"The most popular man in town these days" visited Midland’s new Greening Wire plant in these 1960 photos supplied by the Huronia Museum and Huron Ouendat Village.
“He’s seen with a small portion of the children that crowded around the tree set up in the plant," according to the museum archive.
In the second photo from December, 1960, “these toys being checked off by Cecil Launder, left, and Ray Church look like they’ve just come off the store shelves.”
But in actuality, it took many hours of work by volunteers from Pillsbury’s Midland staff to get them back in good condition for distribution to needy children at Christmas time, the museum notes.
“More toys are still needed, any person who wants to rid his attic or basement of wagons, dolls, carriages or other playthings discarded by his own children is asked to call the Pillsbury office.”
And in the final series of 1960 photos, the amount of mail collected and distributed by the Midland post office is “running about neck and neck with last year,” according to postmaster William Bourrie.
During one of those days leading up to Christmas, post office staff handled 36,456 outgoing Christmas cards compared with 32,657 on the same date in 1959.
Overall, the total was about the same for both years, according to Bourrie, who noted incoming lock bags of mail and parcels were “about the same as last year.”
