Flashback Friday

Last week's Flashback mentioned old hometown Seaton around the turn of the century.  No, not this one, the last one.  One of the lost businesses I mentioned was the newspaper.  It was called The Seaton Independent.  Hey, these things yellow just like an old Chicago Tribune.  That is likely the only similarity.  At my grandmother's estate auction, I snapped her old breadbox and in the bottom were three old Independents.  This is one of them.  

It is dated April 14, 1949.  They were issued every Thursday.  Its usefulness as a liner to a breadbox notwithstanding, there is nothing in it that would warrant any particular safekeeping.  While there were a few Blythes living in Seaton at the time, there would be no children born to Marj and Herb for a while yet.

The cartoon was a pro-nuclear statement deriding those who wanted to tamp down all things atomic.   Seems rather dated now since we went all nuclear and now have curtailed almost all atomic power.  

In five days an election would be held and this is the sample ballot. Frazier Sims would win the presidency of the village and Inez Vance was a shoe-in for Clerk.  My guess is all three candidates for Trustee would be elected.  All were unopposed.

All I remember about Frazier was what Marj always said about him: he had halitosis.   He had a son named Dan and he and his wife had three kids.  Tom was one of them and we went to school with him.  I don't recall Tom having bad breath.

George Miller ran a gas tanker truck.  There is the story of his fight with cancer that would eventually win.  He was in the hospital and when told by his doctor that his testicles had been removed he said, "What?"
"We had to remove your testicles."
"What?"
The doctor realizing he'd have to speak Seaton told George, "We had to remove your balls."
"Well."  Long pause.  "They were good ones."  
   

Page 4 even got you some Hollywood news.  We find that randy old Errol Flynn as recived his Las Vegas divorce and is now seen with "titian" haired Ave Ashley.  And clear down at the bottom of the page we see the ownership info:

The Seaton Independent

Established Oct. 4, 1895

A Democratic Newspaper Published Every Thursday

Entered at the Post office in Seaton as mail matter of the second class.

RETTA F. DUNCAN, Publisher

Oh, and just above that a small notice that the Seaton school Seniors performed a well received play called The Great Ben Allah.  They made $92 that would help in a trip to Chicago.  The Juniors provided lunch afterwards and netted an additional $50 to those lucky Seniors.

  

The real crux of the local newspaper, however, wasn't to keep tabs on Errol Flynn or the legislators in Washington.  This was the page that most perused with rapt attention.  The local news on who, what and where.  If you went to visit someone, it got sent to Elmarine Constant who would include it in this section.  Today we have the news that Letha Rader, Uncle Ed's twin sister, got a job at the Tasty Shop in Seaton, and that Hayes Greer was going to take two weeks vacation from the railroad station.  

I doubt if there are too many Seaton Independents around and I don't think they made it to the Library of Congress like many newspapers do, but it speaks of a time when print media was king.  Many towns and villages put out something much like this all over the country, it was a thread in our national quilt.  Letha would eventually move on to waitressing in Monmouth and the newspaper would die out.  Things change.