A piece of the so-called good old days, courtesy of Jo Ott
Quite some time ago, I received this fun missive from longtime reader Jo Ott.
Jo was at the York County History Center last year, doing some research on a one-room school in the Dover area. She relates, “The Trust has a huge file on one-room schools in York County and it’s filled with old newspaper clippings and photos. As I finished looking at one I placed it back on the pile, upside down and began to notice the advertising on the reverse side.”
Some of what she found included:
- A Kelvinator 6 c. ft., $189.95 at D. R. West, 16 E. Princess St.
- At Acme: beef roast for 69 cents/lb.; chickens, 53 cents/lb.; chuck roast, 59 cents/lb.; ham, 55 cents/lb.; corn, 2 20-ounce cans for 29 cents
- A new Bendix tv consolette, $299.95
- Brown and serve rolls, 12 for 15 cents; large loaf Supreme bread, 14 cents; Valencia oranges, 39 cents a dozen
- At Sears, $1.00 down per 100 chicks, $15.90 total cost for 100
- Grapefruit, 3 for 29 cents; pound cake, 35 cents
- Clinic shoes, $8.95 at Raymond F. Shive Shoe Store
- Coffee was 79 cents a pound; 6 bottles of coke were 25 cents; 6 bottles of Pepsi were 29 cents; and #2 cans of Stokely’s peas were 2 for 35 cents.
Jo adds, “Many times the ads on the reverse side of old newspaper clippings are more fun than the clipping. Since they are clippings and not entire pages, the name of the store or the location isn’t always included. FYI and for those too young – Kelvinator was a brand of refrigerators, Bendix made many products other than TVs, including automotive brakes, Clinic shoes were worn by most nurses, many waitresses. Really, can you imagine walking into a Sears today and leaving with a box of 100 chicks!”
And, she concludes with a fun question, good to ask here in Easter’s wake. She writes, “Here’s one for your blog – What did you call baby chickens?”
Peeps? Chicks? Something else? We always just called ours chicks, but I’m curious to hear what others say!
