1955 Marilyn Monroe captured on film by a 15-year-old

Flashback Friday: December 1955

SIOUX FALLS, SD -

May 19th marks our 60th Anniversary here at KELOLAND-TV. So to celebrate decades of coverage every Friday we're looking at stories from our past. In this report we're getting a peek of a December 1955 report, which was produced for NBC's hour-long daytime magazine program, "Home." The show paid, not one, but *two visits to Sioux Falls and you can hear our reporter often directing his comments to it's longtime host, Arlene Francis.
Here's the report:
We are a city on the prairie's edge and some 16 miles west of us lies the Bones Hereford Farm. Here Walt Bones' grandfather settled the first section of land in 1879.
"My neighbors and I don't consider ourselves as farmers. We actually are running businesses and here at Bones Hereford Farm our business is practically international since we send cattle all over the United States and into many provinces of Canada," Bones, Sr. said.
Here at the John Morrell and Company meat packing plant, products are shipped to every corner of the United States and, as a matter of fact, to the world. Men daily stencil packages of food bound for far-off countries, such as Tokyo, Japan. Note that date Arlene, December 7th a striking contrast to Pearl Harbor.
The center of our City government is the City Hall and here is our secretary manager of the Chamber of Commerce, Gordon Olson. "I've just been in a meeting with the mayor and the City Commission, briefing them following my return from Washington, D.C. Where I attended the American Industrial development Conference. You know, we in Sioux Falls are doing everything in our power to attract new industries and new payrolls to our city. It's a very, very important thing to us now," Olson said.
On August 7th, 1955 Sioux Falls paid tribute to its native son, Joe Foss by naming its municipal airport Joe Foss Field. He is the only living man, to the best of our knowledge, to be so honored. On this occasion over 200,000 persons gathered to pay their respects to this war hero and Congressional Medal of Honor winner. Twice elected to the Governor's chair in South Dakota, Joe Foss is an active member of the South Dakota Air National Guard and logs his required flying time just as the other boys do. Joe Foss Field is served by two major airlines with upwards of 20 flights a day.
Nearly 700 beds are available in Sioux Falls' three excellent hospitals. Our homes reflect our economic prosperity. 700 new housing units have been constructed in this city within the past two years. In the last 7 years, five school bond issues, totaling $7-million dollars have been passed by a 90% majority of Sioux Falls citizens to bring the best in educational facilities to our 17,000 youngsters. There are 19 public and six privately supported parochial schools. The legendary one-room school has vanished. In its place stands these beautiful modern buildings equal to any in the world.Educational standards are high, educational opportunities unlimited. Augustana College, one of Sioux Falls' two colleges can easily boast of its high educational programs.
Our city doubles and triples its population daily because it is on the prairie's edge.

Robert Frost, Paris 1955 and poetry readings

HINDSIGHT By F. Sionil Jose (The Philippine Star) | Updated May 6, 2013 - 12:00am

On my first three-month visit to the United States in 1955, I attended the Breadloaf Writers Conference in Middlebury, Vermont, for a week. One of the patrons of the conference, Mrs. Theodore Morrison, took me to Robert Frost, America’s poet laureate. He had a cabin in nearby Ripton. Robert Frost was then in his early ’80s, still hale and strong. We went walking in the woods that surrounded his cabin. Summer flies infested the air they were a nuisance because they bit, and it hurt a little. Mr. Frost said not to mind them because they will all die in the coming winter anyway. We talked about how it was at home, the American Occupation to which he and other writers like Mark Twain objected.
The closing dinner of the conference was regaled by his poetry reading. It was very dramatic. All the lights were extinguished, save for one candle at the podium. Mr. Frost, white-haired and venerable, walked to the podium and started reading. What a disaster! He slaughtered his own work, faltered at very line, stammered, too. I concluded then that no poet unless he had a voice like Charles Laughton or Gregory Peck should ever read his own.
All these came to mind when the other week, Sophie Quartier, Markus Ruckstuhl and Thery Beord invited me to the recent Alliance Française Night of Poetry. I was asked if I could inspire the young poets in a sweet, short speech.
I must now apologize to Markus and Sophie for that is not what I did. I challenged them instead.
Nonetheless, the event brought to mind my first visit to Paris in 1955. In recent forays there, I missed the urinals for men in the sidewalks, the buses with rear platforms where one can latch on, and those gorgeous Citroen taxis so smooth even on the cobbled streets. And most of all that summer in 1976 when I wrote Mass in a tiny room off St. Germain des Pres and subsisted on apricots because I had so little money.
Oh yes, so many memories of Paris and how French literature has influenced me its profundity, Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables no greater lesson about compassion can be learned from that electrifying incident when the curate said he gave the silver to the fugitive Jean Valjean that the ex-convict did not steal them.
Lifestyle Feature ( Article MRec ), pagematch: 1, sectionmatch: 1 
And for those who have read my latest novel, The Feet of Juan Bacnang, it all started when I read Albert Camus way back, his novel The Plague. It is not just about a disease sweeping over a French city. From it, I got the idea of writing the story “Olvidon” which grew into this new novel; the epidermal disease which turns the skin white.
The highlight of the Alliance Française evening was Pinky Amador singing one of Edith Piaf’s signature songs. I was wondering how she would imitate that powerful, raspy voice of my favorite French singer, but she did. She did! Pinky epitomizes our singing talent. How I wish we had more singers acting and singing more musicals like Katy.
The wine and the food were superb; Markus Ruckstuhl even managed to locate a bottle of Sauterne which is quite difficult to get in the wine shops in Manila the Alliance Française wine cellar must be well-stocked indeed.
The poetry reading was trite; the readings were pallid, bloodless. I brought back to mind my childhood when extemporaneous oral poetry drew hundreds during the town fiesta. The tagalogs called it Balagtasan. We Ilokanos called it Daniw. Poets would argue extemporaneously in verse. And during the crowning of the town fiesta in the public market transformed into an auditorium, again our town poet outdid himself, describing the beauty, the virtues of the fiesta queen.
These do not happen anymore the reading of poetry now is limited to tiny groups usually in university lecture halls.
Sophie Quartier understood what I wanted the democratization of poetry, making it relevant ah, that nasty word to a wider audience which loves poetry.
How to do this? I asked the young poets to go back to the native oral tradition and learn from it, to express all that passion in the reading. After all, literature and that includes poetry is the noblest of the arts, binds people together, gives them a sense of identity and, therefore, is the strongest foundation for any nation.
I have listened, enchanted and delighted by poets. I can’t understand Urdu, Bahasa or Russian but when the Pakistani Faiz, the Indonesian Rendra and the Russian Rosdentvensky declaim, I can feel the living throb of rhythm and music, the warmth and passion of their poetry as do the hundreds not a mere roomful of poetry lovers in the audience.. This is what I would like to see happen in this country, for our poets to remember their own past, the public extemporaneous poetry jousts, listened to by hundreds.
I am for poetry that is admired by peasant and aristocrat alike.
I do not want to be bored listening to music that is muffled and known only to the poet himself. Poetry is emotion, passion, love, grief everything that is human. It is not for zombies by zombies.
Soon after over the Department of Foreign Affairs last fortnight the poets Al Vicente, Melita Thomesczek, Vic Bandillo, Ed Maranan, Datu Sinsuat, Edwin Estrada and Khavn dela Cruz recited their poems and furthered the department’s reputation of having nurtured writers in the past: Carlos P. Romulo, Manuel Viray, Jose Garcia Villa, SP Lopez, Narciso Reyes these are the stalwarts that come immediately to mind.
The luminary of that afternoon was Neal Imperial, who also read from his just published collection, Silver Fish, Hook of Moon a thin, bilingual (Tagalog) volume. Imperial’s poetry is not obscure; it is happily readable in its essential simplicity and can be very moving in its evocation of pathos and passion. This from “Last Supper.”
Forgive me for dying by your hand
You are too much food too late
Having our spoonfuls of hope
Into my mouth when my irises had bloomed
Into black holes and my tears had dried into sand.
You will understand if my innards refuse
What you offered too late
Take back what took so long to give
Better watch me starve instead
The sun has burnt my eyes into mirrors
You can see how bad that makes you look
The audience at the reading was polite and the diplomats, like diplomats everywhere, were correct as well. No fireworks, too, as in Alliance Française poetry night!
Literature is the noblest of the arts. It survives longer than the words of generals and statesmen; it is the rock of identity on which nations are shaped. How can poetry to use that much- abused word be relevant to our time? To us?
In asking these questions and making these seemingly disparaging comments. I hope our poetry champions and patrons realize that this old curmudgeon is, as usual, just nitpicking. I am for more poetry activities everywhere in the trains, in the buses, in the marketplace.
I want Doming Landicho to appear in more social gatherings wherein he can declaim his verses in the traditional manner that the old bards declaimed them. I hope to see Vim Nadera perform onstage his dramatic renderings of his Tagalog poetry.
Those who have been to Medellin in Colombia attest to the vitality of Spanish poetry as recited before huge audiences. Let us repeat the same gladsome experience here.
I would like to see more Alliance Française cooperative effort with the locals, more government officials not just the Department of Foreign Affairs encouraging their poets.
Perhaps and this is of course just one of those opium dreams with more art infusing society we will yet become a more compassionate people.

Bomb shelter

Elvis brushes his teeth in 1955

Home Economics More Important Than Math Or Science Suggests 1955 V

We have never been so glad that it's not 1955 -- and we're not just talking about the rather unfortunate hairstyles on the young women in this vintage video clip entitled 'Why Study Home Economics.'
Here, we find two friends discussing what courses they should take in school. Should they tackle that math or science requirement? NO. Because there is something that's way, way more important than that. It's called 'Home Economics.' Because, says one of the girls, if you don't study this in school, how else will you learn how to be proper housewives? By watching our own mothers? LOL, says her friend, who is embroidering while rocking a hairdo that recalls that of Michael Phelps.
"We have to learn sometime, Carol," pleads the young woman.
While some of us still have a long way to go when it comes to keeping a home clean and tidy, we're glad that this kind of stuff wasn't a mandated part of our school day.

Who remembers 1955?

Someone with a keen sense of humor and a good memory passed along some material several weeks ago that's worth sharing. Although many readers had not yet made their appearance by 1955, they might get an idea of how we lived and what we talked about back in the Fabulous Fifties.

World War II was over, most of our soldiers were home and working. The auto plants were running full force, and there were no more Meatless Tuesdays, gasoline rationing stamps, or much talk about Victory Gardens. Lucky Strike green had gone to war and came back white, and it was improbable that a slip of the lip could sink a ship.

Folks did, however, worry about mounting prices. If we could turn back the clock, here's what people were saying:

-- Did you hear the post office is thinking about charging seven cents just to mail a letter?

-- If they raise the minimum wage to $1 an hour, nobody will be able to hire outside help at the store.

-- When I first started driving, who would have thought gas would someday cost 25 cents a gallon? Guess we'd be better off leaving the car in the garage.

-- I'm afraid to send my kids to the movies any more. Ever since they let Clark Gable get by with saying "damn" in "Gone With The Wind," it seems every new movie has either "hell" or "damn" in it.

-- I read the other day where some scientist thinks it's possible to put a man on the moon by the end of the century. They even have some fellows they call astronauts preparing for it down in Texas.

-- Did you see where some baseball player just signed a contract for $50,000 a year just to play ball? It wouldn't surprise me if someday they'll be making more than the president.

--I never thought I'd see the day all our kitchen appliances would be electric. They're even making electric typewriters now.

-- It's too bad things are so tough nowadays. I see where a few married women are having to work to make ends meet.

-- It won't be long before young couples are going to have to hire someone to watch their kids so they can both work.

-- I'm afraid the Volkswagen car is going to open the door to a whole lot of foreign business.

-- Thank goodness I won't live to see the day when the government takes half our income in taxes. I sometimes wonder if we are electing the best people to government.

-- The fast food restaurant is convenient for a quick meal, but I seriously doubt they will ever catch on.

-- There is no sense going on short trips anymore for a weekend. It costs nearly $2 a night to stay in a hotel.

-- No one can afford to be sick anymore. At $15 a day in the hospital, it's too rich for my blood.

-- If they think I'll pay 30 cents for a haircut, forget it.

The author is a member of the Rainy Day Writers in Cambridge, who will publish its fourth book of lightweight fictional short stories this summer.

1955 Renovating Niagra Falls Public Library

Grace Kelly marries Prince Rainier of Monaco

The pair, whose marriage lasted 26 years, met when Kelly was invited to a photo session with Prince Rainier during the Cannes Film Festival in 1955.
April 19, 1956: American film actress Grace Kelly and Prince Rainier III of Monaco tied the knot on this day 57 years ago.

The star of 'The Country Girl' married Prince Rainier in a celebration in the Cathedral of Monaco.

The pair met when Kelly was invited to a photo session with Prince Rainier during the Cannes Film Festival in 1955.


They struck up a private correspondence soon after when Kelly was working on The Swan back in America, and rumours of a romance were sparked when Prince Rainier visited America in December 1955.

The Prince met Kelly again on this trip - along with her family - and proposed three days later.

The wedding itself, dubbed 'The Wedding of the Century' by an excitable media, saw 400 reporters apply to sail with Kelly and her entourage from America to the French Riviera (though most were turned away).

Kelly and Prince Rainier had both civil and religious weddings, in line with French law.
The 40-minute civil ceremony was held on April 18, in Monaco's Palace Throne Room, and was broadcast across Europe.

The following day they had a church ceremony at Saint Nicholas Cathedral in Monaco, in front of 600 guests. Kelly's dress, an ivory gown made of silk taffeta and lace, was worked on for six weeks by three dozen seamstresses.

After the wedding, where Kelly became Her Serene Highness Princess Grace of Monaco, she gave up her acting career, having made 11 films.

Princess Grace and Prince Rainier's marriage lasted 26 years and saw them have three children together, before Kelly died in 1982.

The Princess suffered a stroke at the wheel of her car, which caused her to crash with her daughter also in the vehicle. Kelly was pulled alive from the wreckage (her daughter was said to have suffered only minor bruising), but sustained serious injuries and died in hospital the next day, aged 52.

Mothers welcomed first shipments of free polio vaccine in 1955

ST. LOUIS -- Two leaders of a mothers' campaign met the train downtown on April 21, 1955. An express worker handed them the first box of a miracle shipment.

"This is a wonderful victory," said Loretto Gunn, co-chair of the Mothers March on Polio. "The mothers of St. Louis have been looking forward to this for years."

Mothers, and everyone else, awaited the first cartons of Dr. Jonas Salk's electric discovery, a vaccine to prevent the dreaded crippler and killer known as poliomyelitis. The baggage car from Indianapolis brought free cartons of Salk vaccine for schoolchildren in St. Louis and St. Louis County.

Three days earlier, a truck from Springfield, Ill., delivered a shipment to Belleville, where the first shots were given at St. Henry's Catholic School. On that day, the St. Louis group didn't know when its vaccine would arrive. Such was the confusion in the harried effort to vaccinate the nation's first- and second-graders as quickly as possible.

Polio is a viral disease transmitted by human contact. (It also was called infantile paralysis, even though it afflicted adolescents and adults.) Most people had no serious symptoms, but a few died or suffered permanent physical disabilities.

Epidemics periodically swept the country. President Franklin D. Roosevelt lost the use of his legs as a young man due to the disease. Polio put children in bulky braces and iron lungs, the barrel-shaped machines that kept them breathing with air pressure to move their paralyzed diaphragms.

The list of symptoms was distressingly unhelpful -- fever, tummy ache, aching muscles. If a child complained of a sore leg, parents didn't sleep that night. In our age of medical wonders, it may be hard to appreciate the depth of the relief that greeted Salk's vaccine.

Doctors in Europe had formed a diagnosis in the 19th century, but people could do little but fret. Shriners Hospital for Crippled Children opened at 700 South Euclid Avenue in 1924 to serve polio patients. For decades, its 100 beds usually were filled.

Before the vaccine, headlines announced new cases, deaths and the effort to raise money for research. Summer was considered the "polio season," but that was a function of humans mingling, not temperatures. As clusters of cases erupted, officials closed schools and swimming pools. An epidemic in 1949 killed 64 people in the St. Louis area.

In August 1951, four of the five children of Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Schwane of Marthasville contracted polio. Two of them died within three weeks.

Salk led a research team in Pittsburgh that developed the vaccine. As final tests were conducted, drug manufacturers stockpiled serum. When approval was announced April 12, 1955, the rush was on. The National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis (March of Dimes) bought enough vaccine for the free shots nationwide.

Newspapers ran long lists of vaccination times at schools, and more than 50,000 eligible St. Louis-area children lined up for shots. It took several years of vaccinating children and adults, but the number of cases eventually fell significantly. St. Louis reported its last naturally occurring case in 1963. Salk died in 1995 at age 80

Mouseketeer lifted Yuba City's spirits after 1955 flood

MARYSVILLE — Annette Funicello made a memorable visit to Yuba City, cheering up young residents after the devastating Christmas Eve flood of 1955.

Funicello, who suffered from multiple sclerosis, died Monday in Bakersfield.

On Dec. 24, 1955, a levee broke south of Yuba City in the early morning, causing 38 people to drown and forcing thousands to flee their homes. Many children spent Christmas in evacuation shelters.

On Feb. 25, 1956, a community Christmas party was held at Yuba City High School, including a gift giveaway, an appearance by Santa Claus and live entertainment. The Mouseketeers came to town to sing and dance in their signature mouse ears and name-emblazoned turtleneck sweaters.

Sutter County spokesman Chuck Smith said as the story goes, Walt Disney saw a newsreel of the 1955 flood and decided to send his Mouseketeers north.

The group took a break filming "The Mickey Mouse Show" in Hollywood to perform in Yuba City, according to Appeal-Democrat archives, and were the guests of Mayor Glenn Gauche for dinner.

Yuba City resident Janet Siller was 10 years old when she attended the Christmas party and said she was "overwhelmed" by meeting the Mouseketeers. Her family owned a restaurant called The Rib at Highways 20 and 99, which hosted the group after the show.

The Christmas party was filmed by Harry Sweet, a Sacramento news photographer who was working for a UHF station when he shot images of the flood. He later worked for KCRA-TV for three decades, Smith said. Sutter County purchased the rights to use those images through a donation made by former Supervisor Dan Silva, when Smith produced the documentary "The 1955 Sutter County Flood." 

New Documentary Focuses on Tale of Hemingway's 1955 Chrysler New Yorker

HAVANA, Cuba — A 1955 Chrysler New Yorker Deluxe Convertible that once belonged to author Ernest Hemingway is being restored by a museum located at his former home near Havana. Actor David Soul is helping with the restoration, which is being captured for a documentary film.

Hemingway paid $3,924 for the Navajo Orange and Desert Sand car in 1955 while living in Cuba, where he had maintained a residence since 1939. It was here that he penned some of his most famous works, including The Old Man and the Sea.

After the Cuban revolution of 1959, even though he was on good terms with the new government, the author left the island to return to the United States. In 1961, suffering from depression and physical ailments, he committed suicide at his home in Ketchum, Idaho.

Following his death, Hemingway's house in Cuba fell into disrepair, but the author is revered in that country, and it was eventually restored and turned into a museum. Among other artifacts, the collection houses his beloved fishing boat, Pilar — and it will soon include the fully restored New Yorker.

What happened to the car after Hemingway's death reads like a novel. His driver hid it for a time; then the New Yorker ended up with the author's doctor and his family for a number of years. After that it passed through several other owners and disappeared. In 2010, rusted and topless, the car re-emerged, its authenticity apparently verified by information on an insurance certificate in Hemingway's name.

The New Yorker now is undergoing a total restoration in Cuba, where American cars from the 1950s are lovingly maintained by local specialists. The bodywork will be repaired and the 331-cubic-inch Hemi V8 will be returned to working condition. It will then be put on display at the museum, about 15 miles from the Cuban capital.

A British production company, Red Earth Studio, is capturing the restoration process for a documentary film entitled Cuban Soul. It may be no coincidence that the title of the film contains the surname of actor David Soul, "Hutch" of the 1970s TV series Starsky and Hutch. Soul has become actively involved with the project, along with his own company, Kindling Productions.

Soul, now a British citizen, is a Hemingway fan who has traveled to Cuba several times and is friends with the museum's administrators. When the restoration project stalled, the result of difficulty obtaining parts due to the longstanding U.S. trade embargo with Cuba, the museum director, Ada Rosa Rosales, called on Soul to intervene.

Although Cuban mechanics are experts at keeping old American cars running, much of their work comes down to improvising repairs and hand-making parts. But proper restorations require original components, impossible to find on the island. Soul contacted a parts supplier in Massachusetts that specializes in classic Chryslers and found that its proprietor is also a Hemingway enthusiast. Parts problem seemingly solved.

However, despite Soul's best efforts, some parts have been delayed due to customs snags, while others, like a fuel tank, have proven difficult to locate. The plan had been to debut the hour-long film this June in time for the 14th Hemingway Colloquium in Havana, but the delays will result in a later release.

Edmunds says: Here's a restoration project to capture the interest of classic-car enthusiasts as well as fans of Ernest Hemingway, and the film should appeal to both.

1955 football team: Left wondering 'what if?'

The first Cottage Grove High School football team to win eight games in a season was the 1955 squad. That deserving team will be honored by being inducted into the CGHS Athletic Hall of Fame next month on Saturday, May 4.

Winning eight games was such a milestone because the Lions were competing against schools such as Eugene High School, whose student population was four times that of Cottage Grove. For the most part, the Lions competed in the Midwestern League against such powerhouses as Marshfield, Roseburg and Eugene, along with other larger schools like Springfield and Lebanon.

In 1953, Mel Fox (no relation to Vic Fox) became the Lion head coach, and after two seasons of 0-8 and 2-7, he was tired of taking a beating each week against what was known then as A-1 competition. He and the school district decided to leave the league and become an independent. As it turned out, ironically, that decision basically backfired and ended up preventing the Lions from possibly having a rare shot at a state title.

The senior-laden Grovers began the season by easily beating Central, 27-6. Central went on to reach the state A-2 playoffs. They also beat A-1 Roseburg in ’55. The big plays of the game for the Lions were a 60-yard touchdown run by 6’3”, 233-lb. Dean Castle and a 50-yard run by Dean Cranmer.

The next week the team traveled up the highway to upset Springfield, 12-7. Jim Nichols’ 37-yard run to paydirt, along with more heroics by Castle, paved the way to the Lions’ second win.

It had been 42 years since the Lions had beaten Eugene, but two second-quarter Cottage Grove touchdowns put the Axemen on their heels. Yet another talented Lion halfback, Byron Angell, raced 72 yards for six points for the game-clincher in the 20-13 win. Leon Hayes’ 36-yard touchdown pass to Greg Stewart, a Castle-to-Stewart 11-yard scoring play and Cranmer’s 67-yard punt return sparked the Lions to their thrilling victory.

“Beating Eugene at Currin Field was a big highlight,” said Hayes. “Both sides were jammed full and all the way around the track was full of fans three to four rows deep. It was the big game.”

Hanford workers find time capsule

Washington Closure Hanford workers found a homemade time capsule hidden within a wall of a building they were preparing for demolition near Hanford's D Reactor. The coffee can was packed with newspapers from September 1955 and a brief note with three workers' names.

Usually the surprises Hanford workers find as they clean up old buildings and burial grounds at the nuclear reservation are bad: undocumented, stray containers of dangerous radioactive or chemical materials.

So Randy Young and Sean O'Neal were cautious when they spotted a sealed coffee can tucked inside a wall behind asbestos-board paneling at a building they were preparing for demolition near D Reactor.

Young, dressed out in white coveralls and a respirator, gingerly picked it up. It was heavy enough that he knew something was tucked inside -- maybe bits of the asbestos-laden paneling, he guessed.

But when their supervisor at Washington Closure Hanford, Dustin Cooper, unpeeled the electrical tape and popped off the metal lid, he found a gift from past workers.

He could see immediately that it was a time capsule, he said.

The green MJB coffee can was packed with newspapers from September 1955. Out of one fell a note on the "Don't say it ... Write it!" memo form used for decades at Hanford.

The form was dated "9-26-1955 A.D." and addressed "to whom it may concern." That's all, other than three signatures -- K. Edward Thomas, Monte D. Dickinson and Henry L. Matear.

It appears that some planning went into preparing the time capsule.

Workers are used to finding reminders of past construction workers inside the walls of the hundreds of old buildings being torn down as part of environmental cleanup of the nuclear reservation. It produced plutonium for the nation's nuclear weapons program during the Cold War.

They find empty cigarette packages, crumpled newspaper pages and other trash. Once Young found a handwritten note saying, "Buy war bonds." Occasionally, they see walls signed by past generations of workers.

But the papers folded and fitted into the coffee can appeared to be collected over several days from multiple places, not just a random selection of what workers were reading at the construction site one day.

They included the GE News, a company publication for Hanford workers when General Electric was the site contractor. Copies of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, the Spokesman Review and the Columbia Basin News, a competitor to the Tri-City Herald in the '50s, also were folded and fitted into the can.

The top news of Sept. 26, 1955, was President Dwight Eisenhower's heart attack.

"President 'Satisfactory'; Heart Attack 'Moderate' " was the headline above the masthead for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. Eight doctors were keeping watch, it reported.

The Columbia Basin Herald went with a Page 1 editorial -- "Let's Remember: He's President But Mortal Too" -- and a picture of the president waving at the McNary Dam dedication a year earlier. Local news included an account of a 5-year-old Kennewick girl badly injured when she was hit by a car.

The Spokesman Review, dated two days earlier, topped the page with a reproduction of a hoax ransom note for a California baby.

Some news doesn't change. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer ran a story about two women rescued after becoming lost in an Oregon forest.

But the GE News put a spin on its story about workers winning money for their cost-cutting ideas that wouldn't be politically correct for publication today.

Charlotte Hansen won $100 and the article started, "It isn't always the man who comes up with ideas on cost cutting and more efficient operations."

The newspapers are in delicate condition, said Tom Marceau, senior cultural resources specialist for Mission Support Alliance, the Hanford contractor responsible for collecting artifacts and historical items found across the site.

It's a stroke of luck the time capsule was found at all.

Workers were removing hazardous materials from the electrical substation that once served D Reactor and the complex of support buildings that surrounded it. It dates to World War II, when D Reactor began operating shortly after B Reactor, the world's first production-scale nuclear reactor.

In 1955, an addition was built with a single wall that had the asbestos paneling that needed to be removed before demolition. Workers were cutting off the asbestos boards, working carefully to prevent sparking near the old animal nests inside the wall.

Without the asbestos paneling, the wall would have come down when heavy equipment was brought in to demolish the building without the time capsule being discovered, Marceau said.

"The fact that these guys put it together is pretty neat," he said.

He's hoping that the workers who left the newspapers can be found. He would like to thank them and ask them what prompted them to leave the time capsule.

He'd had no luck tracking them down this week, checking for different spellings for letters that were difficult to read on the memo they left.

The Herald did find a death certificate filed in Benton County for a Monte Dickinson. It said Dickinson was born in 1900 and died at the age of 68 in 1969. But the Herald did not find possible information about the other two workers.

The items in the time capsule now will be brought before a DOE Hanford artifact committee that determines what to do with historic Hanford items.

1955 Half Born in Eventful Year for Coins

It was pretty easy for a good coin to be overlooked back in 1955. There were so many interesting coins produced that year, it was hard for any single one to stand out.

There was the famous 1955 doubled-die obverse Lincoln cent. It was called the “perfect error” by at least one dealer over the years, and it caused a national sensation that has not really disappeared more than half a century later.

There were other interesting coins in 1955. The announcement that it would be the final years for San Francisco coin production was big news, especially since there were many young collectors trying to put together Lincoln cent sets. San Francisco almost always had the lowest Lincoln cent mintage, and in the end it didn’t disappoint, producing the lowest mintage Lincoln cent since the late 1930s.

There would also be a 1955-S Roosevelt dime with a mintage below 20 million pieces, and even that was overshadowed by lower mintage 1955 dimes from Philadelphia and Denver.

Virtually every denomination had at least one low mintage date – the 1955-D quarter being another example – even if relatively few took notice of anything other than the 1955 doubled-die cent and the final coins of San Francisco.

Certainly, the 1955 Franklin half dollar with a total mintage of just 2,876,381 should have created more interest. At the time, however, most would have figured that if you needed a nice example of a 1955 Franklin half dollar, the best thing to do was acquire one of the 378,200 proofs.

People were interested in saving, but the half dollar was one of the least interesting things to save. The 1950-D Jefferson nickel was the darling of the hoarders and savers at the time. The face value of the 1955 Franklin half dollar worked against it in terms of saving.

It is currently priced at $20 in MS-60, which is in line with other dates as there are a number of better dates at that level or above. That said, the bulk of the dates at similar or higher prices are from before 1955. In MS-65 it lists for $70, which actually leaves it in the bottom half of Franklin half dollars in terms of MS-65 prices.

There is a very heavy melting factor at work in Franklin half dollars. Many were melted in the late 1970s and early 1980s when silver was near $50 an ounce. The Franklin half dollar might have been saved by a few, but even those expecting big production from their investment had to be discouraged by the late 1970s. To get $15 for any Franklin was an offer too good to refuse.

The result today is that we have unusual supplies. A given date will be common in circulated grades and very tough in top grades. The 1955 is the other way as it’s tougher in circulated grades but surprisingly available in Mint State. That said, it’s still a low mintage date, and one from a very interesting year.

Why wait till 1955?

1955 Chelsea football players practice their heading technique

Time capsule contained papers from 1955

Debbie WachterNew Castle News

NEW CASTLE — Stanley Magusiak should have worn a dust mask while prying open a time capsule unearthed by school construction excavators.

The powdery reek from mildewed papers assaulted his nostrils as he pried a hole in the top of the metal box to see its contents.

The box was found under a cornerstone of the Harry W. Lockley Elementary School during digging for the early learning center project.

It had been buried since 1955.

Magusiak, the New Castle school district’s acting superintendent, was eager to open it to see what was inside, but he waited until the March school board meeting to reveal its contents. The musty papers sat on a desk, next to the box.

Inside was a program for the dedication of the Harry W. Lockley Elementary School on Dec. 1, 1955.

The superintendent at the time was Walter A. Kearney and New Castle’s mayor was Edward A. DeCarbo.

Rene Maxwell and Kenneth Rhodes were first-grade students who accepted the key.

Also in the box was a list of costs of building the school, which totaled $607,888. The building was designed by W.G. Eckles Co. architects. The district had floated a $600,000 bond issue at the time.

A list of board members, officers and administrators was also in the box, along with a directory for the 1954-55 New Castle Public Schools and a list of members of the New Castle School District Authority.

The school board members at the time of the dedication were Samuel H. Byers, James M. Dart, Lester F. Johns, Elizabeth Kleckner, Walter E. Myers, C. Edson Rummel, Margaret G. Seal and Daniel B. Woodcock. The solicitor was William D. Cobau.

John N. Cornelius was the school principal. Dr. Howard Stewart was assistant superintendent of schools.

Magusiak and the school board were surprised to learn at last week’s meeting that the time capsule is not the only one that has been buried over the years at the school.

Two former New Castle students, Carmen Faraoni of Pittsburgh and David Janacone of New Castle, attended the district’s March 13 meeting, thinking the box was one their 70-member fifth-grade class had ceremoniously buried in 1979.

That capsule was to have been reopened in 1990, but as far as anyone knows, it still remains underground.

Faraoni said Wednesday he does not know whether it was opened, but he thought the school was searching for the former fifth-graders to find out where it was.

Magusiak said he was unaware of the second time capsule and would find out more about its whereabouts, with the intent of having the contractors retrieve that one, too.

The 1970 capsule was actually dubbed a “space capsule,” and was part of a project on space study. A school play presented at the time was called “A Trip to Planet Mars.”

The items inside that capsule included a six-cent stamp, a comic book, three 1969 pennies, a picture of the school, a picture of the fifth-grade class with Marguerite Fiscus as the teacher, a clipping about a capsule buried at Jameson Hospital, a toy telephone, a glass tube containing an American flag, a tube of earth rocks, a tube with pictures of astronauts, a TV guide, a letter and the script of the play.

Bill Clinton 1955

Disney Land 1955

All That Heaven Allows 1955

The Country Girl, Academy Award for best picture 1955

Marilyn Feb. 1955

West Lawn man discovers about 30 newspapers published in 1955 beneath linoleum flooring

When Mitch Freeman set out to remodel a house he owned in West Lawn, he was thinking of the future.

What he found, though, was a kind of time capsule that resurrected stories and images from the past.

Beneath linoleum flooring in a pantry, Freeman discovered about 30 Reading Eagle and Reading Times newspapers published between April and June of 1955.

Somewhat faded and discolored, the papers were in relatively good condition, considering they had not seen the light of day in 58 years.

"They were too good to throw away," said Freeman, 63, a retired Carpenter Steel maintenance worker who lives in Spring Township. "I've always been interested in history, and these papers opened a little window into the past."

Freeman's curiosity turned to amazement when, paging through the delicate papers, he discovered an advertisement for the Spanish Villa Restaurant in Robesonia.

"My parents owned the Spanish Villa," said Freeman, who grew up in Robesonia. "I was only about 5 years old when that ad ran around Mother's Day in 1955, but I remember the restaurant well."

If the reference to his parents' restaurant brought a sense of joy, another discovery in those weathered pages evoked less pleasant feelings.

In the May 22, 1955, edition, he came across a photograph of young women in a pageant at the Bavarian Volksfest at Egelman Park. Among the contestants was Ann Schaetzle (later Bachman), a cousin of Freeman's wife, the former Mary Schaetzle of Wernersville.

 

"We just buried Ann a few weeks ago," Freeman said. "I wish she could have seen this old photograph before she died."

The discovery of newspapers beneath the flooring was no surprise to Freeman, a 1967 graduate of Conrad Weiser High School.

Using old newspapers as insulation, he said, was not uncommon in the 1950s.

Life in 1955, judging from the eight-week capsule preserved in the old newspapers, was simpler.

At Zipf's in downtown Reading, butter cream candies were on sale for $1 a box. A cotton dress at Imbers, a Penn Street clothing store, sold for $10.95. And women's wedge sandals were going for $3 on sale in Farr's Keen Teen Department.

To enhance sales of Westinghouse ranges, Weller Appliance Co. in Mount Penn held an annual cake baking contest. On May 1, 1955, Weller took out a full-page spread of photos from its fourth contest.

That year marked a major change in American automobile design, and Clarence Trupe got to take Shirley Moore to the junior prom at Wernersville High in a classy new '55 Chevy convertible. The prom merited a story and a full-page of photos in the Especially for Women section on Sunday, May 15, 1955.

President Dwight D. Eisenhower, fondly remembered as Ike by the World War II generation, frequently appeared on the front page. The nation was in the midst of the Cold War, and much of the news involved the arms race with the Soviet Union.

The Navy, for example, was about to launch Sea Wolf, its second atomic-powered submarine.

Indeed, a speaker addressing a convention of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in Washington predicted a future with atomic-powered airplanes, space travel and ultrasonic household cleaners.

"By 1975," the speaker said, "you'll see an era of glistening steel buildings, space stations hurling into the universe and comfort all but unimaginable in the American home."

Berks District Attorney Henry M. Koch was mulling whether to conduct an investigation into an Alsace Township beer party where 30 teens had been arrested.

On the lighter side, it was a time when a photograph of "Mama Robin" building her nest atop electric meters outside an area motel could make the front page.

Grand Ole Opry star Faron Young was appearing at Shorty Long's Santa Fe Ranch, a popular venue on the Philadelphia Pike east of Reading. And Alfred Hitchcock's thriller, "Rear Window," starring James Stewart and Grace Kelly, was playing in Shillington.

Freeman, a Navy veteran who served aboard the USS Juno during the Vietnam War, wants to see the old newspapers preserved. He's willing to donate them to an area historical society or preservationist group.

"It's important to keep things like this," he said. "It's fascinating to look back through a window of history."

1955: the steam catapult

Regular readers of The Engineer will have noticed that we’re following the project to build the Royal Navy’s two new aircraft carriers, HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales, with great interest. Our guest blog from the Aircraft Carrier Alliance’s chief engineer, David Downs, keeps us up to date with the latest news from the Rosyth shipyard, where Queen Elizabeth has now become the Navy’s largest ever ship.
Back in 1955, our predecessors were also following aircraft carrier developments closely, with first test of an important new technology, the steam catapult. Using steam from the ship’s boilers to act directly on the catapult itself, these had been tested aboard the carrier HMS Perseus since 1950, and had just started to be installed aboard the British and American carrier fleet.
HMS Perseus at sea, with the exprimental steam catapult visible on the flight deck
Prior to the use of steam catapults, aircraft had been propelled into the air using a hydro-pneumatic system which used steel wire ropes to drag a small trolley along the flight deck, with the aircraft towed along behind. This was fine for the relatively small and lightweight aircraft carried by naval vessels in World War II, but with the advent of jet engines, carrier-borne aircraft became heavier and needed to be launched at greater speed. For a while, naval architects just increased the power of the hydrodynamic system, but the heavier aircraft — along with the heavier cables and pulleys — meant that eventually the catapults were growing too large to be installed even on the biggest ships.
Steam, because it shot the shuttle to which the aircraft was attached directly along the flight deck rather than relying on cables, had the advantage of transferring more energy to the aircraft while being both lighter and less complex than the previous system, with fewer moving parts. The tricky problems in metallurgy involved in ensuring the steam cylinders were stong enough to cope with the pressure needed to launch an aircraft was carried out in West Drayton and Rosyth, not far from where the new carriers are taking shape.
Steam catapults held sway on aircraft carriers for decades, and are only now being replaced by electric systems which use linear motors to accelerate the aircraft. However, after a great deal of political to-ing and fro-ing, the Royal Navy’s new carriers will have no catapults at all, with vertical and short take-off and landing (STOVL) aircraft capable of leaving the flight deck under their own power.
Later in the same issue, The Engineer discusses the matter of new weapons for the Royal Navy, in particular whether nuclear weapons should be entrusted to the Royal Air Force or the Navy. At the time, the US had started building carriers to launch heavy medium-range bombers, and there was some question of whether the UK should follow suit (it being unthinkable at the time that The Bomb could be launched from anything other than an aircraft, because only air-launched missiles were reliable enough at long range).
Our predecessors concluded that the deterrent was best off in the hands of the Air Force, and that smaller aircraft carriers were necessary. ‘No longer is it mecessary to think in terms of trhe 36,800-ton Ark Royal, laid down during the war and now being completed at a cost which will probably work out at about £24million,’ our report says. Smaller craft of the Hermes class, displacing some 18,000 tons, ‘are in no way inferior to the Ark Royal in any operational role,’ it says; three of these, rather than one larger ship, would be needed. ‘Moreover, these medium-sized vessels cost about £10,500,000 to build, which is not an exorbitant price to pay these days for ships that form the striking power of the Navy.’
Time for some comparison here. HMS Queen Elizabeth displaces 64,600 tons, and its cost is now estimated at £3.5billion (£7billion for both carriers).