Muncie teen fatally injured in crash
Christmas cheer sought in Hoosier cities throughout the 20th century
Keith Roysdon
Christmas cheer is a popular phrase for a reason. Among other reasons, Indiana newspapers throughout most of the 20th century were always hoping for it and looking for it, even when the evidence for cheer was thin.
"Holiday cheer pervades city," the headline read in the Lafayette Courier and Journal on a day almost anyone could legitimately claim was one of happiest holidays in years: Christmas 1945.
"Gloomy Christmas fails to dim joy of first peaceful Yuletide in five years," a secondary headline read. World War II had ended months before. Soldiers and sailors were coming home. And although the world was a very different place than before the war, with old menaces vanquished and new threats established, people felt like celebrating.
The Courier and Journal noted that the Post Office had one of its busiest holiday periods in years and that churches throughout the area held services. Christmas fell on Tuesday that year, and many businesses had been closed since Friday or, at latest, noon Saturday.
"There was an unprecedented demand for what Christmas merchandise was available, mostly at higher prices than usual," the front-page story noted.
The article also noted that more people were traveling since this was the first Christmas in years without gasoline rationing.
In Richmond, newspaper writers traditionally looked for cheer during the holidays, no matter the year. The Palladium-Item reported on Dec. 23, 1953, that two escaped convicts from Michigan, Roman Usiondek and Robert Edward Dowling, had been arrested by Richmond police officers after "a brief but furious struggle in a room at the Mack Hotel at Fourth and Main streets."
The paper noted that Usiondek was "reported to be a psychopathic killer."
Police officers had noticed a car with Michigan plates parked near the hotel. "The car was splattered with mud and, on inspection, the police discovered two open loaves of bread and a bottle of ketchup in the car."
The officers watched the car for four hours and eventually two patrolmen, a captain and a sergeant entered the hotel and determined that two men matching the descriptions of the escaped convicts had checked in to the hotel the night before. The cops arrested them in their room.
Usiondek had been convicted of the murder of two in Michigan and witnesses against him expressed relief that he had been captured. One said they featured that Usiondek would come to their homes "disguised as Santa Claus and kill us."
In Muncie on Dec. 25, 1936, The Muncie Evening Press declared, "City's holiday is happiest in seven years." "Worries of past years are forgotten."
The front-page story testified to all this happiness in the wake of recovery from the stock market crash of 1929 but kicked things off with an odd paragraph: "Muncie today celebrated the birth of the Christ Child in damp, murky weather of the kind the Ancients believed a harbinger of sickness and death. Belief in omens is disappearing, however, and it was the city's happiest Christmas Day since 1929."
In another story, the newspaper reported that the Salvation Army had collected goods sufficient for 202 baskets to be given to the needy. Money was raised through the Salvation Army kettle campaign and food was donated by the Liberty Theater and the Ball Brothers Company.
Elsewhere on the front page was a Christmas tragedy: Two people had been killed and six had been injured in pre-Christmas accidents. Those deaths brought the total killed in area car crashes to 32 for 1936.
On Christmas Eve, The Evening Press told the story of a Muncie family with five boys who had never had a basketball to play with because their family was poor. But rather than give the boys a brand new basketball, the Ball State Cardinals gave the lads a ball which "has seen long service in Ball Gymnasium."
"The boys probably will appreciate a ball used by the Cardinals more than they would a new one," the newspaper noted.