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The Fourth of July passed quietly in Laurel. Businesses were closed for the day but the only celebrations were family get-togethers and picnics. Hartington was the only town in the county to host a celebration and it was rather low-key. The festivities at the fairgrounds included horse races and a baseball game. In the evening an old-time dance was held at the American Legion pavilion and a new-time dance at the Sun-Glo ballroom. Much to the relief of Hartington dogs, fireworks were not available due to the war.
The Seventh War Loan Drive ended the next day. For the first time in all the war bond drives, Cedar County topped its quota. Hartington led the pack by purchasing $131,540 worth of bonds. This was 219% of its $60,000 quota.
Other towns that exceeded their quotas were Laurel (158%), Belden (165%), Randolph (132%), Coleridge (160%), Wynot (197%), and Fordyce (148%). Enthusiasm was lower in Obert (38%), Magnet (27%), and St. Helena (20%). Only six of the county’s rural precincts went over the top.
This was attributed to the fact that, due to the shortage of help, farmers were too busy working in their fields to come to town and buy bonds.
There would be no racing or dancing in Laurel on the Fourth but what was billed as “the race of the century“ was scheduled for July 10. Phil Pearson, a 77-year-old piano tuner who occasionally visited Laurel, was overheard bragging about his ability as a foot racer. Dave French, then almost 99 years old, overheard Pearson‘s boast and challenged him to a race. Charles Ebmeier offered a $50 prize to the winner and the race was on. The course would be from the grain elevator at the east end of Main Street to Highway 20 on the west.
But July 10 arrived and no race was held. The two old geezers apparently had been talked into moving the race to Dixon and holding it in conjunction with the town’s August 15 picnic.
But August 15th passed and there was no mention in the Advocate of the “race of the century” having been run.
Born in 1846, Dave French was a likely candidate for “father of his country” — or at least the county. In 1876 he married Ruth Wannamaker. They had nine children together. After Ruth died in 1894 he married Mary Tidemann who was 30 years younger. He fathered nine more children. Dave died in 1949 at the age of 103. Mary died in 1974 at the age of 98. (I had the privilege of driving her in my Volkswagen convertible in the 1968 Diamond Jubilee Parade.) Dave and Mary’s youngest child, Helen French Wolff, died in 2001.
Martha French Holm, Dave’s granddaughter by his first wife Ruth, died in 2006 at the age of 102.
French was two years older than Horace Warner Simpson – South Dakota’s and Laurel‘s last Civil War veteran.
Simpson enlisted in the 23rd Illinois Infantry in 1864 at the age of 16. His regiment was the second to enter Richmond, Virginia, after the fall of the Confederate capital in March 1865. The war ended in April and Simpson was discharged in July.
Simpson and his wife Hattie came to this area in 1892 – the year Laurel was founded. Hattie died in 1897 and was buried in the Laurel cemetery. In 1903 Simpson purchased a farm near Faulkton, South Dakota, where he spent the rest of his life. Horace W. Simpson died at the age of 97 on July 20, 1945. His body was brought to Laurel and buried beside his wife.
At the time of Simpson‘s death, there were 455 living Union and Confederate veterans. Albert Henry Woolston, the last known Union army veteran, died in 1956 at the age of 106. Pleasant Crump, the last confirmed Confederate veteran, died in 1951 at the age of 104.
Helen Jackson, the last confirmed Civil War widow, died in 2020 at the age of 101.
In 1937, Jackson, who was then 17 years old, married a 93-year-old Civil War veteran so she would be eligible to receive a widows pension. Irene Triplett, the mentally disabled daughter of Civil War veteran Moses Triplett, collected her father‘s pension following his death in 1938 until her death in 2020 at the age of 90.
One of this area’s earliest pioneers also passed in July. Osborn Luther Templeman died at the age of 91 on July 12. Templeman was born at Solon, Iowa, on December 12, 1853. Ollie Pratt, his future wife, was born at Solon one day earlier. They were childhood playmates and schoolmates. On Jan. 14, 1872, they became husband and wife.
Following their marriage, the Templemans came to Nebraska where they settled about 12 miles north of the future site of Laurel on a farm that had been purchased by her father in 1870. (I do not have a current plat map, but I believe the old Templeman farm is now owned by Regg and Dixie Pehrson.) At that time, the nearest towns were Ponca and St. Helena. There were no roads in those days so when they needed to go to one of these towns to do their trading, they followed the section lines in a horsedrawn wagon.
The Templemans were forced to flee Nebraska when grasshoppers devoured their crops later in the 1870s and again in 1894 when their crops were destroyed by drought. But they returned and started over.
After retiring from the farm, they moved into Laurel where they marked their 61st wedding anniversary on Jan. 14, 1933.
Mrs. Templeman died a week later. Mr. Templeman lived another 12 years. Both are buried in the Laurel cemetery along with a son who died in 1949.
Roger Tryon is a Laurel High School graduate and a former employee of the Laurel Advocate. He is now retired and living in Sioux City after a long teaching career. He has been writing a weekly history column for the Cedar County News and Laurel Advocate newspapers for over 30 years.
