Evening Republican, Volume 17, Number 12, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 January 1913 — Knitting Pastime of the Sixth City’s Firemen [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Knitting Pastime of the Sixth City’s Firemen

CLEVELAND, O.—The gong at No. 2 engine house, Champlain avenue, clanged insistently. “Dear me, there must be a fire somewhere, and just when I had these wristlets almost finished,” exclaimed Austin Reddy, six foot and stalwart fireman, laying aside his knitting with an air of petulance and climbing into a rubber coat. Reddy has the reputation of being one of the most agile scrappers in the department. Several other firemen laid aside shawls which they were knitting, supplanting the needles with axes as they got aboard for the run. All of which is not a Joke. The firemen of Cleveland have the knitting craze, and instead of the hitherto customary book, checker, domino or card game, they while the time away, making shawls, coverlets and other dainty, filmy, creamy nothings for their wives, mothers or sweethearts. Jake Abel, prominent member of th,e Sisters’ club at No. 2, introduced the fad in Cleveland. He had read of firefighters in some western city taking up knitting as a pastime. So he

got needles and yarn and learned all the intricate digital calisthenics necessary for knitting. One day he took his place at the station with a frame on which was a partly knitted shawl of an exquisite baby blue hue. « He sat down and the needles began to fly. His erstwhile “elubmates” looked on in astonishment. What was the matter with Jake. Had he turned suffragette? “Won’t you have a cup of tea, Jake?” asked Captain Jeffers, politely. Abel replied that he would not, but that would take something to, smoke. None dared to ask him about the shawl, which grew apace under his nimble fingers.