Washington's Birthday – Feb. 22, 1926

One hundred years ago, George Washington's Birthday was still celebrated on the actual day: Feb. 22nd.  I think that's the way it should be, so its importance isn't diluted.

Below you see the front page of the Lorain Journal for that day in 1926. As you can see, it was a day to truly honor the Father of Our Country. (My apologies for the rather unpleasant headline and accompanying story.)

Next to the portrait of the President is a great story about his penknife – what it meant to him, and how it kept him from resigning from the Army.

(The most important part of the story is a little hard to read so here it is: Knox knew Its story, and without any utterance, gently pushed the keepsake under the clenched hands of General Washington. Washington flushed. Knox said: “You were always 1 to obey your superiors. No one has commanded you to cease leading this army.” Within half an hour the resignation was tossed into the log fire, and the great Washington carried on. The hatchet showed the truth-stuff of the boy; the penknife showed the stability of the man.— The knife should replace the hatchet, Dr. Bloomhardt says.)

Washington is also featured in the sidebar listing some of his famous statements, as well as in a story at the bottom of the page. That article debunks some of the attacks on his character (which seems to have been the subject of news stories at that time).

Also on the page: Lorain celebrates Washington's Birthday with no school, and with banks, courts and municipal buildings closed; a sad story out of Athens about two moonshiners who lost their lives as a result of being trapped in a cave; and a story about Lorain's third annual Auto Show.

The funniest story was that of Charles Baswell in Elyria, who needed a place to sleep after a night of drinking and found a cozy spot in a hog pen between two big pigs.