(This was re-printed in the Syracuse newspaper early n 2022.)
Boys Raise $2.30 by Fair and After Noisy Argument Decide to Help Charity
Eats, Lecture and Sale of Home-Made Ink helps Swell Fund for Needy Children at Hillcrest.
July 27, 1925 Syracuse Herald – David Read, 10 of 118 Clarendon St. and Bobby Wise, 9, of 713 Livingston Ave., wanted ‘to have something.”
They couldn’t decide whether it would be a circus or a motion picture show or a fair.
The motion picture show ranked high in favor because David and Bobby had just earned $3.50 helping Bobby’s parents move, and they purchased a pup tent on shares. It would be an ideal place for a motion picture show.
However, all the kids couldn’t get into the tent, so they decided on a fair.
Mrs. Read baked some tarts and cakes and made fudge, and Mrs. Wise contributed the lemonade.
They had a fair in the Read yard with a varied program. Bobby Wise gave a talk on zoology, explaining the difference between a salamander and an alligator.
Billy Lowenstein, 13, of 707 Livingston Ave., gave a chemical demonstration, manufacturing chemical snow and making ink, which he sold at 4 cents a bottle, “practically cost,” as he explained.
Robert Goldstein, of 846 Livingston Ave., took a basket of cake and fudge and sold it in the neighborhood.
Little Francis Read, 6, contributed to the program by singing a song, “Wal, I Swan (Giddyup, Napoleon).”
Nancy Pratt, 13, 787 Ostrom Ave., “sold many tickets,” as Bobby Wise explained.
Another boy, Jackie, was to have his name in the paper, but he “got mad and went home,” before the reporter arrived, and the rest of the boys decided he shouldn’t have a part in it at all.
Then they made a club of all the boys who had participated in the fair, and elected David Read president and Bobby Wise major general.
They counted the receipts from the fair, which totaled $2.30, which they decided they should donate to charity in spite of the insistence of one club member that it be divided among all the members. After a noisy argument, charity won, and David was appointed custodian to see that the sum was sent to Hillcrest for the children out there who are sick, and “can’t have fairs and things,” as Bobby explained.
Ed. note: Our guy with the green eye shades says the $3.50 would be about $51, and the $2.30 would be about $34 today.
Here’s where he was 19-20 years later: My father’s War.