Recalling the Easter happenings of 1958

JERRY PERSON

Easter is a joyous time to be with family and loved ones, and at this

time in Huntington Beach, many residents are planning their holiday

feast and readying for church-sponsored events such as sunrise

services and Easter egg hunts for the kids.

But for longtime Huntington Beach resident Virgil Proctor, it’s

going to be an especially lonely Easter holiday. Marian, his wife of

64 years, passed away in February of this year. I have known both for

many years, and whenever I would see Virg, there was Marian at his

side. Marian’s history reaches way back in our town.

Her father was well-known Realtor Carlos Reeves, Sr., and her two

sisters, Gwendolyn Talbert and Vivian Lance, were very prominent

Huntington Beach residents in their own right. It is sad that life is

but a brief flicker in the span of time, but Marian’s mark will be

felt until the end of time, for love is the memory time cannot kill.

This week we’ll look at what our town was doing at Easter during a

happier time.

I was just entering my high school in 1958, and in Huntington

Beach our churches and businesses were looking forward to the holiday

week. At Bray’s Food Center at 218 Main St., shoppers were treated

with bargains such as a Wilson, 5-pound canned ham for that holiday

table for only $4.98.

Accompanying the ham, you could add to your shopping basket a

pound of fresh carrots for 6 cents, apples for a fruit salad at two

pounds for 29 cents, fresh local grown asparagus at 19 cents a pound,

and to finish off the meal with a nice dessert, a frozen apple or

cherry pie could be had at 49 cents each. Over at Don’s Finer Meats

at 324 Main St., you could add to the holiday feast of a fresh ham at

69 cents a pound or a turkey to roast at 49 cents a pound, as butcher

Don Minnie offered these Easter specials to his customers.

If you didn’t feel like cooking Easter dinner for the family, you

could bring them over for a nice T-Bone dinner at Grace’s Cafe at 104

Main St. for just $1.75 or have ham and eggs for 90 cents.

Across the street from Grace’s Cafe, Ray and John Dolan were

serving a top sirloin steak dinner at their 107 Cafe at 107 Main St.

For only $1.75 you got the steak, soup, salad, baked potato, rolls,

butter and coffee. Today, that amount wouldn’t even buy you a gallon

of gas to drive over to the cafe.

At Sam’s Seafood, owners Nick, Ruth and Dick Katsaris had prepared

special Easter dinners of ham, turkey, duck, chicken, steak, lobster

or swordfish, and while Jimmy Means entertained Mom and Dad on the

cafe’s Hammond organ, the kids were given gifts of popcorn bunnies,

Easter eggs and other goodies.

Meanwhile, the ladies of the VFW Auxiliary were doing their part

for the holiday by preparing plans for their installation services

presided over by Alice McBeath, with refreshments for the

installation to be provided by Alice Hermann. This Easter marked the

first time that the Huntington Beach Junior Women selected a “Woman

of the Year,” and this honor went to Theresa Hanyak. It was planned

that she would ride in our Fourth of July parade of 1958.

What would Easter be for the kids if there were no Easter egg

hunts? The Windsor Club of Huntington Beach hid 250 pounds of Easter

eggs in Circle Park (Farquhar Park) and it was arranged that Paul

Doutt, Dante Siracusa, Roy Bryant, Ray and John Dolan, Michael

Nichols, Maurice Young, Ralph Riggs and Louis Betschart would lend a

helping hand to hide all those eggs for Mr. Bunny.

In the afternoon, the First Church of Christ (First Christian

Church) also held an Easter egg hunt for their kids under 5 years of

age. Helping hide those eggs, Mr. Bunny enlisted the aid of Bob

Laverne, Pat Bitter, Bonnie Bushard, Darlene Wells, Julia Megil, Jim

Whittington and Richard Wort.

That evening, the church’s choir presented a candlelight concert

in the church at 1207 Main St. The Rev. Lyman Ellis of the

Wintersburg Community Methodist Church had a special breakfast for

his congregation of pancakes, waffles and eggs to be served in Moore

Hall behind the church at Gothard Street and Warner Avenue.

After breakfast, the congregation would assemble in the church for

a special Easter music service, with Ellis delivering his Easter

message of “This is Your Life.”

Over in the church at Sixth Street and Orange Avenue, the members

of the congregation of the First Baptist Church were preparing an

evening cantata entitled “Memories of Easter Morn,” and this music

cantata was under the direction of Eber Flaws.

The church held an Easter morning service, in which the Rev.

Lowell Spangler delivered his message of “The Risen Christ and What

He Means to You.” The youth of the Baptist church, along with

Spangler, traveled north to Los Angeles to brighten the spirits of

those folks living at the Hollenbeck Home for the aged. Accompanying

Spangler on his mission of love were Linda Fleming, Paula Crow, Karen

Olsen, Jerry Millet, Donna Fleming, Melvyn Locke, Mickey Bratt and

Wally Jones.

In 1958, the area ministers held an Easter sunrise service at the

open-air bowl south of the pier at the foot of Third Street. So for

this Easter holiday, try to eat wisely, for as the saying goes, “Eat

today, for tomorrow we diet.”

* JERRY PERSON is a local historian and longtime Huntington Beach

resident. If you have ideas for future columns, write him at P.O. Box

7182, Huntington Beach, CA 92615.