TOMS RIVER
the Ocean Signal | Friday March 15, 2013 |
Toms River 1933
A 1933 Ford Model B sold for beterrn $490 and $650. It was the first low-priced mass market car to feature a v8 engine. This restored Model B commands a $66,000 price tag today. Photo Courtesy ClassicCars.Com.
Life in the township from late February and early March 1 9 3 3 a s co m p i le d f ro m sources within the Toms River Library's Wheeler Room.
Life Prominent Toms River Family Settles Estate
It was reported that several members of the prominent Knox family here received bequests from the estate of their cousin, Miss Frances Adelaide Strong, of Albany, New York, who died on February 3rd, including $25,000 (approximately $438,000 in 2013 dollars) to Mrs. Mary Knox Buckwalter, $10,000 (approximately $175,000 in 2013 dollars) to Miss Gertrude E. Knox, and $5,000 (approximately $87,000 in 2013 dollars) each to Charles Rhodes Knox and Edward Prentiss Knox. The New Jersey Courier took the opportunity to recount the history of the Knox family, stating they had lived in Toms River since around 1918, coming from Point Pleasant, where their father, Rev. Dr. Knox, of Bloomfield, had a summer home. In 1933, Charles Knox was a longtime instructor at Princeton University and Edward P. Knox was a notable artist who was the first Toms River man to enlist in the first World War, after which he was transferred to the camouflage corps.
Paul Kimball Hospital in Dire Financial Situation
All local newspapers conducted a campaign to alert the public about the dire finances of Paul Kimball Hospital, Lakewood, which served the greater Toms River area and was in danger of closing due to the economic hardships of the Great Depression and increase of sick and injured residents as a result of undernourishment
Taking Care of the Needy An increase of 1,155 needy people was made to the county emergency relief roster in January 1933, with a township-wide increase of 65, bringing the total amount in Dover Township on the list to 250 by February 1st.
A 19th Century Reflection
with spring in the air, the New Jersey Courier's editorin-chief, William H. Fischer, waxed nostalgic of his boyhood in Toms River in the the late 19th century, writing in his newspaper whether any other “ol'timers” recalled when “March time meant kite time [and] how we used to bother our mothers til we had flour to mix into paste, bother the storekeeper til we got a good stout piece of paper—not so easy in those days—get a piece of white pine, cut out the three sticks, and spend Saturday morning building a kite. Sometimes we found an old umbrella with reed ribs, and then we had a bowtopped kit [and] once the kite was built the attic was visited for rags to make the tail. And lucky
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was the boy with a nickel to buy a ball of twine.”
S p r i n g i s i n t he A i r Area residents noted the arrival of earthworms, a longer daytime period, the end of basketball and starting up of baseball and the growing interest and thoughts of boatmen and yachtmen to summer as signs that spring was about there.
Carsons go to D.C.
Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Carson drove to Balto, Maryland with their son to spend the weekend with relatives there, with the intention of driving to Washington, D.C. on Saturday, March 4th to attend the inauguration ceremonies of President Franklin D. Roosevelt as guests of Rear Admiral Cary T. Grayson, chair of the inauguration committee... Commander and Mrs. Franklin T. Berry attended the monthly dance of the Naval Air Station officers held at the Cranmoor Country Club on Saturday evening, February 25th... a fire broke out at the dump in the meadows off Water Street and was extinguished by the village fire company... numerous Gilford Park bungalow owners came down from their winter homes in the western and northern sections of the state to begin opening for the coming warm seasons... Charles Steitz and son drove to Trenton on Sunday, February 27th and returned the following day with the last of their furniture to permanently live in their Gilford Park home... Capt. Anton Heinen's small blimp, a 104-feet long vehicle that utilized a 100-horsepower, six-cylinder motor plus gondola to accommodate four people and was built in Atlantic City in 1930, was going under the auction hammer for the balance of charges owed on storage fees - $151.30. In the fall of that year, the captain brought the blimp here to Toms River, and while here the engine blew up. Starting over, he rebuilt the vehicle and started to exhibit it south to Florida in cities along the way, but snagged the gas bag against a tree in Murfreesboro, North Carolina, after which it was brought north and sat in storage ever since. The air captain founded a company to manufacture the "baby blimps" that he said could be kept in the backyard and utilized by families... the Capt. Joshua Huddy chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution announced plans to plant more Japanese cherry trees in Huddy Park on Arbor Day, April 14th, in line with the one planted there the previous year on that day. The group also scheduled a benefit show at the Traco Theatre with benefits going to the Ocean County relief program to aid those in need during the economic depression... a flat tire on a Nash sedan traveling along the Lakewood Road in the White Oak section of the township caused the vehicle to overturn in front of the Plaza Ser-
vice Station at around 9 am on Monday, March 6th. The five women passengers were from Mount Holly and were quickly pulled out of the car, with one taken to Paul Kimball Hospital in Lakewood for treatment of a head contusion... Toms River Volunteer Fire Co. No. 2 announced its annual St. Patrick's Day dance at Pinewald Villa in Berkeley Township... Commodore Crabbe was elected to a third term as director of the Cranmoor Manor Country Club, which today is the Toms River Country Club... Kenneth Applegate suffered a severe cut between two toes when an axe slipped as he was cutting wood...
Business The Great Depression
Following calls from the county level, town leaders and business owners here took up the campaign of “Renovise Ocean County” to solicit property owners with spare funds to hire local contractors for repair and otherwise improvement
Harvey McKelvey began construction on a brooder house (a heated enclosure in which to raise young livestock) for Jack Bull in Pleasant Plains... after being in operation through much of the 1920s and early 1930s, here, the Steiner & Sons Pajama Factory, famous for its “We Put the World to Sleep” company tagline, on Robbins Street, announced it would be closing its doors for good. The company took a financial hit with the stock market crash and subsequent economic depression before consolidating with the Liberty Corporation of Baltimore, Maryland, their former main rival, which began moving operations more to that southern state... in light of the mandatory banking holiday, the Traco Theatre on Washington Street announced it would accept checks in payment of tickets, with Manager Isidore M. Hirshblond stating he felt they would pay off without issue when the banks reopened, and that regular customers would be able to merely sign IOU's...
the plumbing... a rumor that circulated around the Toms River in early March that the Royal Pines Hotel in Pinewald, Berkeley Township, had closed was proved erroneous and several local business associations continued to hold their meetings there... it was announced that on Monday night, March 13th, the Toms River Kiwanis were to hear a talk by Yoskiyasu Kumazaha, executive secretary of the Japanese Chamber of Commerce in New York City and also general secretary of the Japanese Students Christian Association. The subject of the talk was to be the new Japanese state of Manchukuo... township resident David C. Brewer proved that scrips were nothing new to the area, despite the mandatory bank holiday imposed by President Roosevelt, and exhibited a scrip from 1837 between the Monmouth Purchase Company and F.W. Moore, of Manchester.
Sport
Manahawkin native and local sports sensation Roger “Doc” Cramer left to join the Philadelphia Athelti c s fo r s p r i n g t r a i n i n g in Fort Myers, Florida...
School
work as a means to boost the local economy in the face of the Great Depression. A committee was formed to match lists of contractors and their requested reasonable wages with property owners, and volunteers began canvassing door-to-door to solicit on behalf of the local available workmen. Robert E. Eagle and G. Rix Yard, of the Toms River Kiwanis, were selected to the committee's chairman and vice-chairman positions while Miss Clare Duval was elected secretary and Mrs. Ethel Broderman, of the Business and Professional Women's League, treasurer. Members of the George P. Vanderveer post of the American Legion were also represented... the Traco Theatre, which had in late February offered a children's matinee to benefit local needy families, donated over four barrels of food to South Toms River collected at the show.
Business Briefs of 1933
Earl S. Brownell applied for permission to build a gas service station on the west side of Main Street, on the third property south of Lein Street between the Kirkwyn and Phillip S. Bailey properties. It was held for consideration by the township committee... Pleasant Plains resident Richard Hopkinson received another lot of baby chicks from the Block Hatchery in Lakewood in late February... Gilford Park resident Walter Spindler, Jr. completed the foundation on his new home and was ready to start construction of the main areas...
the “Renovise Ocean County” movement in Toms River was temporarily postponed due to the banking holiday as nobody would know whether they would be able to withdraw money following the holiday to fund work around their properties... the New Jersey Courier columnist noted that the daily Lakewood Times & Journal newspaper had begun "edging into this territory" and that Tuckerton Beacon Editor George Willits Parker was a personal friend of famed and feared New York City columnist Walter Winchell, and they corresponded regularly... the Central House, a hostelry on Water Street, was to reopen on April 1st under management of its owner, Frank W. Sutton, Sr., after years of operation under Louis Shaw, who retired... the Ocean Electric Refrigerating Company set plans to move from Water Street into the Hensler Building store in a space vacated by Cooper's Florist... while repairs were being made on one of the Hecht Bros. egg trucks, in Pleasant Plains, a short circuit or backfire caused gasoline to ignite and the Pleasant Plains Volunteer Fire Company was called, but the fire, which was confined to the motor and one tire, was put out by Mike Hecht using a fire extinguisher before they arrived... Harry Clayton began building a bungalow on a lot on Clayton Avenue in Pleasant Plains purchased from Lester McKelvey. Alvin Clayton of the Cranmoor Manor section of the township installed
Donald MacQueen, editorin-chief of Toms River High School's Cedar Chest news digest, reported the second of three editions of the publication would arrive April 1st. In previous years, the digest was published five times each year, at Halloween, Christmas, winter, spring and at commencement, but that was not possible this year and only three were to be issued... the annual operetta was to be given on March 10th and 11th at the high school, and that year was the Belle of Baghdad, with “oriental and occidental ideas, folks, civilizations and costumes... pretty thoroughly mixed up in a delightful confusion”... Coach John Dalton planned an athletic demonstration at the high school gym at the end of March, including participation from all boys' gym classes and featuring a basketball game between the juniors and seniors plus clown acts, tumbling and a dumbbell exhibition.
Major Gen. Smedley Butler. Courtesy U.S, Marine Corps.
Admiral Farragut Planned
A group of Philadelphia men met with various business leaders and officials both in Dover Township and Pine Beach to discuss their plans to open a preparatory school with naval training on the site of the former Pine Beach Inn in that borough to be called Admiral Farragut Academy. Read the full story in Pine Beach 1933.on Monday, March 6th, retired USMC Major General Smedley D. Butler was the chief speaker at the meeting of the Toms River Kiwanis along with the group of people to further promote the proposed Admiral Farragut Academy in Pine Beach... Toms River High School announced it would accept IOUs as payment for the operetta.
Arts
It was noted that every Thursday afternoon when vaudeville performed onstage at the Traco Theatre, it was Charlie Werner's job as stage boss to arrange the acts in the order they appeared, with the general understanding that the act "next to closing" was the star.
Crime
Monday, February 27th was the first day the short-wave radio in the state police station at Toms River was placed in regular commission, and its first use was to communicate between the station and Sgt. John Crawford, who was in the field aiding with the search of four-year-old Joel Ridgway III (for related story, see Naval Air Station Lakehurst 1933) in Bamber Lake.
Government
Secretary of State Thomas A. Mathis left to join a party of New Jersey officials, including Governor Moore, who would be present at the inauguration of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt in Washington, D.C. on Saturday, March 4th... Section Fire Warden Erwin J. Clement, based out of Ridgway, Lakehurst and covering the boroughs of Beachwood, L akehurst, Pine Beach, Ocean Gate, South Toms River, Berkeley, southern Dover Township and northeast Manchester Township, asked the township committee for the use of out of work men to create fire lines, or breaks, in the wooded sections of the township if relief funds were approved by the state... Franklin H. Berry, a local young lawyer and first lieutenant in the infantry reserve, reported that any local young men between the ages of 17 and 24 interested in enrolling in the Citizens' Military Training Camps for the summer would be provided food, lodging, uniform, equipment and railroad fare to and from Toms River to attend... the township began cutting fire lines in the Cedar Grove section of town, with Wesley Clayton, district warden, overseeing the work performed by men from the relief list... the Toms River Public Library reported continuing increases in patronage as a direct result of the Great Depression, writing that it, “like all other libraries that supply books free, finds that its services are all the while extending. With lots of time on their hands, men and women out of jobs find that cheap amusements and pasttimes are necessary. Unable to spend money on these pleasures, they use the library more and more...” the road from Hooper Avenue to Silver Bay, then known as the Dan Polhemus Road, in Silverton, was to be oiled sometime in March to keep the dust down in the coming warm seasons... Ocean County Relief Director Mrs. Alice Fielder reported that since the turn of the new year approximately 20 woolen boys' suits and seven separate shirts and pants were made and distributed to needy children of the unemployed. The clothes were made from discarded garments donated to county relief, and sewing done in the county building at the corner of Washington Street and Hooper Avenue by local women also receiving aid from the county plus Toms River High School girls from the home economics department. Mrs. Fielder also reported a shortage of material for boys shirts.
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