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This Day In History: May 13, 1920

Smack dab on the front page is the Holland Elks Club advertising a celebration for Flag Day, including participation from the local Boy Scouts, as well as a minstrel show.  Certainly not something I expected to read.

Further down the page is an advertisement from The Huyser Company, of 61 East 8th St (currently the park next to Ferris Coffee) advertising "$6 to $9 Hats At $5."  I'm wearing a classic felt hat as I type this, so I'm definitely interested in that ad.

Page 2 opens with a memorial to a group of soldiers who perished in a naval accident.  Sounds like a group of guys returned from the Spanish American War to take up sailing as a civilian job, then their steamer sank somewhere between New York and Key West.

Page 3 is interesting, as it contains an article still pertinent today!  Downtown Holland has "Wheel Control Zones," with no wheeled vehicles allowed on sidewalks (including bikes, skateboards, and rollerblades).  14 people were cited, and 5 more were arrested.  As in, cuffed and stuffed.  Taken into custody.  Put behind bars.  All for riding a bike on a sidewalk in the Downtown area!

Page 4 has my favorite section of old-timey newspapers:  The Personals.  The Facebook Walls from days of old; a Roaring 20's Twitter Feed.  Short snippets of daily life, where we learn things like "Miss Jeanette Mulder visited her mother at Grand Rapids over Sunday," and "Miss Jennie ZZoet of Englewood, IL, was in Holland over the week end visiting friends."  The genial proprietor of the Henry Kraker Company turned 44, and offered a free cigar to anyone visiting his office after 6pm that evening!  What a truly fascinating window into the past.

The personals continue on Page 5, where we have a sudden poetry slam:
Arend surely did the river like, 
Sair, he a bath I will take, Holey Mike!
So discretion to the winds he let fly
And with his Sunday pants on, accidentally took a dive
And down, down, down to the bottom he went
When he got down there he was all spent
For the water was as cold as he -
Then, Dick, the son-of-a-gun did laugh
At the way Arend took his Tuesday night bath
 

 

Works Cited:
Holland City News, "Holland City News, Volume 49, Number 20: May 13, 1920" (1920). Holland City News: 1920. 18. https://digitalcommons.hope.edu/hcn_1920/18 

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