Finding old, area newspapers online

There are days when it seems collectively we just don’t have a sense of humor anymore. One of the reasons I enjoy old newspapers is that the editors seemed to find a way to inject humor onto every page. Some examples are simply the personalities of rival editors poking fun at each other, others are fillers that helped close out a page, but I like to think that each paper wanted to make their readers chuckle a bit. After all, the world is not such a horrible place to be landed in even today. So, here is my contribution to a hearty laugh taken from the South Side Sentinel from Danbury, Nebraska on March 3, 1927.

“A Supreme Sacrifice: George Wilnerd of Norcatur, Kan., attended the poultry clinic here Monday. Among his flock in the hill-town was a young chicken with a kink in its’ neck, and George was determined to know the whys and the wherefores. A specialist was coming to a neighboring town less than 20 miles away. The snow covered the ground and was still falling heavily, but a life was at stake and the trip must be made. It was early morning and quite dark in the hennery, but a flashlight was a hand, the chicken was placed in a sack and they were off for the clinic. Prof. Bowman examined the young hen before the execution. He could see nothing wrong in the outward appearance and decided to go deeper. A complete diagnosis of the vitals brought the final verdict of ‘not guilty’. The specialist could find nothing wrong with the inner workings of his subject. The hen was fat, but not too fat and in the opinion of the recognized specialist making the post mortem. George was disappointed to say the least and went home that night wondering about that crook-neck hen. But, when he released his flock the next morning out came the deformed fowl. He had picked the wrong chicken from the roost.”

I have no idea if the story is true, but the way things are working right now in my life, it is a definite possibility that I could be poor old George.

The South Side Sentinel (1924-34) is available on Newspapers.com for research along with the Danbury News (1896-1922), Beaver Valley Mercury (1936-39), Danbury Topics (1898) The Lebanon Leader (1907-12) and the News-Advertiser (1922). Together these six newspapers have nearly 12,000 pages available online. I’m not doing an ad for Newspapers.com, and again, my subscription is combined with my Ancestry subscription, but if you are doing any kind of family genealogical or historical research for that area it is good to know the pages from the past have been saved.

SWNGS has been struggling with getting meetings together and keeping the library open. If you have a special request for research, feel free to contact me at sdoak@swnebr.net or even give me a call at 308-345-1583 and I’ll either open the library for you or do the research and get back in touch. One note however, I’m not always in a position to answer a phone so please don’t fail to leave a message.