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Pages from the past
Nevada, Mo. -- Connie Denning pointed to a small caricature on the document in front of her, carefully pulling the yellowing, delicate old newspaper pages a little closer.
"That's Burton Hoff-man," she said.
Turning the page, she said, "and that's L.F. Richardson. People can tell who it's supposed to be without being told. This has been at Catherine's (restaurant, on Osage Boulevard, Nevada) and people will say, 'oh, that's my mother! Or, oh, that was my neighbor.'"
Dozens of caricatures dotted the pages of a November 1950 Nevada Daily Mail, when the hometown newspaper of "The Friendly City," launched "Get Acquainted Week."
Ads on every page featured caricatures of workers at many of the town's businesses. Many of the ads had a few sentences about the persons featured, telling about each person's jobs and how each person served the community.
"These drawings are so good. They really look like the person. I'm an artist, myself, and it's just unimaginable the amount of time that someone spent doing this," Denning said.
There were ads from American Service Com-pany, Beisley Paint and Wallpaper, Brady Shoe Shore, Denman Wholesale Grocers, G.I. Cab Com-pany, Nevada Implement Company, Nevada Radio and Refrigeration, Star-Nemo Theatres, Ames Supply, Cole's Department Store, Johannes Hardware, Maxwell's Markety, Bray-Rogers Motor Company, Shanks and Sterett Clothing Store, Thorpe's Appliance Company, the Nevada Hatchery, Farm and Home Savings and Loan Association and many, many more. There was even an ad featuring the caricatures of workers from a Texaco that once stood where Hardee's is now located. That's where Denning's father once worked.
"We had these (caricatures) for every businessperson in Nevada," said Carl Simpson, who worked in the press room at the Nevada Daily Mail at the time. The caricatures were kept in a large box and were stamps made of thin layers of zinc.
It's not known what became of the stamps, nor did Simpson know the identity of the artist who created them. On the front page of the Nov. 18 edition, a 30-page special publication, refers Mrs. Charles Whiteford, but it's not clear whether she drew the caricatures or was simply responsible for putting together the column. At any rate, Denning said, "the artist is certainly deserving of some recognition."
Apparently the newspaper thought so, too -- so much so that 500 extra copies were printed and made available at a cost of 10 cents each.
The "Get Acquainted" edition is part of Denning's substantial collection of old newspapers. Her collection goes back to the McKinley assassination and includes copies of the Washington Post and other newspapers in addition to many historic editions of the Nevada Daily Mail. It's her way of giving meaning and perspective to events of the past to her children and grandchildren.
"I keep them to show them to my grandchildren. Seeing it in the newspaper is different from what you see in a book at school," Denning said.
Another of her favorite treasures from the past is a special edition published when President Franklin Delano Roosevelt died in office, April 12, 1945. It sold for 5 cents and contained six pages of information about his life, accomplishments, and his last days; plus information about the country's new leader at the time, Harry S Truman.
Denning also noted that eople also seem to enjoy looking at the cost of items advertised for sale; corn flakes at 8 cents for an 11-ounce box, for example.
Denning has no plans to reduce her collection, but wishes the aging volumes were more easily preserved.
"They do kind of disintegrate, over time," she said.