A glance in the rearview mirror: June 1921—Hairs per square inch. $7 to support 7 children. Attending college in a bathing suit.
by Mary Jo David
The following excerpts are from June 1921 editions of the Stockbridge Brief-Sun newspaper. In general, these news excerpts are reproduced in the original, without edits or corrections.
Ford Producing 4,000 Cars a Day: Ford is building cars at full speed…The output for May 1921 will probably overshadow May 1920 by between fifteen and twenty thousand cars and trucks. Approximately 43,000 men are at work in the Detroit plant of the Ford Motor Company. The factory is operating on full time, six days a week and three shifts a day. 6/2/1921
Divorced Wife Gets $7 to Support 7 Children: A Dansville woman was granted a divorce on the grounds of extreme and repeated cruelty. The husband was given custody of the oldest child. There were at the time six younger children. The husband was ordered to pay the sum of $7.00 each week toward the support of the six children. Saturday, May 21, another babe was born to the wife. She is forced to depend upon the charity of neighbors and friends, say Dansville folks interested in her case. 6/2/1921
The Average Hair Crop: The Bible tells us that the hairs of our head are numbered, but it does not tell us even the approximate number to a square inch. On the average head there are a thousand hairs to each square inch…We are told that four hairs will suspend a one-pound weight. Therefore an average head of hair should be able to support the combined weight of two hundred people. Don’t try it. –Popular Science Monthly, 6/2/1921
Canker Worm at Work: Riding through the country, many orchards look as though they had been visited by a fire, killing the foliage….These worms have already worked great havoc in the orchards around Manchester and Milan and complaints of them are coming in from various other parts of the county…The orchard on the Many Morehouse farm, just south of Lebarr’s corners on the Bunker Hill Jackson state road shows the worst havoc of any we have noticed from the work of the canker worm. 6/9/1921
Struggle for the State Income Tax: The effort to submit to the voters of the state a constitutional amendment providing for a state income tax was foredoomed from the beginning, so far as the Michigan legislature was concerned. That is to say, the interests opposing such a method of taxation were more powerful than the interests desiring it. 6/23/1921
LOCAL NEWS
June 2, 1921 edition:
- Caskey and O.A. Schmidt are building new cement walks in front of their homes.
- Etta Eckles and Mr. Jimmie Tizzard of Northville, and Mr. Grant Richmond and family spent Sunday with Mrs. Hattie West. It was her birthday.
- E. Alexander and family, who have been spending the winter in Gulfport, Miss., have returned home and report a fine trip, but have decided that good old Michigan isn’t so bad.
- Attention Farmers: The grading crew of the Michigan Farm Bureau will be at Stockbridge on Thursday, June 9th. Those wishing to pool their wool, bring it in on that date. –H.L. Sharp, Local Assembler.
June 9, 1921 edition:
- There are only four young people to graduate from our High School this year—Orrene Kutt, Donald Paul, Agnes Gibney, and Mildred Henderson.
- Friday, May 27, Plainfield school closed a successful year with Louisa Van Syckel as teacher. A program was given in the afternoon…Rewards in spelling were given to Dorothy Mackinder, fourth grader, and Herbert Cameron, third grader…Otto Fineout had not been tardy and had been absent only one day during the year.
June 16, 1921 edition:
- NOTICE: People who persist in using the water for sprinkling after the specified time will have the water turned off and a fine of $1.00 will have to be paid before they can have it turned on again. The hours for sprinkling are from 5 to 8 both morning and evening.
- A young lady at Howell has purchased a horse and delivery wagon and travels the streets dispensing ice cream by the gallon, quart or cone, announcing her coming by the ringing of a bell. It is a new innovation for a small city.
June 23, 1921 edition:
- For the first time in history, so far as we know, the aeroplane was used for the purpose of commerce in Brighton this week. Claude Rolison notified a customer in Pinckney by phone that he would deliver a gallon of paint to him immediately, and that he would land in a certain field…the customer arrived just in time to see Kyle Pinney’s plane appear on the horizon.
NATIONAL NEWS
June 2, 1921 edition:
- Wife Took Up Husband’s Duties: When the forest lookout on Tahquitz peak, in the San Jacinto district, California, was incapacitated this fall, Mrs. Reindorp, wife of the district ranger, donned khaki, loaded blankets and grub on a horse, and took over his duties, holding the lookout post for more than a week.
- Books for Disabled Heroes: Disabled heroes of the World War [World War I] are not to be without good books to read while they are fighting to regain health in the hospitals of this country. Congress has appropriated in the civil sundry bill the sum of $100,000 for the purchase of books, with the result that each of the 23,000 disabled veterans will soon have three or four new books to read.
June 16, 1921 edition:
- Ex-Service Man is Attending College in Bathing Suit and Living in Pup Tent: …H.B. Parker, formerly a student at Boston University had to leave the colder climate because of the impaired condition of his lungs following service in the army during the World War…Through an arrangement with the University of South Carolina, he pitched his tent on the university campus. With a mosquito bar and a folding cot to furnish his habitation, he is pursuing his studies.
