Hull-Dobbs Ford – Memphis Flyer

Lyceum Theatre Program, 1924/25

Today I purchased a 1925 Central High School yearbook at an estate sale, and while I was flipping through the pages, a 1924/25 program for the Lyceum Theatre fell out. The yearbook was quite interesting, but the old theatre program was more fascinating for several reasons.

First of all, it was packed with ads for long-gone Memphis businesses and products. The Buckingham-Ensley-Carrigan Company (whew, they need a shorter name) was offering the new Garod Neutrodyne radio, “a five-tube receiver of the latest design, using the famous Hazeltine circuit.” This thing cost $195 — an enormous sum in those days. And if you wanted tubes, batteries, and a speaker (you know, all the things that would actually make it WORK), you’d have to pay $275. (By comparison, a ticket to a box seat at the Lyceum cost only $1.)

Elsewhere around town, Hull-Dobbs announced, “Our service floor and shop are open all night for adjustments and repairs on Ford cars.” The Romie Beauty Shoppe offered “marceling, permanent waving, and the latest cuts in shingles and bobs.” Roy Grinding Company (apparently a very specialized business) urged, “Ladies, bring us your scissors to grind and we will make them cut like new.” Cassie McNulty’s Hat Shop (oh, what a great name!) promoted their “beautiful line of Spring hats.” The Laird School of Dancing offered classes in “plain and fancy ballroom dancing.” And Permo Service Station advised readers that their car could be “called for and PERMANIZED within three hours.” Permanized?

In the December issue of Memphis magazine (on newsstands NOW!), I listed some questions that I hadn’t been able to answer — not without going to more trouble, I thought, than they were worth. One reader asked what I knew about the Southern Motors Cadillac dealership that was operated by a fellow named Joseph Canepari. I managed to turn up a photo of Canepari (and here’s another one), but that was it.

Well, it turns out that information about Southern Motors really wouldn’t have been that hard to obtain. All I needed to do was open up the pages of the telephone book, because Joseph Canapari Jr. — yes, the man’s son — lives in Memphis, and he sent an email telling quite a bit about Southern Motors. Here’s what he told me:

“As I remember it, Southern Motors was started sometime after the repeal of prohibition by my uncle, Lawrence Canepari, an immigrant from Bassignana, Italy. He made his money during prohibition by — guess what — the production and sale of illegal whiskey. The company sold Buick, Oldsmobile, Cadillac, and LaSalle automobiles. Lawrence died in the mid-fifties and my father, Joe Canepari, bought the dealership. At the time he had Oldsmobile and Cadillac, and later dropped Oldsmobile and became exclusively Cadillac.

“I have a company photograph from 1955 showing 88 employees. I remember when the new models were shown for the first time each year. The flower arrangements that accompanied them were breathtaking by anyone’s standards. The company sold to a lot of the rock-and-rollers of the day: Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Mr. Sam Phillips from down at Sun Studios, but by far our most famous client was Elvis Presley. His 3:00 a.m. shopping sprees many times left the new car department empty, and likely as not you’d read a few days later where he gave them all away.