by Brent Eades
Below are a few excerpts from the Christmas 1944 edition of the Almonte Gazette.
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The lead editorial begins, “This is the fifth Christmas to occur since the outbreak of World War Number Two. Earlier this year prospects looked brighter for the Allied Nations than they do at present. As the tide of victory rolled across France, Belgium and Holland there were hopes that British and American soldiers might celebrate the Yuletide well inside Germany. But this was not to be…”
The editorial refers to the ‘Battle of the Bulge’, the Germans’ desperate last offensive in the Ardennes region. |
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The ‘Supe’ was already a going concern in 1944. The typeface on its sign remains unchanged 70 years later. |
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At the O’Brien, Katherine Hepburn and Walter Huston were starring in Dragon Seed, described in a modern review as “the strangest film in Katharine Hepburn’s career.” Based on a Pearl S. Buck story, it featured Hepburn as a Chinese peasant opposing the Japanese during World War II. |
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Passenger trains still ran several times daily. The first passenger train arrived in Almonte in 1859, and the last one departed in 1965. |
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Seasonal greetings from Peterson’s Ice Cream, a Mill Street institution for over seventy years. |
