Defense bonds and Hested's luncheonette

It was not uncommon to find references to buying Defense Bonds or Stamps in almost every ad in the McCook Daily Gazette during the early war years in McCook. Every employee at Hested's bought Defense Stamps every week. Other ads urged people to help start a Pay-Roll Savings Plan in their own shop, store or office.

"The more dollars you invest in Defense Bonds the more bombs will rain on the Axis: And the sooner the better! So buy today!" "Our boys at the front need a steady flow of supplies. You can assure this by systematic purchase of U.S. Defense Bonds and Stamps." The accompanying graphic from the March 28, 1942, Gazette explains how many bonds it took to buy the pictured items.

Little cartoon drawings in the Gazette accompanied such reminders as "Unwrapped bundles from the store help the country win the war!" or "Close your mouth, open your eyes. Defeat the plans of Axis spies!"

In a column entitled, "Junior College Notes," March 26, 1942, I found that there had been students from more than 45 different communities in Nebraska and Kansas since the college was founded in 1926. Indianola ranked first by providing 76 students, Culbertson was second with 54 and Trenton was third with 40 students. The girls of McCook Junior College were enjoying the downtown YMCA swimming pool in place of their physical education class at this particular time in McCook's history.

Nebraska's total allotment of 1,280 tires for the month of April, 1942. Red Willow County's share was 10 passenger tires, 27 retreads and 18 tubes. For truck and bus tires, Red Willow County received 32 tires, 28 retreads and 30 tubes. In the personals of the Gazette on March 27, 1942, there was mention of Ray Search, "manager of the McCook Fox theater" returning home from Rock Springs and Cheyenne Wyo. where he attended to his business. Ray is a resident of El Dorado Manor in Trenton now and has a 99th birthday coming up on Nov. 12.

Also in the personals was news that Mr. and Mrs. Tom Cotton and daughter Kayette, were returning to McCook that week from a 9,000-mile automobile trip during the past two months through 13 southern and western states, Mexico and into Canada. They reported that they only had one tire puncture throughout the entire trip.

Hills Brothers Coffee had an interesting ad in the Gazette March 27 also. In a takeoff of the popular "Gone With The Wind," the ad asked, "Gone with the Tin?" An official order on March 1, 1942, banned use of all tin cans but Hills Bros. found a way to make vacuum-cans without tin. They used the same base they had been using, blackplate, with a synthetic enamel. They said it looked about the same, "except it had a soft, bronzy finish instead of looking as bright as a new dollar." Just one more of the many changes taking place in America in 1942 on the homefront.

The 1-year-olds in McCook in 1942 were getting a lot of press. Everybody had a birthday party and it made the newspaper! Carole Ann Roth had the distinction of taking her first steps, had her first tooth and celebrated her first birthday ... at her birthday party ... on March 26. Joseph Charles Horachek also had his first birthday that same day. Attending his party to eat cake and watch him open presents were Mrs. A.A. Koler and daughter, Karole; Mrs. Ed Roth and daughter, Carol Ann; Mrs. Joe Buresch and son, Johnny; Mrs. Ben Nelson and son, Bennie; and Mrs. Floyd Tomlin and son Ronald.

Miss Millicent Slaby, McCook librarian was chairman of the local drive for the Victory Book campaign to collect 10 million "good" books for our men in the armed forces. Tons collected nationally had already been junked because they were old school texts, children's books or dry volumes of statistics. So far, only about 2 million books had been collected for the reading pleasure of the soldiers.

"McCook's Metropolitan Store" ... can you guess which one that might possibly have been? It was Hested Stores, the 5-10-25 cent -$1 Stores on West C Street where the east side of Ben Franklin is now. As you went through the southeast double doors, there was a luncheonette along the east side of the building. On Friday, March 27, 1942, the specials sounded pretty good ... roast chicken with celery dressing, whipped potatoes, giblet gravy, spring salad, scalloped corn, rolls and butter with coffee, hot tea, milk or Coca Cola ... 30 cents. Home style meat loaf dinner was 25 cents, Swiss steak was 30 cents while foot long hot dogs were 10 cents all day, triple-dip banana splits were from 10 cents -15 cents, and strawberry shortcake was 15 cents. It was Easter time then too ... I remember the baby chicks, ducks and rabbits dyed in the pastel colors. A whole display of little fluffy purple, green, pink and blue animals. I still try not to think of what happened to those little critters the next month. Once I talked my parents into letting me get two of the ducks, then I inherited the neighbors ducks so I ended up with Clem, Clara, Elvis, Pelvis and Donald until they just had to go to a farm to live out their lives. There again, I try not to even think of how my wonderful pets ended their lives. Old ducks, I hope.

Enjoy this wonderful Heritage Days in McCook...the good weather, the old friends, the walk up and down Norris Avenue in and out of all the activities, the street dance, the sales downtown and the events in the park and around the Old Post office Mall. Take it all in and if you can, please buy a raffle ticket to help take down the old Romanoff building at Norris and B to beautify and make that corner safer. Every peaceful day now on McCook's Main Street is a good one.