Thursday, April 09, 2009

Out of the Past

My favorite column in my local paper, The Davison Index, is "Out of the Past." Here's what happened in Davison 100 years ago this week:
April 9, 1909
• Last Friday two young men “blew” into Davison, one of them with a bundle of clothing. After they wandered about the village for some time, Deputy Sheriff Munger’s attention was called to them and he interrogated them as to their names, which were given as David Court and George Boyle, but as they were unable to give anything like a straight account of themselves or their destination they were locked up. Munger telephoned the Home of Lapeer (Oakdale), but finding no one had escaped from that institution, he called up the sheriff at the poor farm. He received information that the two men had skipped that morning from the Poor Farm, so he took them to Flint and turned them over to the sheriff there. Investigation proved that the men, who were about 30 years old, were being held at the poor farm pending the outcome of an application to commit them to the Feeble Minded Home at Lapeer.
I laughed out loud because no one would dare write anything so politically incorrect these days. (Yes, I know I have weird sense of humor. Until now my favor entry had been "so-and-so lost a fine ram due to lightning." You know you live in a small town when the death of livestock is news. LOL.)

Can you imagine being committed to the Feeble Minded Home? I can't help but wonder how that differs from the Home of Lapeer (the old state mental hospital).