Epic Genealogy in Indianapolis

Found this cute filler story in the Little Falls Herald in 1902.  I (of course) doubted the veracity of the author regarding the people mentioned, so I looked 'em up.   
Ah-ha. They were real: Daniel P.Erwin and his daughter Hanna appeared in the 1900 Indianapolis census.  Demia B. Townley and her older brother Morris lived with their parents George and Alice.  She was 20 when she married Daniel Erwin in April 1901.  He was 57.

The census says D.P. was a hotel proprietor , George Townley was a grain merchant,  and Morris was a lawyer.  

D.P. and Demia did indeed have the son mentioned in the last paragraph there, born in 1903.  Daniel Peart Erwin evidently liked to travel because the next entries on Family Search are from trips to Europe he made in 1925, 1927, 1928, 1929, 1930 and 1933.

Hmm.  I might be one of the "women who take delight in figuring out the various relationships", huh? 
           ☺

WHEN is a cornerstone laid?

Here's an interesting blurb from a newspaper called the Hendricks Pioneer, from the  March 5th, 1903 issue. (Hendricks is SW Minnesota, near the SD boarder).  It was just a filler for them, and it's possible no one cared about this item for the next 108 years....UNTIL the World's Best Researcher found it and saved it--YAY!                              

Cousin Gary Janson in front of the cornerstone
of St Michael's Catholic Church in Buckman, MN.

 No doubt this Carl Kropp was a good German boy, and a good builder, too, because Larry found that Kropp also got the contract for the Carnegie Library in St Cloud...(a $25,000 award by the Carnegie Corporation of New York on February 16, 1901)....a building that was used for the next 80 years.  


However, I'm wondering how people determine what year to carve on a cornerstone.  In the sweep of history, a year either way doesn't make much difference, I suppose.  But if St Michael's cornerstone says 1902, how come a builder wasn't  employed until the NEXT year?  Did our ancestors maybe dispute how stuff should be done??


Oh well, these little mysteries are partly what keeps this genealogy thing interesting, and you reading, right? ☺

The St Paul Daily Globe

The Library of Congress website is fascinating. It has an online division called Chronicling America, a collection of early newspapers from across the nation. Of course, it's searchable, so I tried "The Globe Newspaper, St Paul, Mn" and found that the newspaper folded in 1905.

Evidently, there was a problem as early as 1893:(NYTimes).... but by 1905, the publishers gave up.

This piece was part of an article that day chronicling reactions from other newspapers around the state:
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But Larry and I have formed our own opinions of the Globe over time...lol...and the other newspapers were just being 'nice' there. The Globe seemed to love sensational stories, but went out of business well before THIS story ended:

(The Daily Globe, Oct 7, 1902)

22 days