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Below is the fourth web page of text from a journal that David Henry Frost kept from 1878 to 1880. There is a link to the next page near the bottom of this page. There is also an index of all of the pages. |
[Retyped by David Frost, (B, Victor)]
Jan. 26 [1879]
Pa's birthday and Sunday [Cora]
I am getting horribly old - 58 to-day. The girls got up a somewhat extra dinner to make
me feel less dismal about it, I suppose. They are good girls. Last Tuesday, the day being
fine and sleighing fair, Mother, Cora, Thea, Artie, Ethel, Ellery and I took a sleigh-ride,
the first and only one, this far, of the season. We drove down this valley, and crossing
the Iowa to Konzter[?], coming back on the other side of the river. All enjoyed the ride.
Since then the sleighing has daily been growing worse and is now used up, though the snow
still covers the fields. The past few days have been very mild. To-night I read to mother
Cook's prelude and lecture and Swing's sermon. The latter was upon "Public duty towards
minors[?]" - which rather imperfectly[?] indicates its scope - an excellent sermon. Carrie
and Cora received a letter from Marion today. I rec'd one on Tuesday or Wednesday last.
Also a letter from Blackmer on Thursday. D. H. F.
Jan. 27 [1879]
I commenced teaching the children to-day. All of them missed several words in spelling, and Artie and Ethel cried and Thea was angry. However Thea concluded not to make a fuss, as the others were enough. Cora
Feb. 1 [1879]
Ellery was expecting to leave for Liberty Center today, but he has a bad cold, and cannot. [Cora]
[Feb.] 2 [1879]
Sunday. None of us went to church to-day, but Ethel and Artie went to Sunday School. [Cora]
[Feb.] 3 [1879]
Carrie's birthday. Pa gave her a gold pen. She is 24 now, and Ellery only 23. Ellery and I had our pictures taken to-day. I guess they are both good. [Cora]
[Feb.] 4 [1879]
Ellery went away this morning. We girls and the children loaded him down with things to take home. He has[?] 4[?] [?] a tin horse 3 or 4 cards, a picture book and a valentine and picture of Ethel for Nelie[?], picture of Hayes for his father, reward cards for Ed and Charlie, and a few things for Aunt [?]. [Cora]
[Feb.] 5 [1879]
We got a letter from Marion[?] this morning. She is sad[?] and sick of her school. [Cora]
[Feb.] 6 [1879]
Ellery's birthday. Got a letter from Uncle Sam with Aunt [?]'s picture, and some cards for Pa, Carrie and Jennie. [Cora]
[Feb.] 7 [1879]
Carrie got a letter from Marion. She isn't quite as miserable[?] as she was. But she wants to come home. [?] Van[?] Whitman is in town[?]. This is a lovely day. Cora
[Feb.] 20 [1879]
Thursday. Carrie was taken down with measles to-day and compelled to give up her duties at the Post Office at noon. Cora took her place. [D. H. F.]
[Feb.] 22 [1879]
Washington's BirthDay. "Why", said the school ma'am, "should Washington's birthday be celebrated any more than mine?" "Because he never told a lie," shouted her scholars. Cora quit work too, towards night, for the same reason that influenced Carrie to [?]. D. H. F.
Feb. 23 [1879]
Both Carrie and Cora pretty sick. Mother performs the duties both of physician and mom - according to the hydrostatic - no hydropathic[?] - school. [D. H. F.]
March 4th [1879]
Tenth Anniversary of the first issue of The Union in Belle Plaine. I celebrated the day by writing my editorial "Ten Years" for the Union [?] this week, which, as it is a sort of confidential family talk with the dear public, I will insert here for the amazement of the home circle. I rec'd a letter from Marion today, dated Feb. 23? Anxious to come home [D. H. F.]
[The editorial is attached to the page at the lower right. The text follows.]
{Ten Years
The last issue of The Union completed a ten years' service of its editor in Belle Plaine. We purchased and took possession of the Belle Plaine Transcript Feb. 24th, 1869, and issued our first paper here on Grant's first inauguration day, March 4th following. The Transcript was started late in the year 1866 by N. C. Wieting, who removed the press and materials here from Toledo. After a short time he sold out, and when we purchased the office a little over two years later it had had four or five different proprietors. For reasons obvious enough and well understood at the time, we chose to take a "new departure," and changed the name of the paper to that which it now bears.
During our ten years' stay great changes have taken place here. Some who were then prominent as citizens and business men have long since left us and gone to distant parts of the country. Some have been called hence by death. The business of the town has largely passed into new hands. Some, however, still remain and continue the same business in which they were then engaged. The Union has been here long enough to be counted amoung the "old settlers."
The press and materials of the office, when we purchased them, were old and much battered and worn. It was almost impossible to make a good-looking paper with them. Nearly everything has been exchanged for new - new press, new type and other materials, and the paper has been considerably enlarged. Of pecuniary profits and success we have few boasts to make. Ours has not been by any means a primrose path. That the paper has lived during these ten years, some of them years of severe financial depression, is something. It had in the outset more to struggle against than if it had started out anew, as the older citizens will understand. The Union has now - as it doubtless has always had - considerably the largest circulation of any paper in this section of the country. The entire patronage bestowed upon local newspapers in the southern half of this county would [?] just about a fair support for one good paper.
Perhaps if we could have foreseen all we have had to struggle against in trying to publish a paper here of when neither the citizens of Belle Plaine nor we need feel ashamed, we should have shrunk in the outset from the undertaking. A friend said to us the other day - "You have no business here in Belle Plaine, publishing a paper." Perhaps not. We may have had a suspicion of that sort sometimes ourselves. But here we are, and we begin our second decade not boastfully, nor yet dismayed by some adverse circumstances. How well The Union has thus far fulfilled its promise made in the outset to endeavor to serve well its own locality, as well as the State, and to discuss public questions independently, and rather from the standpoint of the man than of the mere partisan, others must judge - not we. We have always desired to avoid harsh personalities and severe words except toward flagrant and willful wrong-doers. Errors of judgement we have doubless sometimes committed; differences of opinion may sometimes have alienated those whom we had counted as friends. But it is a satisfaction to know that we have always had on the whole the approveal, sympathy and friendship of many of the best, most intelligent and most respected citizens, both of Belle Plaine and the county at large, in our general conduct of The Union. To them we extend our hearty thanks for their words of cheer and their aid in various ways.
In a future issue, when less pressed for space, we may present a bird's-eye view of some of the principal local events of ten years ago.}
Last revised September 27, 1998.
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