Minster eBay Memorabilia- Dave's Midwestern Ohio Memories

Series of Guest Blogs by an out-of-state Fish Report reader originally from this area about fond memories of growing up in Midwestern Ohio during the 50’s & 60’s

Minster eBay Memorabilia

After last week’s blog about Ft. Loramie eBay offerings, it’s now Minster’s turn. No surprise, there were tons of Wooden Shoe offerings on the auction website, from old bottles, signs as shown above, photos and bottle openers. Some of the more interesting follow and for the entire list, click here.

Bottle  $11.99

Cancelled checks $28.54  

Wooden Shoes $25

Wooden Shoe Keychain $44.54

Soda bottle by SBC Co of Minster with wooden shoe embossed
underneath offered at $7.00. This was the product the brewery
made during Prohibition in the 1920’s.

Wooden Shoe beer openers  $19.00

$25.00

Wooden Shoe had closed in 1954, so my only memories about the beer were stories Mom & Dad would tell as we’d drive by the old brewery on our way to our cousin’s home in Minster. At that time, the building was used as a canning factory for processing tomatoes grown on surrounding farms. Speaking of stories, the Shelby County Historical Society has this wonderful article about the Old Wooden Shoe Brewery. And don’t forget about the Wooden Shoe Inn, still in business serving wonderful chicken dinners. Click here for a previous blogpost about Wooden Shoe.

There were also lots of offerings associated with Minster Machine, such as this ash tray and many expensive Minster punch presses.

$3.50

$46,500

This 1958 photo of downtown Minster brought back many memories, some of which were captured in this previous blogpost about Minster businesses.

1958 FOURTH ST PHOTO $1.99

But I don’t recall Pete’s Place, a grocery owned by Peter Schwenzor.

Pete's Place 5 cent token: $39.99

FleetWing match book cover offered for $4.98. The gas station was operated by Schafer Oil Company, owned by the father of one of my high school classmates.

This small screwdriver offered for $14.99 was a Christmas present to customers of Hoying and Westerheide hardware store. One of the owners was my grandpa’s brother. To this day, I enjoy hardware stores to this day thanks in large part to my great uncle allowing me to tinker with the goods on display in the store.

A similar screwdriver in much better condition from Streakers implement dealer was being offered at $12.52. I had an uncle that worked at Streakers for many years, and because of that connection, Dad always bought his Oliver tractors and other implements from his brother.

ST. AUGUSTINE’S CHURCH POSTCARD $10.58

There were a number of Minster High School Fanfare yearbooks also being offered from $16-$20, and I was intrigued by the themes of the various editions. For example:

1993 - Out of Control

1994 - What’s Your Point

1998 All Mixed Up

2001 Pushing The Limits

2004 Yearbook - Mix It Up

Minster’s school administrators must exerted much less editorial control on their Yearbook staff than when I was in high school!

It’s amazing what one can find on eBay and the Internet. I’ll keep searching, reviving and sharing those old memories.

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Loramie eBay Memorabilia - Dave's Midwestern Ohio Memories

Series of Guest Blogs by an out-of-state Fish Report reader originally from this area about fond memories of growing up in Midwestern Ohio during the 50’s & 60’s

Local eBay Memorabilia

Routinely I search eBay for items of historic interest related to local communities. This week there were some interesting offerings related to Ft. Loramie that brought back some memories. First was this vintage postcard showing Shorts Landing on Lake Loramie with a starting bid at $8.99.

The postcard brought to mind this Fish Report article by Harry Boerger that included vintage black and white photos of Shorts Landing on the south side of Lake Loramie. I distinctly remember the Merry-Go-Around with an ad for Busses Meat Market. Shorts Landing was established by Jeremiah Chambers in about 1920 and then later run by his son-in-law George Short. When I was a kid, the place was called Slippery Sal’s and owned by Sally Wagner and her husband Joe. Now it’s a condo development located on appropriately named Short Dr. My niece Leslie at one time owned one of the units.

There were several eBay offerings of matchbook covers from Loramie area restaurants, including Filburn’s Island adjacent to Shorts Landing on Lake Loramie for $4.18. My niece and her husband recently built a beautiful home on the lake near the spot where the restaurant was located. Another offering was a somewhat risqué vintage matchbook cover from Brucken’s Cafe being auctioned for $3.99. Ironically the matches for both covers are gone.

Brucken’s was a popular bar and restaurant as a kid. The place would be packed after basketball games each Friday night. They served the best tenderloin sandwich and onion rings. No doubt they still do.

I was surprised to find three handmade knives created by my brother-in-law John Francis for $79-$95.

Here’s an offering for a book about the interurban railway that ran between towns in western Ohio, including Ft. Loramie as indicated in this excerpt.

And here’s an article originally published in 1911 by the New Bremen Sun commemorating the railway’s opening. Since the railway didn’t last too long, calling this event the most important in Ft. Loramie’s history may be considered “fake news” in today’s vernacular!

Next week’s blog will focus on eBay offerings related to other area communities.

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Joltin' Joe - Dave's Midwestern Ohio Memories

Series of Guest Blogs by an out-of-state Fish Report reader originally from this area about fond memories of growing up in Midwestern Ohio during the 50’s & 60’s

Joltin' Joe

On this day back in 1941, Joltin’ Joe DiMaggio went 3 for 4, hitting in his 56th straight game to set a MLB record that has never or likely ever will be surpassed. This achievement occurred while I was still a figment of my parents' imagination. In fact, they hadn’t even met back in 1941. Dad was farming his family's farm west of Ft. Loramie because his dad died a decade before at age 52 leaving his mother with 14 children to raise. Dad, being one of the older family members, took on the farming duties. Meanwhile Mom was living at her parent’s home in St. Patrick’s working at the box factory in Minster. No doubt Dad was aware of the record because he loved baseball; however, Mom could have cared less. She wasn’t into sports, except for badminton as documented in this previous blogpost.

During the streak, DiMaggio hit .408 (91 for 223) with 15 home runs and 55 RBI’s. When the streak began on May 15, the Yankees were 14-14, 5 1/2 games behind Cleveland in fourth place. After Game No. 56 of the streak, the Yanks were 55-27 and in first place with a 6-game lead over Cleveland. They went on to win the World Series in 5 games against the Dodgers. DiMaggio was voted the American League MVP that season over Boston's Ted Williams who hit .406 -- the last time a major-leaguer hit over .400. Had DiMaggio been able to extend the streak for one more game he would have earned $10,000 promised to him by the Heinz Corporation to endorse their Heinz 57 products. Incidentally, Joltin’ Joe also had a 61 game streak in 1933 while in the minor leagues. There was even a song about the 56 game streak by singer Ben Homer, an ironic name. Sllde to the 4:13 point of this interesting tribute to baseball music for a listen to Joltin’ Joe.

My recollection was that DiMaggio's 56 game hit streak happened during WWII when the best players had all enlisted, but since the feat occurred in the summer of 1941, months before Pearl Harbor, MLB teams were still at full strength. This fact even makes the feat more amazing. Pete Rose, the best hitter I’ve ever seen, made it to 44 straight during the 1978 season. More recently, Whit Merrifield (who?) of the Kansas City Royals hit safely in 31 games earlier this year. You can buy Merrifield’s baseball card for $2.54 on eBay versus as high as $405 for DiMaggio and $39 for Pete Rose!

Why there aren’t more modern day batters going after hitting streaks, I don’t know. Likely it’s really difficult to be that consistent for that long. Or maybe with the scuttlebutt about juiced balls and launch angles, today's hitters are going for home runs instead of simply base hits, resulting in more strike outs and fly balls. Who knows?

Back to DiMaggio, he retired in 1951, so my only real memories of Joltin’ Joe were not baseball-related at all, rather about his love life! He had married movie star Marylyn Monroe in 1954.

Here are DiMaggio's career MLB stats; note the 3 year gap during the war, where he mainly played baseball for service teams and never did see combat even though he had requested it.

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200th Post - Dave's Midwestern Ohio Memories

Series of Guest Blogs by an out-of-state Fish Report reader originally from this area about fond memories of growing up in Midwestern Ohio during the 50’s & 60’s

200th Post

Four years ago this month, my first blog was posted on Fish Report. You can see all two hundred at this link and can search for any particular blog by scrolling to the end and entering a key word or two. The blogs have been viewed over 86,000 times and the most read blogposts follow:

1. Okinawa Hero Vernon Hoying 3/17/17

2. Summertime in Osgood 8/14/18

3. Russia Businesses 7/26/16

4. Minster Businesses 8/2/16

5. Slo-Pitch Softball 6/14/16

6. North Star Native on Megyn Kelly Today Show 1/9/18

7. Points in the Paint 12/15/15

8. Summer Days 7/28/15 (First blogpost)

9. Cousin Jared Hoying 6/7/16

10. Fishing Trip 9/26/17

Even though it didn’t make the Top Ten, click here for my favorite of the 200 blogposts.

Look for more blogs each Tuesday on Fish Report in the future as over 100 possible blog topics are waiting in the wings for the right moment to be published.

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