120 Years ago, 1899

The prisoners at the Mahoning County jail were treated on Christmas Day with quite a feast. The sheriff and his wife desired to instill “peace on earth, good will to men” into the hearts of all under their roof. They decided that the best way to do so would be to feed their charges with the same grandeur of a family holiday meal. The feast included roast turkey, cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes, celery, pickles, coffee with real cream, pies, cakes, cheese, crackers and several other side dishes. The meal was complete with cider and a nonalcoholic wine substitute. The prisoners were also treated with baskets of fruit, books and other goodies sent in from family and friends. The stories showed that there was hope for even the fallen to cast aside old habits and be saved. As strange as it sounds, it was a Merry Christmas for those in the county jail.

75 Years Ago, 1944

Arthur S. Kline did not get around in a sleigh pulled by reindeer, have long white whiskers or live in the North Pole, but his resemblance to Santa was pretty uncanny. The Struthers man worked for years repairing and providing toys for children in and around his community. Kline had quite a stock of toys — drums, dolls, buggies, horns, mechanical toys, games and many more — donated to him. His repairs made those toys look like new and helped warm the hearts of children who otherwise might not have had a gift under their tree.

Kline worked in the maintenance department of Youngstown Sheet & Tube’s Campbell Works with the toy hobby keeping him busy year-round. Twelve years before, his sons, Army 2nd Lt. Arthur Ercell Kline and Medical Corps Pvt. Clifford W. Kline, set up a workshop as part of a Boy Scout project and worked with their father to hone their repair skills. Kline noted that donations were not plentiful that year, but he still hoped to help more than 150 families. Campbell and Struthers officials offered trucks for him to deliver the presents on Christmas day. He paid for all of the repairs, noting how much he loved the work and how much joy he received in giving away toys to fill up empty spaces under Christmas trees.

50 Years Ago, 1969

Virginia Conley, then a sixth-grader at Jefferson School, tuned into Channel 21 with her 4-year-old brother Paul to watch an experimental education program produced by the Children’s Television Workshop of National Educational Television. The program was sponsored by the Carnegie Corp., the Ford Foundation, the U.S. Department of Education, Head Start, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and other public agencies. The purpose of the show was to help children learn the letters of the alphabet, word recognition, numbers, shapes, problem solving, and to help them learn more about themselves and the world they live in.

The show used innovative techniques to entice children, including animated cartoons, live action films, puppets and real people living and working together in a fictional city. That city featured a brownstone house, candy store, excavation site and even a pet store. Education professionals hoped that underprivileged children would be engrossed with the lessons and, in turn, prepare them for school and their futures. During the holiday break, older children joined their younger siblings in front of the television to travel into this world. The song still rings in our ears, “Sunny day, sweeping the clouds away… on my way to where the air is sweet. Can you tell me how to get, how to get to Sesame Street?”

40 Years Ago, 1979

Richard J. Owen was appointed as Youngstown State University’s archivist and special collections librarian. Prior to this post, Owen served as a noted librarian in YSU’s Maag Library. He requested the change in duties for health reasons and to devote more time to the university’s special collections. During Owen’s tenure with YSU, he oversaw the opening of the $6.6 million William F. Maag Jr. Library in 1976, complete with innovative services and systems. The building was built to hold more than 500,000 volumes with study space for 1,600 students, microfilm units, micro readers and printers and a copy center.

Owen was responsible for an expanded connection with the Ohio College Library Center, a computer database system of monographs and serials, title and author searches, and interlibrary loan search capabilities. With the OCLC system, Maag staff was able to catalog new books and put them into circulation within days. Owen served as a science librarian for the Kettering Science Library at Oberlin College as well as the director of the Beeghly Library at Heidelberg College before coming to YSU.

• Compiled from the archives of the Youngstown Vindicator by Traci Manning, MVHS Curator of Education