Queen Elizabeth II, now 96, is celebrating 70 years on the throne --- her Platinum Jubilee --- this year. Having acceded to the throne upon the death of her father, George VI, on Feb. 6, 1952, the coronation occurred more than a year later, on June 2, 1953, at Westminster Abbey.
I got to wondering the other day if this was an event noted in Lucas County and was delighted to find the following report under "Russell News," as reported by my step-cousin Miss Jennie Haywood, in The Herald-Patriot of June 11, 1953:
On Tuesday evening, June 2, a group of friends were guests at a TV party at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Grover Millison, where they watched the broadcast of the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. A delicious lunch was served by the hostess. Guests present were Supt. and Mrs. W.B. Scarcliff, Mrs. Frank Aton and grandson, Bob Penick, Mrs. Harriet Woodman, Mrs. Daisy B. Rockey and Jennie Haywood.
Grover C. Millison was Russell's mayor at the time and William B. Scarcliff, superintendent of the Russell schools.
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Television sets still were few and far between in Lucas County during 1953, and the "almost" live broadcast of the coronation was a major event in the history of the medium.
If the group of Russell friends were watching the coronation on the evening of June 2, it would have been on an ABC affiliate, WOI (broadcasting from Ames).
The event itself was recorded on film in London, then flown across the Atlantic for rebroadcast in the Americas. The planes chartered by NBC and CBS were rather slow, so those U.S. networks were unable to offer a comprehensive broadcast until June 3.
But ABC managed to patch into Canadian Broadcasting Corporation feed to offer same-day coverage. Pains had been taken to ensure that Canadians were able to watch the coronation of their queen on the day it occurred, so the event was filmed in segments that were rushed to the airport and dispatched in sequence aboard the fastest aircraft available to CBC studios across the Atlantic.
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I found another reference to Russell and the coronation in The Russell Union-Tribune of Oct. 22, 1953. Pam Turbot, 5th and 6th grade reporter, noted in her column of that date: "Friday we had a movie upstairs. It was a news reel. One part was about the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth the Second. Another was about the Boy Scout Jamboree, Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norkey climbing Mt. Everest, the loss of Senator Robert Taft and the end of the Korean War and exchanging of prisoners of war."
Momentous times, those --- 70 years ago.
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