February 1923 - 100 Years Ago in "That Thriving Town"

 

Here's what the Andes Recorder was reporting about Bovina 100 years ago this month. 

February 2, 1923

• Sheffield Smith has a snow plow on his truck.

• Mrs. Howard McPherson is ill with whooping cough.

• Mrs. Richard James at Lake Delaware, is unable to speak from a shock.

• Mrs. Lancelot Thomson is ill with pneumonia and Mrs. Lucy Coulter is the nurse in charge.

• Fred Johnson has suffered another shock, which has left both legs helpless below the knees.

• The Bovina Center Co-operative Creamery company finished filling their ice house Monday.

Bovina Man Victim of Pneumonia

Herman Johnson, who lived on the old homestead in Upper Bovina, died in New York city, Thursday night, January 25, from pneumonia at the age of 42 years.  He had gone there on a visit two weeks before.  The funeral was held in the Bovina U.P. church on Saturday.

February 9, 1923

• William Robson is proud over the shooting of a large fox.

• The doctor was called for Mrs. Lucy Coulter during Tuesday night.

• A great amount of sickness prevails in town and some schools are closed.

• Miss Kate Muller is confined to bed and under the doctor’s care again this week.

• Howard McPherson has been confined to the house the past week with neuralgia.

• Mr. and Mrs. John Hilson entertained her father and mother, Mr. and Mrs. Thos C. Strangeway, at dinner Wednesday, it being their wedding anniversary.

• The machinery for the Dry Milk plant at the Bovina Center Co-Operative Creamery arrived last week and is being installed under the supervision [of] Mr. Jones, of Roxbury.

James Davidson, who was a mason on the church buildings at Lake Delaware, died at Delhi with pneumonia.  He was a Scotchman, 23 years old, and came to this country two years ago.  Two brothers are also on the Lake Delaware job.

February 16, 1923

• The Courtney Trio gave an entertainment here Monday evening.

• Mrs. George Decker and Mrs. Arthur Decker have both been under the doctors’ care the past week.

• Mrs. Walter Wilson, collector for the town of Bovina, went to Delhi on Thursday to settle with the County Treasurer.

• Mr. and Mrs. William Thomson, of Binghamton, came the latter part of last week, and Mrs. Thomson remained to care for her mother, Mrs. Alex Myers who is now better, and to assist in the telephone central.

Bovina Woman Takes Own Life

Mrs. Fred Johnson committed suicide at her home in Bovina Center by cutting her throat with a razor sometime between midnight last Thursday and daylight Friday morning, February 9.  The funeral was held Monday from the Church of the Covenanters, Rev. F.N. Crawford officiating.

The cause was probably over wrought nerves.  Mr. Johnson had been ill for several weeks and is helpless in bed from a shock.  Mrs. Johnson was tired out and had not been feeling well since Sabbath, suffering from a re-occurrence of a kidney trouble from which she had suffered two or three years ago, and the doctor had told her that she must get some rest.  Thursday night a niece, Mrs. McArthur, was going to care for Mr. Johnson so Mrs. Johnson and her sister, Mrs. Jas Russell went up stairs and went to bed about 9 o’clock.  Sometime later Mrs. Russell heard her sister get up, but thought that she had gone down stairs and went back to sleep. When Mrs. Russell went down stairs about daylight she remarked “my partner left me last night” and inquired where she was.  Mr. Johnson and Mrs. McArthur replied that they had not seen her since she went to bed.  Search was commenced and after looking in every room down stairs and up they opened the door to the attic and found her lifeless body at the top of the stairs with the razor with which she had committed the rash act grasped in her hand.

Mrs. Johnson was born in Bovina 73 years ago, her maiden name being Lydia Thomson.  After their marriage the couple lived on a farm in upper Bovina until a few years ago when they moved to the village.  They had no children. [Fred survived his wife by almost two years, dying in January 1925.]

Bovina Girl Injured

Irene, the young daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Chaney, on the Maynard farm in upper Bovina, while investigating a dynamite cartridge which she found in the attic of the house, was badly injured.  The cartridge exploded in her hands, tearing off the ends of two fingers of the right hand, and injuring the left hand and also making flesh wound on the abdomen.

February 23, 1923

• Walter G. Coulter has been clearing out the road this week for traffic toward Delhi.

• J. Douglas Burns, one of Bovina’s progressive farmers, is confined to his home by illness.

• James Fisk, the 9 year old son of Earl Fisk at Lake Delaware, broke his leg above the knee recently while riding down hill.  His sled collided with a tree.

• Ward Bramley, who is employed at Andes, was called here this week to do the chores for his brother, James H. Bramley, on the Bloomville road, who is on the sick list.

• Mrs. Fred More, of Hobart, who was formerly Margaret Miller of Bovina, underwent a successful major operation for the removal of goiter Friday at an Ithaca hospital.  About ten days previous she underwent a minor operation making it possible for the major one.