“Who wants to sell a day in June?” – (PIP #33)

By Louise Peloquin

Love’s gentle spring doth always fresh remain.

Shakespeare’s verse comes to mind when perusing the following 67-year-old news items. Accounts about young couples celebrating upcoming spring  weddings and babies welcomed into the world never grow old. Ever faithful to its local-voice vocation, L’Etoile never missed the opportunity to highlight its readers’ life events. (1)

Party for engaged couple

     A crowd of relatives and friends organized a party Saturday night for M. Raymond Perrin, son of Mr. and Mrs. Eugène Perrin, 88 Aiken Avenue, and Miss Pauline Bélanger of Hale Street, on the occasion of their upcoming wedding.

     The Maillé orchestra played at the party. Mrs. Perrin presented a purse to the couple and Mrs. Bélanger offered the fiancée a flower corsage. Among the guests were relatives visiting from Canada.

     The wedding will be celebrated on May 4th at 4 PM at Notre-Dame-de-Lourdes.

     Mr. Perrin studied at St.-Louis school and works at Phyllis shoe repair shop. Miss Bélanger attended Notre-Dame-de-Lourdes and works at the jewellery box plant.

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Pauline Bélanger surely cherished the engagement ring Raymond Perrin offered her. Who needs Mr. Winston’s “trinket”?

The Winston Diamond

For those who have savings!

Diamond for sale: $200,00

     NEW YORK – In this era of massive production, it is consoling and encouraging to think of a piece of merchandise which, at the most, a dozen people in the world could obtain. The article to which we are referring is a 129.25 karat, pear-shaped diamond. The price? Guess!….Only $200,000.

     This diamond, not for the masses, is drawing massive attraction. The other day, precious stone dealer Harry Winston revealed the existence of the exclusive trinket. In consequence, he had to take multiple precautions not to be carried away by the crowd. 

     Some women who would not have $10 for a nice pair of earrings have literally become crazy with desire. As for the men, who, as we know, usually consider cufflinks a luxury, they have arrived in droves to admire to their heart’s content what the diamond dealer had to show them.

     That was the less exclusive debut of one of the most exclusive objects ever. Winston described the diamond as the most beautiful in the world. We have not yet heard anyone contradict him. It is also the largest to have been cut in the United States.

12 purchasers

     “I would sell this diamond for $200,000” said Winston. “But I think that there are about 12 people in the universe who could think of purchasing it.” He added that, by its color, shape and perfection, the precious stone outclassed all of the stones in the world today.

     The rock, originally 426 carats, was found in Africa. Winston purchased it for $1,400,000. His chief diamond cutter – Bernard Hahn – spent a year working on it and gave it 143 facets. In addition, one 28-karat diamond and many small ones came from the original stone. 

     Harry Winston’s famous diamond is two inches long, an inch and a sixteenth wide and three quarters of an inch thick. Will Winston be able to reimburse himself the $1,400,000 spent to acquire the fabulous diamond?

     When asked the question, the diamond dealer never answers directly. He diverts the conversation by underlining the fact that “this diamond would be worthy of shining on your crown were you a queen or a king….” However, given that kings and queens are becoming rarer and rarer these days, Harry Winston is not counting on many of them to acquire his diamond. In any case, we can very well forgive a diamond dealer for having succumbed to the temptation of purchasing such a beautiful stone. “This stone” he likes to say, “is like a day in June…and who wants to sell a day in June… even at the price of $200.000?”

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The following ad, found on the same page as the engagement party announcement, underlines the newspaper ’s reliance on the 24-26 Prince Street printing activities.

Engaged couples! For your wedding invitations, see L’ETOILE’s complete assortment

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Babies welcomed into the world always make for joyful news.

Fifth little girl for Mr. And Mrs. Côté

Mr. And Mrs. Marcel-M. Côté, 11 Marlborough Street, announce the birth of their little girl Louise-Thérèse on March 25th at Saint Joseph hospital. They have four other girls, Gertrude-Renée, Michelle-Marie, Paulette-Marcelle, and Marie-Anne. Mrs. Maria Côté of Lowell is the paternal grandmother.

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L’Etoile covered all of life’s stories, including its end as last week’s PIP shows. (2) 

     Laughter is part of life as well, a necessary one in fact. French Renaissance writer François Rabelais (3) who was a physician as well as a humanist, a Greek scholar and often called the first great French prose author, put it this way:

Seeing how sorrow eats you, defeats you.

I’d rather write about laughing than crying,

For laughter makes men human, and courageous.

     L’Etoile’s editorial team understood that, along with highlighting local events, triggering chuckles could be an effective way to gain readers’ loyalty.

Funny reason 

     An office worker wanted to wed. His fiancée wanted to get married on a Tuesday but the future groom was opposed.

• “I wonder what you have against a Tuesday?” she said.
• “Simple” he responded. “If we get married on a Tuesday, the day of our silver wedding anniversary will fall on a Friday. And Friday is my bowling night…”

Too late

A husband was telling his wife:

• If you have to cheat on me one day, frankly, warn me.
• Oh! Sweetheart, you should have told me sooner. 

(4)

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1. All of the texts from L’Etoile’s April 2, 1957 issue.
2. “Honouring our Departed” – PIP #32, was posted on May 21, 2024.

Honoring Our Departed

3. Born between 1483 and 1494 in Chinon, died between January and March 1553 in Paris. His most famous works are the four-book Gargantua-Pantagruel series published from 1532 to 1535. It is interesting to note that Rabelais gifted the English language with the adjective
4. Translations by Louise Peloquin.