Saturday nights

While our generation spent Saturday nights watching television ("Live from New York....It's Saturday Night!"), earlier generations of Itawambians spent their Saturday nights gathered around the radio listening to the Grand Ole Opry on WSM-Radio out of Nashville. The Grand Ole Opry has entertained thousands of households across the rural South since its inception in 1925. The show gots it name from a radio announcer's introduction one night, "We have been listening to the Grand Opera for the past hour, now we will present the Grand Ole Opry."

Queenie Clayton Davis was a huge fan of the radio show. Sometime during World War II, she sent off for a picture of the Opry cast. Purina Mills, the major sponsor of the show at that time, responded with the above photograph along with a letter, both of which were in Ma Davis's trunk at her death in 1974. The form letter thanked Queenie for her interest and then stated:

In these times all efforts must be bent toward the one job we have ahead of us - the winning of the war. While there is a lot of fun in our program, it is really dedicated to the task of urging feeders all over America to produce more food ... more food for our armed forces ... food for our fighting allies ... and food for ourselves.

To accomplish this, have good stock, use good feed, and practice good sanitation and management so as to make every pound of feed you use do the best possible job. Your Purina dealer will be glad to help you with your management and sanitation problems and will do his best to supply you with Purina Chows but, if he should be temporarily out of stock, remember the demand is greater than the supply.

Remember Secretary Wickard's statement "Food will win the war and write the peace."

Very truly yours,
Purina Mills