Did you know?
Just as Uniontown is getting ready for Christmas this year, holiday preparations were well underway 107 years ago this week.
There was a front page story in the Dec. 12, 1907 edition of the Uniontown Morning Herald that certainly must have caught the eyes of everybody with a sweet tooth.
“40,000 boxes of candy for children,” beamed the headline.
It seems that the folks at the Union Supply Company were sharing their Christmas spirit at each of the company’s 60 coal region stores.
“Thirty thousand boxes of candy for 30,000 children, or perhaps 40,000 boxes for 40,000-oh yum yum,” said the lead sentence.
But the next sentence must’ve been the most satisfying part. “And a free distribution, too,” it said.
Right next to that article was another one that was a positive for some people, but a distinct negative for others.
First the setup. Canonsburg’s Perry Como didn’t record “There’s No Place Like Home For the Holidays,” until 1954.
But back in 1907, though, some people simply weren’t destined to spend Christmas Day at home.
“New Lock-Up Opens in Time For Christmas,” was the headline that trumpeted Uniontown’s brand new jailhouse that opened the day before.
“The lockup was full of prominent citizens yesterday including Burgess Warman,” it was reported. And then the writer playfully added, “They were all there as visitors, however, and they all got out again.”
Those visitors were lucky. It was reported in the same article that the new jailhouse already had a new customer. “Milt (I’m withholding the last name) possesses the doubtful honor of being the first prisoner in the new jail. He won’t need an interpreter to tell the burgess this morning why it was necessary to arrest him for disorderly conduct.”
Three years later, on Dec. 14, 1910, the Morning Herald related a bizarre story that had taken place in Belle Vernon.
“Saves girl from suicide; kills her by accident,”said the self-explanatory front-page headline.
A 17 year-old girl had tried to commit suicide by taking poison, but a man thwarted her by knocking the poison-filled glass from her hand.
That was the good part. Unfortunately, the man and one of his friends had been target shooting after the attempted suicide had taken place.
The would-be suicide victim approached the man who had saved her life, while he had a loaded pistol in his hand.
The gun went off, and it was reported that, “The ball entered Miss Smalley’s neck and it came out of the back of her head.”
After it was known that the young woman had, indeed, died, the would-be hero turned himself in to Belle Vernon’s constable.
Those of us who were teenagers in the 1960s are most likely familiar with these words: “Where Cathy adores a minuet, The Ballet Russes, and crepe suzette, Our Patty loves to rock and roll, A hot dog makes her lose control -What a wild duet!”
We were fans of that comedy aimed at teenagers known as the Patty Duke Show, where Patty (Lane) and her identical twin cousin, Cathy Lane, enjoyed their teenaged years, even though they were opposites in many ways.
That line, “The Ballet Russes, and crepe suzette,” probably didn’t mean a lot to many of us, because they really never performed the Ballet Russes (pronounced Ruse) on Shindig or Hullabaloo.
But Uniontown’s theatre lovers back in December of 1934 were quite familiar with the Ballet Russes. It had been performed before a packed house at Uniontown’s State Theatre on Dec. 30.
That, in itself, would have been quite a local attraction, but there was a lot more. Even a non-aficionado of classical ballet (like me) is familiar with the name Anna Pavlova, who was the headliner that night at the State Theatre.
“World’s queen of Terpsichore in a brillant program,” said the front-page headline for an extensive recounting of the previous night’s event.
Pavlova, who was born in St. Petersburg, Russia, became the very first Russian ballerina to tour the world.
And by the reviews of the performance in that day’s edition of the Morning Herald, it was obvious that Pavlova and company had lived up to their billing.
“Pavlova’s corps de ballet is perfectly trained. The pretty girls who surround the ‘incomparable Anna’ are all talented. Each one is a toe tap soloist. They represent a greater international variety than even the musicians – Polish, French, Spanish, English, Scotch, Greek, Italian, American, and of course, Russia, predominating,” it was written.
One of the highlights of the evening was Pavlova’s performance of “Snowflakes.”
It was only fitting, since it was just five days after Christmas, and it was part of Tchaikovsky’s “The Nutcracker.”