Former county historian highlights downtown Albion in 1890s

This charming “Merry Christmas” postcard was mailed to Miss Hattie Ball in Lyndonville in 1903. (Ball-McCombs Card Collection)  

By Catherine Cooper, Orleans County Historian

“Illuminating Orleans” – Volume 5, No. 43

Who could better provide a glimpse into life in days gone by other than a County Historian?

Joseph B. Achilles served in that position from 1944-1957. Here are some of his observations about life in Albion in the late 1890s.

Reminiscences of Main Street

“Shopping for the ladies in those days was a comparatively simple matter. You went to Upper Landauer’s, now a grill, where Moritz Landauer sold you Sattinetts, Cassimeres, Velveteens etc., or to Lower Landauer’s where Simon Landauer, his brother, showed you the same patterns in the recently streamlined store, now operated by his grandson. That dignified and friendly competition has no counterpart in the savage merchandising of today, and you did not require a metal name plate and a number to open a charge account, and you did not have to pay before the end of the month either.”

Joseph B. Achilles, Orleans County Historian, 1944-1957

“The residents of “Ruffled Shirt Hill”, as Upper Main Street was called, turned out on Sunday morning in fine equipages, some even ran to part time coachmen and the ladies sported those small black silk parasols to protect complexions that would drive Elizabeth Arden green with envy.

Sunday morning in those days meant church, not a hangover. You dined at the Albion House about 1:30 p.m. and the check was about $.75, not $7.50. Meals like those are definitely a matter of history.

Short drives in the afternoon and a light lunch in the evening closed Sunday for our grandfathers and if the surrey with the fringe on top didn’t get you here or there very quickly, at least the finance company was not interested in it, and you could cross the street in front of it without someone collecting your insurance.

People were born, lived and usually died in their own homes. The maternity ward and the pulmotor* squad and funeral home were still in the future, and a doctor was called when you needed him and not just when you wanted him, and home remedies took care of most of the troubles of those days.

And, if the toll of years or the lack of Sulfa* or Penicillin closed your earthly account, George Brown and the Black Team took you for a quiet ride in the plumed hearse out the Avenue to Mt. Albion for a long rest in the only surroundings that seem to have defied the changes that Time has made in the Albion of those other days.”

*surrey: a four-wheeled open horse-drawn carriage

*pulmotor: an early device for artificial respiration

*Sulfa: antibiotics