March 30, 2010

Cute Nun Shoes and Cheap Missals

Snooping around tonight I made quite the fun discovery: a Kenedy Official Catholic Directory from 1943. It's amazing to look at the advertisements; you can tell how much construction was going on around church institutions here in the U.S.A.

A couple of the ads caught my eye in a particular way. Red Cross Shoes, "Accepted by the Reverend Sisterhoods for 50 years." Where are the hipster sisters who wear these?


And how about this? If you, unlike me, have $460 dollars burning a hole in your pocket, you can order the famed Benziger Bros. altar missal from Preserving Christian Publications. Here it is for $30! A four-volume Breviarium Romanum is advertised below, starting at $32, but you'll want to get the leather cases for $3.75 each. I have to admit that the covers seem expensive. I got a very good leather cover for my "economical edition" Liturgia Horarum for just 10 euro the last time I was in Rome.


It's also interesting to note how few advertisers are still in business today. The exceptions: Red Cross Shoes, Mont La Salle altar wine, Cathedral and Will & Baumer candles, Verdin bells, and, of course, the Kenedy directory itself.

Stuck into the book I found a very elegant printed invitation to a "Pontifical Mass of Thanksgiving" for the occasion of the golden jubilee of ordination of one Right Rev. Thaddeus W. Tierney to be celebrated on Sunday, June 3rd, 1951. I suppose we can safely pray that he rest in peace.

6 comments:

Rachel said...

I love old stuff like that. You can learn a lot about a certain time when you read stuff from that period instead of having it filtered by later authors.

Those nun shoes look darn uncomfortable!

Anonymous said...

I remember when nuns wore those shoes!! (And lot other things that sadly they do not wear today.)

Kevin F said...

Those shoes are so awesome.

Regarding book prices. I think that if I had one wish I would get a time machine and then go back in time to take advantage of stuff being cheaper and then come back to the present time with all the stuff I had bought in the past.

I imagine the actual cost of time travel would eat up any cost savings, but...

Brother Charles said...

Who knows how much it costs? A while back I saw someone on Craigslist looking for $20 bills issued before a certain year, so he could spend them when he went back in time.

Rachel said...

Hey, it must have been this man!

Carol said...

Hey, I know this is an ancient post, but those "nun shoes" (AKA Red Cross shoes) in white were what was issued by the United States Navy to its nurses, circa 1971 (when I was in the service.) Most comfortable pair of nurses' shoes I ever owned, and if I knew then that they'd go the way of the dodo bird, I would have bought thirty pairs of them at the PX before I left the Navy, and probably the same number in other colors for off duty time. The good Sisters knew what was good for your feet! By the way, I found your post while googling Red Cross shoes, hoping against hope that they might still exist somewhere. My poor feet are killing me after a shift in the operating room in those ridiculous Crocs!