Franklin County, Nebraska

For Another Day

Back we go, down deep inside Veda Clements' brown file to the envelope among the yellowed newspaper clippings of the 1900. I am again touching on the witty manner in which these early day writers told the local news. I find the following both educational and entertaining:

"A recent visit to the comfortable homes of James M. Dimmick of Logan Township discloses to us the fact that he has recently given his house a thorough painting and has built a large barn and made other valuable improvements on his farm that add much to its appearance and convenience." (James Dimmick lived in the SE ¼ of Section 6 in Logan Township, this of off Highway 10, to the east, just about I mile straight north of the Ron Johnson farm.)

"When a full-grown man insists upon digging up a ladies back yard against her wishes and request, for the purpose of banking up his business building for winter, it would seem that the ruler of the universe ought to take the matter in hand himself and send the trespasser to that realm where houses need no banking and where the chilly frosts of winter never come. It is reported that Riverton had this kind of man." That's another mystery to me.

"Thomas Bond and wife are rejoicing over the arrival of a boy at their house on June 18, 1900. They had six girls and hence, are especially pleased that the late arrival is a boy. Mother and child are doing well under the care of Dr. Ella P. Sumner." Thomas Bond homesteaded on the SW ¼ of Section 15 in Farmers Township. His farm would have been one mile straight north of where Roger Tupper lives today.

"W. A. Dunlavy is feeding a few head of cattle and says there are doing well and will be ready for market the latter part of July or first of August. He also had a carload of hogs almost ready for shipment." (William Dunlavy once lived on the SW ¼ of Section 12 in Turkey Creek Township. This is now where Dave and Peg Schnuerle live.)

"J. B. McGrew started for Kansas City, with several loads of fat cattle Monday." (J. B. McGrew was the president of the Bloomington State Bank and lived in the big old Donovan home in the same town. It sounds like he was into the cattle raising business too. Today, this is the home of George and Colleen Hammergren.)

"Dr Malick was 'carrying his head in a sling' a few days this week, on account of a disagreement with a swarm of bees. There was only one round, and the M.D. has been cross ever since to give the particulars."

"John Sawyer claims to be an honest man, and yet he has just been caught with another man's horse in his possession and making violent and unequivocal claims to its ownership. When confronted by John Ess, who claimed the animal and Frank Walrath, from whose pasture the horse was taken and who assured Sawyer his was still in the pasture, he gave it up and went to the pasture a second time. After having his horse pointed out to him, he was satisfied that he had made a mistake." John Sawyer homesteaded on the NE ¼ of Section 34 in Logan Township. He sold that land in 1882, and in 1890 he owned Lots 10,11 and 16, Block 65 in Bloomington.

"While Willie Fischer was coming in from the farm on Tuesday, the strap that holds the neck yoke gave out. His team became frightened and ran away. The young man became entangled in the front wheel of the buggy and received several quite painful bruises. The buggy was badly wrecked." Does anyone know who this is?

I could spend all my personal days reading these old newspapers and it would probably take them all. The papers recall a different era. They are the medium that paints my mind with old houses, old roads and old voices. They take me to wonderful places in my mind that my body cannot. Sometimes, I wonder if the writers and editors back then realized the impression their stories would make on the people one hundred years later. As I read these old papers, I find time after time they changed names and editors. This happened a lot in the first days of the Bloomington Guard of 1874, 1875, and 1876, and yet it seemed all the editors had a unique unrestricted way of writing. How could so many talented editors live all at once in Franklin County? I realize from the amount of time I put into my column how much time must be spent in the local newspaper office to get the Chronicle out to readers once a week. I am thankful for the editors of the Franklin County papers then and now and I am grateful for the fact, that in a time when small towns are growing smaller every day that we still have a newspaper. The Franklin County Chronicle is the first mail I read when I get home from a trip and the last reading material that I would want to be without.

This evening, June 23, I went for a long walk in Bloomington. I observed almost every yard had two robins, bunnies and about five hundred lightning bugs. I found an old foundation I didn't know existed in the middle of the block north of Sid Bradshaw's. Gobs of mosquitoes called this rocked area their home. I saw a red hollyhock blooming for no one, but the passerby in a well-mowed yard of an empty house. I thought to myself as I walked the streets, "If all the foundations and empty homes marking the used to be homes of Bloomington were occupied, the town would boom again."

"Give what you have to someone else,
It may be better that you dare think." Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

Rena Donovan, For Another Day.

Return to For Another Day main page

Return to Franklin County NEGenWeb Main Page