Friday Funny: Samuel T. Beerbower Humor

Beerbower Family

Were you the class clown? Do you have a dry sense of humor? Does ‘curmudgeon’ even begin to describe you? If you answered, “Yes” to any of these and you are a Beerbower descendant, you may share some of Samuel T. Beerbower’s genes!

Reading the old newspapers is very entertaining. It is great to see what was funny to people of that time, to see the terminology and ‘buzz words’ of the day, and just learn what our ancestors were doing that got them into trouble in school or with the neighbors.

Following are a few more newspaper articles about Sam Beerbower that tickled or made me say, “What???”

“Accidentally”??? How does one shoot a squirrel ‘accidentally’? Was he such a bad shot that the newspaper considered it an accident if he actually hit it?

Back then, everything and everyone was fair game, and if the local newspaper editor was an acerbic individual, nothing was sacred and no one was safe from the mighty pen- er, printing press.

This was first page news. A slow news day, perhaps? Or a dig at Sam that there were 26 rats at his place? Or is it kudos for a job well done by the dogs? We will never know.

This was a part of a ‘tour’ through the city streets of Marion, Ohio, written in a folksy way. Other news in that issue was about candidates for office, and those might have influenced this story. Read the latter section aloud to help understand it, if needed, though I have no idea about what ‘faithful Billy’ would be carrying. An archaic use of ‘poke’ was for a bag or pocket, so maybe it means the bags of mail?

Newspaper articles such as these give us a good idea of the context of our ancestor’s time, and help to ‘flesh out’ a real person who is more than names, dates, and places. It tells us the real history of our family, and helps us get to know our ancestors just a little bit better.

 

Notes, Sources, and References: 

1) All newspaper articles cited in captions.

 

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