Catawba County Scheduling Children's Health Clinic Visits, 1922

 “Many Children Take Health Clinic,” from the Hickory Daily Record, October 4, 1922

State Board of Health Tonsil and Adenoid Clinic for School Children October 10, 11, 12 and 13 at Newton

Through the bureau of medical inspection of schools it was arranged to have the school children of Catawba County have a thorough medical inspection which consisted of testing their vision, hearing, teeth, tonsils and adenoids. This inspection made known to the parents many of the remediable physical defects among their children. A total number of 700 children were found to be suffering from the effects of bad tonsils and adenoids. Through the county board of education and health it was arranged for the state board of health to do some follow up work for Catawba County school children, the state board of health now offers a plan by which school children suffering from adenoids and diseased tonsils may receive treatment, including operation by a good specialist, nursing care and accommodations in an emergency hospital in which the child remains overnight, all for the nominal cost of $12.50 and totally free in case of needy children. The above fee is charged to defray the actual cost of the clinic; no part goes to the nurses, who are paid entirely by the state board of health. This emergency hospital will be set up on the court house at Newton, one of the state’s most competent throat specialists will be sent here by the state board of health to re-examine any of the children who wish to be and only those found badly needing treatment for tonsils and adenoids will be advised to have an operation. After the specialist and family physician have decided that the child needs treatment, and the parent wishes to have this defect corrected, in order not to impair the child’s health in later life, then a thorough physical examination is made of the heart, lungs, kidneys, and temperature is taken to see if the child is in good condition to have this operation.

Every precaution is taken at these clinics. If the child is operated on, it is allowed to return home the following day, the parent being allowed to remain in the hospital all night with their children. This is a wonderful opportunity, by which the school children may receive attention in time to prevent any permanent defects in later life. Bad tonsils and adenoids will cause a great many noticeable defects, namely, weak eyes, earache, which may result in deafness, frequent sore throats, they will snore at night, breathe with their mouths open, be backward in their books at school, and as a usual thing they are not very playful, that is if it is a very bad case, and in later life it will bring on rheumatism, heart lesions, cause them to be nervous and underweight.

Now parents, will you willfully deny your child the right to develop into a healthy man or woman by neglecting the opportunity to have it examined by competent specialists, and if necessary have these remediable physical defects corrected before it has caused some incurable defect?

This opportunity of free examination for school children, and treatment if wanted and necessary is only offered by the State Board of Health once every three years. You must let Miss Ramie Williams, State Board of Health Nurse, Newton, N.C., know at once, in order to have a definite appointment. The clinic will be for four days—October 10, 11, 12 and 13. So send your names at once and you will be notified when to come for examination. Children who come to the clinic are not to have breakfast the morning they come.

After 4 Years On the Run, Yoder Gets Drunk and Is Captured, 1916

“Yoder Captured By Officers at Last,” from the Hickory Daily Record, Oct. 31, 1916

Make (Mike?) Yoder, for four years a fugitive from justice, is once again in the hands of the law, thanks to some mean corn liquor, Chief Lentz, Sergeant Sigmon and other agencies and elements that will be enumerated later. The capture occurred on the old Brookford road and was done so rapidly that Yoder, who is regarded as a desperate character, had little time in which to flee. Sheriff Isenhower, who was attending the speaking, was notified and he and several deputies got busy at once, but the Hickory officers had their man before the sheriff could reach the scene. The sheriff carried the prisoner with him to Newton Monday night and he is in jail there.

Yoder was sentenced to 18 months by Recorder Russell something like four years ago for breaking into a Southern Railway freight car, and escaped from the roads. At intervals he has shown up at his old home and near Brookford, much to the dismay of neighbors who feared him as they would a plague. A few months ago his father died and the estate was being settled this week. In company with Bill Deitz he had gone in a buggy to sign a deed, and both the men, it is said, imbibed too freely on liquor.

They got drunk and fell out. Yoder brought out his trusty knife and aside from hopping on his friend, cut the lines and ran Deitz out of the buggy. Chief Lentz was telephoned for and he and Sergeant Sigmon set out to track him. It seems that Yoder became lost and doubled on his trail, this fact enabling the Hickory officers to reach him before the sheriff and his deputies could reach the scene.

Chief Lentz drew his big gun on the man and ordered him to throw up his hands. The hands wouldn’t go up, and while the chief covered Yoder, Sergeant Sigmon embraced him about the neck, while Mr. Lentz placed the nippers. Mr. Jules Stafford accompanied the officers, and was ready to render assistance after the fellow had been handcuffed, the chief laughingly declared.

Yoder has been a source of trouble to neighbors and has eluded capture many times. His fall from the water wagon was responsible for his undoing this time, and many telephone messages of congratulations reached the officers during the night.

Scarlet Fever, Diphtheria, Typhoid Fever Quarantined Homes in Union County, 1917

“County Must Fight Infectious Diseases,” from the Monroe Journal, Oct. 5, 1917. To help control contagious diseases, the State of North Carolina passed a law that required quarantining homes of patients with certain diseases. The following is the first monthly report from the Union County quarantine officer. The homes under quarantine are listed by the name of the homeowner, not the name of the patient in the home.

New State Law Requires Physicians and Householders to Report Cases to Dr. S.A. Stevens, County Quarantine Officer…Law Now in Force

To reduce the number of infectious diseases in the county and thereby prevent numbers of deaths and save thousands of dollars, is the task that has recently been set before the people of this county. The new State Quarantine law imposes this task, but with it, it does not impose any hardship or impossibility. It requires only that every citizen shall do his duty in reference to any contagious disease in his household or community. It presupposes that every citizen wants to see his country rid of disease as far as possible and will do all in his power to bring this about. ….

Diseases to be reported are whooping cough, measles, diphtheria, scarlet fever, smallpox, infantile paralysis, typhoid fever and cerebralspinal meningitis. Any home having a case of any of these diseases, when it has been reported, will have placed on the front of it a large yellow placard bearing the name of the disease.  ….

The names of those reported to the quarantine officer as having a contagious disease last month are:

Scarlet Fever

Robert Clark, Monroe, Route 5

Hoyle Hinson, Monroe, Route 5

Chattie N. Cason, Monroe

Janie Clark, Monroe, Route 5

Mrs. A.M. Secrest, Monroe

Earl Curlee, Monroe

Willie Hilton, Monroe

Ward McGinnis, Monroe

J.A. Griffin, Monroe

Geo. Porterfield, Monroe

Walter Bartons, Monroe

Maude Trull, Monroe

Wyatt Whitley, Monroe

W.L. Griffin, Monroe

--- McGinnis, Monroe

J.A. Griffin, three cases, Monroe

David Williams, Vance Township

Flossie Hillian, Monroe

Rossie Hargett, Monroe

---- Hargett, Monroe

John Baucom, Monroe

Kenneith Lemmond, Monroe

Diphtheria

Leanna Boyd, Vance Township

M.H. Rowell, Goose Creek

Typhoid Fever

W.E. Baucom, Goose Creek

Fred Stevens, Monroe

J.P. Spencer, Monroe

Mrs. J.P. Spencer, Monroe

Moore Bay, Monroe

---- Baucom, Monroe

Mrs. T.B. Young, Monroe

J.S. Stearns, 2 cases, Monroe

Arthur Helms, Monroe

Three cases at Hasty’s, Monroe

Vance Simpson, Monroe

Lula Griffin, Monroe

Easter Griffin, Monroe.

A placard placed on a house not only requires the patient and children of the household to stay within certain bounds, but it also prohibits outsiders from entering the house in question or allowing their children to enter or go beyond certain limits. Whether you are afraid of the disease or not, has nothing to do with it—the law says for you to keep away except under certain conditions and a failure to obey will render you liable to indictment. In conclusion, I wish again to ask the co-operation of everybody in carrying out the provisions of this law to the end that you may have healthier children and better schools.

                --Very respectfully, S.A. Stevens, Quarantine Officer, Union County, N.C.

Claude Gore Asks, Have We Forgotten the Common Good? 1922

From the Rockingham Post-Dispatch, Oct. 19, 1922

By Claude Gore

Rockingham is a beautiful town, its people are above average in intelligence and possess more of this world’s goods than most people; but we are on an insane hunt for pleasures and on the wrong trail even for that. In this mad rush for pleasure we have discarded our one-time good community spirit, we have thrown it aside as if to lighten our load in the race to get that which will give us more to eat, more to wear, more to see, and more than the Jones’s haven’t got.  It is no longer a race to keep up with the Jones’s but a race to out-do the Jones’s. When a project come up that is designed to better our community the best of us prey upon it with the idea of getting all the personal benefit we can and, many times, it is at the expense of our neighbors. The common good seems to have been forgotten. It is a rush for personal gain, generally a money gain with a belief that money can buy happiness. It cannot be exchanged for that commodity. Money buys things that stimulate our desire for happiness and when the effect of that stimulant dies down we are worse off than we were before. Happiness comes from a deed well done; a piece of work well done; a kindly deed; even a kindly deed done with money leave a bitter tinge and happiness would be nearer complete if the money could have been left out.

Several years ago, I was on the train, bound for Wilmington and the train stopped at Lumberton. There was a very old woman in the seat opposite me and she asked if this was Lumberton. I told her yes and she said, ‘I was to get off at Lumberton,’ and I asked her why she did not get off. She said she could not walk; so I picked her up in my arms and took her off the train. The conductor said, ‘Why I forgot that old lady.’ There was no one to meet her, so while the conductor held the train, I carried that old lady still in my arms several hundred feet to the waiting room and did not put her down until the agent promised me that he would take care of her. It was after midnight. When the conductor signed that train ahead and I swung into my seat I felt much better. Did I make that old lady happy? No. I relieved her distress and made myself happy.

In addition to acts of kindness there is only one thing in the world that can make a man happy. That is love of his work. I pity the man who does not love his work. The grandest feeling in the world is to go home at night thinking on the way that you have done a good day’s work; done it well; a little better than you ever did before and better than anyone else could have done it—and then on top of that to get a good night’s rest and wake up in the morning with an eagerness to get on the job again and see if you can do even a little better today than you did the day before. Oh, how I pity the man who considers his work a drudge and considers payday and Saturday afternoon the only day worth while.

Our people do not appreciate large employers of labor as they should. These men are real benefactors. A red-blooded, true man, does not want anything given to him. He wants a chance to work and fair pay for what he does. Large employers of labor distribute more happiness than we realize. Ask any man who was recently on strike and he will tell you how difficult it is to loaf and be happy.

We should rebuild our community spirit. There are many ways in which we can help. Our town council is doing lots of construction work and we are indulging in lots of destructive criticism. Some of them are beginning to feel like they have a thankless job. Let us back them up with constructive criticism.

Our policemen receive almost no co-operation. Let us help them by obeying the speed laws, the parking laws and other laws that we are continually breaking.

Let us discard that selfish personal gain policy and deliver our influence to the policy that will bring the most good to the community. We must improve our schools more; we must improve our church property. Let us cultivate that neighborly feeling, which makes one feel so much better and the world look so much brighter. Let us abandon that policy of banishing the lawless and try to live so that they can not be lawless. Let us uphold the arm of our solicitor and not convict him before he has been heard. May we all realize what a mistake it is to think at the rate of 248.5 miles an hour ourselves better than the other fellow.

May we keep our school athletics pure and not let our desire to win smother our desire to be honest. May we enjoy the game but not let our excitement interfere with giving our opponent a square deal and the game if we can not win it fairly and as gentlemen should.

Screw up our courage and determine that we will fight vice and the customs that have not yet become vices but have a tendency that way. Fight them forever and a day or until they are completely banished from our community. Pray that the thoughtless age will be made shorter. Try to demolish that idea that the boy is all right; he can get along but the girl must be protected. There is no protection for the girl unless the boys are made clean. Shame on a town that will accept a man who has run away with another man’s wife and will not accept the wife. Where is our community spirit when we will not act for the common good?

And now with Francis Kimball, let us all say ‘a sacred burden in this life ye bear. Look on it, lift it, bear it solemnly. Stand up and walk beneath it steadfastly; fail not for sorrow, falter not for sin; but onward, upward till the goal ye win.’

Let us remember that happiness is the reward of right living, right thinking, right acting and that these then can not be right without work and our community will benefit whether we will or no.

News Briefs: Steam and Railways, KKK Threat, 1922

From the Rockingham Post-Dispatch, October 19, 1922

Service of the New York, Wilmington and Fayetteville Steamboat company’s Cape Fear river line was inaugurated October 13^th with the arrival of the first boat at Fayetteville. This marks the beginning of freight and passenger service on the canalized Cape Fear. The promoters evidently have no fear of a Friday the 13^th starting date for boat service on the Cape Fear.

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The Atlantic Coast Line railway is issuing $13 million in bonds with which extensive improvements are to be made. With the completion of the double tracking now under contract (by May 1, 1923), 60 per cent of the main line from Richmond to Jacksonville will be double tract. The new equipment to be bought now will include 45 locomotives of the most improved type; 50 passenger coaches, and 3,800 freight cars.

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J.R. Harrison, member of the Fayetteville Board of Aldermen, received a notice a few days ago purporting to be from the Klu Klux Klan giving him until October 23^rd to get out of that town, under penalty of being killed. Harrison says he’ll not leave.

Angry Uncle Shoots Bride, Kills Himself, 1917

“Angry Uncle Shoots Bride and Kills Self,” from the Oct. 5, 1917, issue of the Monroe Journal.

 “Durham, Oct. 4—Angry because she eloped last Saturday night with Lucas Sears, a young man of Chatham County, Fred Williams, well-known tobacco planter of near Apex, Wake County, today at noon shot and perhaps fatally wounded Mrs. Cassy Sears, his niece, until last Saturday night Miss Cassy Yates. He then turned the pistol to his temple and sent a bullet ploughing through his own head. He died shortly after 4 o’clock this afternoon.

Williams went to the home of Mrs. Catherine Sears, mother-in-law of the girl, this morning. The girl met him at the door and invited him in. Without speaking, he drew the revolver and shot. The bullet entered Mrs. Sears’ right eye. She fell unconscious in a pool of blood. He then shot himself. The elder Mrs. Sears witnessed the shooting. Her son and the girl’s husband of five days were in the field mowing hay at the time. The girl was rushed to a Raleigh Hospital.

Carl White Murders His Wife and Two Young Children, 1917

 “Carl White in Violent Fit of Insanity Kills Wife and Two Children,” from the Oct. 30, 1917, issue of the Monroe Journal.

Taylorsville, Oct. 27—Carl White, aged about 33 years, becoming violently demented today, shot and killed his wife and two small children at his home eight miles from here. Following the triple tragedy White walked down the road some distance from his home and, meeting a neighbor, told what he had done and asked to be killed. White had a struggle with the neighbor but was overpowered and lodged in jail here.

L.C. White of Statesville and Arthur White, a banker of Stoney Point, brothers of Carl White, were at a spring near the house and heard the gun shots. They hurried to the house to find the woman and children slain. Three older children in the family escaped injury. The Whites are prominent in this section.