USA > Nebraska > York County > York County, Nebraska and its people : together with a condensed history of the state, Vol. II > Part 16
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Eddytorial
We are among the few who are not in any desperate hurry to see prices come down, and we are in still less of a hurry as we note that they are putting the skids under wheat, just as we ex- pected.
This is a very quiet state campaign. We are suspicious of quiet campains. ,
Pure Locals
News is scarce this week.
So is time.
So is space.
Kit considers the space more impor- tant than anything else. She is willing and anxious any time to cut out the Squawker to make room for ads. No- body appreciates us but the fat bar- tender in at Guy & Buck's place on the corner, and he ain't right in the head. Sometimes we get so mad we are ready to quit, and then we remember the way to get even is to keep right on.
The Commercial Club et Monday night. A good time was had by all.
The Notary Club et Thursday noon. A good time was had by all.
The K. Peas will eat tomorry night and a good time will be had by all.
Seems to us like there is a dickens of a lot of eating going on around this town.
Also a lot of escaping. Why not play the piano.
HISTORY OF YORK COUNTY
Iffen you can't be thankful for any- thing else, be thankful its no worse.
I'd hate to be in turkey Where it's
murky and it's dirkey- I'd rather far in old York County be ;
I'd hate to be in Turkey, The subject makes me jerky :
But I do not mind when Turkey Is in me.
We hear tell ez how out there in Lockridge Township Cash Newman wuz had to git accorded th' complimentiary and surprizin' testimonial uv one vote fer county jedge. Th' boys wuzn't gonna enter the result on the pole book, fust off, but Cash says ez how he roekoned they had better do so, ez long ez th' vote wuz cast an' counted ac- cordin' tew dew process nv law, an' he would make it prety durned hot fer em itlen they neglected thet there little ceremony of enterin' it in th' books. Waal, th' boys argued with Cash a spell, an' telt him thet they didn't like t' enter thet there one lettel lonesome vote fer him ez it looked like a joke some- one wuz playin' onto him, er mebbe some half-wit had snuck in the booth an' then dropped thet there vote in th' box while they wuzn't lookin'. But Cash sed he guessed there wuzn't nuthin' so blamed foolish erbout thet vote ez fur ez he could see : thet it wuz th' most sensible vote he seen cast thet day, an' how did they know until all
th' returns wuz in how he wuz runnin' in th' other townships, fer the good uv all. He sed he took thet vote plumb serious, an' he made a lettel speech an' thanked which ever one it wuz in the crowd thet hed did him th' honor an' he sed thet while he might be defeated still there wuz no denyin' thet he had made a surprizin' gain over last year, an' hed every reason t' feel gratified over th' increase uv 100 per cent in his hum precinet. An' he sed he would like t' call th' attenshun uv his enemies, an' point 'ith pride t' his friends ez how he took a easy second place, an' iffen this here cheap politicul crook, Harry Hop- kins, hedn't spent oodles of tainted money which he had wrenched fr'm th' pockets uv th' poor, he wouldda beat him hands down. An' then th' boys tolt Cash they reckoned thet 't wuz easy t' tell who voted fer him, 'n they guest it wuz lucky he didn't get no more 'n one vote er it would a become their painful dooty 't arrest him fer repeatin'. An' what Cash sed then won't bear repeatin' in good society. And he telt 'em iffen they sed tew much he would demand a recount. Lby Clithero sed he wouldn't advise him tew dew that- sed he might lose that there vote if he did. Such is life.
Mighty near it had a bold bank rob- bery the other night. Josh Cow caught a couppla birds, one of same being Jack Crumpaugh, an alleged employe, lurk- ing around the basement and called the night police. The night police crawled in a window and was going to cut loose with a gat and only desisted when he discovered he didn't have his gat along. Jack and his accomplish (we haven't heard whom) claimed they had come in there to skin a mink. We are innocent and unsuspecting, but itfen a coupla guys were eanght in our bank and they claimed they come in there to skin a
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mink we would tell them to go tell that to the judge, even iffen they did have a inink along to prove it with. Still, on second hand, there is considerabul skin- ning done in banks-in fact, they are darn near it packing-houses when it comes to skinning there customers, so let the story ride. We understand Jack got his key tooken up on him by Josh.
Pure Locals Happy New Year.
York, Neb., Dec. 29th.
Dear Squawker: I don't think it would be out of place to wish you a Happy New Jeer. SQUIB.
Spent Christmas out at Jen's. Tur- key 'n everythin'.
We didn't get no Ford for Christmas, but we got a tin horn.
Gns Schneider of Benedict paid his prescription, greatly to our surprise.
We threatened to go on a strike the other day. "Zatso?" said Kit, "I didn't even know you had been working." Such is married life.
It may come to pass that some of the people who were not satisfied with ten dollars a day will be tickled to death with two. 'We sincerely hope not, but such is life.
Truth is stronger than fiction. The other night we were hastening home in a driving snowstorm, on ac'ct we could not afford to hasten home in a taxicab, and as we crossed the street near the meeting house, we met a large barrel rolling sullenly down the pavement. We looked at it twicet and then we never believed it until it knocked our feet out from under us and we fell over
it quite emphatically. We told Kit about it when we got home, and she looked stern and asked us where we had been. We couldn't make her believe anybody had lost a barrel while doing their Christmas shopping surly. The next morning we learned that it was our own rain barrel that had attackted us whilst we stood transfixed with aston- ishment. The boys of the neighbor- hood had borrowed same, along with our ladder, to barricade the street for their sleighing operations, thereby nearly sleighing us with our own rain barrel. Bless the boys ! They can have any darn thing we've got, but we want to be absolved from responsibility, iffen they don't keep there rain barrels tied up.
As to the ladder which was smashed up, we do not care for it. It was one we borrowed of Ed Johnson.
Sossiety News
Grace is quite an observant enss. Frinstance, it was had to snow quite heavily last week, for the good of all. Grace observed the next morning on her way down town to loaf that everybody had their walks cleaned off, except the lawyers and editors. Her walk wasn't cleaned off, and neither was Bill Kirk- patrick's nor Ed Sandall's. Then she got along all right till she got down to Ed Gilbert's, and the walk in front of Ed's place looked like a ent on the Burlington after a three days' whizzard. When she got as far as the Squawker's palatial residence she said she had to back up and make a running start in order to eat her way through the moun- tainous drifts, and when she finally labored through there was snow cling- ing to the fringe on her bonnet, and her face was so full of same she would, if she had been a goat, have been com- pelled to amputate her whiskers before she could have taken a chew of tobacco
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-in case, as we said before, she had been a goat.
Doc Shidler has us deeply in his debt on ac'et he wrote last week's Squawker so we could go fishing for the good of all. This is three or four times Doe has come to the rescue in this neigh- borly fashion, and we appreciate it more than we could well mention with- out becoming maudlin. Thanks. Doc, and any time you want us to help ent out a appendix or anything, don't hesi- tate to call on us.
In last week's paper by a slip of the typewriter we inadvertently referred to Gnat Dean as police judge when we should have said B. A. Ward. We apologize to both of them. Judge Ward may recover from the cruel blow in time. but he is inconsolable at present. Gnat Dean, as our readers well know, is our justly celebrated dam contractor, who is one of the best dammers in the country and can dam anything large or small. while Judge Ward is dammed by everybody and gets even by saying five and costs.
Baby Show
Get your babies fat and in good con- dition for the Better Babies show to be held in conjunction with the county fair September 20-24th. for the good of all. E. B. Woods, chairman of the Better Babies Committee, with Evert Gould and Charlie Stroman, the other members, have been working like demons to make the show a winner, and they announce that it is beyond per- adventure of a doubt it will prove a howling success. Chairman Woods says that safety-pins will be furnished free as per usual, and talcum powder can be had at cost on the premises. He is also glad to announce that while in the past the prizes for pig's have been some-
what larger than those offered for babies, he has succeeded in getting the appropriation enlarged so that the babies will now be given an even break with the pigs.
Eddytorial
"Looking for an Issue with Which to Win" was the headline carried by the Sunday papers. referring to the republican and democratic parties. They didn't use to be so frank and ingenuous about these things, but they're wearing 'em higher this year.
We see where the Standard Oil Com- pany has declared another quarterly dividend of about steen millions. We are in favor of passing the hat for the poor harassed stockholders of that bankrupt institution that the govern- ment has ruined along with the rail- roads and the sugar trust and the packers and the shoe manufacturers. With oil getting so scarce and every- thing gasoline will just have to go to seventy-five cents per gallon. The poor devils-how it must wring their tender hearts to have to raise the prices !
We regret very much to note by his recent speech in the newspapers that Congressman Melaughlin is fast de- generating into a typical politician. Mac succeeded in accomplishing the impossible when he secured the nomi- nation against the wishes and desires of every politician in his district, but now, evidently. a coterie of Washing- ton politicians have dragged him into their committee meetings, coached him to be a regular, and Mac is spouting about "one-man-power" like the rest of the ward heelers. C'ut it out. Mac. You may ride along on the erest of a party wave for a while, but when it subsides you will be lett stranded on the rocks along with the small fry.
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A Dinner Dance
There was had to be a dinner dance pulled off down at the new hutel the other night. A dinner dance is like a cabaray only more swell, and you get something to eat at a eabaray. Some of the men folks had a good time, and others wore their dress suits. There was also some low dresses worn, and the other decorations were in striet keeping with the exclusiveness of the function which was held in the Intel lobby, only they et in the dining room. When our York full dress society gets started, it can pull off stunts on the same lavish scale as London, Paris, New York, French Kick Springs, where the Pluto comes from, Palm Beach, and South Omaha. And we can think of nothing more edifying than to see York's high society dane- ing in the hutel lobby for the good of all. It is the best kind of advertising for our fair city, on ac'et there is quite a few traveling men hanging around the lintel at all times, and they get to see that our society is just as swell as the best of them. And the scene must have been one of bewildering beauty as viewed by opery glasses from the mez- zanine (this word has only been added to York's vocabulary recently, but all it means is low) floor, which same is reached either by the marble staircase or the electric lift when the same is in running order. The Squawker editor was not invited to this society event of the season, no doubt through some technieal error or other slight over- sight on the part of the invitation com- mittee, which same neglected to send us a free pass to same for the good of all, but if we had been there we would have taken keenest delight in viewing the fairylike scene as the sylphlike, dress suited forms of Bill Overstreet, Bill Boyer, Charlie McCloud and we
don't know who in thunder else floated acerost the tessellated floor like thistle- down, as it were, guiding their light- hearted, lightfooted, lightheaded com- panions gracefully hither and yon, through the mystic mazes of the skimmy.
We think a good time was had by all but Bill Overstreet, whom, we under- stand. has been heard to state since that he prefers some dinner along with the dance at a dinner dance, and that he was weak with hunger, as the fish he drew for lunch looked like a pre- served minnow that had been fished with for bass and drew several strikes so it was in a draggled condition. Otherwise a good time was had by all.
Some Interesting Figures
There is some interesting figures in York society when you come to con- sider the same. We do not mean legs -we mean statistics. The figures show that York society is much more ex- clusive than New York society. For example, there is fewer members of York's 400 than there is of New York's 400. There is 400 members of New York's 400, but there is only 56 mem- bers of York's 400.
There is fourteen dress suits owned by male butterflies of society in York. One of these dress suits is new. In York it is a fad to wear the dress suit for either morning or afternoon functions. A few extremists wear them in the evening.
The Sunday supplement of Worst's Sunday Examineher, which is the authority for style with York society, announces, we are pleased to note, that white gloves are no longer being worn at any social functions aside from husking bees. This will be quite a relief to our social favorites, as it is quite a job to remember to take same
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IHISTORY OF YORK COUNTY
off when you come home and have to go downstairs and fix the furnace for the night.
If there is no high silk hats being worn in York, it is only because our local clothiers have neglected to lay in a stock of same, and not because our social gadabouts are too tight to pur- chase the same if they could be had. The hats are all high but they are not silk. Anyhow our society when it goes to the diamond horseshoe circle at the Sun to enjoy grand opery goes in the luxurious towering car, the ford or the taxicab, and what is the use of wearing a high silk hat inside an all- leather top where nobody can see the same, we ask?
There is but one goat owned by York
society at present. We have not said who owns this goat, but she is quite prominent in society-that is, the lady. not the goat. The goat would no doubt be strong for society if given the oppor- tunity, but the goat fad seems quite hard to establish, and goats are a drug on the market at present. The goat in question is a brown plush one, and lends itself readily to the fashionable tans in color schemes of decoration. To our notion, if leading goats around became fashionable, as, up to the hour of going to press. it has failed to become, it would be much more sensible than leading chow dogs around. Be- sides, goats give milk, and do not bark and chew all the fringe off the lounge in the best room.
CHAPTER XVIII
THE MEDICAL PROFESSION
CALL THE DOCTOR-THE PIONEER PHYSICIAN-THE MEDICAL ROSTER-DURING THE '90S AND SINCE- THE HOSPITALS
CALL THE DOCTOR
The modern generation, who can step to the telephone. call the doctor, await a few anxious moments while the physician's automobile speedily brings him to the bedside of the sick person, is very apt to overlook the prime importance of the country doctor of some forty years ago. Then it was a long wait, a period of intense suspense, while the doctor, sitting half awake in a buggy, with the faithful horse steering the course would be slowly ambling toward his destination. To make a good fraction of as many calls, visits and examinations as the modern physician can dispense with in a regular day's work, his predecessor of a generation ago had to put in many more tedious, tiresome hours. Words cannot begin to record the credit due to the earlier doctors of York County or any other community. The least we can do at this time is to compile a memorial roster of these faithful servants of the public health.
The following piece, written upon the work of the pioneer physician, will carry forth the thought hereinbefore suggested.
THE PIONEER PHYSICIAN (From the New Teller, February 5, 1913)
The historian of south York County mentioned in an article published last week the valuable services rendered early settlers by Dr. Deweese, who proved a good friend to many sick and suffering ones. The northern portion of the county was also fortunate in having a pioncer physician in the person of Dr. S. V. Moore, whose home has been in York for a number of years. Though his days of strenuous effort are long since ended and failing health keeps him by his fireside during the winter days, he has a very keen memory of the time when cold and storms had no terrors for him and he willingly braved the worst blizzard to respond to a call for help. Doctor Moore came to York County in 1869. He took a homestead north of the present site of Bradshaw and built his sod house on a hill about a half mile from Lincoln Creek. He had both studied and practiced medicine in his former home in Illinois, but had not expected to continue to follow the profession in Nebraska. But the need of his neighbors was so great and their wish for the medical treatment he alone could give so urgent, that he gradually yielded to their
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demands and soon found himself practicing medicine over the most of York County and parts of Polk and Hamilton. If a call to a siek bed came in plowing time the plow must be left in the furrow till the sick were visited, and if a winter storm was brewing the wife and children must be left to care for themselves and the stock as best they could until the father-doctor could reach home again.
There were few contagious diseases to contend with, though the children of the plains succeeded in catching measles and kindred ailments as do those of the towns. Diphtheria was a dreaded visitor sometimes and pneumonia was greatly feared. Doctor Moore remembers being called to the bedside of a young woman who was very sick with this disease. A storm was raging. and lighted lanterns were hung outside the door of the house to guide the doctor. As he entered the little room where the woman lay he found her bed surrounded by weeping friends who believed her to be dying. The doctor left the door wide open and someone in the room sug- gested that it be closed. "No, leave it open," commanded the doctor as he made his way toward the siek woman. When she had recovered the power of speech the patient told the doctor that she heard his command and blessed him for it, for she was perishing for lack of oxygen and the air in the little room was rendered the more impure by the number of people who were crowded in. All of these friends save the husband and a woman to serve as a nurse were banished by the physician, and since it was too cold to send them to their homes. he told them to make them- selves as comfortable as possible in a sod annex to the house. To those who insisted that the patient was dying he said "She is not dead yet." and she did not die. She, too, is living in York today.
On one occasion the doctor was gone from his home for three days and nights. being prevented from returning by a blizzard. As he was nearing home on the evening of the third day he was stopped by a settler whose wife was sick and who besought him to tarry with them. Though Doctor Moore had not been able to send word to or hear from his family during his absence. he yielded to the settler's prayer and watched with the sick woman till nearly morning.
A little mule carried him many a mile through heat and cold and never failed to find the way home over trackless fields of grass or snow. Sometimes when home- ward bound Billy would lower his head and sniff the trail like a dog. Nell, a beauti- ful mare of high degree had her part, too, in carrying relief to the suffering. Some- times the way (there were no roads in those days) led through the water-filled basins and across streams and more than once it was necessary for the rider to lift his feet and saddle bags to the horse's back to escape a wetting while fording the waters. The travel in winter of course called for the most endurance and frequently led to exposure to the elements sufficient to endanger life. The pioneer physician was not supplied with fur coats or robes and was often chilled through and felt the pangs resulting from frosted hands and feet. Onee a woman in a household where he had a patient insisted on preparing the doctor for the homeward trip by wrapping his legs in old quilts tied with strings. Before he reached shelter he was most grateful for the kindly solicitude, for without the extra wrappings he knew he might have frozen.
Once when the physician was watching by the child of a neighbor which had been attacked by membranous croup, he was summoned home to find that his little son was similarly afflicted and his wife had been fighting the disease with all the remedies at her command.
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The question of medicine was an important one to the doctor of the early '70s. Drugs must be procured from Lincoln or Milford and then compounded by the doctor himself. A good supply of medicine must be carried on every trip, for often one eall was the only one the doctor could make, and at the best medicine must be left for several days with directions for use or change as the patient's condition might demand.
Often the doctor was called to a home consisting of a one-room sodhouse with only a strip of carpet for a door and heated by a cook stove in which cornstalks were used as fuel, it requiring the constant labors of one person to replenish the fire. The patient in such a home had usually nothing in the way of comforts. Yet Doctor Moore recalls that by far the greater majority of his patients recovered in spite of adverse conditions. There were a few cases of tuberculosis under his care in those early days, but he held out no hope of recovery to the patients or their friends while doing all in his power to alleviate their distress and make their last days easier.
In many cases the only compensation Doctor Moore received was that of the deep gratitude of his patients. There was little to pay with then, and it was not unwillingness but lack of means which left him unrewarded. Some men payed their debts in farm labor, and their services were greatly needed at times by one who left his own things so frequently to care for the things of others. When the grasshoppers took the settlers' crops they also took the hopes of the doctor for ready money which had been promised him by those who lost their all. But of these things he never complained, and, indeed, it is necessary to question him closely concerning this part of his experience. Sometimes the doctor traveled twenty-five or thirty miles to see a patient and sometimes a trip of sixty or more miles would be necessary in order to make two or three visits. Charging at present professional rates for visits calling for such an expenditure of time and strength would have given Doctor Moore a good start on the road to wealth, if the charges could have been paid.
This story of heroism might be indefinitely prolonged, for hundreds of thrilling incidents doubtless crowd the history of that fourteen years. "Hero" is a very appropriate name for a man who lived the life of a pioneer doctor. but after all it does not express much. For the name is often bestowed for one act of supreme self-risk. while the doetor practices self-sacrifice year in and year out with no great crisis, save the ordinary crisis of life, to nerve him to endeavor.
THE MEDICAL ROSTER
The roster of doctors who have registered in York County. in compliance with the requirements of the state laws, gives the most complete list of medical men of York County. This list, kept in the county clerk's office. of course contains names of numerous doctors who were located in other counties, but whose practice ealled them into York County frequently enough that they deemed it advisable to register here. Doctor T. L. Myers practiced at York as early as 1871 and Dr. A. J. Allen was the first at Bradshaw, in 1872.
The list, beginning with the registrations in 1881, shows the first name to be that of George W. Shidler. Doctor Shidler, a native of Pennsylvania, trained in the Ann Arbor, Michigan, University medical department and the College of Phy- sicians and Surgeons at Keokuk, Iowa. practiced in Iowa some three years and came to York County in February, 1828. In August, 1881, he went to Red Cloud, where
Vol. 11-12
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he practiced for a short time, and then returned to York County, where he com- pleted a long, useful career before his call to the final reward. His son, George P. Shidler, is one of the leading doctors of York of the present generation.
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