Lakewood Lore

Putting in your two cents worth about penny candies

Penny candy is a subject that oftentimes opens a cherished bag of memories for those who grew up in Lakewood in the 1920s and ‘30s.

Will Scott, who graduated from Lakewood High School in 1939 and is a retired vice president of Ford Motor Co., wrote recently from his Naples, Fla. home that he recollects the onetime :Lakewood Theater,” a movie house just west of Victoria Avenue on Detroit that opened in 1923.

“But it didn’t impress me as much as the candy store that was next to the theater,” Will said.

In a letter to his sister Jane Scott, Lakewoodite and veteran The Plain Dealer columnist, he mused:

“You’ll recall that Bob and Wally Montgomery lived on Victoria right across the street from the police garage. How often we hiked down to the candy store.

“It was a sight to behold -- a massive glass-enclosed counter with just millions of pieces of penny candy for sale.

“I remember going there with Bob when each of us had perhaps four or five pennies, and we would take our own sweet time surveying the merchandise and comparing one kind of candy with another.

“And, all the time we stood there, pointing to this or that, the store owner patiently hovered over us waiting for our momentous decisions.

“I never saw so many different kinds of candy,” Will went on. “Acres of candy, all different shapes, sizes and colors -- and nothing over a penny apiece. What more could a growing boy ask for?”

Well, for Will and all the other little-boys-grown-old who once savored those wares, here’s a cross-section reminder of what was readily available. In some country stores and urban confectionery departments, many of the nostalgia-stirrers are still for sale, but now for pennies.

Among those that went for a cent apiece were: white sugar balls with a hazelnut in the middle; jaw breakers (round, hard, sucking candies the size of a walnut); long paper strips with candy dots, watermelon-shaped coconut strips; black and red licorice straps; dome-shaped chocolate-covered vanilla and maple creams, mini-marshmallow ice cream cones, miniature black licorice pipes; rock candy on a string; and bubble-gum cigars.

Also enticing were these two-for-a-cent favorites: Bull Eyes (circular caramels with vanilla cream centers), Mary Janes (molasses- and peanut-butter flavored nougats), tiny root-beer barrels, and wax bottles with colored syrup in them.

In addition, and even cheaper -- a penny could buy three pieces or more -- were malted milk balls, candy corn, banana-flavored circus peanuts, Boston baked beans, gold coins, lemon drops, chocolate babies, peppermint pillows, jujubees, orange slices, green spearmint leaves, cinnamon imperials (red beads), and hard candies flavored and shaped like raspberries.

Some candy stored had a game of chance incorporated into the sale of 1-cent-apiece chocolate-covered peppermint cream patties, most of which had white centers. If you were lucky enough to be able to select, from a boxful, one of these patties that turned out to have a pink center, you received a wrapped 5 cent candy bar as a prize.

Will Scott remembers other early businesses in the vicinity of Detroit and Warren.

“Boy, it all comes back,” he wrote, recalling Fisher Foods’ on the corner, Woolworth’s across the street, a bank, Burrow’s Book Store, Clark’s Restaurant, and Hoffman’s Ice Cream Parlor, where he had a deal with a nice lady who kept her eyes peeled for Indian-head pennies.

“She set them aside for me, and I picked them up at least once a week,” he explained.

One Saturday night, Will and his father Clarence had an unforgettable experience at the busy corner of Detroit and Warren.

“That was when Dad and I drove down to pick up Mom at Woolworth’s,” he continued. “As Dad made the left turn from Warren onto Detroit, a cigar box full of nails, which was on the running board, slipped off and spilled all over the intersection.

“A policeman who was directing traffic whistled us down and told us in no uncertain terms that we were going to get on our hands and knees to pick up every one of those nails before someone got a flat.

“It was humiliating, but we did it,” Will related. “It seemed to take forever, but I guess it was about 15 minutes. The policeman held up traffic while we scrambled around.

Mom didn’t help matters much afterwards when we picked her up, Will noted.

“Where have you been, Clarence!” she said.

This article by Dan Chabek appeared in the Lakewood Sun Post February 6, 1997. Reprinted with permission.

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