Salvation Army Lass Locked Up in A Trunk

1909

HANNIBAL, Missouri — While the Salvation Army people were holding a street meeting a man entered their headquarters where Miss Millie Stocking, aged 16, was left in charge of a baby. Threatening her life if she made an outcry, he cut down a clothesline, bound it around her neck, tightly tied her arms and feet, chucked her in a three and one-half by two foot trunk, shut the lid and left the premises. When the army people returned the girl was nearly dead from suffocation and suspension of blood circulation, but was soon resuscitated. The reason for the man's strange actions are a puzzle. Miss Stocking's parents reside in St. Louis.


Hubby Gone 30 Years

LAPORTE, Indiana — Mourned as dead for thirty years George Medsker of Marion, Indiana, will be reunited the coming week with his family, living at Parkers Landing, Pennsylvania. Medsker was a Civil War veteran. He disappeared thirty years ago without apparent reason or cause, and for years, with his mind blank, he drifted about the country. He finally became an inmate of the Marion Soldiers' Home. Mrs. Medsker recently made application for a pension as a soldier's widow, and an investigation by the Government established the residence of the veteran.


Want to Buy A Town? There's One For Sale

SALINA, Kansas — Shipton, a busy little village in this county, northwest of Salina, will be sold at auction Oct. 20, 1909. The village is on the farm of W. S. Irwin, and when he sells his farm, personal property and farm belongings the village will go with the rest. A band will furnish music. This is the first time a townsite has been sold under the hammer in this part of the State. Shipton is on the Union Pacific Railroad and has a depot, a store building, an elevator and several residences, and much business is transacted there.

Pastor Escapes In Car Wreck

California, 1948

TURLOCK, Aug. 4. -- A car was smashed to pieces yesterday afternoon by a northbound train at the crossing at F Street, but the driver, Rev. A. E. Sabin, pastor of the Pentecostal Church of God, left the vehicle just before it was hit and escaped injury.

Rev. Sabin said the car stalled on the crossing and he was unable to start it. When he saw the train bearing down on him he leaped out, barely in time to escape the crash.

The train, Passenger No. 55, pulled to a stop approximately 100 yards down the track, and was delayed a half hour. It already was 15 minutes late when it reached the crossing.

Officials said the F Street crossing was the scene of the worst train accident in Turlock's history about 10 years ago. A train hit a gasoline truck and killed and injured several people.

--The Modesto Bee and News-Herald, Modesto, California, August 4, 1948, page 5.

Hard Shell Creeds

1922

By DR. JAMES I. VANCE

It was in the smoker of a Pullman car. There, if anywhere, men speak out their minds without reservation.

We had talked long enough for reserve to vanish, when I said: "Gentlemen, what about politics?" The replies were like a machine gun in action. "Politics is ruined. It is gone to the bad. The country can't be saved by politics."

Then after a moment, I said: "Well, "what about religion?" There was a bit of silence. Then one man said: "Religion is a beautiful thing." Right down the line, each of the others repeated: "Yes, Religion is a beautiful thing." "But," added one, "there is one kind of religion I don't like. It is the kind which says that if you want it, you can't get it, if you get it, you can't lose it; and if you lose it, you never had it." "What kind of religion is that?" I asked. "Hard shell!" I could not blame him.

The creed of the hard shell is not a beautiful thing. To try to feed immortal souls on such a religion is like offering a diet of ground limestone to nursing babes.

It is the creed which puts dogma over life, and sacrifices the welfare of humanity to the interests of party or sect.

—Charleston Daily Mail, Charleston, West Virginia, April 7, 1922, page 13.