Tuesday, January 14, 2014

The Real Thing -- January 14, 1954

The Pause that Refreshes (chuckmanchicagonostalgia.wordpress.com)
It was 60 years ago, January 14, 1954 when Judge George B. Weiss in Women’s Court sentenced Mrs. Rosie Patterson of 2206 Lake Street to the Bridewell for ten days, followed by a one-year probation. 

It seems that on the preceding December 17 Mrs. Patterson’s little daughter, Alice, a student in the first grade classroom of Mrs. Sybil L. Dungee at the Hayes School, had come home wearing a smock instead of the snowsuit in which Mrs. Patterson had sent her off to school.

Mrs. Dungee, the teacher, had removed the wet snowsuit and given little Alice the smock to wear, but somehow the child had left the school and gone home.  This so incensed Mrs. Patterson that she returned to the school on that December afternoon and whacked Mrs. Dungee with a soft drink bottle.  [Chicago Tribune, January 15, 1954]


It is unclear from reportage whether Mrs. Dungee was able to hang onto the bottle and return it for a deposit refund.  She probably could have used the nickel. The highest salary on the pay scale was $5,890, and at 30 she was a long way off from seeing that.

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