The Hancock-Henderson Quill, Inc.


The 1918 Graphic

Compiled and Edited by Virginia Ross
Registrar for Daniel McMillan Chapter, N.S.D.A.R.1918

Stronghurst Graphic, August 29, 1918 

SCHOOL NOTES: The Stronghurst public schools will open for the year 1918-1919 on Sept. 2nd. All pupils who are not regular in their studies or have any work to make up are requested to meet Superintendent Spence at the school house Aug.31st at 9 a.m. If necessary, a high school entrance examination will be held at that time. Stronghurst has a wide reputation for its excellent school system and the new faculty expects to maintain this reputation during the coming school year. Parents and pupils are asked to heartily support this work.

CULTURE TO THE MAGIC CITY-Chautauqua: Stronghurst's annual Lincoln Chautauqua is now is full swing and each afternoon and evening in the big tent located on the lots across the street from the village park, musicians, orators and entertainers of unusual talent are furnishing a program which cannot fail to inspire to higher ideals and noble purposes in life. The keynote of this year's assembly is patriotism and so pro German, if there is any such in the audiences, one is made to feel about as uncomfortable as he would be sitting on a red hot stove.Monday's program was by Smith Dameron, the clay and China demonstrator and the Craven family musicians. In the evening the juniors under the direction of their superintendent, Miss Pickrell, presented an instructive pageant, "Columbia's Awakening." On Tuesday Mme. Grace Hall Riheldaffor gave a most delightful musicale both afternoon and evening followed by a rousing address by Dr. C.C. Mitchell concerning the wonderful things the U.S. had accomplished since entering the war. Jessie Bowmar Ricketts, the petite and charming reader and impersonator added to the enjoyment of the both sessions. Wednesday brought the prince of impersonator and musical entertainers, Francis I. Hendry and his talented accompanist, J. Marshall Adams, who kept the audience alternating between tears and laughter. Princess Nacoome, the beautiful, talented Indian violinist gave a number of choice selections while her father Chief Tahan, thrilled his audience with his wonderful story of his life.

MINNESOTA IS PROSPEROUS: From Brown Valley, Minn. in a letter from C.P.Dobbs- We are threshing the best crop we have had for some time. Wheat is going from 20-36 bu. per acre, barley from 40-70 and oats 50-60. Potato crop is good and corn is fine. R.F.Leinbach is with us now; he sure is enjoying good health here. (This was the village's opportunity for culture.)

1893 GRAPHIC: Dawson Nichols died in California. R.L.Wray, cashier of the Media StateBank and Miss Bertha Dalton of the same village were married on Aug. 23rd. Gov. Atigeld commuted the sentence of John Robinson, who killed Sol Zinc in this county to 10 years, 4 months and Robinson had been liberated from Joliet prison. A public jollification over the discovery of natural gas in Stronghurst was held. A pipe had been laid from the well on the Tinkham property to the Hotel Putney where four stand pipes were erected with burners attached. The burners were lighted and a public illumination given. Afterwards the full column of gas as it escaped from the well was ignited and flames shot upward 15-20 feet. At a special meeting of the village council it was decided to purchase 5 acres of land in the north part of town from G.M.Foote for a public cemetery. A. Baxter was elected village marshal and sexton of the cemetery and Ira Putney was chosen police magistrate. Chas. Kirby and Miss Addie Milligan were married on Aug.30th at home of Rev. McArthur. Charles McDermott, a former Olena boy, died suddenly at Des Moines, Ia. as a result of the bursting of a blood vessel in his brain. Watermelons weighing from 25-40 lbs. each were selling in the stores at 5 and 10 cents each.

SHOT THROUGH BOTH KNEES-EXPERIENCES WITH GERMAN MACHINE GUNNERS: Am. Base Hospital, St. Naxaire(letter to R.N.Clark of Media Township from his brother, Lieut. C.A.Clark)-"My last letter was written from Verderel and where I thought we were behind the lines for a least a few weeks' rest as we had been in for two and one-half months straight. Since then, things have changed so rapidly that it would take me a week to write everything as I have to rest every little while. We stayed in Verderel three or four days, left there on the 10th and moved to Roissy, 19 kilometers north of Paris. On the night of the 12th 1200 trucks packed up the whole division and moved us to Siossons. The night of the 14th we marched up through a heavy rain and the next morning without any artillery barrage went over the top and took the boche(Germans) by surprise. We advanced 5 kilometers that day and took about 3,000 prisoners and great deal of material. The Hun did not put up much of a scrap and most were a crummy looking outfit. But the reserve divisions that were rushed up to try and stop us were altogether different and put up a far different fight although we advanced from one to two kilometers each day and the night of the 21st I had what was left of Company C on the main road between Siossons and Chateau-Thierry waiting until dawn before advancing and a machine gun in a ditch along the road opened up when I was six feet from it and pretty well riddled my legs. One of the boches cracked me over the head with a gun butt. The boys cleaned out the machine gun crew(two of them were chained to the gun which was also found in a great many cases) and then two of them started with me.

We had no stretcher and I was so heavy they could not carry me on a gun so I had to crawl a kilometer until we found an old ladder and they carried me on that to the first aid station and the x-rayed my legs as there was a bullet through each knee. They are going to come out all right I think although the surgeon said there might have to be an operation later on. I came down here the next day and will be here until I am well again I suppose, which I hope won't be very long.I learned later that the division was relieved the night I was hit so if my good luck could have held out a couple of hours longer I would have gone off without a scratch.

The boche is a wizard with the machine gun and does most of his destruction that way. As he has them stuck in every conceivable place, even in the trees, so that it is almost impossible to get them all in the advance and after the line passes, the gun mows them down from behind. No machine gunner is ever taken prisoner. They shoot at you from 1,000 yards until you get within 10-15 yards and then they cry "camaraid" and expect to be taken prisoner and there is nothing doing. We took a great many prisoners the first three days but after that did not bother with them as our own ranks were thinning too much to be able to send anyone back with them.

We passed one fellow lying in a shell hole apparently dead but with a loaded machine gun beside his and a kick disclosed the fact that there was nothing wrong with him-just waiting till we passed to open up a stream of lead on us.

He is lying there yet and another boche came out of a dugout crying "camaraid" and shot one of our officers through the head when he went up to take him prisoner. Countless things such as these happen every day which increases our feeling for the dirty square heads. Do not worry about me for I will be fit as a fiddle again in a month or two. Lieut. C.A. Clarke

OAK GROVE STATE CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION: The final week of preparation for the big centennial celebration at Oak Grove Fruit Farm in Henderson County Thursday, Sept.5th is now here and all hands are at work energetically to make it an event long to be remembered. The program will open at 11 a.m. with a concert by the Orchard City band of Burlington. At noon a basket dinner will be held and the afternoon program will open at 1:30 p.m. with music by the band. Following the centennial address by Hon. John Frederick Voigt of Chicago, the Hon. Richard Yates, former governor and son of Illinois' war governor will give a patriotic address. A grand chorus of 75 voices will furnish music during the afternoon.

A museum of antiquities housed in a log cabin constructed for the occasion will contain the relics of former times and constitute one of the interesting features of the celebration. Supper will be served at 6 p.m.

The evening program will begin at 7 o'clock with a grand historical pageant in which about 400 people will participate and which will represent many historic events in Illinois. A series of beautiful tableaux representing the birth of freedom and its extension to all the world will be given by the various townships in the county.

Arrangements have been made with the Delco light people of Monmouth and the stage and grounds will be lighted with more than 100 incandescent lights. Booths decorated and conducted after the manner of our foreign allies will supply refreshments to those who do not bring baskets. All school boards of the county are urged to dismiss school for the day inorder that the children may attend this great event without losing a day of school. People from each township will furnish amusement features.

The event is given as a Red Cross benefit and all profits above expenses will go to that great cause. To help defray expenses a small admission fee of ten cents will be charged at the entrance to the ground.

LOCAL AND AREA HAPPENINGS: GLADSTONE-- Miss Ruth Milligan is working in the Sam Duncan store taking charge of it for her brother-in-law while he is in the Burlington Hospital. There are hopes of his recovery from the accident which occurred while he was riding in a locomotive cab. Fred Swedenburg is moving to Burlington where he will have employment for the winter. A fine crowd attended the band concert on Main Street Friday evening; it may be the last one as another of the band boys goes to war very soon.

CARMAN- Many friends of Mrs. Wm. Coffman will be glad to know that she is slowly improving. Mr. Elmer Cartwright, Mr. Marcellus Clover and daughter, Mrs. Geo. Gillis and Mrs. Will McCaleb of Burlington motored to Smithshire to spend the day with Mr. and Mrs. Joe Mason. George Marsden and wife and their daughter, Mrs. Willard Crose, husband and baby and Mrs. Marsden's mother, Mrs. P.D.Gibb of Biggsville motored to Galesburg to see Mrs. Chester Gibb who has recently undergone an operation at St. Mary's hospital and who is getting along as well as can be expected.

STRONGHURST- A card received by relatives announced the safe arrival in France of C.F.Lauber, who is a member of the 3rd Bat. Anti-Aircraft Battalion C.A.C. Alvah Shook left for Detroit where he expects to find employment in either the Ford factory or in the government aeroplane

works. Miss Mildred Anderson left for South Manchester, Conn. where she will resume her work as teacher in the city schools. She was accompanied as far as Chicago by her mother, Mrs. W.P.Anderson. Mrs. Matilda Abrahamson of Minden, Neb. and Mrs. Youngquist of Burlington, Ia. visited the C.J.Johnson home in the west part of town. Mrs. Youngquist is a sister and Mrs. Abrahamson a cousin of Mr. Johnson. Mrs. Abrahamson spent her childhood in this community living with her parents on the George Foote farm and she attended Cork school. It has been 40 years since the family left here and this is her first visit back. Mrs. C.E.Drew and Miss Abbie and Miss Winifred Drew left for their new home in Peoria. C.H.Davis, Jack Saunders, Pete Voorhees and A.J. Davis left in A.J's big touring car for Des Moines to attend the Iowa State Fair. E.Z.Cornwall, who has been engaged in engineering work in South American for several months, returned home. He was not in time to attend the funeral of his wife's sister, Mrs. Fulton, but reached the cemetery just as the body was being lowered in the grave. Homer Woods of Media took the train for a military camp in South Carolina. Chesley Towler from the Lewis Institute of Chicago, George Kern and Cranston Doak of Great Lakes and Raymond Thompson of Valparaiso, Ind. were all home for a few hours on Sunday. James McCollom, wife and three daughters of Dodge City, Kan. arrived by automobile to visit the home of his sister, Mrs. Foster Lazear. Misses Marie Rankin and Esther Marshall are spending ten days at the college camps, Lake Geneva attending the Y.M.C.A. conference. Mr. and Mrs. H.H. Ranking left for their new home in Long Beach, Calif. Gene Peasley, son of Mr. and Mrs. C.E.Peasley and who has been a traveling

salesman for some time, has enlisted for military service and will leave for Columbus, Ohio, fromwhich he expects to be sent to Camp Hancock, Ga. Carl Anderson, son of Rev. and Mrs. W.P.Anderson, has been promoted to Sergeant and has been assigned as instructor in the Technical Training Dept in the Machine Gun Training Center at Camp Hancock, Ga. The students here are men who expect to become officers after their training is finished.

WEDDING BELLS- Fort & Smith: The many friends of the groom will be surprised to hear of the marriage of Mr. Chalmers Fort to Miss Ethel May Smith, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. John L. Smith of Evanston. The wedding took place last Saturday. Mrs. Fort is on the staff of the Central

Department War Personnel board of the Y.M.C.A. in Chicago and Mr. Fort is at present located at Great Lakes Naval Training hospital school. He was a member of the Scribblers fraternity and Mrs. Fort is a former member of the Literary society of the Northwestern University.

MONMOUTH MAN SHOOTS SELF: Lester Miller, the well known insurance and real estate man of Monmouth shot himself through the head with an automatic pistol following a quarrel with his wife who had just returned from a visit at Davenport, Ia. It appears that the domestic relations in the Miller household had been rather tense for some time and the suicide came as the climax to a number of stormy interviews. Mr. Miller was for a time interested in the improvement of a tract of land west of Hopper.

RAN OVER AND KILLED: Mrs. Hedda Hendrickson of this village was struck and run over by an automobile in the road near her residence in the east part of town at about noon and sustained injuries from which she died about thirty minutes later. Mrs. Hendrickson and her daughter, Mrs. Ed Fernell, had just left the Hendrickson home to go to the village cemetery. They were walking north in the road when a large touring car driven by Joe VanArsdale of the Raritan neighborhood came up behind them. Olin Palmer of Media was in the car with VanArsdale. When about a block away the driver of the auto sounded his horn and the two women separated. Mrs. Fernell taking the left side of the road and Mrs. Hendrickson the right. When the car was not more than 10 or 15 feet away Mrs. Hendrickson attempted to cross to the side where her daughter was and was struck by the machine which passed over her crushing her chest, breaking one arm in two places and otherwise crushing and bruising her about the head and body. She was rolled and dragged for perhaps 18-20 feet before the car stopped.

The occupants of the car assisted by Mr. F.G.Reynolds, who lives nearby, removed the unfortunate woman from beneath the car and she was carried to her home a few rods away where she expired about 20 minutes after the physicians arrived.

Mrs. Hendrickson was about 77 years of age and quite active for her age. She was wearing a sunbonnet at the time of the accident and evidently did not know the car was so close when she attempted to cross the road. VanArsdale turned the car sharply to the left just before striking the woman, but the distance was too short to avoid the accident. According to the testimony of both occupants of the car and also that of the village Marshal Rezner, who was a witness of the accident, the car was not running at a higher rate of speed than 10 miles per hour when it occurred.

In absence of a county coroner Justice W.E.Hurl empaneled a jury to inquire into the cause of Mrs. Hendrickson's death. The jury was composed by B.G.Widney, C.C.Butler, W.R.Salter, N.E.Parish, A.F.Kaiser and Joe Wilcox. After the evidence which brought out the facts substantially as stated above, they returned a verdict in accordance therewith and exonerated the driver of the car from blame. Mr. Van Arsdale, while knowing that the accident was unavoidable on his part, naturally feels greatly distressed over the sad affair.

Mrs. Hendrickson was only recently bereft of her husband the sympathy of community goes out to the sorrowing relatives who remain. Funeral services over Mrs. Hendrickson's remains were conducted at the Stronghurst Swedish Lutheran Church.

DEATH OF MRS. L. W. FULTON: People of this community were surprised and grieved to learn that Mrs. Grace Ross Fulton had passed away at the hospital in Galesburg at an early hour last Friday morning. Mrs. Fulton came here from her home at Garden City, Kan. several weeks ago suffering

from goiter. After being treated here for a month or more, her condition improved to some extent but it was realized that a cure could not be affected without a surgical operation. This was performed at a Galesburg hospital last Thursday morning. She survived the operation in what seemed to be a satisfactory manner and all seemed to be going well until a short time after midnight when she began sinking rapidly. Her sister, Mrs. Nellie Cornwall, who was with her, was summoned to the bedside. Physicians did all that was possible but at 2 a.m. she passed away. The body was brought back and taken to the home of her mother, Mrs. Catharine Ross, four miles west of Stronghurst.

Grace Ross was the third daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Ross and she was born in this county Sept. 21, 1869. She spent her childhood in the community west of Stronghurst and on Oct. 29, 1892 she was united in marriage to Lincoln W. Fulton of Garden City, Kan., where they took up their residence and which city has since been their home.

Mrs. Fulton is survived by her husband and a son, William Drury. Also by her mother, her sisters, Mrs. Rose Linton of Philadelphia; Mrs. Maggie Coonrad of Spokane, Wash; Maude at home; Mrs. Nellie Cornwall, who has spent the summer here; and her brothers, Will and Harry, residents of the community. Funeral services were conducted at the old home. Music was given by a choir composed of Miss Sarah McElhinney, Miss Marie Davidson, Douglas Prescott and W.J.McElhinney with Miss Evelyn Fort as accompanist. The profusion of flowers and the assembly of many friends of former years told of the love and esteem in which the deceased was held. Her name was not inappropriate for she was a woman with many graces of heart and mind and the sympathy of many friends goes out to the bereaved. The deceased was a member of Presbyterian Church at Garden City and was a devoted wife and mother.

Relatives present from a distance were the husband and son from Garden City; Mrs. Rose Linton of Philadelphia and E.Z.Cornwall, who returned from South America that day. Interment was at the Davis Cemetery (Maple Grove) near Decorra.

THE HORSE MARKET: Mr. Perry , the Galesburg horse buyer spoke rather discouragingly of the horse market recently. He thought horses would be in little demand now were it not for the war. Although hundreds of thousands of horses have been shipped to the Allies in Europe during the past four years, England is now about the only country making any purchases and they are not large.

Horses are still used generally on the farms and no doubt will continue to be, but in the cities and even in villages the automobiles and motor trucks have taken the place of horse drawn vehicles...The mule has proven more serviceable in the army, being able to withstand greater hardships and for that reason prices have held firm. Mr. Perry states that he has spent a good many years as a dealer, but expressed the belief that he would soon be obliged to take up some other line of business.

DEATH OF LOUIS COLEMAN: Mr. Louis Coleman, who has been a sufferer from cancer for the past year passed away at his home in the north part of Stronghurst. He leaves a wife and several children. Funeral services will be conducted at the home.