OPINION: Extra! Extra! Read all about it. Life is hard in 1938

One easy way to pierce the curtain of time is to browse old city newspapers. Seeing what made the news back then can be insightful. The year 1938 in Sarnia was dominated by the long-awaited opening of the Blue Water Bridge.

One easy way to pierce the curtain of time is to browse old city newspapers. Seeing what made the news back then can be insightful.

The year 1938 in Sarnia was dominated by the long-awaited opening of the Blue Water Bridge. Construction work on the bridge spelled the end of the Great Depression era locally.

But many other things were going on as well.

One was a push for Mayor Fred Pelling and city council to close the “municipal hostel” at the bottom of Ferry Dock Hill. It was a sign of the times that council had its own welfare committee, and on Feb. 16, 1938, it was chaired by Alderman Thomas Mattingley.

Mattingley called the building a “fire trap.” Built to house the city’s indigent, it had children living there ranging in age from three months to eleven years, as well as a number of “aging people.”

A resident who appeared before council noted the hostel was “padlocked” at night, suggesting that if fire broke out within its walls it would produce a catastrophe of historic proportions.

A court story from the same day is equally revealing. It concerned two companions, Henry Coleman and Murray Hainer, who were arrested after making an ill-advised visit to a Bright Street home.

Coleman was illegally selling shoelaces door-to-door. Unfortunately, he made his sales pitch to Police Const. William Burgess, who was about to leave for work at the Town Hall station.

His buddy Hainer was found to be carrying an open bottle of rubbing alcohol in his pocket. The concoction offered a cheap if dangerous way to get drunk during Depression Days.

Coleman was sentenced to one month in jail; Hainer got three months.

A cheerier story a few months later concerned that of musical prodigy Ben Timperley.

The five-year-old resident of 214 Cobden St. was a violin virtuoso who could read music. The boy’s musical proficiency had been first noticed at age four when he began correcting mistakes his eight-year-old brother made while doing his piano lessons.

Young Ben came by his musical prowess naturally. His father, an Imperial Oil employee, had himself mastered the piano at an early age, even composing and selling compositions through agents and publishing houses in England, where he lived at the time.

The news of 82 years ago, like today, carried a little bit of everything – from politics, to crime, to uplifting human interest stories.

As is often said, the more things change, the more they stay the same.

Phil Egan is editor-in-chief of the Sarnia Historical Society. Got an interesting tale? Contact him at [email protected]