From the archives...
The Family Herald and Weekly Star, September 30, 1942
We're actually visiting in New Brunswick today. The plan had been to come up at Easter but weather that weekend led to us postponing. The trip was worth the wait, however, as far as interesting finds go.
You see, my aunt is in the process of renovating my grandparents' house, which had been built by my great grandfather. It's nearing its centennial, though there's some debate as to exactly when that will be. One of the first work projects was to clean out the attic and in so doing, we discovered a number of old newspapers and magazines. They included such titles as the "Family Herald and Weekly Star" and the magazine "Country Gentleman" with issue dates going back eighty years in some cases.
The Country Gentleman magazines that I have seen are very interesting in that many are from 1928, just before the big crash. Most of you who know me are aware that I firmly believe in the parallels between then and now. In 1928 people borrowed wads of cash to buy stocks in the belief that stocks never lose value, while in 2008 they've done the same with real estate under equally incorrect assumptions. Over the next little while, I'll be very curious to look at the scans and page photos that I am busily taking right now.
But, this is a Canadian blog and Country Gentleman appears to have been published out of the United States. That doesn't preclude my interest, but in the case of the Family Herald and Weekly Star, it was published out of Montreal. Virtually every ad and story in it covers Canadian issue, products, companies, etc. save for a lot of the war coverage. Many of these issues date to the early 1940s.
Illustration from the above issue.
Now that leads to the second carpentry project which was the replacing of carpeting. We now know that the carpet dated to the early 1960s. Such a timeframe was suspected, since my great grandmother was alive to enjoy it, but newspapers that were found under the carpet, once it was lifted, proved that it was laid down around April of 1963. There are several issues of the Saint John and Moncton papers, made especially fascinating for some of you political bloggers out there in that they coincided with a provincial election.
So, I've been busy taking photos of the pages. They're too big to scan quickly and I have a lot to go through. Even now, I am going to have to leave behind one very promising bundled from the attic. I've captured as much as I can and will attempt to clean the copies up as best I can, with my eye on periodically publishing them here for your entertainment. I hope you enjoy them.
Labels: Canadiana, media, Montreal, New Brunswick, nostalgia
posted by Ian at 11:13 PM - link ...
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