50th wedding anniversary

Galen and I will be celebrating our fiftieth wedding anniversary next week and that inspired me to learn how couples in the past celebrated their anniversaries. I went to chroniclingamerica.com and did a "wedding anniversary" search.  The result yielded over 2,000 pages with 20 newspapers per page. 

This shows part of one of the 2,000 plus pages.

So far I have gone through 27 of the search pages and typed up 32 pages of interesting anniversary stories. I don't know yet if I'll have enough for a whole book but can add a section on marriages if needed. I also plan to include our story and a few photos.

Things noted so far:

There are an amazing number of golden wedding anniversaries listed in the old newspapers, far more than I expected. And some couples were married over sixty years.

Most of the golden wedding anniversary couples have been active and involved and continue to be "well preserved" for such old people.

Nearly all of the couples have lost at least one child. It was not uncommon to print the number of children the couple had and how many were still living.

They look crabby in the newspaper photos. I will include some of them in the book.

Some took incredible risks and moved west. Some lived their whole married lives in one place—something I just can't imagine.

A surprising number of couples were married on the husband's birthday. We were married on Galen's birthday.

Their idea of informal is quite different than mine. Here is an article I typed up today:

A delightful informal reception was given last night by Mr. and Mrs. Arthur in honor of their fifteenth wedding anniversary.
   Rev. B.F. Coulter, who performed the marriage ceremony was among the guests.
   In the dining room, where refreshments were served, a huge basket filled with white bride roses and maidenhair ferns stood on a large mirror in the center of the table. At each plate was a pretty floral design with the wedding date and 1906 inscribed. A canopy of ferns was suspended over the table and diamond dust was sprinkled on everything. In the drawing room the receiving party stood under a large white floral bell with the wedding dates inscribed on it, and this was hung from a thick canopy of ferns and smilax. Touches of scarlet were skillfully arranged among the banks of papyrus and bamboo in the reception hall and den, and yellow chrysanthemums decorated the library. De Nublia’s orchestra gave a program of music during the afternoon. Los Angeles Herald, December 2, 1906.

We are planning to wear jeans and tennies and serve pizza and birthday cake at our anniversary gathering. Our jam group will provide music.  :-) 

Stay tuned for more anniversary stories.

CHICKENS is now available in the Kindle Store.

TEXAS+CHICAGO+OREGON+VERMONT+CHICKENS+TEXAS+CHICAGO+OREGON+VERMONT+CHICKENS

Galen and I gave a program for the United Methodist Women in the San Luis Valley last Saturday. We read a couple of the stories from my books, played some music, and talked about publishing. We'd never done a program like this before and really enjoyed it. I printed out the above poster to pass around during the talk. KENTUCKY CLIPPINGS isn't actually published yet but is well on the way.


The Kindle version of Chickens in the News is live! The paperback is also available here.

There is one impressive story the didn't make it into the CHICKENS book — Mike the headless chicken. True Story. Mike lived in Fruita, Colorado, without a head, for 18 months in the 1940s. I Googled ""headless chicken" and looked at pictures. Ewww! Kind of gross. Want to know more? Check out this PBS video. I am okay with not having this story in my book. :-)

Shameful neglect

I have shamefully neglected this blog for quite a while now and it is time to rectify that because I am about to publish my first paperback! I received a proof of CHICKENS IN THE NEWS today, five days before I expected it. This is what the front cover looks like:

Obviously, this is not a scholarly work but it sure was a fun project that is historical, at times hysterical, and sometimes both at the same time. Who knew chickens could be newsworthy? Did you know the rooster was once the emblem of the Democratic party? Or that there was a supreme court case about chickens? Or that a man and his rooster and hens were all arrested and taken to jail for making too much noise? Or that a shark broke into a hen house? Or that a very well-known minister of his day preached a very long [and drastically edited by me] sermon about chickens?

A Kindle version for $1.99 and the paperback for $4.99 should be available at Amazon by the end of the month—June 2016. I will post here when the books go live.

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A Kindle countdown for TEXAS CLIPPINGS begins on June 30—99 cents for five days. 

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Research and typing for another new book, KENTUCKY CLIPPINGS, is in the first proofreading stage and will be published in both Kindle and paperback versions this summer.

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I have been learning and learning and learning new software, SCRIVENER, so I could publish paperbacks. Scrivener is wonderful but is a bear to learn, in part because different people have different ways of doing things and all the ways are right. I have read it is perfectly normal to want to tear your hair out when you first begin using this powerful writer's software, but more and more of it makes sense to me now and I am glad I put in the effort to learn as much as I have so far. I first tried finding my way around SCRIVENER with TEXAS CLIPPINGS and quickly decided that it was not a good idea to begin that particular process with a 300+ page book so CHICKENS gets to be my first paperback.

Proofreading

Proofreading is hard and this article from an 1885 Kentucky newspaper makes me feel a little better about the typos I miss.

Painstaking people, who know next to nothing of printing, finding a special delight in searching out typographic errors in newspapers, periodicals and books, the detection of a blunder, in their own estimation, putting a premium on individual intelligence—conferring a privilege of disparaging printers. Men of intelligence who write well but not legibly never tire of pointing out mistakes of printers and the oversights of proofreaders. These self-constituted censors of typography may find food for wholesome reflection in the fact that just about one hundred years ago a number of professors in the Edinburg University undertook the publication of a book which should be a perfect specimen of typographical accuracy. Every conceivable precaution was taken to prevent errors of the types. Six experienced proof readers were employed who devoted hours to the reading of each page. After their careful task was completed, each page was posted in the hall of the University with a notification that £50 would be paid to any person who should succeed in discovering an error. Every page remained thus publicly exposed for for two weeks before being returned to the printing office. The projectors of the work felt confident that the object so diligently striven for had been attained. Great was the discomfiture of the learned men when, on the work being issued, several errors were found, one occurring in the first line of the first page.

Kentucky 1885

Now that VERMONT CLIPPINGS has been completed, I have been "visiting" Maysville, Kentucky via the 1885 Evening Bulletin. Here are a few excerpts:

Erie, Pa.—Mayor Adams has a novel application to open his term with. David Gutenkunst, a saloon keeper, is an applicant for the post of police chief, candidly stating that he has no personal detective ability but that his recently married wife is a medium able to detect burglars and recover stolen property by looking in a glass of water. Fearing the mayor would not appoint his wife to the post, Gutenkunst asked it for himself but will let his wife run the business.

Wichita, Kansas.—The new liquor law has closed, to all appearances, every saloon in this city but as anyone can get all the liquor he wants at drug stores by stating he desires liquor for medical purposes, many of the saloon men have started drug stores and a doing a very thriving business.

The postal letter carriers at Salt Lake City are having a unique experience. On account of the late polygamy arrests all the Mormons have been severely warned against talking to strangers and giving their names or residences. The carriers in their rounds knock at doors and a scurry ensues inside. A child answers the door. It is asked who lives there and it often refuses to tell. It does not know the names of the neighbors, or where its father and mother are to be found. The uniform is a sign of the enemy and no information is to be had.

Pittsburg.—Thomas Carney relates a strange tale in the divorce proceedings now pending against his wife, Mary. She was passionately fond of baseball and went to see all the games. She became so absorbed in the sport last summer that she neglected her children. At length she got to betting. The Alleghenys seemed to possess some attraction for her and her money was always put on that club. As they were nearly always beaten the husband testified that this business became rather expensive. When he suggested to her that she should stay at home with the babies she told him to hire a domestic. Carney finally left his wife and the last he heard of her she was desirous of joining a woman’s baseball club.

Roller skating was in the news all the time. New rinks were being built. There were strange contests at the rinks—the longest necktie and the longest apron were two of them. Sounds a bit dangerous to me. Doctors proclaimed skating was bad for the ankles. Some ministers declared skating evil while others found it preferable to dancing. Laws were passed to keep kids out of rinks during school hours.

When lawyers fail to take a fee,
And juries never disagree;
When politicians are content,
And landlords don’t collect their rent’
When naughty children all die young,
And girls are born without a tongue’
When preachers cut their sermons short,
And all folks to the church resort;
When back subscribers all have paid,
And editors have fortunes made;
Such happiness will sure portend
This world must soon come to an end.

It is beginning to feel like spring in Colorado but just to remind myself that winter may not be over, here is another weather related story:

Portland, Ore., Jan. 7, 1885.—It has been snowing out this way lately. If anyone doubts it let him ask the officers of the Oregon railway and navigation company. He may get an answer that will make him think that he has been struck by an avalanche.

On December 16, a passenger train left here over that road. It got as far east as Booneville, about forty miles. It has been there packed in the snow for twenty days. Doubts are expressed whether the train will get out from the thirty foot drifts before spring, for at present the company seems to be largely dependent upon Providence for the clearing of its buried track. It has not the machinery necessary to fight drifting snow.

The Northern Pacific forces uncovered the track for about 100 miles on the west end of the road and from the east to within about twenty-five miles of the imprisoned cars. The O.R.&N., however, has failed to keep the track clear behind the excavators and in consequence the Northern Pacific snow plows and shovelers are likely to get snowed in.

A hundred and fifty men from the Puget Sound division of the Northern Pacific are now at work behind the blockaded train. A hundred of them shovel and operate the machinery and the rest cut wood for the engines and for the open fires that are necessary to protect the men while they work.

The impression is growing that the O.R.&N. road will not be open for regular travel again this winter unless there is a radical change in the weather or the experienced eastern men of the Northern Pacific, who are accustomed to dealing with snow in its worst shade in Minnesota, Dakota and Montana get charge of the work. So far this winter the Northern Pacific has not been obstructed a day.

Fortunately, the number of people on the unfortunate train is not large, only about twenty-five. Food has been regularly and abundantly sent to them. They have also been supplied with fuel cut from the surrounding forests.

The blockade is considered unprecedented in the history of American railroading. For twenty days a great trunk line has been blocked and all direct communication between Portland and the east shut off. Travelers and the mails now have to go by sea to San Francisco, a by no means pleasant journey at this season, and thence east over the Central Pacific.

Brrrrr!

It was -17 when we got up this morning.  We couldn't see the mountains for three days because of the clouds and snow but the sun is back and the snow-capped mountains are beautiful. The snow on the ground means the earth won't have a chance to warm up and our temperatures will remain chilly.  Could have been worse.  This could have started last November or December.

Here is a story about the cold from a Minnesota newspaper that I ran across while looking for something else. You may want to grab a cup of hot chocolate before you read it.

TRAGEDY OF A GLACIER
How One of the Victims Came to Have Two Funerals

In the cemetery at Goschenen in Switzerland a strange burial took place at the end of the nineteenth century.  The coffin, a small one, decently and decorously consigned to earth, contained part of a human leg, a boot, some shreds of clothing and 1 franc, 50 centimes of Swiss money. The unusual ceremony was the concluding chapter of a sad history that began on the Rhone glacier eighteen years before.

In the summer of 1882 the burgomaster of Goschenen and two friends undertook the ascent of the glacier.  All three lost their lives and the bodies were found a week later frozen stiff. That of the burgomaster was stuck fast in a crevasse and in dragging it forth the frozen right leg broke off like a snapped icicle and fell into the blue depths of the fissure.  The poor mutilated body was laid away in the cemetery with every hope, for the mayor had been greatly loved and respected in his little community.

The peasants say “Seven years the glacier grows, seven years she melts,” and in melting she honestly brings to the mouth of her river all that has fallen down her icy blue throat—a belief that, although partly fanciful, contains much that is true. By this strange operation of nature the leg of the mayor of Goschenen came to light after eighteen years. The boot was still on the foot; some rags of clothing clung to the leg; even the trifling sum of money in the unfortunate man’s trousers pocket was honestly returned by the glacier, which keeps nothing not its own.

After eighteen years the leg was buried beside its master. The tragic pathos of its recovery robbed the occurrence of all absurdity.

From the Princeton Union, Princeton, Minnesota