Education in 1870

Education is and was always important for the citizens of a city, county, and state, and now especially nationally. In Cherokee County in 1870 there was a total of 23 teachers. The article in the Centennial edition of the Cherokee Times was: 23 Teachers Got Total of $2309
The life of a school teacher has evidently always been one of many virtues other than obtaining compensation from the “root of all evil” namely money.
According to statistics, the 23 public school instructors of Cherokee county, in 1870 received a total of $2,309 for their services. Pay of the eight male teachers averaged $8.25 a week while the ladies netted $6.75 a week. There was not an exact enrollment for the county but probably less than one hundred students county wide.
Total value of the schools in the county at this time amounted to some over $7000. The buildings consisted of one brick structure, 8 frame dwellings and the remainder were the one room log schools.
I am just curious why the male teachers made more money than the females.?!

Dennis The Menace

I thought I would use the majority of this month to cover the centennial of Cherokee, Iowa over fifty years ago. As I was going through this fragile piece of newsprint, I was reading the comics as well. Well there is nothing funnier to me than Dennis The Menace. This particular comic was so appropriate for the economy of 2009.
Dennis and his mother were walking out of the bank. Dennis has a terrible scowl on his face while he is hanging on to his mother’s hand.
He said, “ It is really dumb to give those guys all your money and all they give you is a stupid little book”
Huh? We might laugh, but things were the same in 1956 evidently; at least in Dennis’ eyes.
The comics in that paper almost brought tears to my eyes. I loved the comics in those days. Why? Because they were funny and you could follow them from day to day or week to week. Comics were little miniature stories that were cute. Al Capp was a fantastic cartoonist. I am sure that some of you remember him. The cartoonist, Hank Ketchum for Dennis died in 2001. He made Dennis an imp which most mothers could relate to.
Some of us were poor in those days and could not afford wrapping paper if we could afford to give someone a gift. Comics were used to wrap a gift. They were used so frequently that no one knew whether you could afford paper or not. Once again I am sitting here smiling. Yes they were the good old days. The newspaper was generally read by young and old front to back.

You Just Can't Go Home!

I grew up in my little home town, and had lots of friends. People would always say hi to me as I would be walking down the street. Older people never knew me because I had grown so much. I could never understand that. My mother tried to explain to me, but I really didn’t care, I was just curious.
I left Cherokee for several years and went back for my father’s funeral. I met some people I graduated with and they didn’t know me. That really made me feel sad.
I had these same thoughts the other day when I was working on the centennial articles. I thought, “I wonder what the hospital looked like or was different than it is now.” That also made me feel sad. I guess I am just a nostalgia nut. I found out by looking up the Cherokee archives that the old hospital is now the parking lot space for the new hospital. “Oh, that is just so sad.” I have to chuckle when I say that because my mom used to chide me for not wanting things to change. Hope you like this picture of Sioux Valley Memorial Hospital.
My mother stayed ten days there after I was born. Then she had to be taken home by ambulance. They had no real ambulance so they used a hearse. Oh no! My, times have changed. The "new" hospital was built two years after I was born.

Centennial Continues Part 3

I have been having a lot of fun with the Cherokee Daily Times published in 1956. It was celebrating the Centennial of Cherokee, Iowa.
That’s the town where I was born. It was the only town I ever knew until I was in my twenties. My father worked at the Times for years, and my mother was born in Cherokee. My ancestors helped found the town of Cherokee.
Some of the articles in this special edition were just cute and/or comical etc.
SAME OLD JAILHOUSE:
Cherokee jail had last week more fixed residents to the square mile than any similar area in the county.
“The prisoners now in jail nearly escaped last week. A saw made from a bread knife and a file were the tools used and are now on exhibition at the sheriff’s office. “January 10, 1878.” You often hear jokingly about a woman putting a file in a cake for an inmate to escape. I have never heard of it in a serious connotation. Here is another article concerning a jail. HOW NEED WAS VOICED FOR A JAIL:
Whether a town be small, medium sized or large the law of averages will reflect a few “hoodlums” in every so-called Civilized society.
Cherokeeans in 1871 came to the realization that a jail was needed in the locality to provide a place for the criminals to be locked up, following arrests. Proposals suggested that the structure not exceed $500.
Previous to the building of the jail, law offenders were sent to the Woodbury establishment for their prison terms. Expenses for this were charged to Cherokee county at the rate of $1 per day for each jail occupant from this region. Woodbury County’s county seat is now Sioux City.

Poisonous Literature:
In 1878 it was reported that poisonous literature was probably in part responsible for the outrageous crime in New York, reporting that four boys were shot that year. Other cities like Boston also had deaths of a similar nature. It stated that hardly a day the telegraph did not report of these crimes. The newspaper called this kind of “trash” literature a toadstool literature which poisons the immature intellect. They also said that a crusade should be made against it until it is suppressed. It said that boys read this “stuff” and want to be pirates and robbers and live in caves.
And escape from tyrannical strongholds, vulgarly termed jails and annihilate minions of the law, alias policeman.
As I read this, I thought, “Oh my, I am so glad whoever wrote this could not see the statistics of New York murders now as well as the “trash” that young people read as well as watch on television.
I will hopefully bring you some more fun and/or interesting articles from this edition tomorrow.

Cherokee Centennial, Part Two

In 1879 there was an article in their paper that related Cherokee’s social life. It was headlined “Grand Banquet” In honor of Judge Galbraith at the Washington House. Last night is a story in the issue of the July 10, 1879 issue telling of a major social event complete with the menu.
“ The social nature of our citizens lead them to embrace every plausible occasion for an exhibition of the amenities of society.
The judge was going to go to Montana as an associate judge. The social was to provide an opportunity to let the judge realize how much the citizens respected him and the pleasure they felt at his promotion to such an honorable position.
“Carte Menu:”
Boiled ham al a Glace; Tongue, oyster sauce; relishes Worcestershire Sauce, London Club, French Mustard,
Cucumber pickles, Pice Alili, Chow Chow, Entrees: Macaroni baked with cheese a la Italian; Beef a la mode; Oyster Patties; Chicken Salad; Sardine; Roast Turkey, Jelly sauce, Ham with Champagne sauce. Cake: fruit, pound, Delicate, Watermelon, Jelly Chocolate, Silver, Gold Confectionaries, raisons, walnuts, pecans, almonds oranges and assorted candies. Coffee, Royal flor , jerez jelly, wine jelly, ice cream, and Roman punch.
I doubt very seriously if you would find an article like this anymore. I doubt very seriously if you would find a menu like this any more. I can’t even pronounce some of the names of the food. I chose a photo of a lady from 1856 which I thought would be appropriately dressed for the occasion.
In adjoining columns was one titled, “ Liver-Eating” Johnson Passes. (From the centennial files) January 17,1878. Liver Eating Johnson who is said to have killed more Indians than any other man on the frontier, is reported dead.
He once ate the liver of one of his Indian victims and hence his title. He made the killing of Indians a pastime and was the terror of strolling savages in the upper Missouri River country.”
This is certainly a contradiction of news, don’t you think?

Back To Cherokee Starting With The Centennial in 1956

I was born in Cherokee in 1944. I was going through the Cherokee Daily Times and I think I missed a lot of the good stuff. This paper was the Centennial issue. I will cover a lot of things that have been newsworthy over the years, including my ancestors.
The Centennial Paper was 78 pages long. That amount of pages was extraordinary. The secondary headline was as follows: “Let us show in this Year’s Centennial Commemoration, Our Pride In this Wonderful Community of Ours and it’s Marvelous Development Since the Little Band of Settlers from Milford, Massachusetts First Came into Our Valley in 1856.
The celebration was three days long: June 3-5. There were so many activities scheduled for all three days. A multitude of class reunions, church services, and store fronts decorated with nostalgic memorabilia.
I am going to relate a lot of the articles written in this paper. One of my favorites was titled “Dot Vindo Caput”

John Wickert a hard working inoffensive German,who lives in a small house west of the railroad track, has been of late much annoyed by some wicked boys whose time would be more profitably employed at school.
On Saturday about two o’clock they threw a large stone through a window breaking it all to pieces, or as the German himself forcibly expressed it “make dot vindo all go dead, killed mine glass in liddle bits.” He explained to the city marshal, and if the miscreant repeat their naughtiness they will land in the caboose.
A child sitting near the window narrowly escaped being hurt. This article was written January 17, 1878. '
How different we write articles now. We probably would have said, if anything, Vandalism reported at the railroad housing development. No injuries reported.
I am going to write several stories that were reported like this one. I enjoy reading these and I hope you will too, especially if you lived there or went to school there for a short or long time.
A lot of the centennial activities were held at the Tomahawk Field.
Interestingly enough as I was reading this special edition, the editors mixed the current events with the one hundred year old events. For instance I was reading about a lady that had fallen down her basement stairs, taken to the hospital, had x-rays, but the results had not been given to the press. Oh my, that’s different.
Will talk to you tomorrow, with some more fun news from the old days of Cherokee!

Two Face, Bat Man's Enemy

My son loves Halloween. Every year since he was little he has dressed up as monsters for the most part. He told me the other day he wished he could dress up every day. He just loves the process as well as the end result.
This year his costume was Two Face, Bat Man’s Enemy. I never heard of him. (Generation Gap) Mike engineered his whole costume and make up. He had a friend’s mother sew two pair of jeans together and two shirts. She broke four needles getting those two pair of jeans sewn together. He wore two different pair of shoes; one work boot and one rubber boot. The worst he did, however was to have half of his head shaved off and half of his beard.
The makeup he used was just awful. He mixed glue and caulking, black and brown makeup and red pencil for sores on his head.
He took a very old sports coat and bleached half of it and the other half was original. He got Fran and I involved by trying to find him a solid colored tie that was black or navy blue. We went to four different places, could not find one. We felt like failures! We finally found one but it would not bleach. The whole idea was to have the tie match the shirts and coat.
Mike won the costume contest last year dressed as the Geico Man, and this year the contest had four first place winners. He won again! His was the only one that was original. You could tell most of them came from a costume shop or from the internet.
Mike will never grow up when it comes to Halloween, good for him!