1938 was that once distant rumble which is suddenly upon us, resolving any doubt that the skies will soon open. For five years the democracies had been trying to divine Hitler’s intentions and how far he would go to achieve his objectives. With the invasions of Austria and occupation of part of Czechoslovakia in 1938 Hitler signaled his territorial ambitions were limitless and with Kristallnacht that his regime would proceed against its “enemies” without moral restraint. According to Wikipedia on November 9, 1938 during the “Night of the Shattered Glass” or “Crystal Night” over 1,400 synagogues and prayer rooms, many Jewish cemeteries, more than 7,000 Jewish shops and 29 department stores were looted, and in many cases destroyed by Nazi thugs. More than 30,000 Jewish men were beaten and arrested and taken to concentration camps; primarily Dachau, Buchenwald, and Sachsenhausen (“Saxon’s Houses”*). Even the German authorities thought the rampage had gotten slightly of hand as they had intended to confiscate all Jewish property and much of it now lay in ruins or had been stolen. Their solution was to fine the Jewish community for the damage and loss.
Kristallnacht did finally get the world’s attention as it exposed the ruthlessness and moral depravity of the Nazi regime. Condemnation was nearly universal. In the St. Croix Valley the Jews held a mass meeting the Sunday after “Crystal Night” at the Chaim Yosef Synagogue on North Street to protest the persecution of the Jews in Germany. According to the Advertiser:
“Last Sunday the Jews of St. Stephen, Calais and vicinity assembled for a special mass meeting to protest against the persecution of Jews in Germany.
President Louis Urdang presided. After a special prayer for the Jews who had been killed and for those who had taken their own lives since the beginning of the diabolical and barbaric treatment accorded them, Rabbi Kalcheim introduced the speaker of the day, Rabbi Berzon of Bangor who delivered a stirring address condemning the Germans for the unbelievable inhuman persecution and suffering that they were heaping upon the Jews and other people. He also brought out the fact that the whole world was unsafe as long as men with diseased minds such as Hitler, Goebbels and Goering were upon the earth…. “
Abraham Levy of Calais then addressed the crowd and appealed for funds to help suffering Jews emigrate to other countries and a substantial amount of money was raised. Sadly Hitler had correctly concluded that the democracies, while quite willing to express outrage, lacked the will to intervene to help the Jews—British Prime Minister Chamberlain was even then negotiating “Peace for Our Time” with the tyrant and only a month earlier had signed the Treaty of Munich with Hitler conceding Hitler’s right to occupy the Czech Sudetenland. The Nazis naturally assumed a crackdown on the Jews would be met with little more than handwringing in the United States and Europe. The moral failure of the democracies during the 1930s is often overlooked in histories of the time. The United States had 300,000 applications from Jews attempting to escape the Nazis in the months after Kristallnacht but only 27,000 refugee visas. Many German Jews died in the concentration camps because of our refusal to make an exception for these desperate people. In one particularly telling incident, 254 Jewish passengers on the German ship MS St. Louis, which was denied permission to land in both the US and Canada, were returned to Germany and died in concentration camps. From Wikipedia:
Prohibited from landing in Cuba, the St. Louis and the remaining 907 refugees headed towards the United States. Captain Schröder circled off the coast of Florida, hoping for permission to enter the United States. Cordell Hull, Secretary of State, advised Roosevelt not to accept the Jews, however. Captain Schröder considered running aground along the coast to allow the refugees to escape, but, acting on Cordell Hull’s instructions, US Coast Guard vessels shadowed the ship and prevented such a move.
After St. Louis was turned away from the United States a group of academics and clergy in Canada tried to persuade Canada’s Prime Minister, William Lyon Mackenzie King, to provide sanctuary to the ship’s passengers, as it was only two days from Halifax, Nova Scotia. But Canadian immigration official Frederick Blair, hostile to Jewish immigration, persuaded the prime minister on June 9 not to intervene. In 2000, Blair’s nephew apologized to the Jewish people for his uncle’s action.
In other world news of 1938 Joe Kennedy was appointed ambassador to Great Britain; the Church of England accepted the theory of evolution; and Japan declared war on China, an event which was to have a very direct impact on the United States and the looming war in the Pacific.
In the United States aviation was in the news—Howard Hughes flew around the world in 91 hours, a remarkable feat at the time; and on the morning of July 17, 1938 a then-unknown US aviator, Douglas “Wrong Way” Corrigan, took off from an airfield in Brooklyn New York for a cross country flight to California. Corrigan disappeared into a cloud bank and 28 hours later landed in Dublin Ireland. When he landed he exclaimed to Irish authorities, “I’m Douglas Corrigan. Just got in from New York. Where am I? I intended to fly to California.” He then suggested with a more or less straight face that he must have taken a wrong turn. While he may well have been a better pilot than navigator, the US authorities were not buying the story. Corrigan had tried to get permission to fly the Atlantic but was denied because his plane was an old, unsound cobbled together affair later dubbed an “airborne crate and flying jalopy.” Parts of the plane were held together by baling wire. The US authorities, responding to a request from Irish authorities for information on Corrigan, had to use 600 words in the telegram to list all the regulations Corrigan had violated. Among other violations he had not checked the weather over the Atlantic before takeoff and he had not a single map of Atlantic on board the plane. They immediately suspended his license. However when he and his plane arrived back in the US on the ocean liner Manhattan Corrigan received a hero’s welcome and a ticker tape parade on Broadway which drew a bigger crowd than Lindbergh’s 1927 parade. His license was immediately reinstated and “Wrong Way” became an American folk hero.
Teflon was invented in 1938; Superman first appeared in the comics; and the minimum wage was a quarter. Thornton Wilder, who has a local connection, was awarded the Pulitzer for Our Town, and the Nobel Prize for literature was awarded to Pearl Buck for The Good Earth. The ocean liner Queen Elizabeth was launched.
In Calais the battle over prohibition raged on. The Volstead Act had been repealed in 1933 but a “local option” allowed communities to prohibit sale of beer and/or liquor. Over the years prohibitionists continued to get the question on the ballot in Calais but generally failed to convince the voters to ban booze. September 12, 1938 was the day of another vote on a referendum to prohibit the sale of alcoholic beverages in Calais. On August 31, 1938 the “United Temperance League of Calais, Charles Bernardini, Secretary, placed a lengthy ad in the Advertiser asking the citizens of Calais to vote for booze and against prohibition. Charles was, we believe, the brother of Louis Bernardini who ran a bar in the building now occupied by Crumbs. We can’t say why this organization called itself a “temperance league” as they were, it seems, opposed to temperance but the ad made the point that Calais folks would be more temperate drinking in Calais’ well run, orderly bars and restaurants than the sleazy speakeasies that existed under Prohibition. The Calais voter was convinced and the bars stayed open. In 1944 the prohibitionists tried one last time and were so soundly defeated they finally gave up.
The Luxor was one of the restaurants applying for a liquor license in 1938. The Luxor was located below Louis Bernardini’s bar and up the street from the State Theatre on Main Street. In 1938 it was run by James Rigley who is a bit of a mystery to us. A James Rigley graduated from Calais High School in 1936 and a James Rigley served in World War Two but it seems unlikely a 20-year-old would have applied for a liquor license in 1938. The 1935 directory has the Rigley family living at 15 Downes Street although the Rigleys most of us remember lived at the corner of Academy and Church Streets. Any information on James Rigley would be appreciated.
In 1938 the Depression was far from over. In fact many of the Depression assistance programs had been scaled back too soon and the economy was again faltering. The Works Progress Administration (WPA) employed millions of Americans on infrastructure programs during the 1930s. The photo above is of men working in Charlotte on the roads. The CCC camps in Princeton housed hundreds of men who worked throughout the county on projects such as the one above.
1938 saw the opening of the St Croix Commercial College on the second floor of Clark’s Drug Store on Water Street in St. Stephen. Harriette Browne was the owner and principal of the school which operated until her retirement in 1971. She had attended Miss Crabbe’s St. Stephen’s Business College for several years between 1917 and 1921. Most residents of Calais and St. Stephen interested in a commercial education however attended the Holy Rosary Commercial School in the Convent at St. Stephen which operated from 1937 to 1973. Hundreds of young women from Calais attended these St. Stephen schools in the days when a woman’s career opportunities were limited to a few select professions such as bookkeeping, teaching and of course secretarial work for which shorthand was an essential skill.
Joseph Nicholas was the chief of the Passamaquoddy Tribe at Pleasant Point in 1938. Between 1925 and 1948 Nicholas was chief for 18 years.
On February 23rd, 1938 the Advertiser reported that the area’s three movie theaters, the Queen, State and Opera House where merging under the ownership of a partnership. The Advertiser wrote:
“Under the new arrangement the parties involved sincerely believe that they can give to the public the very best selection of talking pictures.”
More likely the viewing public would have seen second-rate movies and higher admission but it doesn’t seem this monopolistic arrangement lasted very long. The Opera House was soon closed, and the State Theatre dominated the market for the next few decades, putting even the Queen, located in St. Stephen, out of business in 1957. Only after the State burned in 1958 did the Queen reopen. For many years it was the only theatre in the area other than the drive-in in Baring.
In other local news of 1938, 10-year-old Bud Tracy saved four-year-old Harold Silverman from drowning in the brook that then ran along the lower part of South Street. According to the Advertiser, “The brook, turned into a raging torrent by melting snow and ice, was rapidly carrying young Silverman toward the culvert that carries the water beneath Main Street, when Buddy came along and discovered the small boy’s serious plight.” Bud unsuccessfully tried to grab Harold but finally “plunged into the water and managing to get hold of the lad pulled him out.”
Lou Wheeler of Milltown was cruising the river in his speedboat near Robbinston with three companions when the engine caught fire and exploded. All four had to abandon ship but fortunately Lou had life jackets on board. The Advertiser reported: “After drifting about two miles the wrecked mariners were picked up by Dr. Norman Cobb, who had gone to the rescue in his boat after witnessing the accident from his cottage and after receiving first aid treatment were able to return home. Captain Small, light house keeper, circled the blazing boat in his speed boat washing water into it and it finally sank.”
In Baring a young woman threw a note from the window of a car appealing for help and claiming she had been kidnapped and “horribly abused”. Every road in the area was blocked, and camps, overnight cabins and camp roads were searched without result. The authorities “were inclined to believe it was a hoax.”
Finally the Class of 1938 50th reunion:
1st Row…L to R: Alta Scott Lavoie, Marguerite Cook Bunten, Ruth Phelan Webber, Doris Casey Bucknam, Helen Ross Pollard, Lois Campbell, Lydia Coleman DiCenzo, Phyllis Bailey Mancini, Jean Wood Leach. 2nd Row..L to R: Frank Fenderson, William Hunt, William Fox, Harold Hamilton(Teacher), Earl Gibson,Margaret McKay Reichman, Helen Morrison Brooks, Virginia McKay Howland,Jean Rutherford Campbell, Paul Phelan, Bernard Reed, Stephen Mahar. 3rd Row..L to R: Leonard Wright, Medley Cotton, Peter Christensen, William McNamara, Joseph Lovering, Wesley Cookson, Paul Ward, Guy Farrar
1938 was that once distant rumble which is
suddenly upon us, resolving any doubt that the skies will soon open. For five
years the democracies had been trying to divine Hitler’s intentions and how far
he would go to achieve his objectives. With the invasions of Austria and
occupation of part of Czechoslovakia in 1938 Hitler signaled his territorial
ambitions were limitless and with Kristallnacht that his regime would proceed
against its “enemies” without moral restraint. According to Wikipedia on
November 9, 1938 during the “Night of the Shattered Glass” or “Crystal Night”
over 1,400 synagogues and prayer rooms, many Jewish cemeteries, more than 7,000
Jewish shops and 29 department stores were looted, and in many cases destroyed
by Nazi thugs. More than 30,000 Jewish men were beaten and arrested and taken
to concentration camps; primarily Dachau, Buchenwald, and Sachsenhausen (“Saxon’s
Houses”*). Even the German authorities thought the rampage had gotten slightly
of hand as they had intended to confiscate all Jewish property and much of it
now lay in ruins or had been stolen. Their solution was to fine the Jewish
community for the damage and loss.
Kristallnacht did finally get the world’s
attention as it exposed the ruthlessness and moral depravity of the Nazi
regime. Condemnation was nearly universal. In the St. Croix Valley the Jews
held a mass meeting the Sunday after “Crystal Night” at the Chaim Yosef
Synagogue on North Street to protest the persecution of the Jews in Germany.
According to the Advertiser:“Last Sunday the Jews of St.
Stephen, Calais and vicinity assembled for a special mass meeting to protest
against the persecution of Jews in Germany.President Louis Urdang presided.
After a special prayer for the Jews who had been killed and for those who had
taken their own lives since the beginning of the diabolical and barbaric
treatment accorded them, Rabbi Kalcheim introduced the speaker of the day,
Rabbi Berzon of Bangor who delivered a stirring address condemning the Germans
for the unbelievable inhuman persecution and suffering that they were heaping
upon the Jews and other people. He also brought out the fact that the whole
world was unsafe as long as men with diseased minds such as Hitler, Goebbels
and Goering were upon the earth…. “ Abraham Levy of Calais then addressed the
crowd and appealed for funds to help suffering Jews emigrate to other countries
and a substantial amount of money was raised. Sadly Hitler had correctly
concluded that the democracies, while quite willing to express outrage, lacked
the will to intervene to help the Jews—British Prime Minister Chamberlain was
even then negotiating “Peace for Our Time” with the tyrant and only a month
earlier had signed the Treaty of Munich with Hitler conceding Hitler’s right to
occupy the Czech Sudetenland. The Nazis naturally assumed a crackdown on the
Jews would be met with little more than handwringing in the United States and
Europe. The moral failure of the democracies during the 1930s is often
overlooked in histories of the time. The United States had 300,000 applications
from Jews attempting to escape the Nazis in the months after Kristallnacht but
only 27,000 refugee visas. Many German Jews died in the concentration camps
because of our refusal to make an exception for these desperate people. In one
particularly telling incident, 254 Jewish passengers on the German ship MS St.
Louis, which was denied permission to land in both the US and Canada, were
returned to Germany and died in concentration camps. From Wikipedia:Prohibited from landing in Cuba,
the St. Louis and the remaining 907 refugees headed towards the United States.
Captain Schröder circled off the coast of Florida, hoping for permission to
enter the United States. Cordell Hull, Secretary of State, advised Roosevelt
not to accept the Jews, however. Captain Schröder considered running aground
along the coast to allow the refugees to escape, but, acting on Cordell Hull’s
instructions, US Coast Guard vessels shadowed the ship and prevented such a
move.After St. Louis was turned away
from the United States a group of academics and clergy in Canada tried to
persuade Canada’s Prime Minister, William Lyon Mackenzie King, to provide
sanctuary to the ship’s passengers, as it was only two days from Halifax, Nova
Scotia. But Canadian immigration official Frederick Blair, hostile to Jewish
immigration, persuaded the prime minister on June 9 not to intervene. In 2000,
Blair’s nephew apologized to the Jewish people for his uncle’s action. In other world news of 1938 Joe Kennedy
was appointed ambassador to Great Britain; the Church of England accepted the
theory of evolution; and Japan declared war on China, an event which was to
have a very direct impact on the United States and the looming war in the
Pacific.
In the United States aviation was in the
news—Howard Hughes flew around the world in 91 hours, a remarkable feat at the
time; and on the morning of July 17, 1938 a then-unknown US aviator, Douglas “Wrong
Way” Corrigan, took off from an airfield in Brooklyn New York for a cross
country flight to California. Corrigan
disappeared into a cloud bank and 28 hours later landed in Dublin Ireland. When
he landed he exclaimed to Irish authorities, “I’m Douglas Corrigan. Just got in
from New York. Where am I? I intended to fly to California.” He then suggested
with a more or less straight face that he must have taken a wrong turn. While
he may well have been a better pilot than navigator, the US authorities were
not buying the story. Corrigan had tried to get permission to fly the Atlantic
but was denied because his plane was an old, unsound cobbled together affair
later dubbed an “airborne crate and flying jalopy.” Parts of the plane were
held together by baling wire. The US authorities, responding to a request from
Irish authorities for information on Corrigan, had to use 600 words in the
telegram to list all the regulations Corrigan had violated. Among other
violations he had not checked the weather over the Atlantic before takeoff and
he had not a single map of Atlantic on board the plane. They immediately
suspended his license. However when he and his plane arrived back in the US on
the ocean liner Manhattan Corrigan received a hero’s welcome and a ticker tape
parade on Broadway which drew a bigger crowd than Lindbergh’s 1927 parade. His
license was immediately reinstated and “Wrong Way” became an American folk
hero. Teflon was invented in 1938; Superman
first appeared in the comics; and the minimum wage was a quarter. Thornton
Wilder, who has a local connection, was awarded the Pulitzer for Our Town, and the Nobel Prize for
literature was awarded to Pearl Buck for The
Good Earth. The ocean liner Queen Elizabeth was launched.
In Calais the battle over prohibition
raged on. The Volstead Act had been repealed in 1933 but a “local option”
allowed communities to prohibit sale of beer and/or liquor. Over the years
prohibitionists continued to get the question on the ballot in Calais but
generally failed to convince the voters to ban booze. September 12, 1938 was
the day of another vote on a referendum to prohibit the sale of alcoholic
beverages in Calais. On August 31, 1938 the “United Temperance League of
Calais, Charles Bernardini, Secretary, placed a lengthy ad in the Advertiser
asking the citizens of Calais to vote for booze and against prohibition.
Charles was, we believe, the brother of Louis Bernardini who ran a bar in the
building now occupied by Crumbs. We can’t say why this organization called
itself a “temperance league” as they were, it seems, opposed to temperance but
the ad made the point that Calais folks would be more temperate drinking in
Calais’ well run, orderly bars and restaurants than the sleazy speakeasies that
existed under Prohibition. The Calais voter was convinced and the bars stayed
open. In 1944 the prohibitionists tried one last time and were so soundly
defeated they finally gave up.
The Luxor was one of the restaurants
applying for a liquor license in 1938. The Luxor was located below Louis
Bernardini’s bar and up the street from the State Theatre on Main Street. In
1938 it was run by James Rigley who is a bit of a mystery to us. A James Rigley
graduated from Calais High School in 1936 and a James Rigley served in World
War Two but it seems unlikely a 20-year-old would have applied for a liquor
license in 1938. The 1935 directory has the Rigley family living at 15 Downes
Street although the Rigleys most of us remember lived at the corner of Academy
and Church Streets. Any information on James Rigley would be appreciated.
In 1938 the Depression was far from over.
In fact many of the Depression assistance programs had been scaled back too
soon and the economy was again faltering. The Works Progress Administration
(WPA) employed millions of Americans on infrastructure programs during the
1930s. The photo above is of men working in Charlotte on the roads. The CCC
camps in Princeton housed hundreds of men who worked throughout the county on
projects such as the one above.
1938 saw the opening of the St Croix
Commercial College on the second floor of Clark’s Drug Store on Water Street in
St. Stephen. Harriette Browne was the owner and principal of the school which
operated until her retirement in 1971. She had attended Miss Crabbe’s St.
Stephen’s Business College for several years between 1917 and 1921. Most
residents of Calais and St. Stephen interested in a commercial education
however attended the Holy Rosary Commercial School in the Convent at St.
Stephen which operated from 1937 to 1973. Hundreds of young women from Calais
attended these St. Stephen schools in the days when a woman’s career
opportunities were limited to a few select professions such as bookkeeping,
teaching and of course secretarial work for which shorthand was an essential
skill.
Joseph Nicholas was the chief of the
Passamaquoddy Tribe at Pleasant Point in 1938. Between 1925 and 1948 Nicholas
was chief for 18 years.
On February 23rd, 1938 the Advertiser
reported that the area’s three movie theaters, the Queen, State and Opera House
where merging under the ownership of a partnership. The Advertiser wrote:“Under the new arrangement the
parties involved sincerely believe that they can give to the public the very
best selection of talking pictures.” More likely the viewing public would have
seen second-rate movies and higher admission but it doesn’t seem this
monopolistic arrangement lasted very long. The Opera House was soon closed, and
the State Theatre dominated the market for the next few decades, putting even
the Queen, located in St. Stephen, out of business in 1957. Only after the
State burned in 1958 did the Queen reopen. For many years it was the only
theatre in the area other than the drive-in in Baring. In other local news of 1938, 10-year-old
Bud Tracy saved four-year-old Harold Silverman from drowning in the brook that
then ran along the lower part of South Street. According to the Advertiser, “The
brook, turned into a raging torrent by melting snow and ice, was rapidly
carrying young Silverman toward the culvert that carries the water beneath Main
Street, when Buddy came along and discovered the small boy’s serious plight.”
Bud unsuccessfully tried to grab Harold but finally “plunged into the water and
managing to get hold of the lad pulled him out.”
Lou Wheeler of Milltown was cruising the river in his speedboat near
Robbinston with three companions when the engine caught fire and exploded. All
four had to abandon ship but fortunately Lou had life jackets on board. The
Advertiser reported: “After drifting about two miles the wrecked mariners were
picked up by Dr. Norman Cobb, who had gone to the rescue in his boat after
witnessing the accident from his cottage and after receiving first aid
treatment were able to return home. Captain Small, light house keeper, circled
the blazing boat in his speed boat washing water into it and it finally sank.” In Baring a young woman threw a note from
the window of a car appealing for help and claiming she had been kidnapped and “horribly
abused”. Every road in the area was blocked, and camps, overnight cabins and
camp roads were searched without result. The authorities “were inclined to
believe it was a hoax.” Finally the Class of 1938 50th reunion:
1st Row…L to R: Alta Scott Lavoie,
Marguerite Cook Bunten, Ruth Phelan Webber, Doris Casey Bucknam, Helen Ross
Pollard, Lois Campbell, Lydia Coleman DiCenzo, Phyllis Bailey Mancini, Jean
Wood Leach. 2nd Row..L to R: Frank Fenderson, William Hunt,
William Fox, Harold Hamilton(Teacher), Earl Gibson,Margaret McKay Reichman,
Helen Morrison Brooks, Virginia McKay Howland,Jean Rutherford Campbell, Paul
Phelan, Bernard Reed, Stephen Mahar. 3rd Row..L to R: Leonard Wright, Medley
Cotton, Peter Christensen, William McNamara, Joseph Lovering, Wesley Cookson,
Paul Ward, Guy Farrar