Sound Recordings - "Elvis was going to destroy morality!"

The conversation about sound recordings was arguably the one that got the most derailed, albeit for good reason. Around 1959 or the early 60's - they didn't quite agree on the year - they purchased a combined record player and television set, a somewhat upscale technological purchase for the time. They got it mostly to watch television, but it sounds like they also got good use out of the Curtis Mathes record player. It came with free records that they still have today, with artists such as Perry Como, Dean Martin, and Frank Sinatra. They were all 33 1/3 records, a fact that I had to think hard back to class lecture to remember the meaning of. They kept it in the living room.
Like so:


Although they seemed to enjoy the free records, they have always leaned towards the country side of things, especially Vernon, and they soon accumulated such names as Buck Owens, Porter Wagoner, and Ed Ames (I haven't heard of a single one of these, I Googled the names but still type them hesitantly).








This was all several years into their marriage, of course. Before then, they listened to jukeboxes, especially in high school. They didn't carry money, so they simply listened to whatever people put on (at the service station, obviously). "Was Elvis big at that time?" I asked. "Oh yeah. He was okay. Not my favorite," said Joanne. "He was going to destroy morality!" said Vernon, cracking up. I asked if this was something their parents thought, but they remember it being more of something only a few really thought, but those few were very vocal.
(Admittedly, some of his moves were probably pretty shocking at the time:)

Although for Joanne, there is some truth to this, since her mother was a pastor and growing up she really only ever heard religious music. She remembers one time playing a "not nice" secular song on the piano that her mother disapproved of. "I can't remember what it was, but it was the song I played best!" she said, laughing.
That just about concludes their early experiences with sound recordings. Today, they sometimes use the internet to listen to use music, via Pandora radio. For the most part, sound recordings have been present in their lives, maybe more than they realized, but like the other forms of mass communication I talked to them about, it has never been as important to them as faith, family, and each other. It has certainly helped them enjoy the 61 years they have been married however, and I was glad for a reason to sit down with this wonderful couple.

Print - "strictly country people"

I have to admit, I'd never heard of the Kirksville Daily Express before this interview, although I guessed that Kirksville had a paper. Growing up, both Joanne and Vernon received the Express at their family's homes through the mail, the day after it was printed. Additionally, Vernon's family received the Greentop paper once per week. As children (and adults, it seems), neither had much interest in reading the paper. "Even the funnies?" I asked. Chuckling, they admitted they never even checked to see if the paper had a funnies section. As far as magazines, Joanne was pretty sure they received one called "Moody Monthly," a publication of Moody Bible Institute - Joanne's mother was a preacher. I asked if there were magazines in public waiting areas, like the doctor's office, but they both instantly shook their heads. Apparently, back then, no one expected to be entertained while they waited.
While they may not have inspected newspapers for comics, they both definitely read comic books - although they can't really remember which ones. However, later on in the interview, Vernon's eyes lit up and with no warning he exclaimed, "Alley Oop!" I was understandably confused. He was remembering, as it turns out, one of the comics he liked to read.
 

They bought their comic books, of course, from the service station, where apparently everything you could ever need in Kirksville, Missouri was located. Additionally, Vernon had a comic version of the Bible, sometimes also called an Action Bible. I almost didn't ask if there were any comics, magazines, or books that were controversial or that they weren't allowed to read, because I was relatively sure I already knew the answer. "No," Joanne said, "we were strictly country people."
Books was a topic they had a little more to say about. I was interested to know the situation of Bibles in their homes, because I was under the impression that most families back then owned one, usually large, Bible. Joanne and Vernon and their siblings, however, each had their own. All their Bibles were King James Version, a rarity today (they now read New International Version). In Joanne's home, the Bible was read every day at the dinner table; a practice that would also be quite rare today, even in rural Missouri. Because they did not have electricity until 1943, reading at night was done by light of an "Aladdin" brand kerosene lamp, which Joanne and her siblings would gather around.
          (Like this)                                                    (Not like this)
                                                                        
         
Her favorite books, which she owned, included Black Beauty, Little Women, and Anne of Green Gables. His favorite books, on the other hand, were Westerns, with titles such as Silver Chief, that he bought for 25 cents each at (where else?) the service station. He also recalled a book called Shepherd of the Hills, a collection of mountain folklore.


At the time, there was no public library, books were usually bought. They often received books as gifts for their birthday or Christmas, some of them purchased at the trading center in Greentop. Their high school had a small library that held novels as well as educational materials, and Vernon thinks that in his time there he probably read every single book. (I was surprised at this, I would have figured Joanne for the bookworm).
How much have newspapers and magazines changed over the years? A lot. Joanne brought out an enormous edition of Life magazine from 1952 that was nearly twice the size of a modern magazine. In the corner is marked "20 cents." Flipping through it, I noticed a few things: first, and Joanne commented on this also, that the ads were significantly more innocent than what you'd see today. A picture of a woman in modest undergarments was about as scandalous as it got. However, from looking at the ads in the magazine, I think the notion that extreme thinness in models is at all a recent thing is false.Even without Photoshop, many of the women in those ads were just as thin as models today. Second, to put it frankly, there were no black people. Or Asian, Hispanic, so on, in the entire large volume. Apparently in the thick of civil rights, the controversy was not discussed in popular reading, but ignored.
Today, Joanne and Vernon still enjoy the occasional book. They do not use other means of reading beside good old fashioned ink and paper - after all, they are strictly country people.

Some snapshots from the Life magazine:

 





 

Movies - "Well, we went with each other, you know."

As you may remember, Joanne and Vernon grew up in the Kirksville area. They began dating in high school, which means that they spent a lot of time at the local movie theaters. At the time, there were several, as opposed to the mere one in town now. There was the Princess Theater, the Kennedy, and a rundown family theater of unknown name. According to the couple, the Kennedy was objectively the best of the three - unfortunately, it's since been torn down. Vernon distinctly remembers one of the first films he saw at the family theater giving him nightmares for days after. Some movies were in color, many were not.
Most of the time if they were watching movies, it was with each other. They went about every week on Saturday nights, and if it was nice out, they often went to the outdoor theater in Greentop. I asked if they had any favorite films, when they were young or high school age, although it is difficult to have a favorite movie when one does not have a VHS or DVD player and the theater is the only way to watch films. Joanne remembers the movie Lassie well, but she does not consider it a favorite, similarly, she remembers a movie about a little girl falling in a well, but only because immediately after the movie her favorite horse died. Vernon recalls a movie called Iowa State Fair that he thinks he found enjoyable, and Scudda Hoo! Scudda Hay! (it took a considerable amount of Googling to figure out how to spell that one) was a definite favorite and it's pretty easy to see why; it's about two brothers growing up on a farm, much like he himself did. Additionally, one of the characters had a wise old grandfather that reminded Vernon of his own dear Grandpa. In general, Vernon feels movies used to be more relatable and practical than they are now.
A Clip from Scudda Hoo! Scudda Hay! (also the first movie in which Marilyn Monroe had a speaking role):

It's strange to me to think that back then, films weren't rated nor did they seem to need to be. It never occurred to either of their parents to worry about what they were watching - it was a given that films were "family friendly." How far we've come.
Joanne and Vernon progressed to watching movies at home relatively early on in their marriage, although after he had been discharged from the army. Their first experience with film in the home was a Browning 8mm camera that they used to make home movies, some of which they still own. Years later, when they became popular, the couple owned a VHS player, and later a DVD player, which they still own today and use for the occasional movie night.



The Kennedy Theater, located at Elson and McPhearson in Kirksville, was constructed in 1926 and closed in 1985.





The former Princess Theater in Kirksville, MO

Radio - "If it's broke, ya fix it."

The conversation about television often drifted towards radio, and vice versa. For Joanne and Vernon, these two things were often tied together and the transition to television from radio was not abrupt. Joanne's brother was the first in her family to buy a radio, he bought it to listen to ball games. Joanne never listened to it, but she recalls her brother forgoing chores to listen to the game. The radio was battery powered, and to recharge the battery it had to be taken to the service station, a place something like this:



 Throughout the interview, I began to catch on that the service station was where just about everything happened in small Midwest towns, but more on that later.
Joanne and Vernon's parents soon had great need of the radio - they used it for news on the war.  Vernon remembers very clearly his parents listening for updates on the draft because his dad was just under 45, the cutoff age. Eventually, he received a letter clearing him from duty. Joanne's father received a similar letter letting him know he would probably have to go to war, but he never had to go.
I was interested to know if they remembered anything about the early car radios, specifically those of the exploding variety. Unfortunately, they did not remember these instances. Vernon did remember his dad buying a new car in 1948 that did not have a radio. His dad bought a radio for the car, however, for $300 - the car was $1300.
Later in Joanne's childhood, she remembers listening to programs on the family radio. They both started listing the shows they liked, which included Fibber McGee and Molly and Inner Sanctum (at this part they mentioned "the door squeaking" and started laughing - I'm not sure why), although Inner Sanctum was on at 9pm on Wednesdays and they usually couldn't stay up that late.
 
 For both of them, their radio was located on the kitchen table in the dining room. The commercials they remember are for Clapper Girl baking powder and for Norton salt, which makes me wonder if advertisements of the time were aimed at housewives, since they were generally the ones who spent the most time at home and did the shopping.
When I asked if they ever dealt with the radio breaking, Vernon adamantly insisted that they did, but that they did not just buy a new one. "The problem," he said, "is with people today just buying a new one every time something breaks. When I was young, we fixed it."
Joanne and Vernon got their own combination radio, record player, and television set in 1959, several years after getting married, which factored in greatly to their experiences with sound recordings.

Television - "You've never heard of Lawrence Welk?!"

Joanne and Vernon both grew up on farms, not far from Kirksville. They readily shared with me what life was like as a child - it involved a lot of work, from gardening and tending the animals to canning produce and cooking. There was also a fair amount of play; Joanne's favorite thing to do with her siblings was to create race tracks for their toy cars in the creek bed. Life did not, however, involve very much television. It was expensive for the time, and in fact, neither of their parents' households owned televisions until shortly before they were married, and they did not have one as a married couple until several years later. They both recalled that their parents hardly watched their televisions, although Joanne does remember her father rocking her son's bassinet while watching a show. At first, their television only had one channel, through antenna, and they think that was probably KTMO, which they used to watch Amateur Hour (I had to Google this - it was a talent show type program that brought fame to such stars as Frank Sinatra and Ann Margret). "Lawrence Welk came along there somewhere," Joanne said, and they both laughed. It soon became woefully apparent that I did not know who Lawrence Welk was, and they were reasonably shocked. Vernon explained Welk's career as a big band director to me and recreated his famous "a-one and a-two and a..." and they laughed some more. Of course, I later researched The Lawrence Welk Show and found a recording of the network premier:

 

among other clips and episodes. I found the show to be pleasant and entertaining enough, but it was truly a different time and I don't think this kind of show would find an audience these days, especially with the younger crowd.
We also talked about their experiences with television as parents. They felt that many kids these days spend too much time vegged out in front of the TV and not enough time outside getting dirty. While their kids had television growing up, they never felt that had to even talk about restricting access. Their children watched cartoons on Saturday mornings and occasionally after school, but that was all. Their favorite cartoons were Mickey Mouse, Looney Tunes, especially Roadrunner and Wiley Coyote, and Tom and Jerry. While I grew up with these shows and others, I know that my brother (who is seven) and his friends are not. In fact, many may view these cartoons as unsuitable for children due to their violence and lack of a moral or educational theme.
 
While we were on the subject of offensive material, I asked if they remembered the quiz show scandals. They barely remember them, which they think is probably due to growing up on farms, where they were somewhat isolated from modern society. They agreed the deception would have been very shocking to America, but, like television in general, it did not affect their lives very much.
Now, Joanne and Vernon have a TV set in their home, but they still rarely use it. They enjoy news shows and the occasional entertaining program, but it is certainly not a centerpiece in their living room or in their lives.

Joanne and Vernon - Mass media experiences

Hey all,
this blog will serve to relay what I learn through interviewing Joanne and Vernon, a couple with whom I attend Rehoboth Baptist Church here in Kirksville. The project involves talking to someone (or multiple someones) born before 1940 - Joanne was born in 1935, as was Vernon, I believe. Our first meeting is this Saturday and I will ask them about their experiences with sound recording (probably vinyl records), radio, and possibly television if time allows. My maternal grandparents were born in 1929, but due to their hearing problems I felt long phone interviews could be unpleasant or impractical for them. However, since they spent the first 20 or so years of their marriage as missionaries in India, I would still like to get a brief idea of mass media in their life during that time, for comparison to Joanne and Vernon's life in the states.
Another post to come this weekend,
Elena