Yuletides of Yesteryear

With its beloved traditions, family get-togethers and new year celebrations, the winter holiday season provides a perfect time to reflect on the past and look forward to what is to come. In the spirit of reflecting on the past and seeing how far we’ve come as a community, we scoured a few historical editions of The Post-Record to see what was happening in the Camas-Washougal community during the month of December in 1914, 1942 and 1951. Christmas furniture for sale: An advertisement for the Flynn Furniture Company in Vancouver showed “Xmas Furniture” prices in December 1914, including a $2.35 hardwood rocking chair — $1 less than its usual price. Motored to Camas A group of folks who traveled from Portland to Camas via motorcar was big news — front-page news, in fact — in December 1914. The Dec. 14, 1914 issue of The Camas Post published news that “Mr. and Mrs. Charles Handy, Mrs. R. D. Handy, Archie Handy and Miss Ethel Handy motored over from Portland for the purpose of calling upon Mr. and Mrs. F. B. Barnes, who were former neighbors of the Handys.” The paper noted that “all the members of the party were delighted with Camas, particularly Mr. Handy, who pronounced it the liveliest place on the (West C)oast.” A Christmas wish for more subscribers In true newspaper fashion, The Post-Record’s Dec. 24, 1942, cover included a Christmastime “thank you” to existing readers and a pitch for more subscribers to keep the wartime journalism coming. “Without you, our newspaper would be like the light ‘hidden under the bushel,’ a useless and ineffective thing,” the paper told its readers. “All we’re asking of St. Nick is that he leave us the subscribers we already have and give us lots more just like them.” The same sentiment stands today. We are grateful for our loyal readers — and hopeful we can gain more local journalism fans in the new year. Back in our day, we had to walk two miles to school We’ve all heard these “back in my day” tales, but it seems one of them — the one involving a lengthy slog to get to school each morning — may be more based on fact than fiction. As the Dec. 24, 1942, cover of The Post-Record noted, “a recent order from the Office of Defense Transportation says that all students living within a two-mile radius of a school must walk or provide their own transportation unless children are physically afflicted or the route they must travel is considered hazardous. This will mean that students in the Weir Park area, between Camas and Washougal, must either attend Washougal schools or, if they prefer to continue in the Camas schools, they must walk or provide their transportation.” Safeway helps readers plan ‘the best Christmas dinner ever’ An advertisement for Safeway, published in the Dec. 24 1942, issue of The Post-Record, proclaimed the grocer could help readers plan “the best Christmas dinner ever,” which included roast turkey or chicken with sage stuffing and giblet gravy, baked hubbard squash, buttered beets, spiced pear with cottage cheese garnished with parsley, whole cranberry sauce, hot cloverleaf rolls with jam, nuts, coffee and a holiday pudding with hard sauce. And the cost for this best dinner ever? Well, the grocer had “Coos Bay fancy” cranberries for sale for 23 cents a pound, mixed nuts for 33 cents a pound, yams for 10 cents a pound, pears for 5 cents a pound and “pan-ready” turkeys for 63 cents a pound. Wolves blamed for reindeer shortage The Dec. 20, 1951, issue of The Post-Record noted that, “if Santa misses, reindeer supply will be at fault,” and went on to say that “the reindeer shortage has become, in recent years, much too acute,” with an estimated 500,000 of “Santa’s helpers” having been killed by wolves in the years between 1941 and 1951, “leaving an approximate 50,000” surviving reindeers in the world in December 1951. “American boys and girls will have to be satisfied with stand-ins,” the paper noted. “The few department stores featuring Santa’s complete outfit this year will be using native deer as substitutes for Dasher, Prancer, and company.” Helping the March of Dimes combat ‘rising tide of polio’ The Dec. 27, 1951, issue of The Post-Record published an editorial on the urgent need to support the work of the March of Dimes as the group tried to care for thousands of children and adults afflicted by “the rising tide of polio.” As the paper noted during the last week of 1951: “The last four years marked the four worst polio years in history, and one must go back to 1916 to find a caseload even approaching incidence of such proportions … During the past four years 132,000 cases have been reported compared to 113,500 in the entire previous decade.”

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