1944 Wellington, Ohio
Antonino “Tony” Farago
Born in 1937
Wellington, Ohio
Interviewed on February 7th, 2026
By Hera Farago
HF: What was the first movie you remember seeing in the movie theater?
TF: Oh my god, it was probably…I’m trying to think. Probably a Western of some kind, probably “Gone With the Wind,” with Clark Gable. We probably saw that one, at the old Lonet Theater here in Wellington.
HF: Do you remember who you went with? If you went with your siblings, or your mom?
TF: Mom never went to the movies with us. We just went down to the Lonet [Theater]. It was down there across from the Mexican restaurant over on that side [of town]. The building’s still there! And we paid ten cents to get in–you might write that down! Your Aunt Angie [Angelina Farago Brinker, TF’s older sister] took tickets and stuff, so sometimes we’d get in free. If we had a quarter, we were rich, you know? [Angie] did that for quite a while, and I think she probably did it ‘til the place closed up [in the 1955]. But I remember “Gone With the Wind,” and then we saw a lot of Roy Rogers movies. Cowboys, Hopalong Cassidy–those were old ones. “Red Ryder.” He was a cowboy, and this little kid, Bobby Blake, played a [Native American] kid. He was in the movies later, in his older years. Those were some of the old Western stars. And Sunset Carson–he was supposed to come to our county fair [the Lorain County Fair]. [He went to] a restaurant up town called Ramser’s. He had this big huge car, might’ve been a Cadillac, and it had bullhorns on the front where the bumpers were. He must’ve had it made special. But anyways, they got him drunk there, and he never showed up for his show at the fair!
HF: Well that must not have made him very popular in town, huh?
TF: Yeah, yeah. But anyway, we watched a lot of Western movies. We probably saw some classics, but I can’t remember the names of them.
HF: That’s alright. How did you and your siblings get to the theater? You walked there?
TF: Oh yeah, you know where the house was. We went right uptown, and to the left over there… [TF goes on to detail their path through town to the Lonet Theater, which I will omit for concision.]…There was a laundromat down there [by the theater]. There was Hill’s Hatchery there too. He sold peeps–chickens. You know, you could buy a whole box of chickens. You know, baby peeps? Baby chicks? That’s what he did there, and then there was a place there where you could buy candy [beside the theater].
HF: Did you have a favorite candy, or movie theater snack?
TF: Well, we usually got popcorn, if we could afford it. [Laughter] Sometimes, you only had a nickel or a dime to spend. It was crazy. Oh, you know what? We saw some of the Frankenstein movies too. When we’d come back after one of those Frankenstein movies…right there by Taylor Street, there was a house that sat way in the back, and had bushes in the front. We’d get down there and [one of my brothers] would [yell] ‘There’s somebody out there, behind the bushes!’ and we’d take off running to the house, over the railroad tracks, to get back home. And Bela Lugosi, you can look him up, he did a lot of horror movies. Whenever there was one of those, we’d try to go see it. And then Saturdays, they always had a matinee, in the afternoon. If you had the money to go.
HF: Was there more than movie playing at a time there, so you could pick which one to see?
TF: Oh no, the old Lonet just had one screen.
HF: When you were older, did you mostly still go to the movies with your siblings? Or did you bring friends from school?
TF: Yeah, most of the times with my siblings. That was about it.
HF: Were all of your siblings well-behaved at the movie theater? I would imagine you could cause quite a stir, since there were so many of you.
TF: Ah, usually the boys would go together and the girls would go together [on another night], so we weren’t all there at the same time. You had to behave yourself or they’d kick you out.
HF: Especially with Aunt Angie working there, I bet you had to be on your best behavior. Are there any movies you remember seeing when you were young, and then sharing them with your kids?
TF: Not really. They had Blondie and Dagwood movies, like the comic strip guys. Of course, they had regular people playing them–I forget what their names were. My God, you know, back then Wellington had basically everything that you needed, right here in town. The only thing you went out of town for was going to Elyria. That was a big deal. Elyria was the big city, and very seldom did we ever…I don’t remember, I don’t even remember going to Cleveland. That would have been, for us, like going to New York or something.
The Lonet Theater
Ramser’s Restaurant, sans Cadillac
A 2014 news clipping about the Lonet Theater building, including a photo of Angie Farago Brinker behind the candy counter in 1950.
Note: Tony Farago is my paternal grandfather. He is a twin and is one of twelve siblings, all of whom grew up in Wellington, Ohio. (In addition to the twelve, he also has one half-sister, who grew up in Sicily.) This interview with the late Angie Farago Brinker details her experiences working at the Lonet Theater.
