Franklin County, Nebraska

For Another Day

Week after week, we get our Franklin County Chronicle in the mail. We read the welcomed paper with the local news of our county, then we generally throw it away. Like all newspapers, editor Naden puts one copy away in a huge filing system. That one copy becomes a silent keeper of our county’s history. It ages with time, until someone like me pulls it out and finds delight in what it says. That issue might lie there 100 years or more before someone takes the time to again read it.

That’s just what happened to the Friday, December 29, 1899 publication of the Prickly Pear. Now, some one hundred years later, we can see its usefulness as we read parts of it to see what was happening when the world’s calendar was turning to 1900.

Some of the area news from the Prickly Pear 100 years ago included:

“Mrs. Gray, the wife of Ernest Gray, who lives south near the Kansas line, died Wednesday evening. She gave birth to a child last Saturday and seemed to be doing well, ate a good dinner Wednesday and wanted to get up and dress but soon after was taken with spasms and died at 10 o’clock in the evening.” (I see some Grays living in Turkey Creek Township in 1905 and wondered if they were kin to Ernest Gray.)

“Last week an engine on the B & M dumped its cinders on the bridge just east of the Bloomington Depot and passed on about their business. W. W. Morse happened by there soon after and discovered the bridge on fire which he at once extinguished, it is supposed that along with the cinders that were dead there, there must have been some that were red hot and still heating.” (William Morse lived south of Bloomington one quarter mile or so west on the old highway 3.)

“Claude Sievers had some large signs printed at this office this week advertising his butcher shop and sauerkraut, wienerwurst, oysters, celery, pickles, lard and liverwurst which he has for sale.” (Claude owned a butcher shop in Bloomington.)

“Flashlight is the best way to make photographs. Instantaneous day or night. Marshall, first door south of Feigly’s Store.” (Feigly’s Store was situated just across from the present Lamplighter Inn.)

“All parties who want good fresh, rich milk delivered at their door every morning, at five cents per quart, will be accommodated if they will leave their name and the amount of milk they want per day at Waring’s Restaurant on or before January 9, 1900 as I expect to establish a milk route in Bloomington and keep the same up during the year. M. O. Harper.” (Waring’s Café was on the Main Street through Bloomington, just as a person started south down the hill. To explain it further, it was one block south of the present Lamplighter Inn on the west side of the street.)

“There is only one house vacant in Bloomington, convenient to live in and that is the county jail.” (We all are familiar with the rock jail located in Bloomington Square.)

“That too great a percent of the young are more or less fickly, or are too hasty in getting married. The proof on file in this county does not admit of doubt. At the last term of court there were nine divorce cases on the docket and while all the parties, or nearly all have been living among us for years and receiving their full amount of respect, the petitions filed would lead one to believe that there was something seriously out of joint. Too many people apparently rush headlong in love and enter into the marriage contract on sight without stopping to realize or consider the nature thereof or the responsibilities toward the other which they incur thereby, and usually the result is a choppy sea until estrangement sets in and the partnership business is knocked into a cocked hat by the first divorce court that comes along.”

“We hope the New Year will be a happy and as well a prosperous one to all our readers.”

“Fred Clapp and Miss Francis Swanson have at last done just what we expected they would do-in other words, they are getting married. On Christmas evening they coaxed Rev. Headly to come out to the home of the bride’s parents thinking that a fat turkey was on tap. He then borrowed a boiled shirt from his father and was ready when the preacher arrived, with his bride elect to have the words spoken that made them life partners for weal or woe.” (Fred and Frances Clapp lived on the farm now owned by Jim Kahrs.)

“The W. C. T. U. held a meeting at the home of Mrs. Swanson Wednesday afternoon.” (I would like to know more about these Swansons.)

“Mr. Swanson’s brother and family arrived from Lincoln Saturday, stayed over and helped eat fat turkey during the holidays, and of course were guests at the wedding of Clapp and Swanson.”

“Mr. Will Clapp and wife came down from the Macon Prairie and helped to emphasize Christmas with his brother, George.” (George Clapp lived in a partial log home on the very site where now sits the home of Herman Schnuerle.)

“Next Monday will be the annual swearing off day. People will resolve to turn over a new leaf and cast off their bad habits as they would a dirty shirt, but like the shirt they return to their normal condition inside of a week. Somehow good resolutions are more easily made than kept.” (Now that hasn’t changed in a hundred years.)

I could write more and tell you more of this special week in the lives of our ancestors, but I think I have written enough from this particular Prickly Pear. On this evening I will slide this worn paper back into it’s place in the cardboard folder and hope it’s not another hundred years before someone else is interested enough to pull it out and read about the days of December, 1899. By the way, I wonder if the weather wasn’t just about the same then as now, for I note the editors wrote, “The first little snow of the winter came Tuesday night and Wednesday morning.”

Come, read me a sweet poem, some simple and heartfelt way, that shall soothe this restless feeling, and banish the thoughts of this day.” H. W. Longfellow.

Rena Donovan, For Another Day.

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