This Was Doylestown, 1926

Rotary Club hears Thanksgiving address -

"There never has been a time when the people of the world have had an opportunity to be thankful for as many substantial things which add to their comfort and well-being," Kiwanian J.L. Hady told the Rotary Club of Doylestown in a Thanksgiving address Thursday evening at the Doylestown Inn.

"There never has been a time in this country when the distribution of the good things of life has been so thorough, when there has been so little sickness and so comparatively few cases of poverty which are not looked after," he said.

It is entirely proper, he said, for men to be thankful for what they are and for what has not happened to them, for their negative as well as their positive blessings. One of the great weaknesses of human beings, he said, is their tendency to borrow trouble, often making themselves miserable, but they can at least be thankful as they sum up the year that their forebodings have not materialized.

"One of our failings," Mr. Hady added, "is that we do not make enough of the things which provide happiness and well being."

The speaker's fine address was brightened by wit and humor, which helped to make it one of the finest talks the club has had.

An unusually pleasing feature of the evening was the excellent musical program which was rendered by Conine McEntee, cellist of the University of Pennsylvania Symphony Orchestra, with Miss Mary Maneely as accompanist.

Adding to the fun of the evening was a Thanksgiving puzzle contest dealing with the annual turkey day dinner. Different courses of the meal were set forth in "pi-lines" and it was the job of the Rotarians and their guests to guess the correct names within the five minutes allotted them.

Three were successful--President Carroll Molloy, Nick Power and Miss Mary Maneely--and as a reward they were permitted to sing "In the Good Old Summer Time" for the club, and performed in a very workmanlike manner.

Doylestown's textile mills booming -

Business is booming for Doylestown's textile mills.

At the Royal Silk Company's big plant, always busy, an extra hour was added for five days of the week, beginning Monday. Five days each week, the employees will work until 6 o'clock instead of 5 p.m. as usual. Saturdays, there will be no change; the mill will close at 11 a.m.

Recently, more looms were added. From 45 to 50 workers are employed in the mill, and the payroll runs about $1,500 every two weeks.

"This is not unusual with us in Winter," an official of the mill said. "We are kept busy all of the time, with the exception of a slight slowing up during certain Summer months. No, I don't know of any special demand just now; there is usually a steady demand for our products."

Harris Holmes, of Holmes & Sons, the flourishing North Main street worsted mill, said that the employees are now putting in a 55-hour week instead of 50 hours as usual, making the extra hours up on Saturday instead of working a five-day week.

"Business is good," said Mr. Holmes, "and we are taking advantage of it. It's getting near Christmas, you know, and employees must have something extra to put in the stocking."

Fifty employees are on the firm's payroll at the local plant, which operates 45 looms.

Down at the Derk Manufacturing Company's tapestry plant, everything is hustle and bustle now in preparation for the building of a very large $75,000 addition to the present plant. The firm reports prosperity and is so pleased with its success in operating a plant in Doylestown that is preparing to move its "whole works" from Philadelphia by spring.

The new addition will be a modern building planned by architects who are experts in designing industrial plants. The firm expects to employ about 200 persons in a few months.

Boy accidentally shot by playmate -

On a cot in the Jefferson Hospital, Philadelphia, a ten-year-old Doylestown lad, Watson Howe, of Linden avenue, is putting up a game battle for life.

There is another lad, a playmate of Howe, who is as anxious as anybody to see his pal pull through. He is Albert Landes, aged nine, who lives near the Howe home. Last Saturday morning, he accidentally shot his buddy, Howe, with a .22-caliber rifle while a number of boys were playing in the garage of the Landes home.

Saturday afternoon, it looked as though Howe might not live. He was rushed to the Jefferson Hospital, where it was found that the bullet had gone through the boy's body, entering the back, penetrating a lung and his liver and coming out on the front of his body near his stomach.

Although his condition is still uncertain, according to reports received Monday from the Jefferson Hospital, it is believed the boy will not have internal hemorrhages, and that he may have a chance of recovering. Sunday, young Howe's father went to Philadelphia to undergo a test for blood transfusion in case it becomes necessary.

According to the boys who were playing last Saturday, young Landes took the .22-caliber rifle from the rear seat of an automobile in the Landes garage. The gun was loaded with one bullet and had been placed there by an older brother who had planned to go skunk hunting.

As Landes took the gun from the car, young Howe screamed at him, "Don't point that at me, Albert." As Howe was stepping aside, the gun in Landes' hands was accidentally discharged and the bullet passed through Howe's body.

After the shooting, Chief of Police William Hendricks investigated and talked with the boys who were playing with Howe and Landes. It was found that the shooting was entirely accidental. Young Landes was turned over to his father to wait the outcome of the Howe boy's injury.

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Baseball scout proposes "Knot Hole Club" in Doylestown -

Ira Thomas, famous baseball catcher of yesteryear and well-known scout of the Philadelphia Athletics, proposed forming a "Knot Hole Club" in Doylestown during an address at the Monday night meeting of the Doylestown Kiwanis Club at the Doylestown Inn.

The inn was filled to overflowing for the inter-club meeting, which attracted 114 Kiwanians from Doylestown, Lancaster, Easton, Quakertown, Lansdale, Lambertville, Willow Grove, Philadelphia and Pottstown. Kiwanian Rudolf Hein and his able staff served an excellent duck and chicken dinner.

During his talk, Mr. Thomas suggested the organization of a "Knot Hole Club" in Doylestown through the cooperation of the public schools, Athletics' manager Connie Mack and himself.

The plan is to form a club of youngsters whose marks at school must be up to a certain grade. When this average is attained, the pupil will receive a membership card to the "Knot Hole Club." This card will entitle the youngster to free admittance to all baseball games played by the Athletics at Shibe Park in Philadelphia.

"My dear Kiwanians, give some of your time to the boys," Mr. Thomas urged. "It seems to me that so little time is being spent on the youngsters. In Philadelphia, I see the kiddies playing on the streets between the trolley tracks until they are chased by the cops. This is a bad situation. Philadelphia did not plan years ago to take care of the kiddies as it should have planned.

"I might add that Philadelphia some day will extend close to Doylestown, and if you do not plan now for the future, in the way of an athletic field, you will find the kiddies of Doylestown forced to play between the trolley tracks."

"Take your boys and girls to athletic events," Mr. Thomas said. "Point out to the boys the clean players, the fellows who do not drink or smoke and who are physically and morally fit. It will be a real schooling for them. School your boy in character building, and I want to add that it can be done on the athletic field better than any place I know."

Nature Club meeting focuses on the home -

"Nature's Part in the American Home" was the topic of the program at Monday's meeting of the Doylestown Nature Club at the home of Mrs. Samuel R. Pearce.

This subject was treated in three papers. Miss Darst gave the first one on "Nature's Coloring in the Home," in which she advised that the public learn from nature how to bring into their homes the changing colors to provide fresh inspiration instead of becoming monotonous.

Mrs. Tobin read an entertaining paper on "The Cultivation of Home Grounds," and impressed the feeling that even the seemingly impossible plot may be made to "blossom as the rose." Through the aid of the State Forestry Association, seedlings may be procured and otherwise wasteland made a thing of beauty. All this is possible only to the genuine lover of flowers, since this is essential to the development of a beautiful garden, she said.

Mrs. Ida Kirk's paper on "The Spiritual Value of Nature Study in the Home" showed that it is impossible to truly study nature without being drawn nearer nature's God.

Members also discussed various ways in which the influence of the club may be used to further preservation of the trees of the town and to help in securing the passage of laws in the 1927 legislature to stop stream pollution.

Mrs. C. Louis Siegler sang two selections, "The World Is Waiting for the Sunrise" and "In the Garden of Tomorrow," accompanied by Miss Mary Maneely.

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Doylestown Town Notes -

Hundreds of turkeys were disposed of in Doylestown on Thanksgiving. The various hotels and eating places alone disposed of over 100 of the festive birds, in addition to turkeys disposed of in the various homes of the town. It is estimated that over 200 Philadelphians took their Thanksgiving dinners in Doylestown.

Sheriff Abram L. Kulp treated the fifty prisoners in the Bucks County Prison to a turkey dinner on Thanksgiving.

Mr. and Mrs. Harry W. Swope, of Doylestown; Miss Eleanor Swartz, of Furlong; and Mr. and Mrs. Horace Swartz, of Philadelphia, motored to Atlantic City on Thanksgiving Day.

W. Lawrence Mason had the misfortune to be a victim of the grippe [flu] over the Thanksgiving holiday.

Thanksgiving Day guests of Mr. and Mrs. William Rutherford, of Green street, included Mr. and Mrs. William Golt and daughter Louise, of Wye Mills, Maryland; Mr. and Mrs. Austin Long, of Church Hill, Maryland; and Walter Dubree, of Phoenix, Arizona.

The new combination pumper of the Doylestown Fire Company underwent a rigid pumping test at the borough water works on Sunday. After the test it was announced that the machine was operating up to standard in every detail.

Alan D. West, a mining engineer, who has been stationed in Peru, South America for the past three years, is the guest of Edward E. Histand and family.

Mrs. Herman Burgher, of Maple avenue, has been the victim of an attack of laryngitis for several days.

Harry Price, of Swarthmore, a well-known football official, called on friends in Doylestown on Wednesday, and in the evening delivered an address at a booster football meeting at the National Farm School [now Delaware Valley College].

A daughter was born at the Emergency Hospital to Mr. and Mrs. Frederick C. Horn, of Doylestown township, on Monday morning.

Mrs. James B. Cotton, of East Ashland street, was operated on Thursday evening in the Episcopal Hospital for acute appendicitis. She was resting very well Friday morning.

F.B. Jaekel has taken the place of Watson Figard in the cast of "The Old Lady Shows Her Medals," one of three one-act plays to be presented by the Doylestown Theatre Guild at the Strand Theatre on Thursday evening, December 9.

From the Doylestown Daily Intelligencer, Week of Nov. 21-27, 1926