Jasper County Democrat, Volume 19, Number 48, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 September 1916 — HERE THERE and EVERYWHERE [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

HERE THERE and EVERYWHERE

Alfred F. Knepp, who for seven years has been publisher of the Chalmers Dispatch, has leased the plant to W. T. Walts, an employe, and it is understood will return to the ministry. New York city is in the throes of a street railway strike and business is partially paralyzed. There is a prospect of a sympathy strike, in which event all the union workers in the city in all trades will be called out. The postcard which enthusiastic San Francisco pro-Germans sent to “Kronprinz Friedrich, Verdun,” during the early days of the world’s greatest battle, has come back, bearing a neat French inscription, “Pas encore arrive a Verdun,” or, in plain English, “He hasn’t got here yet.” Abe Martin says: “Miss Wanda Moots, who is t’ marry Mr. Oscar Shoots t’day, will be th’ first thick, reg’lar sized girl t’ be led t’ th’ altar here in two years. Th’ old Danube waltzes have replaced th’ Green River trots at th’ Acme Dancin’ academy by order o’ Constable Plum.”

One of the most unusual “freaks of nature” ever shown is on display at Logansport, a panel of “curly” walnut, 16x36 inches. The grain of the wood forms almost perfectly two childish faces, facing each other. The ears, eyes, nose, mouth, hair and the shape of the face are outlined. The piece of walnut was sent as stock to the Logansport Furniture company. Roger W. Babson of Boston, a life-long Republican and America’s foremost statistician and financial expert, announced Saturday that he would vote and work for the reelection of President Wilson. “It is because Mr. Wilson seems more interested than Mr. Hughes in the moral side of such questions as banking, shipping, railroading, tariff, labor and relations with other nations that I now intend to vote for him in November,” said Mr. Babson. Mrs. A. J. Thompson of Kentland has had her left leg amputated. The same was broken in an auto accident near Bedford on May 20, and had not healed properly and infection made amputation necessary. In the car with her at the time of the accident was her husband and daughter, Miss Greta Thompson. The latter suffered a broken, leg and internal injuries and died in a Chicago hospital June 22. Mr. Thompson has not fully recovered but gets around by the use of crutches.

Three high school teachers—Miss Edith Ellenborg of Marion, Illinois; Miss Anna Kirkland of Urbana, Illinois, and Harold Gentven of Beaver Dam, Wisconsin—-were struck by an interurban car and killed Friday afternoon at Muncie, Illinois. The party had come from Champaign to inspect the new high school being constructed in Oakwood township, they having been engaged for the school year. On the way to Muncie they passed a Big Four train which wag making so much noise they did not hear the car coming. Mrs. Lydia Ault Shrake of Madison, Wisconsin, draws a pension because she is the widow of a soldier who, 104 years ago, helped fight the nation’s battles in the war of 1812. As the aged pensioner and many times a grandmother sits today at the age of 102, leaning forward on her cane in her cottage among the Mississippi hills, her wrinkled face kindles almost with the smile of youth at the news that the call to arms has again been sounded. Her husband saw service in the war of 1812. 'Her five sons were in the Civil war, and numerous grandsons in the Spanish-American war. It is stated that Mrs. Shrake has 170 living descendants, and is the head of six generations. As the result of the collapse of the new central span of the Quebec bridge, the largest cantilever suspension in the world, eleven men lost their lives Sunday. The bridge stands on the site of the bridge which collapsed on August 29, 1907, with a loss of seventy lives. The central span which fell Sunday weighed more than 5,000 tons and was 640 feet long. It had been towed to the gap on pontoon bridges and was being raised Into place, 150 feet above the water by hydraulic jacks. When about 15 feet in the air and the boats had been removed the structure suddenly collapsed and fell into 200 feet of water in the St. Lawrence river. The property loss is $6,000,000.