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Pages of History
August 1947 opened in Cedar County with the kind of tragedy that makes even old newspaper pages feel painfully fresh.
Loy Gene McNabb, the 9-year-old son of Vernon and Floy McNabb of Laurel, died Aug. 1 while wading in Crystal Lake with his 11-year-old cousin, Marilyn Stevens.
Mrs. McNabb had left her son at the Crystal Lake Bible camp to play with his cousin and other children while she went to Sioux City to see a doctor. The camp was operated by Mrs. McNabb’s brother, Charles Stevens.
Marilyn later said she and Loy Gene had been wading hand-in-hand in the shallow end of the lake when he suddenly let go, fell face down in the water and did not get back up.
She screamed for her father, who was standing on shore. He waded out and carried the boy in.
The camp’s assistant director and a swimming instructor performed artificial respiration while waiting for an inhalator squad from Sioux City. Squad members worked for an hour but could not restore his breathing.
Because very little water was found in the boy’s lungs, drowning was ruled out. No autopsy was performed, but the cause of death was believed to have been a sudden heart attack.
Loy Gene was born in Orchard on Christmas Day 1937. He came to Laurel with his parents when he was only eight days old. He was the McNabbs’ only child. Had he lived, he would turn 89 years old this Christmas.
Laurel also lost one of its longtime business and civic leaders that month.
Alfred D. Felber died Aug. 6 at the age of 63. Felber came to Laurel with his parents in 1898 and entered the drugstore business with his father in 1905.
He went on to serve as Laurel’s mayor for 14 years and helped organize the Laurel Ice Co., the Laurel Building and Loan Assn., and the Loval Lake project. His son, Neal, had joined him in the drugstore in 1946.
Loval Lake, about three miles north of Laurel, had been created in 1924 when an earthen dam was built downstream from a small flowing spring. When the lake filled, it was stocked with fish and soon became a popular place for swimming, fishing and other recreation.
By 1947, however, the lake had seen better days. On Aug. 21, 12 men met in Dave Curtiss’ office to talk about bringing it back to life.
Their plan was to sell memberships in the Loval Sportsman’s Club for $25 each. A new pump would be installed in the old pump house, and when the lake refilled, it would be restocked with fish.
If you are keeping track, that means Cedar County men were trying to improve recreation in 1947 by fixing a lake, stocking fish and forming a club. Some community development ideas never really go out of style. They just get more expensive and require more paperwork.
The skies over Cedar County were also getting busier. Everett C. Huddleston became the first student pilot to solo at the Laurel airport. On Aug. 12, he flew to Pender to pick up a new Piper J-3 Cub he had purchased. He was accompanied by Max Lamson and a flying instructor from Randolph.
Huddleston and Lamson flew the Cub back to Laurel, while the instructor flew the other plane to Allen to take up passengers during that town’s celebration.
Ronald G. Frans became the first veteran to solo at the Laurel airport under the new G.I. Bill. Frans was allowed to solo after only eight hours of flying with an instructor.
Learning to fly a small plane such as a Piper Cub was not considered much harder than learning how to drive a car. A new Cub could also be purchased for about the same price as a new car.
Of course, cars generally did not require a runway, nerves of steel and a willingness to explain to your wife why the family budget now included “airplane.”
Back on the ground, Laurel gained a new private garbage collection service in late August.
Raymond Simpson, a local drayman, announced he would pick up garbage and trash twice a week for anyone willing to pay $1 a month. Simpson asked customers to place garbage and trash in separate bags.
“This is a service well worth the effort to get it started in Laurel,” the Advocate said.
The Arrow Stage Line of Norfolk applied to the Nebraska Railway Commission for a permit to operate a bus line between Wayne and Hartington. The proposed route would run from Wayne to Laurel to Coleridge to Hartington and back again.
The route would have tied several Cedar County communities more closely together at a time when public transportation still mattered to people who did not own a car, did not want to drive or simply preferred to let someone else dodge the ruts.
Public health was also on the front page. According to one of the x-ray machine operators, 628 people took advantage of the free chest x-rays offered during the final days of July. It was the best turnout so far in the county.
But x-rays, as one Cedar County farm accident would soon show, could not find everything.
Cliff Templeman, 22, suffered severe internal injuries while dragging late-planted corn. As he turned around at the end of the field, the rear wheel caught the drag and three sections flew up on the tractor.
Templeman said he tried to stop the tractor but could not release the clutch. He jumped off, and the rear wheel of the tractor passed over his abdomen.
He then walked a half mile to a neighbor’s farm, which says something about both the man and the era. Today, most of us complain if the remote control is on the wrong end of the couch.
Templeman was taken to Dr. Bray in Ponca and then sent immediately to a Sioux City hospital, where x-rays showed no damage. The next morning, doctors operated and found his liver had been split wide open.
Templeman recovered and lived to the age of 84. Cedar County farmers were also taking aim at weeds that summer.
Approximately 8,000 acres of crop and pasture land in the county had been sprayed with the new “wonder weed killer,” 2,4-D. About 2,000 of those acres were sprayed by Pete Stewart, who used a Jeep fitted with a 24-foot spraying boom.
Much of the spraying was aimed at cockleburs, which had gotten out of hand during the war years when farm help was scarce.
During the time this writer lived on Bud Lorang’s farm north of Laurel, cockleburs were still cut by hand with a corn knife. It was hot, dusty, itchy work — and if 2,4-D seemed like a wonder in 1947, it is easy to understand why. A weed sprayer did not complain, blister or ask when dinner would be ready.
