When the CBS crew was shown to the SPJST Hall in Dime Box to set up for the kickoff of the 1944 March of Dimes campaign, they quickly realized they had a problem. The floor of the stage was wooden, and the acoustics just wouldn’t do for a live radio broadcast.
Sometimes you just have to improvise, and that’s what they did.
The radio crew had the ladies of Dime Box go home and bring enough quilts to cover the stage. This improved the acoustics sufficiently that the proverbial show could go on.
Thanks to Jack Wiederhold, who shared this story (which was in turn related to him by his aunt, Mamie Burttschell) via a comment on yesterday’s Facebook post about Dime Box!
Some of y’all that are outlanders like me might be wondering what an “SPJST Hall” is. I wondered myself when I started to come across them on my road trips.
SPJST is a fraternal organization founded by Czech immigrants to Texas. The initials stand for “Slovanska Podporujici Jednota Statu Texas” (“Slavonic Benevolent Order of the State of Texas” in English). The organization was established in 1897.
You can learn more about the history of SPJST here:
https://spjst.org/about/our-history/#0
Also, I finally found my old photographs. I now know that my first trip to Dime Box was on January 23, 2016. This photo of the Dime Box Station was taken with my previous camera, so the quality is a little off.