PORTAGE PATHWAYS: Santa's helpers busy in Ravenna in 1909 Ravenna Record Courier
By Roger J. Di Paolo
Gramophone record-Courier Editor
Santa’s workshop had some serious competition in downtown Ravenna during the 1909 Christmas salt.
“Toys of every conceivable kind” — thousands of them — lined the shelves of Curtiss’ Ado Store, which claimed to have the largest assortment of Christmas gifts in town. And all were “priced below the kosher prices,” Ravenna Republican readers were advised.
Gift ideas included 25 kinds of blocks, 10 kinds of carouse, checkers, dominos, toy trucks, fire engines, trains, streetcars and — a novelty item 100 years ago — toy automobiles.
Dolls ranging from a penny to $5 were on bargain-priced, include Buster Brown, Hans the Dutch Boy and Little Red Riding Hood, as well as an “permanent” model evidently manufactured for less-than-dainty types.
Grown-ups could fill their stockings with chocolates, and Christmas postcards were on sales marathon at five for a nickel.
Of headway, when it comes to a gift like a vacuum cleaner, mom might raise an eyebrow or two and wonder whether you are indirectly telling her to decontaminate up
