By Paul Goldfinger
How about sharing your Ocean Grove memorabilia with the rest of us? If you can’t photograph it, we will do it. We’re especially interested in items that have an explanation or a story to go with it. Contact us at Blogfinger@verizon.net.
Eileen found this fan in an antique shop in Long Valley, Morris County, New Jersey. It cost $5.00. It has a beautifully painted color print which becomes a bigger scene when the fan is opened. We’re told that ladies liked to take these to church on hot summer Sundays.
The fan was a souvenir that was given out by an insurance company that was located on Main Avenue. Today that spot is Cheese on Main. This particular change is for the better. As Woody Allen once said, “The worst punishment would be to be locked in a room with an insurance agent.”
Remember Connie Francis? She’s checking out her souvenirs:
In my little church in Texas these fans were much simpler — just a piece of thick paper stapled to a flat stick. I don’t recall them having any art work at all, just an ad for the local undertaker.
They were scattered all throughout the church, in the backs of the pews along with the hymnals, and on hot Sunday mornings you’d look across the congregation and see all those fans flapping at once.
Then came air conditioning, and the era of the fans abruptly ended. Those things were as much a part of the South in that era as RC Cola, John Deere tractors, segregated drinking fountains, spittoons in barber shops, Piggly Wiggly food stores and denim overalls.