Grocery's Ill Luck Led Newspaper To Cry Jinx
In June 1947, under the Page One headline "When It Rains It Pours Here," The Daily Mail of Hagerstown declared a local grocery was jinxed: Speaking of a jinx! All the wrath of the spirits has been cast in one little store, located at 147 East avenue, according to recent signs. Mrs. Lewis Heine, wife of the owner of the grocery store, fell and broke an arm two weeks ago, and to top it off, cut off the end of her thumb in a slicing machine. Last week, an employe, Charles Bailey, fell out the back of the store truck, suffering lacerations about the arm and face. That same week, the storm broke out the plate glass window on the store front. That same day another employe, John Miller, shut the door on his thumb and mashed it. That such a commonplace set of mishaps neither merits front-page news coverage nor warrants supernatural explanation – “all the wrath of the spirits,” indeed! – is indicated by some of the other headlines on the same front page: Floods Inundate Ohio...