16. Beeson Park Golf Course Will Hold It's First Tournament, 1937

Journal Herald, September 17, 1937



  A Winchester city championship tournament will be played at the new Beeson Park golf course beginning September 20, it was announced yesterday. Medal play is impossible due to the fact that there are no available scores to handicap all the players. Hence the tournament will be match play.
  In order that all players may have the opportunity to participate, a consolation flight will be played along with the championship flight.
  Prizes will be awarded in both flights. All entries must be in by Sunday to Harry Smith, Caddy Master  at the golf course.
  Entry fee is 50 cents.

Tournament ends October 23, 1937:

  Johnny Monks today is champion golfer of Winchester by virtue of his 4 and 3 victory over Francis Simpson in a match played in a mixed snow and rainstorm on the Beeson Park course in Winchester. With the championship, the first of many to come on the new course, goes a silver loving cup.
  Johnny Perkins won the consolation tournament with a victory over Fred Lattin in the final match of the medal play event and received eight golf balls for his efforts. Lattin received four balls as runner-up.  There were eight entries in the championship flight after qualifying rounds had been played and Monks fought his way through to the title by defeating Robison, Smith and Simpson. The runner-up defeated Mendenhall and Perry to gain the final round.
  Perkins in winning the consolation was the best of 16 entrants. He beat Zayas, Fulkerson, Burnhardt and Lattin to win, while Lattin defeated Phistner, Armstrong and Ashley.

Earlier in the Journal Herald, 9-3-'37, Orla Davis, city clerk-treasurer, announced that as of September 1, there was a balance of $116.30 in the Beeson Park golf course fund.
  Since the course's opening, about the middle of July, to September 1, 1937,  income from green's fees totaled $364.10. Expenses to the Caddy Master and caretaker were $247.80.
  This is a creditable showing for the new course and reveals already that it will be a money maker, or at least self-supporting when in better shape and more widely known.

15. Jealousy Brings Murder-Suicide To Winchester

  Journal Herald, Dec. 1, 1938

Driven by a temper which at times was uncontrollable and meditation upon the fact that he was about to lose the love of his young sweetheart, Austin Roberts of near Saratoga, killed Harriet Jordan of 529 West South St., after he had seen her in company with another young man at the home of a neighbor the night before.
  Actual details of the tragedy will never be known as both were dead when their bodies were discovered after the kitchen door had been broken in and the bodies found side by side on the kitchen floor, their heads beneath a small table and blood spattered over the linoleum.
  Roberts shot the girl four times with a small .22 caliber revolver, the fatal shot penetrating her heart. Bullets struck her on the left cheek, the chest, left upper arm and right forearm, this shot going through her arm into the chest. The shot which killed the young man penetrated his heart. Both died instantly.
  That Roberts came to Winchester for the purpose of murder is borne out by the fact that the girl's mother, Mrs. Stanley Tobolski, was asked by Roberts to go to Shires, a neighborhood grocery, for two bottles of pop, indicating that the young man had planned her absence to commit the crime.
  Mrs. Tobolski went to the store leaving her daughter alone with Roberts. Returning with two bottles of pop, which were never opened, the mother found the kitchen door locked and peering in the window saw her daughter's body on the floor. She did not see Roberts.
Screaming, Mrs. Tobolski ran to the home of a brother, Elwood Van Note, 518 West Will St., not far distant. Accompanied by his wife, Van Note rushed to the Tobolski home and then to the home of Everett E. Stegall, just west across the alley, where he called the Sheriff's office.
  In the meantime, Mrs. Tobolski and Mrs. Van Note heard one shot, the shot with which Roberts ended his life.
  The kitchen door was broken in by Harry Fraze, Everett Diggs and Van Note and the gruesome double tragedy was revealed.
  Five shots had been fired from the revolver, two of the discharged shells being found on the floor and three in the cylinder. The revolver was found between the two bodies.
 
 

14. The Outhouse Police Are Coming

The Winchester Herald, 1889

  To the Citizens within the Corporate limits of the Town of Winchester: You are hereby respectfully asked to put the premises which you now occupy, own or control, within the corporate limits of the town of Winchester, Randolph County, Indiana, in a good sanitary condition by May 1, 1889, by removing from said premises all Manures, Accumulations in Outhouse Vaults, Pig Styes, Stables, Barn-Yards and all other places on said premises, the same to be moved outside of the corporate limits of the Town of Winchester. You are further notified to disinfect all outhouse vaults by thoroughly slushing each vault with not less than two gallons of a solution of copperas in water, using one and one-half pound to the gallon of water, or as much more as should be necessary to thoroughly disinfect the same, and repeat the disinfection as often as should be necessary, and not less than once a month during fly season being May, June, July, August, September and October. Pig styes, poultry houses and yards must be kept clean and free from foul odors by frequently cleaning and disinfecting with lime and copperas.
  You are also notified to fill up with earth, or drain all cesspools or places where water or pig slops accumulate and become stagnant.
  Serious objections are also being raised to the practice indulged in by some citizens of throwing rats which have been killed into the street, there to fester and rot, and raise a stench which is offensive to the nostrils of all persons passing by. This must stop.

By order of the Town Board of Health, Winchester, Indiana. J.W. Jackson, Pres't, F.A. Chenoweth, Sec'y.

13. George W. Peele, Good Man Gone To His Reward

Winchester Journal, 1924


  Since the death of George W. Peele, ninety-two, colored, at Muncie last week, interested persons have made an investigation of the negro register at the court house and find that George W. Peele was given his freedom by his master, Amos Wiley, who moved to Randolph County from North Hampton County, North Carolina, November 1, 1851.

  Mr. Wiley brought with him ten slaves, all of them he gave their freedom at this time. The register states that Mr. Peele was nineteen years old when brought to Winchester and describes him as a negro, five feet seven inches high and well made. Henry H. Neff, who was later a colonel in the Civil War, was clerk of the court when the register was recorded and Nathan Hinshaw witnessed the act. The Wiley negroes are the only ones who ever received their freedom in Randolph County.
  Mr. Peele remained a resident of Winchester until a short time before his death, when he went to Muncie to make his home with his daughter, Mrs. Dan Keith. He was well respected here and was familiarly known to almost every man, woman and child as "Uncle George."

12. Swimming Pool, Golf Course, Ball Diamond etc.To Be Built At Beeson Farm

Winchester Daily News, April 18, 1935


  The first concrete steps toward the actual work on the proposed Beeson Park in Winchester, were taken at the regular meeting of the city council last night, when a proposed contract between the members of the Beeson Park board and the tenant on the farm at the south edge of the city, for the vacation of the property was ratified by the council.
  Tentative plans presented by the members of the board, Dr. J.S. Robison, John Monks, Louis Mendenhall and Francis Simpson, call for the immediate construction of a nine hole golf course followed by a swimming pool, baseball diamond, two hard surface and one sand surface tennis courts, a club house and the laying out of a fine park equipped with benches, playground equipment, etc.

 A project application will be submitted to the state ERA office at Indianapolis in the near future, providing for all labor needed in the construction of the park to be provided by the ERA, or it's successor. The estimated labor expenditure in the park will probably exceed $25,000, according to the estimate. All expenditures for material and for the maintenance of the park will be paid out of funds provided for under the terms of the Beeson will.

  Work is expected to be started on the golf course within the next few weeks, pending the successful completion of the negotiations with the tenant and the ERA.

11. Two Men Freeze To Death: James R. Scott. James Fred Dewey

Winchester Journal Herald, 1953


  Discovered frozen to death at 9 a.m. was James R. Scott, 82 year old Negro, who lived alone in a four room frame house two and one-half miles north of Modoc on St. Rd. 1. His body was found by a brother-in-law, Albert Barrax, who lives a mile west. Mr. Barrax, who checked on the elderly man, Barrax himself is 82 also, about "every other day" saw the body in the rear of the house at the opening of a dilapidated woodshed where apparently Mr. Scott had gone sometime Sunday for coal from the small pile stored near the shed door. He told Coroner Harvey White that he had seen his brother-in-law about noon Saturday when he took him some groceries. He said that Scott had been taking medicine but seemed in normal health, for his age, at that time.
  He was a bachelor, born and raised in the community where he lived and had recently returned from the home of a niece in Detroit. The back door of the house, formerly a grocery store at what is known as "Scott's Corner" was standing open and water in a bucket in the kitchen was frozen solid.
  He will be buried in the Baptist cemetery, south of Farmland


  James Fred Dewey, 74, a former glassworker at Anchor Hocking was found dead Saturday morning at his home, 535 Maple Street in Winchester.
  Doctor Harvey White of Farmland, Randolph County Coroner, has ruled that Mr. Dewey had apparently frozen to death.
  Found with him when Winchester Police broke into the unheated house was Patrick (Shorty) Coon, 65, in such poor physical condition that he had been unable to move and make outside contact since his companion's death "three or four days ago."
  Mr. Coon was taken to the Randolph County Hospital for medical treatment and Sunday Morning was transferred to the Randolph County Infirmary.
 
 

10. Mrs.Emmaline (Emily) Hunt - 100th Birthday 1951, Winchester, Huntsville

By Paul Deming 1951


   "A century of living, of sharing and giving" is the motto of Mrs. Emmaline (Emmy) Hunt who celebrates her onconsiderably e-hundredth birthday anniversary Friday August 31, 1951 at her home in Winchester to become Randolph County's only living Centenarian.
  Still active for a person her age, Mrs. Hunt demonstrates in the photo that she can still "thread a needle" and sews daily, her favorite pastime.
  How does she feel at age 100? Not more than 70 at the most," answers the smiling and pleasant Mrs. Hunt. When querried as to how long she expects to live, she will say "Just as long  as the good Lord will let me." Asked about her interest in sewing she replied, "Mercy-I wish you knew of all the quilts, cloths and things I've made. One of my best quilts I made when I was 95-years-old. I still sew and love doing it.
  Her reaction to the modern world- "I don't enjoy times now in comparison to the way they were when I was a girl. I think times have definitely become worse."
  And, reflecting her simple Hoosier homespun philosophy, she looks back over the last hundred years of her life and recalls the happiest single day of her century as- "When my husband and I moved to Winchester and established our first real home, then I knew we would always be secure and have a place of our own."

  Her only advice to aspiring centenarians, Mrs. Hunt says. is clean and simple living. As to her secret of longevity, she explains it as the "confidence and joy of living." She says she tries to lead a temperate life and is particularly careful about eating.
  She says she never drinks coffee and never eats meat. Milk and water are her sole liquids for lunch and dinner, while for breakfast she drinks heated water with a little sugar and cream added. She sleeps approximately nine hours a day, retiring at about nine o'clock in the evening and rising at six o'clock in the morning. Occasionaly she may take a short nap in the afternoon.
  She immensely enjoys seeing and talking with friends, and is looking forward to many visitors through the day Friday. For those who will visit her then, her son and daughter ask that they please refrain from shaking hands with Mrs. Hunt as many people often do. They explained that so much hand shaking in the past has proved to bruise the elderly lady's hands severley.
  Mrs. Hunt is the only living member of a family of ten children and is a descendant of one of Randolph County's oldest pioneer families. She was born on August 31, 1851 on a farm near Huntsville and her mother, Harriet Ann (Cropper) Botkin, came to Randolph County from Henry County, Kentucky at the age of 11.
  Her brothers and sisters were Bealie, Edward, Malinda Jane, Matilda Ellen, Mary Eliza, Rebecca, Horace, Silas and Stacy Lincoln. Her father died in 1891 at the age of 71 years and her mother died in 1905 when she was 89-years-old.
  Emily was married to Addison Hunt, also a pioneer of Randolph County, on September 8, 1879 in a ceremony read by Harvey Patty, justice of the peace in Winchester. The Hunt's moved to Winchester in 1902. Mr. Hunt died in 1933.
  Descendants of the new centenarian now living are a son, Basil C. Hunt of Dayton, Ohio: a daughter Sadie DuBois of 427 Thompson street, Winchester, with whom Mrs. Hunt lives; two granddaughters, Harriet Holladay of Muncie and Jean Fast of Fort Wayne; three grandsons, Wayne F. Hunt, William A. Hunt and Robert L. Puckett: four great grandsons Jackie Holladay and Ronnie Holladay, Marshall A. Hunt and Buttchie Cook; and five great granddaughters, Wanda Lou Holladay, Caroline Sue and Sandra Kay Fast, Diane Puckett and Melonia Ann Hunt.