Not-so-good old days

Despite the efforts to protect local people from the evils of moving picture shows, described in last week's column, real problems afflicted working people back in 1912.

At that time, one of Maine's big exports was ice and, while there were big suppliers, a great many farmers also did what they could to tap the market. Remember, this was in the days before refrigeration was common. In fact, since much of the technology we now take for granted didn't yet exist, cold-keeping was an issue of concern to both commercial and domestic food preparers. So, anyone with a good-sized pond or lake handy could cut blocks of the frozen water and using another industry's byproduct, sawdust, as insulation, preserve the stuff for their own use or for sale to a dealer to be shipped south.

The Norway (Oxford County, ME) Advertiser of February 16, 1912, mentioned this and other winter enterprises in the Denmark local news.

The farmers are hauling lots of sawdust to pack their ice.

Those who have wood cut have a grand time to draw and sell it.

Willard McKusick and hired man are sawing stove wood at East Denmark for James E. Ingots.

The Congregational church had an entertainment and supper, Wednesday evening at Odd Fellows Hall.

Of course, there were no tools, such as back hoes, tractors, excavators in common use then. The work was done by hand with saws and shovels. But let not this idyllic scene dwell long in the reader's imagination. Such work, although thrifty and ecologically friendly, wasn't easy, or safe. The column also reported:

In Critical Condition

Will Walker and son of West Denmark went to a sawdust pit in that part of the town, where a lot of sawdust had been drawn. As Mr. Walker was getting it, it caved in on him and broke his arm and broke several ribs from the spine, and it was thought one rib punctured one lung. He was taken to the Maine General hospital and is in a critical condition. Mr. Walker's son was obliged to cut the cakes of frozen sawdust off his father with an axe to get him out of his perilous condition.

In addition to not having refrigeration or back hoes, there was no protection for the severely injured. The "social safety net" wasn't even conceived of yet. Chances are, Walker and his family were residents of the "world of hurt," both health and wealth-wise. Without some sort of charitable help or a family's own resources, injuries spelled ruin for even the most hardworking people, not to mention the heartbreak caused by a disease that's almost unheard of today. On February 12 of that year, the Advertiser reported in the West Paris column:

Diphtheria has again broken out in the family of Bert Lang on Curtis Hill. Their little 4-year-old daughter, Joyce, died of it last Thursday and was buried the same day. Mr. Lang has it now.

And, in the Locke Mills local news, on February 2, a disease we still have, but is effectively treatable now, struck another family.

Locke's Mills

Husband and Wife dead: Three children Very Ill

The place was saddened by the death, Mr. and Mrs. Charles Farnum both having been very ill of pneumonia. Mrs. Farnum passed away Monday and Mr. Farnum Tuesday. They leave five small children, the oldest is 13 and the youngest 1 year while three of them are very ill with pneumonia.

Reve. J. H. Little of Bethel officiated at the funeral. Mrs. Farnum was the daughter of the late Mr. and Mrs. Stephen Knight and was 33 years old. Mr. Farnum was the son of Mr. and Mrs. James Farnum and was 37. They were placed in the tomb till spring when they will be taken to Bryant Pond for interment.

Even the undertakers had it tough:

Roscoe Tuell made two long trips with the hearse last week, one to West Sumner on Wednesday and one to East Sumner, Thursday. He was glad he did not have to go on Friday, the windy day.

The paper didn't indicate if Tuell's hearse was an early motorized one or the still commonly seen horse-drawn version. At that time, neither came with a heater for the driver, so Tuell's journey was probably as miserable as the reporter thought.

As is our custom, we try to exactly reproduce the grammar, spelling, punctuation and style of the original. Commas might appear where least expected and remain absent where we’d expect them if the item was written nowadays. On the other hand, consistency was not considered of utmost importance, so variations of a spelling might appear within one story. In addition, some words were abbreviated differently than today.

Where brief explanations of terms are considered necessary, they are presented in brackets [] within the quote. Otherwise, explanations appear at the beginning or at the conclusion, without quotes. Parenthesis () used in a quoted passage appeared in the original.