Marion Gunderson Art (and the Farmer's Daughter)

On Sunday I posted about the online accessibility of Rolfe, Iowa, newspapers. As a result, Kim Webb Toth-Tevel offered the following helpful tip for searching the archives online. She also included a “mundane” search result from 1897, and a “dramatic” search result from 1925, both bringing her ancestors more to life.

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Search Tip and Comments from Kim Webb Toth-Tevel
(Kim is a great-granddaughter of C.M. Webb.) 

Thanks Louise. I have been having a ball with this and my family has learned many things about our ancestors we never knew. Very cool. A tip for using them is to 1) go to “Advanced Search.” 2) Type in your family name and 3) limit the time period to one year. Then you can have fun reading what comes up. You can save the newspaper page to your computer or copy and paste the part about your family into another document to collect them. The newspaper was like the Facebook of its day–social networking.

You will find the mundane:

June 17, 1897
Wednesday evening while little Ruth Webb had her head through a window, the sash fell across her neck. The window had recently been painted and did not fall with its usual velocity, but Ruth sustained a slight injury on the forehead.

To the dramatic!

1/1/1925
C. M. WEBB STRICKEN
Chas M. Webb, our popular and widely known druggist, suffered a slight stroke of paralysis Monday afternoon. He was about the store most of the day, but feeling something unusual was working on him, took the Ford and drove home. Shortly after entering the house he was stricken and floored. While the stroke is what doctors call “slight,” the left side is helpless and it is problematical just how things will come out, but we are all hoping Charley will soon shake it off and be himself again.

The son, Morris, who is home from Chicago on a visit, will remain and look after the business while Mr Webb takes a complete rest. Mr. Webb has been driving himself like a dynamo in a business way for the past f ew months, forgetting that age was creeping on him, and something snapped. We are hoping that rest and care will restore him to health.

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The Newspaper Archives Web Site Is…

The newspaper archives are at this site. (The URL will change in a month or two.) However, to avoid potential frustration with the site (since it is not yet in its final form), please read Sunday’s explanatory post.

(Click here to go to Louise Gunderson Shimon’s blog’s home page.)

This entry was posted on February 28, 2012 at 11:21 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.