Boy Started Smoking At 20 Months Old (Pictured In 1933 Newspaper At 5)

[matcom]

<snip>

The front page of the old Wisconsin News on July 14, 1933, is dominated by three large photos showing Hubert Albert smoking his little brains out.

It was newsworthy because he was 5 years old at the time. The accompanying article says the Milwaukee boy started puffing at the age of 20 months - cigarettes, cigars, pipes, you name it. "He's not 6 years old yet, but he knows how to smoke - anything," the headline says.

Sally Wasinack thinks that headline today would be a bit different, "something involving social services and an arrest, perhaps."

Sally and her husband, Tim, recently found this old newspaper and others under the floorboards and inside the walls while remodeling their 100-year-old house in Hustisford.

Progress on the renovation stopped as they began reading articles, including the one about two Milwaukee men divorcing their wives for refusing to cook for them. They studied the photos, too, and loved the one showing Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig very much alive at a charity event.

But it was the spread on young Hubert that grabbed hold of Sally's curiosity and wouldn't let go.

She decided to track him down, which would inevitably lead to the moment where she'd have to say something like, "You don't know me, and I'm not crazy, but I was just noticing your picture in the paper 72 years ago. How did your life turn out, and would you mind telling me if you still have both lungs?"

Sally was dumbfounded by a comment Hubert's mother made to the reporter: "He wanted to smoke, so we let him. We thought he'd get sick when he first smoked, but he fooled us. He'd rather smoke than eat candy or ice cream."

The boy spoke of trying to quit because he wanted to be a baseball player or a boxer when he grew up and make a lot of money so he could buy new shoes for himself and a better house for Mom.

http://www.jsonline.com/news/metro/jun05/336310.asp

[chickenscratching]

1. When my mom started smoking, it was sooo terrible!

:cry:

[Zuni]

2. why didn't his parents stop this?

[youspeakmylanguage]

3. It was decades ago - people didn't know smoking was so harmful...

I don't excuse racism or sexism or any other negative "-ism" based on the times, but it is pretty ridiculous to expect a family from the 30s to be as informed of the dangers of smoking as families are today.

Plus, I'm guessing it wasn't illegal for a minor to smoke in those days, seeing as they printed this kid's picture in the paper.

[China_cat]

4. In those days

doctors tried to get you to START smoking.

[datasuspect]

5. and it was considered bad manners

NOT to offer a cigarette to guests.

elevators had ashtrays.

ashtrays were EVERYWHERE:

office desks, grocery stores, on the train, on the bus, on every table in a restaurant.

old signs were more concerned that you put your matches and cigarette out appropriately rather than telling you "NO SMOKING."