Saturday, July 18, 2020

Events on the Day Emma Virginia Bickerstaff Was Born

This was last night's Saturday Night Genealogy Fun, suggested by Randy Seaver of GeneaMusings:
What happened in the world on the day your maternal grandmother was born?  Tell us the date, the place, and find a newspaper page for that date, ideally from the place she was born.  What are some of the headlines?  What was the weather? 

Emma Virginia Bickerstaff was born on Thursday, July 6, 1893, near Steubenville, Ohio, to Edward Jesse and Mary (Thompson) Bickerstaff.  Steubenville published five or six newspapers at that time but none are available online.  The nearest city with a newspaper I can view at home was published in Wheeling, West Virginia, a distance of about 26 miles (by current roads and highways).

These are some of the front page headlines from The Wheeling Daily Intelligencer of July 6, 1896.
  • The Money Question, New York.  Regarding the scarcity of currency
  • The Iron Scale, Pittsburgh, PA.  About local iron manufacturers agreeing to Amalgamated Association wages
  • A Millionaire's Daughter, New York.  Miss Edith Drake, 27, disappeared from home
  • Blood Will Flow, Inez, Ky.  Requesting that Andrew Farmer be given up to be lynched after a drunken row
  • Five Burned to Death, Gagetown, Mich.  The house was struck by lightening
  • At the World's Fair, World's Fair Grounds, Chicago.  Great crowds continue
  • The Riots in Paris.  Trouble began at a students' ball and the lawless element took advantage of the opportunity to make themselves felt
  • Ten Buildings Burned, Pittsburgh, PA
  • Several Lives Lost, St. Paul, Minn.  A floating bethel (a floating home for rivermen) burned, two women and four men lost their lives
  • Terrible Storm, Reading, PA.  Great destruction caused by hail in eastern Pennsylvania
  • The Mine Disaster, London.  Results of a disastrous explosion at Ingram's colliery, Thorn Hill, Yorkshire
  • The Royal Wedding To-Day, London.  Wedding of the Duke of York and Princess May

The weather report for West Virginia, western Pennsylvania, and Ohio, in the lower right hand corner of the front page, predicted fair weather with westerly winds.  It gave the previous day's temperatures with a morning low of 70o and a mid-day high of 99o

Other international, national, state, and local news articles were scattered throughout the rest of the paper.

Thoughts and Observations
My great-grandmother, with a newborn and a 1½-years-old, was probably miserable if she didn't have electricity and fans in her home, assuming the temperatures on July 6 were similar to those on July 5. 

I don't believe the events recorded on the front page would have impacted Emma's family in any particular way, and I doubt much on the other pages of the paper would have affected them either.

Thanks for the genealogy fun, Randy.

–Nancy.

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2 comments:

  1. You had a much more interesting mix of news on your grandmother's birthday than I did. Very true in that most of the news didn't really impact their lives at all.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes, Linda, I was surprised at the variety and how far distant some of the news was. There's no telling with old newspaper what will be on the front page!

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