The et cetera chronicles – vol. 93

A MAN OF UNDYING FAITH – Henry C. Tucker, of Laurens County, never knew where his next quarter was coming from.  Tucker, although not a rich man, considered himself to be very wealthy.  The 78-year-old minister never accepted a single stipend during six decades of his ministry in performing weddings, funerals, and regular church services.  Rev. Tucker considered his family to be his greatest asset.   Moreover, Tucker fathered thirty-six children – two-thirds survived into the 1880s.   Legend has it that Tucker was the first person to settle in what is now Tallahassee, Florida. Harper KS Sentinel, July 12, 1883. 

SURPRISE INSPECTION – When Thomas Smith went to a Dublin, Georgia doctor’s office with a bad cold, he was looking for some medicine to make it go away within 10 days to two weeks.  To the dismay of the doctor and especially Mr. Smith, the physician looked through his fluoroscope to find that Mr. Smith’s heart and his liver were on the wrong, or should I say, right side of his body.  Today, the condition known as Dextrocardia is relatively rare. Los Angeles California Eagle, November 29, 1935.  

NOT YET READY FOR AN IRISH FLING – When asked on St. Patrick’s Day of 1953, Dublin Mayor W.H. Lovett told a member of the United Press that there weren’t enough Dublin residents of close Irish descent to hold a St. Patrick’s Day celebration.  A dozen years later, Lovett’s newspaper, the Dublin Courier Herald, and Dublin radio station WMLT partnered and began to plan the first St. Patrick’s Festival in 1966.  Springfield, Missouri Leader News, March 18, 1953.

Stay in the know with our free newsletter

Receive stories from Laurens County straight to your inbox.

Your Email Address

Sign Up

FINALLY, A HONEST POLITICIAN – J.  Lester Jackson made an unbreakable and believed promise in his attempt to be elected Laurens County Surveyor by stating, “I promise to do as little work as I can.”  Jackson told voters that he was persuaded by himself to run with no urging on the part of anyone else. It seemed that the voters took Jackson’s honesty sincerely and gave him a near-unanimous vote, more than 100 votes than the only other unopposed candidate in the Democratic Primary for a position that suffered from apathy for several decades.  Parsons, Kansas Sun, June 3, 1936.   Dublin Courier Herald, July 3, 1936. 

I KNEW SHE WAS A FINE COW ALL ALONG –  Albert Warren, Jr. wasn’t that proud of his fine milk cow.  The cow however thought more of herself than her apathetic owner.  So when the locals around Cadwell, Ga. put on a contest to choose the best cow in the community, the cow broke out of Warren’s barn and wandered on over to the scene of the contest and took her place with the other prized cows.   When the judges approached, the proud cow held her head up high with great pride.  Later in the day, Warren wandered over to check out the other cows.  Much to his astonishment, he found a first-place blue ribbon attached to his now champion bovine. Nearly two years later, Robert Ripley featured a drawing of the winner in his national  post “Ripley’s Believe It or Not.”  Kansas City Star, December 20, 1931.  Shreveport, La. Times, July 20, 1933.    

CUT IT OUT LADIES – In the year 1921, male prosecutors in Dublin decided that women would no longer be allowed to play bridge in the city.  York Pa. Daily Record. Feb.  8, 1922

DOUBLE FRUITS – Cain Foreman was a farmer in Laurens County in the 1920s.  One day Mr. Foreman brought into the newspaper office botanical oddities.   Cain showed the editors a hand full of pecans and a few apples, no oddities here.  But when Foreman told the men that they were from the second crop of fruits in one year, the newspaper guys were flabbergasted.  Wilkes-Barre, PA, Evening News, December 21, 1921.

HANG UP THE PHONE!  In the winter of 1907, the Dublin Telephone Company rang too many bells within the halls of the Dublin City Hall.  It seems that the company was established on December 31, 1897, and was re-established by an order of the Laurens County Superior Court in 1907.  However, the city refused to recognize the renewal because the council and the mayor believed that the phone company was aiding and abetting phone orders to whiskey suppliers in Macon.  Marion, Alabama Times-Standard, Feb.21., 1907.