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Cultural Musings on Chatham-Kent
A Christmas Sleigh Ride Back In Time
Tuesday, December 17, 2002
The snow is almost all gone. It's raining off and on. Gas prices are going up, peoples' tempers are flaring and shopping centers are a mad house. It therefore follows that it must be Christmas time in Chatham-Kent.Why don't we escape this 2002 Christmas chaos and take a sleigh ride back in time!?
The date? December 1949. The place? Chatham and the County of Kent (remember those archaic place names?) Ready? Let's get sledding!
Our first stop will be at the Palmyra School where the annual Christmas Concert is about to begin under the able direction of Mrs Leslie Carey. There will also be entertainment by "The Palmyra Trio" consisting of John Harris, Lloyd Oakes, and John Gillies. Playing piano for the evening's entertainment will be the legendary Orr sisters (Elfreda and Sybil).
Now on our way back from Palmyra, it might be a nice idea to stop the old sleigh on Lorne Avenue in Chatham and pick up a freshly cut Christmas tree for decorating. They are a bit expensive at $1.50 but we've been told that they represent the finest selection in town so our choice will be worth the extra few cents.
After the trip to Palmyra and our tree hunting expedition it's getting too late to do anything else but what we can do is scan the latest newspaper ads and decide upon some Christmas gifts to purchase tomorrow.
John English has got Christmas apples for $1.00 a bushel, Norm Chrysler's Pipe Shop has pipes for Christmas ranging in price from a reasonable 50 cents to an extravagant $13.00. Wow! That must be some pipe!
Now possibly getting a box of chocolates at 65 cents at the Sunshine Restaurant might be something different and they are advertising it as "a Christmas treat". Parker pens at $26.50 a set seems a bit extravagant but the ones for $5.25 seem a bit more reasonable. Now for the more expensive gifts there seems to be a number of very intriguing choices.
The best selling doll of the 1949 season seems to be the Barbara Ann Scott doll. This promises to be even a more popular toy locally as the real, live Barbara Ann Scott (Canadian figure skating champion) had been both in Wallaceburg, as well as Chatham, to open both arenas earlier in the year.
A Kroehler Platform Rocker can be purchased for $49.50, an end table for $8.95, a walnut sewing cabinet for $19.95, a reclining chair and ottoman for $74.50 and a nice trilite can be had for a mere $6.95!
Now if we really wanted to make someone's Christmas during this 1949 holiday season, we could pull the old sleigh up to Ron Todgham Motors at 80 William Street South and trade it in on a 1948 Chevrolet Fleetmaster with only 6,000 miles on it for $1,795.00 or a 1930 Plymouth Sedan for $75.00.
I suppose a house would be a bit too extravagant for Christmas button the other hand, we could buy a nice house on Chatham's Park Avenue West for $11,500.00 or one on William Street for $10,500.00. After all, if we hold onto them for awhile, they could possibly appreciate. Who knows!
However, we should also be thinking about polishing the old sleigh up in preparation for the 1949 Christmas social season as it promises to be a busy one. On December 21st, the Bernie Cummings Orchestra will be playing at the Pyranon Ballroom on Colborne Street and it's only a $1.00 per person!
On December 24th at 11:00 A.M. there will be a number of annual Santa Claus Parades in Kent County. The one in Chatham will start at Richmond Street head east down Raleigh Street and onto King Street to Fifth Street where it will turn left onto Wellington Street, proceed up to Colborne Street and then back onto King Street ending at Fifth Street. Maybe we could even put our old sleigh in the parade, providing, of course, that there is snow. And speaking of snow, we could return to the Pyranon Ballroom on December 27th and for a mere 50 cents a person, we could enjoy the annual "Snow Flake Flurry".
Now we had planned on our brief sleigh ride back to 1949, to see a local hockey game at the new arena in Chatham but it sounds like it might not be the best idea. According o a recent sports headline in the 1949 Chatham paper, the last game at the Memorial Arena between the Chatham Maroons and the Detroit Hittches was stopped at the close of the second period . Apparently a rather rowdy brawl ensued , that involved not only the players, but the referee, the fans and the police! No wonder local sports editor Matt Dennis, in his Christmas editorial asked "....that the local teams learn how to lose gracefully and that the new year bring a sportsmanlike season to all of Kent County for both players and their fans".
Well, time to put our horses into the wind and get out "time-sleigh" back to 2002 just in time to get into the swing of things for Christmas some fifty years into the future. Next week.......another look back at Christmas past.
Jim and Lisa Gilbert are local, national and international award winning educators and historians.
