The Dawson Herald from Dawson, Nebraska • 42

THE DAWSON HERALD DAWSON NEBRASKA HISTORICAL EDITION Candlelight Club Furnished Many Good Times For Members Among the attempted by the Candlelight club was an announcement party given by Margaret for Mamie Fenton The place cards were (then quite the vogue) of the bride and groom to be And now ladies and gentlemen may I present to you the surviving membership of the Candlelight club Mabel Shier-Waggener Vinetta Shi-er-Waggener Daisy Smith Margaret Mamie Marie Nesladek Lora McCool-Tie-hen Mamie Riley Jessica Page-Sipe Nelle Riley Maude Har-baugh-Haskins Sadie Buser-Rowan and Carrie Harbaugh GEORGE STILES HAS CUT MUCH NATIVE TIMBER When one thinks of George Stiles one unconsciously thinks of sawmills and walnut logs due perhaps to the fact that in the past 35 years Mr Stiles has probably Sawed more lumber particularly walnut lumber than all other mill operators in the county together Mr Stiles was born on the 25th of November 1864 in Greenburg county West Virginia but when three years old moved with his family to Scioto county Ohio where they lived for a number of years On July 18 1884 he was married to Ledosha Spaulding at Wheelersburg Ohio and the next year the young couple came to Nebraska locating at Dawson on October 23 1885 just 50 years ago Since that time Mr Stiles has continuously received his mail from Dawson post office although for three years he lived in Nemaha precinct while farming on the Tiehen land His first job when he came to Dawson was as a farm hand for Joseph Snethen and later he farmed for himself on the land and also for Martin Ulmer and for Daniel Riley In 1900 he moved into town and since that time has operated saw mills and threshing' outfits until the past few years when he has retired from active work although he operated a small mill in the Riley timber until it was partially destroyed by fire last year and then completely wiped out in the floods this spring In the past 35 years Mr Stiles owned three complete threshing outfits and three saw mills He estimates that he has sawed more than 250000 feet of native walnut in that time as well as a large amount of other native timber Mr and Mrs Stiles are living in their little home in town enjoying the friendships they have made during their years in the community and high in the esteem of all who know them MRS DANIEL RILEY Mary Wheeler born in the Bar-ada precinct on November 24 1862 was married to John Whitney in 1880 He died in May 1901 leaving two sons Claude and Guy In 1912 Mary Whitney married Daniel Riley' Mr Riley died in 1931 and Claude Whitney in 1933 Mrs Riley though an invalid for more than a year is alert to all community happenings and keeps abreast of the times through frequent visits of friends and relatives log or one hewn out placed upon a grooved board The ashes were sifted from time to time in the gum which was kept covered When a supply of lye was needed they poured water in thte top placed a vessel under the grooved tilted bottom to catch the lye water This was used to make the lye bath in which corn was boiled for hominy A mortar made by burning and hewing a bowl in a large block of wood was used to pestle the hulls off the hominy The rest of the proceedure was much the same as it is done today The lye for soap making was obtained in this same manner Many of the people went to the river where a spring fed clean water into it to do their weekly washing On the bank of the river they had their large iron kettles heating water and boiling their clothes Usually some of the men folks were along They would keep the fire up and watch the little tots often times An old gentleman tells us that upon one of these occasions his baby sister then young ladies could rescue the babe two or three years old fell into the river Neither of her sisters grown They could only raise their hands and call feebly for help He dove into the water and brought the child out unharmed only for her soaking Usually the clothes were taken home to dry Sometimes however they were spread upon bushes and the grass to dry A teacher at Columbia university has been quoted as saying that there is no truth to the belief that a teacher makes a lasting impression on a pupil that the pupil may only imagine so In the trenchant vernacular Columbia or no Columbia At least this standing minority thinks so There are citizens in Dawson (and many moved awey) who still credit one Professor Hoff who taught in Dawson high school with being the best mathematics teacher ever And so general has been the influence oi one George Martin formerly of Dawson school that some of our children have studied the Sears and Martin Readers in the compilation of which he collaborated after leaving here A little more than a year ago the Rotary club of Nebraska City honored Mr Martin with an outstanding service award Among those requested to swell the paean of praise was Dan Riley who though out of school during regime was close to him in a business way and knew of the impression he had left here Another sample of this influence was given about four years ago in a conversation held by two ladies in the Falls City depot Lady No 1 was from Humboldt and she approached Lady No 2 asking was the latter from Dawson She was Then Lady 1 grew remfniscent of Dawson and held forth in enthusiastic praise of her first teacher a Miss Emma Young (Kuhltnan) 1 shall remember gratefully as long as I Mrs Kuhlman is a sister of Mrs Page And so on ad infinitum Maybe the Columbia professor was trying to be hard boiled trying to discount sentiment as so many professors of today assume to be their duty The name of this club will recall precious memories of gala occasions to a few still resident in Dawson and several long since gone into a wider but no more interesting environment The organization could hardly be called such in view of the fact that there were no officers no set time for meetings no ballyhoo as to purpose and apparently only one incentive to have fun And did they succeed! Prom 1902 until 1908 (the life of the club) theie were but two rules emphatically formulated and implicitly carried cut: First all enter tainment must be original and must be inspired by the hostess- Second each member must do exactly what she was told to do no refusals permitted That these rules were as immutable as the laws of the Medes and Persians is proven by the following incident related by a member One night it was Jessica Page's turn to entertain She had requested Mamie and Nelle Riley and Mayme Ryan to give a song recital The girls were flabbergasted Everybody including Jessica knew that not one of the three was a vocalist Was the hostess joking? Or did she know of no particular thing the girls COULD do? Orders were order The three set about dressing up an old doggerel fitted action to the words sung and each girl took turn at singing a verse with Mamie Riley as accompanist playing all sorts of trills and furbelows to fill in the gaping pauses when the girls were out of breath or fixing for a climax The narrator of this incident says she never did know whether the audience was impressed by the humor of the program or hilarious over their failure to SING but loud and continuous laughter greeted the performers as they finished their stunt One entertainment re-volved around the request of the hostess that each one come prepared to tell: I never In view of the great age of each member her confession must have been fairly bristling with moraliza-tions And there were jaunts indoor circus fishing parties picnics horse-beck rides (one horse mounted by Nelle Riley staged a wild and picturesque runaway) hayrack rides taffy pulls and whatever other diversion the resourceful misses could plan First to marry out of the club was Mamie Ryan now Mrs Joseph next Vlnetta Shier (Mrs Will Waggoner) Later on there were Mabel Shier (Mrs Todd Waggoner) and Mamie Fenton Each bride received at her wedding a set of souvenir spoons from the club each spoon initialed by the giver The club emblem was a pin designed with two owls sitting on a half moon Perhaps the owls were calculated to restrain the natural exuberance of youth or again perhaps the girls wanted to mock the solemnity with their pranks MEDICAL MEN SCARCE In the early days of the community there were not many doctors available and it sometimes required many hours to get treatment Eph Spaulding recalls that in July 1885 when he with his parents and the family was living on the Cy Huffman place southwest of town he broke an arm His father immediately started out on horseback to get a doctor scarcely waiting to hurriedly eat dinner The doctor was not at home and by the time he could get the arm set it was 11 that night agd his father had ridden about 50 miles on horseback WENT FAR TO MARKET IN THE EARLY DAYS Thos Farrell one of the pioneers of this section raised considerable wheat for that time and found himself with no local cash market One year he started for Denver with a load of wheat Driving an ox-team it required many days of travel but eventually he arrived there and disposed of the load for cash Returning home he started with another load but about half way across Kansas he sold it to a miller saving him many miles of travel and considerable time During the trip he camped out at night sleeping under the wagon and preparing his own meals The oxen foraged at night for their meals After that year however the millers at Brown-ville and Rulo offered a cash market for wheat and it was mostly hauled there Kraut and hominy Making Kraut making season at hand some of the older people are relating interesting stories of pioneer methods In olden times the was a clean sharp spade Some became quite expert in fact only occasionally would you find a piece of cabbage of any size in the kraut Some heads of Cabbage were put in a barrel and chopped fine and salted then more cabbage added chopped and salted and so on until it was all cut Hominy making was a different method too to the way it is done today They leeched thfeir own lye The ash gum was a hollow length of In going through some early day papers Mrs Grace Schlosser found an old government wrapper from the Department of Agriculture address- edto Dawson Dawson's Mill Nebr Richardson County inviting was quite clear and beautiful script seldom seen nowadays Jury- Service According county board ie cords the names of Alf Page Jonathan Messner and Maurice O'Bhen were drawn for jury service for the May term of court in 1883.