Looking Back! – January 5, 2022
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Jan. 5, 2022
25 years ago
January 1, 1997
The total number of ducks taken in the 1996 duck hunting season was lower than the 1995 totals. The total number taken in the Mississippi River Fish and Wildlife area for 1996 was 15,962, compared to 18,419 in 1995.
Totals by area were: Batchtown 1990- 3,556; Godar 4,708; Stump 3,610; Calhoun Point 1,936; and Glades 2,151.
50 years ago
Jan. 6, 1972
School Days Then by Robert Fuhler
The report that follows will be on an ordinary school day of my mother, Delores Godar, at Degerlia School in French Hollow, Hardin, Illinois.
The day starts off at six or seven o’clock, the latter being in the winter. It wasn’t getting up and getting dressed in your school clothes, rather it was getting dressed in your work clothes and out to the barn to do the milking.
After the milking was done, the cream had to be separated from the milk and then come and get breakfast.
Instead of a school bus, my mom and her brothers and sisters had a healthy one-and-a-half mile walk to the school and that was just one way.
In the wintertime, the walk to school was more enjoyed when there was snow on the ground or this creek next to the road, when frozen over, they could skate on it.
School started at nine o’clock and ended around four o’clock. The school was just one big classroom with all eight grades together. There was just one teacher and she taught all eight grades.
The teacher would start with the first grade and work her way up through the grades with two lessons each.
The only subjects taught were English, reading, spelling and arithmetic.
Because of the one teacher with eight grades, there wasn’t much homework because the kids got their assignments done while the teacher was teaching the other grades.
The kids got two recesses, one in the morning and one in the afternoon, they also had an hour for lunch.
In the wintertime during recess, the kids would go sleigh riding down this hill next to the school. In the winter, the heat came through a big floor register from a wood furnace.
One of the older boys would always have the job of going down to the basement and firing up the furnace.
The basement also had tables and chairs which served as a place for eating dinner.
At the end of school, the one-and-a-half mile walk, the milking and other chores awaited my mom and the rest.
If there was homework to be done, it was done by kerosene lamp.
75 years ago
Jan. 2, 1947
Dandelions in an apple orchard may cut the yield sharply, Prairie Farmer says in an article in its current issue.
The reason? In most orchards, the dandelions bloom at the same time the apple trees are in bloom.
On windy days, which occur often at that time in the spring, bees, which are necessary to spread the pollen to fertilize the apple blossoms, do not care to go aloft and battle the winds to get the apple blossoms.
Instead, they gather nectar from the dandelions on the ground and fly low to their hives.
Another benefit of killing the dandelions is added moisture and plant food available to the orchard’s trees after the dandelions are killed.
100 years ago
Jan. 5, 1922
Calhoun County, as well as other counties north, has an epidemic of forage poisoning. Reports come to us of a number of horses dying in Calhoun County due from this disease.
The disease is thought to come from corn stalks or from the worm dust on the end of the ears of corn.
It has been known, however, for horses to die of this disease contracted from other channels.
A well-informed veterinary has said that he has had cases of this disease due to bacillus botulinus, which may be taken in from the grass or any other food that the horses eat.
We noted that the bacterin treatment is being used by veterinarians with good success.
Those who have thus far lost horses from this disease, so far reported, are: Thos. Blackwell, Bert Haper, Chas. Ingersoll, of near Gilead; Francis Godar, of Degerlia; and Chas. Schleeper of south of Hardin.