Friends didn’t know

To finally usher in the new year, here’s one last article from the December 31 1919 edition of the Toronto Daily Star:

Adam Beck might have been ill on New Year’s Eve 1919, but he recovered: he lived until 1925, when he passed away from anemia. His wife, Lilian, died of cancer in 1921.

Usher in 1920

One hundred years ago today, in the December 31 1919 edition of the Toronto Daily Star, there was an article briefly describing some upcoming parties to celebrate the arrival of 1920:

The article pointed out that this was the first New Year’s celebration in some time to occur following a full year of peace. Highlights, if you don’t want to read the whole article:

• The Peace Ball, organized by the Cotillion Club in the Metropolitan Assembly Rooms, planned to start 1920 with a leap year dance, in which “timid ladies will approach likewise timid men and shyly ask for a dance”. Colored balloons and confetti will be floating about!
• At the Balmy Beach Club, eight-year-old Joyce William, representing 1920, will drive Father Time across the ballroom and out the door. A balloon dance and a novelty ribbon dance will follow and then a buffet supper will be served.
• At the King Edward Hotel, 1920 will be ushered in with a traditional rendition of “Auld Lang Syne”.

Happy New Year to everybody, 100 years later!

Thirty-one new cases

Here’s an article from the December 31 1919 edition of the Toronto Daily Star, describing the progress of a smallpox epidemic in the city.

The world of one hundred years later is horrible in many ways, but at least we don’t have smallpox anymore.

Duplicate filler

Old newspapers are so much fun to read because they have so much filler. Editors were obsessed with making sure that there was no missing white space.

The typesetters of the November 12 1919 edition of the Toronto Daily Star must have been in a hurry, or might not have been cross-checking their work, as there were duplicates in that issue.

First, there was this rather sad article, about a young woman who unexpectedly passed away from a blood clot in the brain:

Poor Ms. Collier’s death then appeared as a piece of filler later in the paper:

There was one other duplication in the paper: three separate filler articles about an upcoming lecture at the Allen Theatre.

I did a Google search for T. W. Williams and didn’t find anything, so I have no idea whether his lecture was worth hearing.

I don’t blame them

Here’s a bit of filler from the November 22 1919 Toronto Daily Star:

I’m pretty sure that the last sentence of this article was not written completely seriously.