, for the hare-raising price of $99.

Our favorite rugged choice of pants – Jeans Dungarees – were on sale at $1.29. And if you were in the mood for mealtime mollusks, the Marshall's Lenten Fountain Special consisted of "New, Tasty, Delicious Clam Roll," described as "a long roll filled with golden clams, served with tartar sauce." By George, those things look like they're still wiggling in this unappetizing illustration. 

And none other than Old Ski Nose himself, Bob Hope, shows up in the ad promoting his longtime radio sponsor Pepsodent and its line of adult toothbrushes – which seems odd, since The Pepsodent Show starring Bob Hope had been off the radio airwaves since 1948. 

Maybe the marketing angle was to tap into the lucrative denture-brushing segment of the population.

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Speaking of Bob Hope (of whom I'm a fan), I remembered that I had this small, well-worn medallion with his likeness that I picked up at an antique shop in Mount Vernon, Ohio. 

It was part of a keychain, one of which (shown below) is on the Etsy website for twelve bucks.

As I mentioned, I've long been of fan of Bob Hope. We watched his TV specials and saw at least one of his 1960s movies on the big screen (Eight on the Lam) and the rest on television. 

I actually saw him in person twice; once, when I was a member of the All-Ohio State Fair Band, and the second time when he came to Columbus to film part of one of his specials (which I wrote about here).

Willow Hardware Ad – March 27, 1953

I'm sure many West-side Lorainites are still missing Willow Hardware since it closed back in 2008. I always feel a little wistful when I look over and see CVS on the corner of Meister Road and Oberlin Avenue (especially since it's my least favorite drug store).

Willow Hardware was just such a great store, with its helpful and attentive staff and wide variety of merchandise. Besides always having exactly what you needed, the store was just fun to poke around in. I remember buying art supplies, how-to-draw books, old decals and pots and pans there. 

At the top of this post is an ad from the early days of the store. It ran in the Lorain Journal of March 27, 1953. Willow had only been open for a month at that point, so it was still finding its way, advertising-wise. The use of a straw-hatted farm girl in the ad isn't that far off the mark, however, since much of that part of Lorain was still farmland. It's still hard to believe that much of that part of Lorain was still township land, outside of town, until the early 1960s.

I've written a lot about the various Oberlin Avenue stores and businesses located near the intersection with Meister Road. That business district just seemed to grow organically (and the shopping center strip got longer), as the neighborhoods grew and needed more services. (I wrote about that evolution back on this post.)

Anyway, thinking of Willow Hardware inevitably makes me think of my father going there regularly for grass seed or whatever. It also conjures up memories of my own trips there for help when I became a homeowner and discovered how confusing it was to replace things in a house built in the 1940s.