100 Year Old Weblog ~ News From 100 Years Ago That's New to You from Vintage Kansas City.com

June 26, 1908

DID SPOT PROVIDE THE FEAST?

Court House Clerks Believe They

Know About McClanahan's Fowls.

Every clerk in the circuit court of Jackson county dined on spring chicken at the home of David McClanahan in Independence last night. About the chickens which supplied the feast there was a veiled mystery, which added greatly to the sweetness of the meat. Arthur Kelly is positive he has found the solution to the mystery.

It runs this wise: About two months ago the county court secured two fox terriers for use in the basement of the court house. These dogs were warranted champion rat catchers, and they willingly lived up to their reputations. When the rats had become exhausted and the dogs had nothing more to do at the court house James Fernald, one of the clerks, spirited one of the dogs to his home. But the dog insisted on catching the neighbors' chickens, bringing them to the Fernald homestead and then and there killing them. Mr. Fernald, at his wife's earnest suggestion, brought the dog back to the court house.

Then it was that Dave McClanahan took the dog home. One week ago he told the clerks in the court house that he was planning a chicken dinner for them. Nice, fine, fat, spring chickens. Arthur Kelly smiled and kept still. He knew the story of Fernald, the dog and the chickens. Spike Henessy, champion chicken eater of the court house, began a starvation diet at once.

Yesterday morning Kelly and Fernald, guarding their secret well, called a meeting of the clerks and presented Dave McClanahan with a brand new dog collar. On the silver plate of the collar was inscribed these words: "To Spot, in recognition of his services." When McClanahan read the inscription he turned red in the face.

"Stung," whispered Kelly to Fernald; "that blush is the blush of guilt. Now for our dress suits that we may partake of the sweets."

Labels: animals, circuit court, courthouse, food, Independence

June 2, 1908

ELOPED FROM POOR

FARM TO BE MARRIED.

WILLIAM MEADS AND BRIDE DE-

FIED COUNTY COURT.

He is 66 and the Bride, Formerly

Mrs. Eliza Anderson, Is 76.

They'll Live in a

Candy Store.

Neither age nor circumstance can stand before the will of Dan Cupid. Among the twenty-one women in Kansas City who became brides yesterday, the earliest June bride of them allow as Mrs. William Thomas Meads, 76 years old, who, as Mrs. Eliza Anderson, eloped from the county poor farm with the groom in the early morning and was married at the court house at 10 o'clock by Justice Mike Ross. And among the twenty-one none is more happy or more thrilled with dreams of the future.

"The county court wouldn't let us marry at the farm," she explained last evening in the room at 727 Harrison street, which she and the groom rented for a week. "There is absolutely no sense in them not allowing us to get married, but since they wouldn't , we up and ran away. We were up at 5 o'clock, for it takes William a long time to get over the two miles to the station. The other women there bade me goodby last night.

"Now that we are here and married, we are ready to face the world again. We fled from it once. But William has saved his salary as librarian, and I have many friends in Kansas City. We are going to open a little confectionery store and live in a room in the back. We are certain that we can make a living and are never going back to the poor farm.

"They never treated William right out at the farm. He had charge of the library and had to be on his feet day and night to answer two telephones. And they only gave him $5 a month. He can make lots more than that in Kansas City."

The bride, who had been standing back of Meads's chair, here stopped her flow of talk to push her spectacles back on her forehead, stoop, put an arm around Meads's neck and kiss him on the brow. The old man petted her with his one able hand.

"She's a mighty good little woman," he put in. "Don't you dare to poke fun of her in your paper."

"No," interrupted the bride, straightening suddenly. "It is an outrage the way we have been treated. People seem to think our running away is a joke. I've just as much right to get married as I had fifty years ago. I'm an old settler in Kansas City. I have been here forty years. My husband died twenty years ago and I went to work for Bullene, Moore, Emery & Company. I was with them a long time until I got the asthma so that I couldn't work nor live in the city. So I went out to the farm where the air is pure. I know some of the finest people in Kansas City. Two members of the grand jury, who visited the home, recognized me and were astonished. I told them it is no disgrace to be on the poor farm. It's no crime to be poor, after one has worked hard for years and years, as I did. It's just inconvenient.

"William and I are going to start life all over again, aren't we, William?"

The groom gave a "yes" pat with his hand.

That is about all -- Oh, yes, there is the groom. William Meads is 66 years old and paralyzed on one side. He fought during the entire civil war under General Joseph Shelby. After the rebellion he was employed for fifteen years on a Kansas City evening newspaper During the latter part of the period he was foreman of the composing room. When he was stricken with paralysis he went to the poor farm. He has better use of his right arm and leg now than he had ten years ago, but his general health has been worn down by the passing of years. he did not attempt to rise from his chair either to greet or bid farewell to his visitor.

Labels: Civil War, courthouse, Harrison street, poor farm, romance, Seniors, veterans, wedding

March 13, 1908

IT FELT JUST LIKE SPRING.

One Boy Was Barefoot, Many Played

Marbles Yesterday.

With a temperature of 74 at 8 o'clock yesterday afternoon, the day took its place as the first burst of spring in Kansas City. The court house reporter was assigned to write a weather story and his observation included one boy walking barefoot on the court house lawn, many street urchins abandoning shinny clubs for marbles, quite few Italian grannies sitting in south doorsteps and the first game of horseshoes in Shelly park this year.

The forecast is for colder weather tomorrow.

Labels: children, courthouse, immigrants, weather

February 28, 1908

DARING COURTHOUSE ROBBERY.

Elevator Boy's Pocket Picked While

Going Up and Down.

James P. Cox, elevator boy at the courthouse, yesterday won the distinction of being the first elevator operator in Kansas City to suffer at the hands of a pickpocket. Cox's purse was taken from his hip pocket during the 9 o'clock rush. In it were two pawn tickets, a dime, several receipts and a meal ticket with three meals unpunched.

This is the most daring robbery about the courthouse since the theft of a spaniel pup from the basement of the county jail last August. The pup belonged to Sheriff Charles Baldwin and was being cared for by its mother, who was owned by County Marshal Al Heslip. The thief was never captured.

Labels: animals, County Marshal Heslip, courthouse, crime, elevators

February 9, 1908

HE SERENELY

DRINKS EGGNOGG.

With Friends to Help Him, Captain

Gregg Celebrates Birthday.

Captain W. H. Gregg, a deputy sheriff, who was met leaving the courthouse yesterday with a market basket full of eggs, on his way to his home at 1307 Michigan avenue, where last night he celebrated his 70th birthday, was asked how best a man might celebrate such an occasion.

"I have celebrated over fifty of them," he replied, "and it has been fifty years since I did anything which you might call having a good time. I haven't varied the programme in the past twenty years. It is this:

"I invite a dozen or so of my friends to the house and we play games, tell boyhood stories and drink eggnogg. We will play high five tonight. Those eggs I bought today for the eggnogg."

Labels: courthouse, Michigan avenue

October 20, 1907

THEY WERE SO VERY BASHFUL.

Professor and Student Didn't Want

to Be Seen Getting Married.

Cleo Claudius Duke, a young professor, and Bertha Chandler, a student in Monmouth college, Monmouth, Ill, came to Kansas City yesterday and were married in the courthouse by Judge George J. Dodd. The young couple, for the groom is but 26, and the birde 20, tried to keep the conclusion of their romance a secret and insisted that everyone, including the marriage license clerk, leave the recorder's office during the ceremony.

"These bashful people," mused Fred Chambers, chief deputy recorder, while he waited outside the door, "remind me of a bride who made us all move out one day last month to alow her to change her dress. She had purchased a new gown to be married in and brought it wht her in a suit case. Even the groom had to get out of the office while she put it on. And when she stod up to have the judge pronounce the ceremony the basting threads, which she had forgotten to pick out of the skirt, showed quite plainly."

Labels: courthouse, Judges, visitors, wedding

August 9, 1907

SAD FATE OF ANNA BACCHUS.

Her Tragic End Brings Woe to Court
Employes.

Anna Bacchus, the pet cat of County Clerk Samuel A. Boyer's office, and the champion mouser and ratter of the courthouse, was found unconscious by L. I. Duncan, deputy clerk, yesterday afternoon in a drawer in the office which he chanced to open. Anna had crawled into the drawer quietly sometime Wednesday and made herself a nest among the writing paper. The drawer had been closed by someone who did not notice the feline. She was still alive when Duncan found her and laid her on the sill of an open window. The clerks bathed her face in water and stroked her back, but she never regained consciousness. She died at 3:30 o'clock, half an hour later. The only relative in this city is a half brother who lives in the basement of the courthouse. She has had several children, but all of them have been drowned. Her husband, Thomas Bacchus, abandoned her last winter. She was 3 years old. The deputies in Boyer's office will take up a subscription to pay for her funeral. No flowers.

Labels: animals, courthouse, drowning