Somewhere along the line, I obtained a bunch of newspaper ads from the 1950s or 60s. They give a hint of the lifestyle of those decades in Dundee and Monroe County. I think most of them were in The Dundee Reporter which was the name of the paper at that time. It later changed its name to The Independent.

Prior to the name change, the weekly paper was known as The Dundee Reporter. It was aimed at a small community of around 2,000 residents so basically everyone was familiar with the businesses and people featured in the ads and stories.

One section that I remember was the social page. A reporter would call people around the community and find out what they did during the previous week. You would see things such as:
 

Copies of the old Reporter papers from back to the early 1900s are now available online. We have accumulated many of them which mention various family members. Click Here for the index list.

August Heiden died on September 5, 1922 about a month after this article appeared in the paper.
 

During my years at Dundee High School (1962-66), a couple of friends and I would travel the 1/4 mile to downtown Dundee to eat lunch. Most days we would dine at The Coffee Cup restaurant. We could get a hamburger, fries and a coke for 35 cents. I went to a Wendy's recently and a cheeseburger by itself was over $5.00.