By Paula Scott

Father’s Day shouldn’t pass without a mention in the Icons. I’m sorry to say that Mother’s Day 2022 passed without note on our Bluffton site, while Ada received a shopping countdown. Indeed, gifts and meals are often how we lavish love on family members. In my own family, Mother’s Day has been squeezed in between countless soccer tournaments and graduations, while Father’s Day in June seems a bit more leisurely.

Icon duties have taken me to both Ada and Bluffton cars shows this past week, which has me reminiscing about learning to drive with my dad in a late ‘60s Chevy Nova. I’m nostalgic about that Nova even though I never properly learned the difference between priming the starter and flooding it. I’m not so nostalgic about the AMC Hornet wagon we drove later or about learning to drive a manual transmission Ford Escort.

Looking for inspiration for this piece, I asked myself, “what about Father’s Day 100 years ago?” Mother’s Day and Father’s Day were first observed in the United States in the early 1900s and, according to History.com, there was a movement in the ‘20s and ‘30s to combine the two. To me, that’s kind of like celebrating the birthdays of two siblings with one cake.

I checked the June 14, 1922 Ada Record–available via the Ada Public Library–for some local details and found… no mention of Father’s Day.

However, there are treats you could have given dad in 1922:

• $35.00 suits from Hart Schaffner & Marx sold at Dettrick & Michael. Adjusted for inflation, that’s a $600 suit.
• Films including “The Souls of Men” and “Hearts Haven” at the Odeon Theater. Tickets were 10 and 20 cents, “war tax included.” Lehr Auditorium advertised “Three Live Ghosts,” promising “constant surprises and laughs for a solid hour.” 
• Eight “high class vaudeville acts” were performing in the big “Airdome” at an East Lincoln lot. What’s an airdome? Online images suggest that it was an open air theater with folding chairs and likely no roof.

With so many cars on my mind, ads for tires, auto supplies and tractors also caught my attention. U.S. brand tires were advertised at $10.90 each, making that set of tires $765 in today’s dollars–not much more expensive than that suit.

Happy Father’s Day to all the dads out there.