Yesterday's post featured the front page of the Lorain Daily News of June 2, 1913. Today we sneak a peek at what was going on two days later on June 4th. (Don't ask me the significance of these two dates; I had them in my file for some reason, and since the blog has an insatiable appetite for content, I present them for your perusal.)
Like the earlier edition of the News, this one has a tragic story as well. A Lorain woman "attempted to end her life in Cleveland yesterday. She drank carbolic acid while walking on the street, then went to the fourth floor of the Arcade building and attempted to throw herself from a balcony. She was restrained by people around her."
What's really unusual is that at that time there seemed to be an epidemic of attention-grabbing cross-country travelers.
The June 2, 1913 Daily News front page that I posted yesterday had the story of the two vegetarians hoping to walk from Buffalo to San Francisco and passing through Lorain. This edition of the paper had two stories. In the first, a family from Buffalo was traveling to Denver in a prairie schooner and made a pit stop in Lorain. As the article noted, "C. Carrol and family of Buffalo, traveling across the continent in palatial prairie schooners, passed through Lorain at 10:30 o'clock this morning. The caravan halted in front of the city hall for a half hour to have a horse shod.
"The family, consisting of the father, mother, four daughters and two sons, departed from Buffalo May 29th. They expect to reach Denver, the city for which they are bound, in about two months.
""We are making the trip by wagon for the pleasure to be derived from the trip," Mr. Carrol stated this morning.
"The party will rest their horses outside of Lorain for a day and then continue on the trip. From here they will go to Toledo."
The other story was of Edward Payson Weston, the "veteran pedestrian who left New York Monday on a 1,446-mile walk to Minnesota." He was still in New York at the time of the article. I'm not sure if he had Lorain on his itinerary.
Elsewhere on the page: the announcement that local grocers were going to be closing at noon on Thursday from June through September; the story of a well-attended smoker given by the Knights of Columbus; an article about "sediment which is being dredged from the river at the winding basin at the steel plant" to be dumped near the east shore of the lake in the hopes of creating an east side beach; the arrest of an Elyria man for failing to furnish garbage cans at the tenement he owned in South Lorain; and the plans for Slater's Beach (located just west of Lorain) to be converted into a modern amusement park.
Daniel:
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Drinking carbolic acid (phenol) as described in the failed suicide was, actually, a fairly common way to kill yourself back in the day. It didn't take all that much, a couple of ounces, and while an awful way to die, it was effective by both burning tissues and causing severe acidosis resulting in shock and death.
Interestingly, carbolic acid was used in a sprayed mist form by British surgeon Joesph Lister in the 1860s to sterilize operating fields and reduce post-operative infections and mortality. You've heard the name because of the mouthwash "Listerine" which was invented by Dr. Joseph Lawrence in 1879 and named in honor of Surgeon Lister.
Listerine was, at first, known as a general germ killer. The mouthwash function was added as time passed (no wonder it tastes like is does). You can find magazine ads from the 1940s & 50s that describe its use as a dandruff treament. Something you can still find, online, today.
Kills germs, gets rid of dander and eliminates halitosis...
What could be better?!?
Don
I really enjoyed the newspaper. Cow: “She says Teddy drank a glass of her milk once!” Lol… I had to look up “milliner” (hat maker) and “milk punches”(one of the oldest cocktails there is, featuring brandy, bourbon, milk and sugar, first written down in 1688 in Scotland). And, oh no, another family member killed mistaken for a night burglar. I looked up the name of the surviving father from the shooting mentioned on May 25th, Christy D'Andrea. I was glad to see he lived a long life (died in 2013 at age 91). I was wondering if he lived a life wracked with guilt for accidentally shooting his teenage son and if that shortened his life. I never heard any of my older relatives mention going to an amusement park at “Slater’s Beach.” I wonder if that place ever got off the ground and lasted long. I heard them talk about Crystal Beach, and dances at that clubhouse in Vermilion-On-The-Lake to hear the crooners.
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