The Yellowed Pages: News from 50 and 25 years ago in The Guide
by Jacqueline Watts
editor@baltimoreguide.com
May 1, 1958
Charlie Irish Chevrolet, across from Eastpoint Shopping Center, was hosting the Chevrolet Featurama at the Eastpoint Auto Show and Easy Living Show. The exhibit featured several “see-through” models, including one with a fuel-injection engine.
New Essex Theater scheduled “And God Created Woman,” starring that “undulating French lovely Brigitte Bardot.” The movie was in its 28th week in New York City, and in its 30th in Washington, D.C. The movie was in French with English subtitles, but the blurb noted that the script was not all that important to any male’s enjoyment of the movie.
The Czechoslovak-American Civic Association formed a committee to confer with the captains of the Park Police and the Northeastern District after an alleged rape of three girls, two aged 11 and one aged 9, near Bocek Park. Other girls and women had told police they were threatened or molested on their way to and from St. Wenceslaus Church or school.
The Highlandtown Homemakers announced that they would have a display in the window of Weiland’s department store during National Homemakers Demonstration Week May 4-10. The Highlandtown Homemakers met monthly at Pratt and Clinton streets.
Canton Methodist Church women paid host to women’s clubs from six other Eastside Methodist churches at a meeting. The special guest was to be “Miss Frances Seidlick—a ‘Policewoman’ who will bring a very interesting message.”
Charles E. Winkler Jr., 20, of the 200 block N. Port St. was one of 137 paratroopers injured in a drop—the report did not say where. The drop was his 17th, however, and he had served 18 months of his three-year hitch when the accident occurred. Winkler was a Patterson Park High School alum.
“Baltimore Pompei S.C. is the talk of the town, whether the conversation takes place in a beauty parlor or a beer pub!” trumpeted the lead article on the front page of the Guide. “The high-flying Highlandtown boot aggregation moved into the limelight via its brilliant play in its first year in the professional American Soccer League.”
Pompei S.C. gained the finals even though it lost in the semifinals to Einstracht, 6-5, in a match on Long Island. National Challenge Cup rules called for computing scores on total goals, and since Pompei had beaten Einstracht, 4-2, the previous week, the Highlandtowners ended up winning the series, 10-7.
John Ruhrah Elementary School #228 held a school fair sponsored by the PTA. Among the attractions was an International Festival featuring cookies and cakes from Romania and Greece; flowers from England and Holland; a fancy table from Italy; grabs and novelties, International and hot dogs, sandwiches, sodas, ice cream, cotton candy, homemade candy and apples on a stick from the good old USA.
St. Paul’s Methodist Church broke ground for a new fellowship and education hall with a procession, choir concert and remarks by the Rev. Dr. E. Cranston Riggin, Superintendent of the Baltimore-South District.
Mrs. Helen Delinski and her son Tommy sailed for Europe aboard the Queen Mary, accrding to Al Rieselman’s column. Mrs. Delinski et fils were to visit several countries, including Poland, where Mrs. Delinski was born. She came to the U.S. at the age of 13.
Misek’s Tavern in the 2000 block Bank Street was serving up a dozen hot crabs, “nice size,” for a buck and a half a dozen.
April 28, 1983
A Greektown man was killed by a slow-moving train at the Bethlehem Steel Sparrows Point plant. Walter Vida, 61, of the 400 block Macon St., was a brakeman employed by Beth Steel and apparently fell under the wheels of the train. A company spokesman could not explain how the accident happened.
More than 20,000 gallons of acid waste spilled into the Patapsco River from SCM Corp’s Glidden pigments plant in South Baltimore. The spillage occurred when a mixture of sulfuric acid and titanium dioxide, used to make white pigment, overflowed a holding tank yet failed to set off an alarm. The accident turned the water along the South Baltimore shoreline near the plant highly acid for more than eight hours; the water returned to neutral balance at about noon. It was not known at press time how bad the ecological damage was.
A woman and a teenaged boy were wounded in the 100 block Chapel St. Brenda Kerns of the 2200 block Lamley Court and Mark Wilson of the 2400 block E. Fayette Street had parked a car in Chapel Street and were walking toward Lombard St. when a dark van blocked the street. A man got out of the van and fired three times at them, then returned to the van, where two other men waited. Kerns was in serious condition at Church Home and Hospital with 11 pellets in her chest; Wilson was treated for three pellets in his right foot.
Police said they knew of no motive for the attack.
