July/Aug 2022 (Volume 14, Issue 4)

 

By Arvid Huisman

 

A former newspaper colleague once accused me of having ink in my veins. A few readers over the years have accused me of being heartless, so having ink vs. blood in my veins is not a stretch of the imagination.

 

I have loved newspapers since I learned to read and spent the majority of my career in the industry. Most of those years were at daily newspapers but I have a soft-spot in my heart for hometown weeklies and especially for the manner in which they reported the news a century ago.

 

You can imagine then how much I enjoy reading the “out of the past” columns in newspapers today. One of the best examples of this is the “Glimpses of the Past” column in the South Hamilton Record-News, the successor of my hometown Ellsworth News and Jewell Record. Editor-Publisher Scott Ervin devotes two full columns to this feature, covering 110 years of news, each week. 

 

So what was the news like in Iowa a century ago? Here are some tidbits from recent issues of the Record-News “Glimpses of the Past”:

 

1912 

G.C. Sevdy has purchased a Model 60, 35 horsepower Overland of Iver Iverson. It is equipped with a windshield … He is now waiting for roads to dry up so he can get his car into use.

 

Jake Williams, the genial postmaster of Randall, was in Jewell Tuesday visiting old friends … While here Jake made a contract to handle the celebrated Ford cars in Randall.

 

J.A. Nelson of Ellsworth has secured a patent on an apparatus for cleaning husks and silk from ear corn and for cleaning small grain. The apparatus is attachable to grain elevators.

 

Frank Hanson, living northwest of town, sustained a badly bruised knee one day the past week by being thrown from a horse which he was riding, the horse being frightened by a bull.

 

Olaf Larson is the name of a 17-year-old boy who arrived here Saturday from Norway and will help at the J.B. Thompson place. The arrival is a clean, intelligent looking young chap, the sort that makes good citizens.

 

George Sexe has sold his horses, harness and farm implements to Erick Challe and will retire and live on his income. George made scads of money during the time he operated his father’s farm and he may buy a block of real estate in Kansas City, and he may not, it all depends on the stability of the money market.

 

An exceptionally large crowd attended the box social at Overland school house Friday evening. The young folks of the neighborhood rendered a good program after which the baskets, ranging in shape from a tin pail to a house, were sold. Everyone had a jolly time.

 

George Wills moved this week to the house on Frank Hill’s east eighty, formerly occupied by the Fuller Bros.

 

TO READ THE ENTIRE STORY AND OTHER FASCINATING STORIES ABOUT IOWA HISTORY, subscribe to Iowa History Journal.