Out of Winfield’s Past

Fire Department Called Out Saturday Evening: Saturday evening about eight the fire siren brought everybody to their toes and brought them there mighty sudden for it was a cold night and the thought of somebody getting burned out of home on such a night was not a very pleasant one. Then for a time nobody knew whose house it was or where it was located. Everybody was running up town, asking “where is the fire?” Soon it was reported “Shearer’s house is on fire!” and soon the crowd was hurrying that way. The fire boys dragging their hose cart over the rough roads. All out of breath they reached the Shearer home but no fire was visible from the outside. In fact, there was no fire. Mr. Shearer had saturated a cob with oil and was thawing out a water pipe. A neighbor, seeing the blazing torch thru the window and not knowing the reason, naturally supposed the house was on fire and promptly notified the central operator, who sounded the alarm. If there was some arrangement by which the location of a fire could be sounded on the siren a lot of time would be saved. As it is, folks rush out and look up and down the block in which they live and then begin to start out on the hunt. As cold as the night was, Arb was not expecting so many of his townspeople to rush in on him. It was as much of a surprise to him as it was to the crowd to find there was no fire. Would suggest after this that Arb place a shade around his cob torch when thawing out frozen pipes to the flare will not cause people to take it for granted that an interior fire is getting in its work.

Married: A pretty card bearing the following announcement was received at this office the first of the week, and same will no doubt be read with interest by friends here: Mr. and Mrs. Wm. Helt announce the marriage of their daughter Edna Florence to Mr. Arthur Rundall Cole Wednesday, January the thirty-first, Nineteen hundred and twenty-three, Mt. Pleasant, Iowa. The bride, a daughter of our good friends, Mr. and Mrs. Will Helt, living south of Winfield, is well known in this community, where she was born and raised. She is a fine young lady in every respect, and is in every way capable of making the new home an ideal one. The groom is a stranger to us, however we learn that his home is in Osceola, but at the present time is employed at the Burlington Shops. Those who have made Mr. Cole’s acquaintance speak very highly of him. The young people will be at home to their friends in Mt. Pleasant after February 15.

Nim and Marsh Under Old Elm Tree: We have no artist to make us a picture such as the Imprint had last week showing Marsh Sewell and Nim Long in secret conflab under a big elm tree near the Crawfordsville Depot, fixing things up for the big day. But this is what the Imprint said of these distinguished gentlemen: This is Groundhog Day. The Winfield Beacon said that Marsh Sewell came up one day last week to make arrangements to celebrate the day. Nim Long came down from Washington to meet Marsh. Nim has always acted as chairman, or whatever you call it, and Marsh always furnished the groundhog. Station Agent Graham “snapped” them under the big elm tree near the depot holding a conflab, Nim said one of his legs refused to jazz so they called off the celebration.