Did you know?
Tennis shoes, it seems, have always been essential wearing apparel for boys and girls.
I found an ad in the May 23, 1930 edition of a local newspaper that said that the Nelson’s store on Pittsburgh Street in Connellsville was selling boys and girls tennis shoes for a mere 69 cents.
By contrast, Nike is currently selling its 2012 model “Nike Hyperdunk” (plus something called a “Sport Pack”) men’s basketball shoes for a whopping $250. That’s an increase of 36,200 percent more than tennis shoes used to cost in the 1930s.
Fortunately, that’s a much larger increase than I’ve found in the prices of steak over the years. In an Aug. 14, 1937, ad I found in the Uniontown Morning Herald, the Union Market at 13 E. Peter St., Uniontown, was selling sirloin steak for 19 cents per pound.
On the same page, the American Stores Co. markets of Uniontown and Fairchance were selling a 24-pound sack of Pillsbury flour for only $1.07.
Of course, some items, regardless of their prices, aren’t worth the outlay. I found an ad in an 1895 edition of the Uniontown News Standard that claimed that “Heart Disease Relieved in Thirty Minutes.” “Dr. Agnew’s Cure” was apparently some kind of elixir that, according to the ad, “gives perfect relief in all cases of Organic or Sympathetic Heart Disease in 30 minutes and speedily effects a cure.”
Readers of the Aug. 13th, 1928, edition of the Uniontown Morning Herald opened their newspapers to discover a rather unusual headline on that day’s front page. “Millions Dead; Gives Gas to Fleas at Courthouse,” was atop an article about how the Central Mine Rescue Team at Orient had been called into service to rid the Fayette County Courthouse of a nasty flea infestation. The team members, it was reported, had strapped on helmets and spread cyanogen gas (a poison) throughout the basement of the building over the weekend. The public and courthouse workers were assured that the process had eliminated the marauding fleas.
There were much deeper local concerns than fleas on March 16, 1938. “$16,058 SHORTAGE IN ACCOUNTS OF CITY CLERK CHARLES H. CALE BARED,” said headline on the front page of the Uniontown Daily News Standard that day. It seems Uniontown’s City Clerk had resigned unexpectedly earlier that month, and he took off for Peoria, Ill.
There were serious claims that Cale had “doctored” financial records. A complete list of all of the city’s financial records between 1933 and 1937, and the supposed monthly shortfalls were printed as part of the front page story. It was reported that an effort had been made to get Cale to return to Uniontown, but those efforts had, to that point, been unsuccessful.
On Nov.10th, 1937, the readers of the Morning Herald may have been heartened by the first part of a front page headline: “Senior High School Student Speaks 7 Languages ….,” but they might have been disheartened by the next part of it: “… But No English.” It was reported that a new student at Uniontown High School was a native of Russia. He and his mother had moved to Spain, and then to Portugal after his father had been murdered during the Russian Revolution.
So the new student could speak (to varying degrees) French, Russian, Portuguese, Slavish, German, Spanish and Italian — but he couldn’t speak a word of English. Samuel John Goorin was considered “an exceptionally bright student” and was assigned three students who were in the advanced French class to help him learn English as soon as possible.
Ann Landers offered a little advice to “Frustrated in Uniontown, Pa.” in April of 1997. According to the European edition of the military publication — Stars and Stripes — “Frustrated in Uniontown, Pa.” had a cousin she (or maybe he) “loved dearly.”
But there was a problem. “Frustrated’s” cousin’s two children (one 6 and the other 8 years old) were “undisciplined holy terrors.” Whenever the kids would act-up, “Frustrated’s” cousin would simply lock herself in her bedroom and turn the TV up loud so she couldn’t hear them. According to the distressed letter writer, the strongest admonishment her cousin would give her unruly children would be, “Wait ’till you father gets home.”
“Frustrated in Uniontown, Pa.” felt the father, who was always traveling a lot because of his business, was too tired to dole out any discipline. What was Ann Landers’ advice to the Uniontown letter-writer? “That group needs professional help.”