Democratic Sentinel, Volume 16, Number 12, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 April 1892 — OTSEGO’S FAIR FORTY. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

OTSEGO’S FAIR FORTY.

HOW MICHIGAN WOMEN BUILT A LIBRARY. Having Exhausted All Commercial Means, and Being: Still In Arrears, They Resort to Schemes Picturesque and Unique and Square the Account. Woman's Way.

CCORDING to \Jg \ Otsego, Mich.,cori * resnondenceinthe | Chicago Tribune, »' the town of Otse-

go the other night took a step in putting on metropolitan airs. Por some time past there have been intimations that Otsego is not the slow-going, every-day town through which travelers pass and forget. Up to date whatever heights tho town has reached is due to the unique energies of the women. The climax of these energies was reached when the forty women who went into schemes a short time ago to raise money to pay for the library building that is Just completed met their husbands, sisters, cousins, and neighbors in the town hall and told them how each did her work. To go back to the beginning. A year ago the women of Otsego concluded to build a library building, where they could go and read or get bohks to take home. Their husbands and brothers took the newspapers, and were contented with that channel of information. The women of Otsego are credited with being a little more literary in their tastes than the women of any other town of its size. It is said that most of them write for the papers and magazines and paint and sing, while a few of them are linguists. The town contains 2,000 people. It has two big paper mills, a chair factory, and is 150 miles from Ann Arbor; within an hour’s run of Kalamazoo, and about the same distance from Grand Rapids. It has more rich men who do nothing for their town than any two-thousand town in the West. The women moved to the front and raised the money to build a pretty

$2,000 structure which is known as the Ladies’ Library Association of Otsego. The money, or the big end of it, was raised by various methods. There were socials, and dances, and festivals, and concerts, and lawn parties, and church committees, and citizens’ committees, and so on until nearly enough was in bank to pay for the little building which is now complete and furnished, but which as yet has not a volume in it. All this was done by the efforts of Otsego women. Of course (?) some of the money was paid by the men folks. When the last of the furnishings of the L. L. A. were put in the asso-

sociation found that theylacked just s4otocancil all obligati o n s. But where were they to get it? They had planned and carried out ev,cr y sc h qgn e known td the ingenuity of the sex. One day two

of the members, unmarried, and out of their teens, were in the store of Mr. Mills, whose wile, by the way, is

President of the Libnry Association, and they were talkin; about the arrears of S4O. Mr. Mils has probably heard as much about he Library Association as any mai in town, and being of a sunny tmperament he said to the two ladiesreferred to that he guessed the society would have to raise the residue of noney- by organizing kissing societies. One of the ladies aked him how

much he would give to every woman who would kiss him for the library fund. Mills said he would give five cents for each osculation. The offer was not cold before two lips were puckered before him, and he' came to time and paid in his nickel. “Next” responded]

the woman who lyid/been kissed, and her friend with lips aglow, received an impression and a nickel and backed out, This sort of; news travels faster than electric currents In less than an hour it was all over town. The man who owns [the two paper mills in Otsego is a Mr. Bardeen. He

is oneof the millionaires of the place. As soon as he heard what Mills was doing he raised him. with the amendment that Mills was doing it for advertising his store, and that he, Bardeen, would pay 50 cents to every woman who would come to the paper factory and be kissed by him. The tide was turned from Mills’ store Bardeen’s factory. Mills put up the cry of “foul” on the ground that Bardeen was a citizen of Kalamazoo, but Bardeen’s money overcame the cry. In all probability Bardeen would have soon contributed, as per agreement, the necessary

amount had not a protest come up from Kalamazoo, to which were added several protests from Otsego. Some of the young men of this place saw their sweethearts going to the paper factory, and it is said they in-

formed him that he had better confine his kisses to Kalamazoo society. Then several of the women of the city came down to business. Mrs. Mills, Mrs. H. L. Miller, Mrs. P. W. Travis, Miss Maggie White. Miss Hattie Mitchell, Mrs. George Easton, Miss Alice Creyant, Mrs. C. IV. Edsell, Mrs. A. D. Baker, Mrs. C. E. Drew, Mrs. Frank Lindsey, and Miss Matie Beard said they would be so many of a party of forty to raise $1 each to pay off the last indebtedness on the building. Forty Otsego women reported for duty and went to work, and each

earned her dollar, and the jubilee the j&sb other night was for {s£'•> (PgjF the purpose of giv- / A\ ing each one of the forty an opportunity _ 7 of telling to the audience her experience in making a jQ dollar. Some of 1 ■ these schemes were*®*- H n mim.br.

unique. Miss Maggie Smith, Secretary of the association and editor of the Otsego Union, bandaged the arm of a young law student who had been stabbed with a pair of shears. She

described her treatment and thd effect.

Mrs. Mills, wife of the merchant who kissed at 5 cents per kiss, took a mop and step-ladder and washed win«dows at 20 cents a window. Mrs. P. W. Travis, Treasurer, and Mrs. H. L. Miller hired a hand-organ and stood on the corners, one playing while the other pafesed the tin cup, the collections ranging from a penny up to ten cents. Their success would have been quicker if the organ had not been one of the “Annie Rooney” vintage.

Miss Hattie Mitchell made her dollar splitting kindling wood. Mrs. George Easton blacked boots. Miss Creyant sold a spring poem to the editor for a dollar. She probably had harder work than any of her sisters. Mrs. Edsell and Mrs. Baker sold shoe strings and doughnuts from house to house, and Miss Beard, dressed as an Irish peasant girl, sold green emblems on the streets on St. Patrick's Day. Miss Smith also went out as a beggar, and Mrs. Drew and Mrs. Lindsey “played the organ,” also, on the*back streets. Mrs. Miller put the trimmings on a coffin. A bevy of young ladies went around doing odd jobs, one washing a milk wagon in the oldfashioned way, while two others went to the hotel to sew buttons on the clothes of any travelers whose raiment needed anything of the kind. One pulled a splinter out of a commercial drummer’s finger, for which he paid sl. These experiences were all vividly related by the ladies at an entertainment in the town hall, when all Otsego and many from Kalamazoo and other surrounding towns were present. The Otsego women have given many valuable pointers to their sisters throughout; the country, and, it is possible that the church festival oyster may now go into innocuous desuetude, while more unique if not pleasing methods are employed to entice the slippery dime.

LAIMES LIBRARY AT OTSEGO.

MRS. N. W. MILLS.

NISS MAGGIE SMITH.

WASHING A WAGON.

MRS. P. W. TRAVIS.