Just posted 6 more Gaslight News back issues

Still chipping away at scanning and posting these old issues of the Gaslight News

Feb 1983, May 1983, Aug 1983, Nov 1983, Feb 1984, May 1984

Only 25 more issues to go… the earliest issue we have is #9, Dec. 1977.

What are the chances that someone out there still has #1 thru #8 to complete our set? Check those basements and attics!

Historic Riverton Criterium needs sponsors’ financial support

Carlos announces a prime HRC 2015 PHOTO: JM

On June 9, 2019, Carlos Rogers, Riverton’s most preeminent advocate and civic champion, will reprise his role as the promoter of the premier bicycling event that he originated in 2011.

The Historic Riverton Criterium is now firmly established as the town-wide family friendly tradition to which we now look to kick-start the summer. This year’s contest is likely to draw a thousand participants, spectators, residents and vendors.

Each race starts and ends here at 4th & Main Sts. HRCriterium 2013  PHOTO: JM

Carlos started planning for this 9th Annual HRC almost as soon as the 8th concluded. Each year’s event draws more competitors and fans, but each year also means securing the financial backing to underwrite the costs of staging such a complex event.

Carlos has recruited an impressive roster of corporate sponsors to support the Historic Riverton Criterium. Several have been with him since the first one in 2011.

Now is the crucial time to gain grassroots support, donations, and endorsements.  See the attached sponsorship packet for information on how you can throw your support behind this great event. Your participation can make this 9th Annual HRCriterium the most spectacular and productive one yet and make everyone a winner!

Mirriam-Webster defines criterium as: a bicycle race of a specified number of laps on a closed course over public roads closed to normal traffic, but that doesn’t begin to cover it.

Live music on DeVries’ porch keeps the beat going, HRC 2013 PHOTO: JM

Carlos’ HRCriterium Facebook page elaborates:

Amateur and professional women and men complete 15-40 laps on 0.8mi, 6 turn, flat and fast course through the historic, tree-lined streets of Riverton, New Jersey.

Cyclists compete in several categories, including Pro-Am Men, Amateur Men, and Amateur Women.

Even the kids get in on the fun with races sandwiched between amateur races and trophies and medals going to participants.

Wade McDaniels’ snow cones keep us cool, HRC 2017 PHOTO: JM

Live music, food trucks, Wade’s Snow Cones, and a balloon twister add to the block party atmosphere as spectators enthusiastically cheer on competitors this USA Cycling sanctioned bicycle race.

Josh Matisoff, balloon twister, entertainer, and decorator. He can twist anything out of balloons. PHOTO: JM

Returning for the ninth consecutive year, Historic Riverton Criterium serves the dual purpose of providing a unique hometown venue for  bicycle racing while raising funds that benefit community organizations and charities.

Incredibly, the NJ nonprofit 501(c)3 organization has awarded to date over $35,000 to at least a dozen worthy causes.

Bicycle Century Run under auspices of Riverton Athletic Assn. Camden to Atlantic City via Gloucester – Gloucester-Woodbury Turnpike, Westville Toll Gate – Sept. 8, 1894

Full disclosure, the Historic Society of Riverton will benefit from part of the proceeds this year.

Everyone knows we have been fans of the HRC since Carlos the beginning. Heck, we each have the word HISTORIC in our names!

Riverton Bicycle Track sign, 8-1-2014 PHOTO: JM

Carlos once explained that the reason for his inspired description of the race as “historic” was Riverton’s great tradition of bicycle racing going back to the 1890s.

 

Newark Daily Advertiser, Thursday, April 10, 1851 Newark, New Jersey, Page 2

Read more about Riverton’s cycling legacy in the only place where you can learn about the awesome characters and fascinating stories that have contributed to Riverton history since 1851.

Won’t you please help spread the word so this worthwhile community event gains the financial support and attendance it needs.

Let’s hear in the COMMENTS below how the Historic Riverton Criterium has affected you or your organization.  -JMc

It was a S.R.O. crowd at Riverton Library for the Campbell’s Soup show

ACT I: “Campbell’s… more than just soup” slideshow

capacity crowd at the RFL PHOTO : JM
The audience needed every available space PHOTO: JMc

We sincerely thank the 80 or so hardy history buffs and lovers of Campbell’s Soup nostalgia who sat in chairs, sat on the floor, and stood (some with obstructed views), to hear Marisa Bozarth as she chronicled the history and development of Campbell’s Soup Company.

Even Jan DeVries, our reception hostess, stands PHOTO: JM
People spilled over to the next room PHOTO: SD

The turnout for Tuesday night’s program sponsored by the Historical Society of Riverton took us off-guard, so we apologize to several folks who looked at the overflow crowd and left.

ACT II: Reception at the former Campbell home

Some really good sports are sitting on the floor PHOTO: JM
Entryway PHOTO: JM

After the engrossing slide show, the meeting carried over next door to the home of Jan and Dennis DeVries who graciously showed us the former home of Joseph Campbell.

 

 

Pat Brunker cuts Susan Dechnik‘s Tomato Soup Cake PHOTO: SD
How serendipitous was it that the former Campbell is next to the Library? PHOTO: SD

A splendid dining room table centerpiece of carnelian-red and white flowers in a vase surrounded by cans of tomato soup reinforced the theme of the evening.

 

 

Mmmm…good! PHOTO: SD

The delicious desserts and confections arrayed there  fueled animated conversations about how much folks enjoyed the well-researched topic and Marisa’s buoyant delivery.

Framed Campbell’s embellish the pantry wall PHOTO: SD

Our hosts, Mr. and Mrs. DeVries, doubled-down on the evening’s refrain and carried out the Campbell’s Soup motif by hanging a portrait of the home’s early owner in the kitchen area next to a framed print of a soup can and an illustration of a Campbell’s Kid.

PHOTO: SD

A soup tureen filled with fresh tomatoes, a Campbell’s coffee table book, a Campbell’s recipe book (doesn’t everyone have at least one in their kitchen?) and actual cans of tomato soup consummated the theme.

 

HSR President Bill Brown presented Jan and Dennis with mugs that depict their home and information about Joseph Campbell PHOTO: SD

Marisa wrote later, “It was wonderful! Everyone was so welcoming and I loved getting the opportunity, not only share the Campbell’s story with everyone, but also to talk to so many people afterwards!”

She is so right.

This important aspect of our meeting helps to carry out the Society’s several-fold mission to bring together those people interested in history, to increase awareness of our heritage, and to continue to expand our knowledge of the history of the area.

Our current membership of fewer than 100 households is at a historic low. We need your support in the form of membership dues and donations to underwrite our efforts to bring such programs to the public. 

ACT III: History is the topic of conversation

Marisa also has a Campbell themed mug as a memento of the evening PHOTO: SD
Bill Brown and Alice Smith, President of the Riverside Historical Society discuss cooperating on a future presentation PHOTO: SD

Another side benefit to having people with a common interest in history assemble together is the networking, or sharing of information, that often happens.

Given the thousands of local people over the years whose farm products supplied the plant or whose labor produced soup, it comes as no surprise that a few in the group either worked there themselves or had a family member employed.

One woman volunteered that she has photos of the old Campbell Experimental Farm in Cinnaminson I can scan.

Bill Hall once worked on Taylor’s Farm and delivered tomatoes to the Camden plant PHOTO: JM

It turns out that one of our members had first-hand experience with working on local farms growing and delivering tomatoes, and another worked for a time in the Camden plant. Look for more about their anecdotes in another post if I can twist their arms to be interviewed.

 

Tomato Soup Cake – Don’t say no until you try it PHOTO: SD

Maybe we can get Susan Dechnik to reveal the recipe for her Campbell’s Tomato Soup Cake.

Here’s a link to a Campbell’s Soup Company’s A SPICY HISTORY OF CAMPBELL’S TOMATO SOUP SPICE CAKE.

 

Epilogue: Please tell your Campbell’s story

Roger Prichard will have two more historic signs ready for Bank Avenue properties this spring PHOTO: JM

If you have another memory of Campbell’s from back in the day, please contact us through the form below so that we may add your voice to this collaborative effort that is rivertonhistory.com.

Marisa may have to add another slide or two to that PowerPoint. – JMc

PHOTOS BY SUSAN DECHNIK AND JOHN McCORMICK

See the Campbell’s Soup Company 9.78MB PDF slideshow here.

Stay tuned for the sequel

A Campbell’s presentation tonight with a side of nostalgia

Interest on social media in historian Marisa Bozarth’s Campbell Soup presentation tonight at Riverton Library at 7 o’clock has been high.

Just writing about it brought back a flood of memories for me about Campbell’s. Sure, everybody has a favorite. Mine is tomato soup made like my mom, Phyllis McCormick, made it with a half can of water and a half can of milk.

Congowall by Congoleum

The height of gourmet eating was sitting at our Formica table in our Congowalled kitchen slurping tomato soup topped with a layer of crumbled Ritz crackers and, as a second course, a buttery grilled cheese sandwich.

You’d think I would be sick of the stuff. My mother brought home mass quantities of those dented silver cans with no labels, tied up with string that she bought from the employee store at Campbell’s Camden plant where she worked. It fell to me to write “TOM” on top of each can with a stub of a black grease marker she kept in a kitchen drawer.

When she was feeling really flush on payday, she sometimes brought home bags of my favorite Pepperidge Farm cookies and cans of Swanson’s Chicken à la King, products made by two companies Campbell’s acquired. At Christmas, my teachers always got the best presents from me – a small golden box of Godiva chocolates, available for half-price to Campbell’s employees.

Workers strike outside the Camden plant in 1952. PHOTO: Courier Post

I often waited for her at the Beideman Avenue bus stop, and when I was old enough, I drove to downtown Camden to pick her up when she worked night-shift, so I got to hear a lot about how her day went.

Tomato season brought longer hours and sweatshop conditions – literally – during the heat of many South Jersey summers. She knew all the recipes for those colossal cauldrons you’ll see in Marisa’s slide show. More than a few times she told me how a batch would be scuttled because it got double salt or worse.

She started out on the line sorting tomatoes and worked her way up to production, then quality control. The time/motion efficiency experts hired by Mr. Dorrance scrutinized and analyzed every task and dictated changes. She schooled the newly hired management “college boys” in soup making and they became her bosses.

The end of an era: Campbell’s Soup Plant Implosion, Camden, N.J. – November 3, 1991 PHOTO: Langan.com

She saw the end coming as layoffs of production staff followed opening new plants elsewhere – was it South Carolina?

But she hung on because now she was an executive secretary for one of the big shots and therefore part of management.

She was proud of her achievements at the Camden plant and thankful for the job that enabled her to raise two kids in the 1950s and ’60s. When she retired from Campbell’s we attributed the closing of the Camden plant to her leaving.

I wish I had listened better  because I am sure she’d  know plenty about soup production if she were here.

Please leave a comment if you have a Campbell’s memory. -JMc

Explore the Campbell Soup/Riverton connection in 7 days

Susan Dechnik posts notice of our next meeting at Riverton Free Library.

Here we find HSR Board Member and publicity specialist Susan Dechnik posting our flyer at Riverton Free Library announcing Marisa Bozarth’s “Campbell’s: More Than Just Soup” presentation that takes place there in one week.

See our Upcoming Events link on the Main Page for more particulars on this special lecture about Joseph Campbell, founder of Campbell’s Soup and a past inhabitant of Riverton.

Summer Work at Beach Haven’s once lavish Hotel Baldwin in 1954

Despite the name, rivertonhistory.com, one realizes real fast that there is much more to this website than just Riverton history. A person across the miles who googles for Long Beach Island or Medford’s Camp Lenape may find that we rank as one of the top results for that topic simply because we display so many vintage images.

The Images/Stone Harbor page, for example, has collected an amazing (for us, anyway) 54 comments from folks who often leave a mini-memoir of their decades-old stay there.

If only a post about Riverton history would arouse such engagement from visitors.

New Hotel Baldwin, Beach Haven, NJ

When Mary Wallis Gutmann sent in this vivid account of her college summer job working at Beach Haven’s long-gone Hotel Baldwin in 1954, I knew it deserved special mention.

Summer Work in 1954
The Baldwin Hotel

Design school was intense. I saw summer jobs as a respite from college work—not work themselves. Getting away from the pressure that was constant at Pratt was necessary. Surviving on my own was important. A live-in job was sometimes the answer: for summer at least.

I left the city between my second and third year at Pratt to work at the Baldwin Hotel on Long Beach Island in New Jersey. The Baldwin was a once grand, now run-down shingle affair with one hundred and fifty-five rooms, some with sweeping beach views. I ran the elevator: a four-sides-open, wrought-iron cage, with a velvet-pillowed bench across the back and a huge spring hidden underneath in case the operator forgot to stop. That was me a few distracted times, to the consternation of guests on board as we were vigorously jounced up and down.

The staircase trailed around the elevator to the top. The owner, Chuck Yokum, and his wife had an apartment in a turret on the top of the hotel. Guests stayed on the second floor, higher-up staff on the floor above, waitresses and other (mostly college) female employees such as me in a wing off the first floor; young male employees lived in another such wing. It was hot and sandy and perfect for summer.

Chuck Yokum loved to cook (or, think he cooked). He carried his ubiquitous can of beer around to sip while he sampled sauces and soups warming in the steam tables. Then he’d invariably add a big splash of his drink to each pot. Diners came from all over. They loved the food: they raved about his chef’s secret ingredient (a spurious name for beer made up by Chuck). They asked for the chef’s name, but Chuck told them that was a secret, too. “I don’t want him to leave…” he’d say.

Philadelphia Inquirer 31 Aug 1954, p16

We were given free room, board, and uniforms. My dress was a sort of liverish color, (ghastly on someone with a tan), a removable-for-washing white collar, and Peter Pan sleeves that were unflattering on a thin girl with scrawny arms. There was no regular pay, just a little weekly pocket money. Chuck kept our wages (he said) in a special Escrow Account so we would stay all summer and not “skip out.” We’d be paid at the end of August (he said).

On Labor Day, (the hotel closed the next day until the following Spring), Chuck and wife drove off to Mexico in the early hours with suitcases packed full of hundreds. Hundreds of dollars of our money. A major hurricane blew in immediately after they left. There had been a general evacuation called by the Coast Guard but we (the summer hotel staff) elected to stay. We averaged no more than nineteen years in age and believed we were impervious to injury. We had no place to go and no money to get there if we did. We sat up all night in the lobby, feeding driftwood and then broken bits of the porch furniture into the huge fireplace, drinking all the beer and eating all the food that was left. We had an uproarious time.

The next morning, after the hurricane had roared across the island and smashed windows and banged shutters and blown the wood shingles off the hotel roof all night, we went out to the beach to survey the damage. It was not yet light: the sea was still dark and the white, tumultuous surf was full of brilliantly-colored sparkles from iridescent plankton brought in by the storm. They glowed exquisitely against the white foam and the black water. As the sun rose, some sections of boardwalk, a pavilion, and several small houses appeared, floating gently beyond the surf line on a calm sea. We heard later that at the height of the storm, a rowdy teenager went for a walk and rode a section of boardwalk around the point and into the bay. They said he survived.

Chuck Yokum and his wife and the car and the money (our money), were nowhere to be seen. The police came to tell us where they suspected the Yokums were—or as near as the Police knew: the clues were Mexico vacation flyers in their apartment. Chuck’s car was gone and so was our all summers’ pay.

The policeman had the local bank president with him who was obviously concerned about being sued. Sue? We hadn’t any money to sue. Today I might feel differently. After all, the banker had given Chuck the wads of cash Chuck took with him. We reminded him they were our wads of cash.

Hotel Baldwin, Beach Haven, NJ 1948

The Baldwin Hotel was sold and six months later I got a check for $80 with a note saying the money was my share of the Escrow account for my summer-long elevator operator work (after the lawyers took their cut). I was happy with the unexpected loot and bought a used camera: a Rolleiflex with a pre-war, hand-ground lens. I never hear the term, ‘pre-war,’ today. I took sharp pictures with that camera for years—sometimes almost too sharp.

Copyright © Mary Wallis Gutmann 2019  Ms. Gutman has authored several books ready for consideration by a publisher – a youthful memoir, science fiction novel, light mystery and a murder mystery. We can forward any queries to her.

For more details about the Hotel Baldwin, see these two illustrated google books entries, or click on the covers to purchase at Barnes & Noble. -JMc

Beach Haven by Gretchen F. Coyle, Deborah C. Whitcraft 

Long Beach Island by George C. Hartnett, Kevin Hughes

 

Are you up for a polar bear plunge?

Chas. B. Durborow, New York Tribune, Feb 29, 1920

If the caption for this February 29, 1920 newspaper photo can be believed, Charles Durborow (also spelled, Durborrow, Durboro,  and even Durbonard) took a plunge every day!

The caption for this photo reads:

Charlie Durborrow, Philadelphia’s famous bank clerk long distance swimmer, just has to have his daily dip in the Delaware at Riverton, N.J., regardless of where the mercury happens to be. Here he is playing the new game of ice polo all by his lonesome.

For much more on this intrepid Riverton character, see this 2014 post. -JMc

Tagging people in the 1938 PHS class trip photo

Following up on the last post with the 1938 Palmyra High School class trip to Mt. Vernon…

PHS Class of 1938 Mt Vernon ID numbers

If you can ID anyone, send me the corresponding number and color for that person’s position, along with anything else you wish to add, and I will post a list. -JMc

rev. 3/2/2019: Thank you, Shirley, Amy, and Kristin. A special thank-you to Cheryl Smekal who loaned us her dad’s photo. We will add more when we get more names.

rev. 3/18/2019: Added one more – Domenique D***’s grandmom

rev. 3/29/2019: Added Edgar M. Schopp, Paul W. Schopp’s father

 

 

Who do you know in this PHS Class of ’38 photo?

PHS Class of 1938, Mt-Vernon Class Trip, PHOTO COURTESY OF CHERYL JOHNSON SMEKAL, DAUGHTER OF ELWOOD C. JOHNSON

The young men and women in this May 3, 1938 photo of a Palmyra High School class trip to Mt. Vernon belong to that generation that grew up during the deprivation of the Great Depression.

As these mostly 17 and 18-year-old seniors moved closer to the end of their high school careers, Action Comics #1, dated June 1938, featured the first appearance of  Superman—and sold for a dime. (A mint copy of Action Comics No. 1 sold for $3,207,852 on an eBay auction in 2014.)

However, faraway events already in motion would soon crush their innocence and abruptly thrust these youngsters into adulthood.

Around the world the seeds of World War II had already been sown some time before.

The causes of the war – the rise of Hitler and Mussolini, Japanese territorial expansion, and Germany’s military aggression – coalesced as America, still mired in the Great Depression, tried to stay neutral from the European conflict.

WWII Honor Roll Veterans List from The New Era, Sept 14, 1944

Pearl Harbor was still 3-1/2 years away.

The PHS Class of ’38 came of age in the United States during World War II, and its graduates would either fight in the war or strive on the home front to help win it.

Television journalist and author Tom Brokaw first coined the term “The Greatest Generation” to describe those who came of age during the Great Depression and the Second World War and went on to build modern America. The people in this photo and in the Honor Roll at right were among that Greatest Generation.

Who do you know in this eight decade old photo? -JMc

Addition, 10/20/2020: Here is another photo of a PHS Class of 1949 trip to Washington, DC. Can you find anyone you know? PHOTO COURTESY OF ED GILMORE

PHS Class of 1949 at Mount Vernon

Class of ’49 graduation photo PHOTO COURTESY OF ED GILMORE

PHS Class of 1949 PHOTO COURTESY OF ED GILMORE

 

 

There is nothing new…

…under the sun

I had to laugh when read this in the latest upload I made of another back issue of the Gaslight News.

This excerpt from one of Betty Hahle’s “Yesterday” columns in our September 1984 newsletter is 35 years old and references a time 100 years before that.

Just a century ago… elections, then as now, filled much of the newspaper space. Citizens actively supported the candidate of their choice, with torch-light parades, fiery meetings (no pun intended), charges and counter-charges.

Newspapers left no question about which candidate they supported, and one has the feeling that too much enthusiasm, rather than passivity, was typical of the day.

1884 Presidential Campaign
L -R, Grover Cleveland, James G. Blaine

One ardent Blain supporter bought 40 new brooms, with which to “sweep the country clean” in the anticipated victory parade–one wonders what he did with them, when Cleveland won.

By the end of November election tales were finally dying down, and a comment was made that “it is a pity all parties can’t come before the public with a platform without resorting to trickery, falsehoods, and deceit.” A sentiment that could be echoed today….

Fun Facts:

During the 1880s, journalistic sensationalism brought new drama to American election politics and raised nastiness to a whole new level.

1884 Republican Poster
American Memory – Library of Congress

Notorious mudslinging, including a bachelor Grover Cleveland paternity scandal marked the 1884 presidential campaign, considered one of the dirtiest ever. You could google that.

Voters had to decide between “Slippery Jim” Blaine, a profiteering congressman blamed for taking bribes from railroad interests and lying about them, and Cleveland, accused of fathering an illegitimate 9-year-old child and paying the mother to keep her quiet. When a friend asked him how to reply to the scandal, he said. “Whatever you do, tell the truth.”

Cleveland prevailed, served a term in the White House, but lost in his bid for reelection in 1888. He ran again in 1892 and was elected, thus becoming the only president to serve two terms that were not consecutive.

 

I am scanning and uploading back issues of the Gaslight News as I work back to the first one we have, #009 December 1977. There are a few gaps where issues are missing, notably #001 through #008, #120, and #124. If you come across one of these in your travels, please let us know.

Let us know what news you find in the Gaslight News back-issue archive of the historical Society of Riverton. -JMc, Editor