- Hamilton, Kansas 1919 - (Part 3 of 3) -
(Continued From Last Week) “Car owners should keep a memorandum of their license and engine number, and a concise list of all marks by which you might identify your car, if stolen. A car should never be parked in a public place and left out of sight without being locked.
A few plain facts: Here is a community of a thousand souls within five miles of three churches, and from constant observation there are not more than one tenth of this number who attend church services with any degree of regularity. If it wasn’t for the occasions most people go to funerals or commencement exercises, they wouldn’t know what the inside of a church looks like. The Catholic church with its faithful few has one service a month: the Baptist are so few that they have about quit business; and the Methodist District Supt. seriously contemplated removing the minister at the last session of the quarterly conference. Only one member showed up at that meeting, and he was late; no reports financial or otherwise. How would you like to live in a churchless town? Well, better get busy, and look into the situation, or such will be your fate. It isn’t that people are hopelessly wicked, no indeed, we all measure up with our neighbors in morals or think we do, but we do seem to be hopelessly indifferent to religious matters.
In November Harry Hover, of Eureka, proprietor of the Harry Hover Hardware here, was slugged and robbed in a Wichita hotel Friday night, and is now in a serious condition in a hospital in that city. A man of apparent prosperity gained his confidence and took him to a hotel to show him a good thing in an oil deal, and while in the room hit him a number of times over the head with the butt of a revolver, relieved him of his watch, money and diamond. At the latest report the scoundrel has not been found by the police. Harry’s brother went to Wichita as soon as he heard of it, returning Saturday night. Latest reports are that Mr. Hover’s condition is not as bad as first feared.
A basketball court is being fixed for the girls north of the school house. (Outdoor court) The four-acre tract at the northwest corner of town has for years been as the “apple of the eye” to Perry Clemans, who has spent much time and money on it, bringing the fruit trees and vines to productivity. It is a beautiful building site, being the highest elevation in the town’s limits, and the summer when he let a contract to McMullen & Dix of Eureka, for a home on it, the Grit felt it would be a credit to the community even before it was begun, and now finished, it proves it.
It is a seven-room modern house, of Dutch Colonial architecture, with full basement and bath; a commodious sleeping porch, overlooking the city below is one of the features of the new home. The floors are laid in oak; closets, pantry and built in conveniences, the delight of the housewife, have been amply provided for. It is heated by a Round Oak hot air furnace, and wired for electric current. Mr. Clemans has one room furnished in the basement for his own particular use, down where it will always be cool, usually the man’s den is put off in some obscure corner, or up next to the stars, but Perry is wise for his day and generation and has a cozy retreat worthwhile. The house they are leaving has been the family home ever since coming to Hamilton, now more than seventeen years ago.
December article related to coal: It is common knowledge that west of town six or seven miles on several farms, coal crops out and in the past some of it has been mined and used. It could be utilized now if the fuel shortage pinches more. While the usual bunch were waiting for shaves at the barbershop Saturday morning all the wind work necessary to organize a mining company was indulged in, and they vowed, yes, they did, to get busy this week, but don’t quit buying wood on the strength of it.
The school has been unable to secure permission to use a hall for basketball. We will certainly appreciate it if someone will make us an offer of a court.”
