A Christmas Tradition

February 18, 1978, Neenah-Menasha Daily Northwestern

Well, this is a bit late, coming so long after the Christmas season, but its Winter, so we can live with it.  This village looks so much like the one my Mom put up every year in our own dining room.  It may not have been as extensive and certainly never got the press this one did, but it was a cherished memory for all the years I lived in that house.  The trees and the church in the right photo look just like the ones she had, and of course, the display grew yearly.  She'd put old coffee cans to make hills under a white sheet and sprinkle fake snow around to give it an authentic look.  I marveled at her ingenuity and I was always thrilled when the village made its appearance because this one act signaled, for me, the start of the Christmas season.

Blue Coal

February 7, 1939, Menasha Record

Here are some ads to help drive away the thoughts of the wintry wind chill this season. Long underwear, I understand, but I got a education over the coal ad.  I was taken by the phrase "blue coal," and learned it was a trademarked brand of anthracite coal which was actually dyed blue by the manufacturer.  Anthracite was the "Cadillac" of coal and cost two to three times the price of regular or bituminous coal.  It is harder and doesn't stain the hands when rubbed.  That fact alone tells me that we weren't using this fancy coal when we still had the coal burning furnace growing up in my house!  That stuff was so dirty and nasty. 

Koslo Speaks

 

January 10, 1949, Menasha Record 

My Dad always talked fondly about Dave Koslo.  In later years, he worked with my Dad at Banta's.  This was in an era when most major leaguers had jobs outside of baseball in the off season and in later life.  The big contracts were pretty much non-existent except for the DiMaggios, Mantles, and Musials of the baseball world.  This came the season after Koslo had the best ERA in the National League.  From the sounds of it, he was a great ambassador for the game of baseball. 

Expansion

November 3, 1969, Neenah-Menasha Daily Northwestern

This is the last in a series of articles we've reviewed that cover the Great Depression's effects on the Twin Cities.  Most of it applies to Neenah, but in the interests of completeness, I offer it here.

Cleanup to Come

January 27, 1978, Neenah-Menasha Daily Northwestern

The blizzard that Menasha felt in late January 1978 wasn't as bad as it could have been.  This was the famed "Blizzard of '78" that dropped enough snow in the Great Lakes area to the east of Wisconsin and Northeastern states to make 27 foot snowdrifts.  Still, as the picture above indicates, we had enough with the 42 mph winds and the five inches of snow we did get.

A Downtown Hospital?

January 8, 1940, The Daily News-Times

My attention was taken by the item in the midst of the "20 years Ago" section about the rumored sale of the Hotel Landgraf property for use as a hospital.  As regular readers of this blog know, this hotel was succeeded by the Brin Building and Theater in 1928.  My mind reels at the thought of a hospital at the intersection of Main Street and Tayco.  How might things have changed for the city's fortunes if they'd had a medical facility at that location?  What would that have done to traffic patterns?  What about the surrounding retail and residential space?  And I wonder who this mysterious "Menasha man" was.  One can play the "what if" game indefinitely, but it does make one wonder.

The House of Good Tastes

January 31, 1967, Twin City News-Record

We first featured this establishment almost three years ago:  https://menashabook.blogspot.com/2016/04/4th-and-racine.html in a different incarnation.  In that post, hovering around the 1960 time frame, it was known as Dave's Penguin Palace.  I think I had my first "fast food" hamburger from this place as a kid and I remember it pretty distinctly for some reason, as it was a summer night and my parents sent my brother to get a bag of burgers and fries.  It was the first time I can remember not having to sit at the kitchen or dining room table to eat.  We just sat on the sun porch and ate.  I know you're supposed to remember where you were when the important stuff happened- sitting in the first grade classroom when President Kennedy was shot, or watching TV on that same sun porch six years later when man first walked on the moon.  So I guess this was important to me.  Funny how the mind works.  Some old songs from the sixties conjure up memories, too, but this ad did the trick.

Bruised Knees

January 19, 1978, Twin City News-Record

I might have enjoyed this when I was of the age pictured, as I couldn't dribble a basketball for the life of me.  Nowadays, I'd have no trouble getting down there, just getting back up!

Welfare Rolls

November 1, 1969, Neenah-Menasha Daily Northwestern

This is the sixth in a series of articles detailing how the Twin Cities fared during the Great Depression.  I apologize for the extraneous filler, but due to how the article was laid out, this is what you get.  Despite the tone of the article which acts like 686 cases is a lot out of a potential 15-16,000 citizens between the two cities for that time, it gives a good insight into how you cannot in reality compare costs back then with the 1969 prices currently on the mind of the writer.  I also take exception with the woman's take that alcoholism was not a problem during the Depression.  Methinks there were many more functional alcoholics than she realizes. 

Main Street Bath

January 14, 1909, Menasha Record

I pretty much figured out most of the particulars of this ad, though the phrase "electric cabinet" intrigued me.  A little research revealed that it was an early form of tanning bed, so popular that the Titanic even featured one in its Turkish Bath.  Maybe I do not know enough about early 20th century Menasha society but I wonder how much use the device really got in mid-winter Menasha. 

The Many Faces of Winter

January 8, 1982, Twin City News-Record

Some years are harsher than others.  The season tries our patience and empties our wallets to pay the heating bills, but the end result is the same...we get through the Arctic blasts and the named snowstorms and the stalled cars and welcome the dawn of Spring, where we then lament the warmer weather and complain how hot it is!

Cold Duck

January 14, 1975, Appleton Post-Crescent

Everyone wins- the duck, the fire department, the newspaper.  The duck is freed, the fire department gets some good PR, and the newspaper gets a heartwarming piece for a dreary winter's day.   Maybe I'm being too cynical but the only thing that could have been better would have been a news photographer on the scene.  Forward this story 40 years later and the shoreline would have been lined with cell phone-holding witnesses of this very operation.  And you could guarantee the video footage would have been featured on the nightly news.

South View

January 7, 1975, Twin City News-Record

I never miss an opportunity to feature riverfront Menasha.  Back in November I featured a south side view of Main Street from the Racine Street end:  https://menashabook.blogspot.com/2018/11/south-side-of-main-street.html.This photo gives a more pronounced view of the block. I also ran a photo last month as the dismantling of this bridge was beginning:  https://menashabook.blogspot.com/2018/12/bridge-on-way-out.html though that was more a view of the dam than the downtown area.

Paid Back

October 31, 1969, Neenah-Menasha Daily Northwestern

This is the fifth in a series of articles that covers the effects of the Great Depression on the Twin Cities.   The interesting takeaway from this installment isn't so much that most people kept their jobs or that the mills kept things going by reducing capacity to 50 or 60 percent.  What is surprising is that what was remembered some forty years later was that many of those who took assistance from the local government ended up paying it back.  I guess that sums up one of the good qualities of our hard working citizens, or maybe it's just indicative of that generation's work ethic.

Careful Cleaning for Uncle Sam

January 19, 1944, Menasha Record

Wartime sacrifices came in all shapes and sizes, to even include the inconvenience of not having one's dry cleaning the way one wanted.  But anything for Uncle Sam's boys, was the watchword everywhere, to include our very own Twin City Cleaners.

Famous Twin Cities

January 30, 1925, Wisconsin Jewish Chronicle

This was one of a series of articles written for the reader to learn about various Wisconsin locales.  In this same issue were sketches about Appleton, Oshkosh, and other northeastern Wisconsin cities. The whole article is written like a travelogue, listing population and other specific characteristics, to include what the cities are famous for- industry, recreation, etc.  No big surprises here, though it is a bit disheartening that all the photos are of Neenah properties.

Christmas Tree Bonfire

January 13, 1956, Appleton Post-Crescent

Nothing says the season is over than a scene such as this. Here where I live in South Carolina, we have "Grinding of the Greens" where free mulch made from the recycled trees is made available to the public in early to mid-January.  But I know back in Wisconsin, the trees can have an even longer life as markers for ice fishermen or as feed for animals in preserves and zoos.  Still, there's nothing like a roaring bonfire to excite things a bit.

Hope Springs Eternal

October 30, 1969, Neenah-Menasha Daily Northwestern

This is the fourth in our series of Great Depression articles and its effects upon the Twin Cities. "Hope springs eternal" was the watchword, though the article seems to tell an otherwise bleak tale. 

Basket Trophy

January 21, 1925, The Daily News-Times

In an age when photographs in newspapers were not as prevalent as they were in later years, the newspaper often employed an artist to render depictions that could work just as well. Here, we see an artist's rendering of the trophy in question.  The Daily News-Times was based in Neenah so why would it donate a trophy like this to Menasha High School?  Parenthetically, this newspaper, along with the Menasha Record, merged in 1949 to create the Twin City News-Record.

The End of the Season

January 4, 1926, Menasha Record

Rarely have I featured a cartoon within the pages of this blog, and without a thorough checking, this might be the first time.   Despite that, this one-panel sums up the ending of the holidays- the wistful looks of dismay from the schoolboys as the tree departs, marking the end of another Christmas season.  In the Catholic world and in my own upbringing, my mother was insistent that the decorations stayed up until January 6th, Epiphany, or Three Kings Day, when the Magi were said to have visited the baby Jesus.  She always referred to the day as "Little Christmas," and to this day, my own family has maintained her tradition, much to the distress of my South Carolina neighbors who believe there is some stigma attached to having decorations around longer than the DAY AFTER Christmas!  My wife says that that is THEIR tradition.  What ever do they think the song, "The Twelve Days of Christmas," means?!

Future Ice All-Stars

December 31, 1985, Appleton Post-Crescent

Typical of outdoor life in wintry Menasha, one can always count upon ice-based sports, be it skating or an impromptu game of hockey.  If I had to guess, I'd bet these two were trying out some recently acquired loot from Santa.  

Merger Editorial

November 30, 1959, Appleton Post-Crescent

This is a question that has come up quite often and it has been voted upon several times over the last century and a half by Menasha's citizenry.  Back in 1896, familiar names to Menasha history voted upon a resolution to put the matter to a public vote and the motion was not carried. 

Happy New Year, 1964!

December 31, 1963, Neenah-Menasha Daily Northwestern

Once again we bring you a Menasha Blog tradition, the New Year's parade of little ads from local businesses offering good wishes for the coming year.  The latter portion of 1963 was especially sad and tragic, so the country looked forward to 1964 with restored hope that the new year would bring hope and prosperity and the best of everything.  A little four piece band from England spent the next year pretty much taking the worldwide spotlight and, with all that attention, gave us all a respite from our sorrows and troubles.  And, oh yes, (or should I say yeah, yeah, yeah) some pretty good music for the ages.