"March 16, 2002: A 9:30 breakfast in the Party Room for St. Patrick's Day. Mitch and Anna here in evening.
March 17, 2002: Nancy brought pizza for our dinner. We played several games of Rummikub. I took a shower while Nancy vacuumed. Talked to Greta in a.m.
March 18, 2002: Merilyn left yesterday to go to Tacoma. Maria is scheduled for back surgery this week. Played Seven Up this evening."
Pretty normal stuff from Grandma. So, it's Winside history again. This article does not have a source, so I can't say who wrote this piece. Not that we would know them, but it might shed some light on any biased reporting.
1927 Foot Race
December 25, Irvin Leary, better known to his friends as "Farmer" and Louis "Butch" Ehlers seemed to have difficulty in deciding upon the price to be paid for two calves that Farmer wanted to buy. They were still about $10 apart when the thought of running it off was suggested by Butch. At first they thought 100 yards was long enough but it was finally changed to about a mile and a half.
Butch only weighed about 225 pounds while Farmer was built along the lines of Nurmi or perhaps Hahn or Ritola, but Butch's confidence was supreme and the race was going to be run.
They started from the crossing near the Winside cattle yards and after starting out at a brisk dog trot, tired and fell into a walk until they reached the Frank Dangberg farm. From this point both decided to make one supreme effort for victory, the finish of the race being on the summit of the steep hill south of the Dangberg place. Both dashed forward about the same time, Farmer gradually leaving Butch in the rear. It appeared that both might collapse before they reached the top, so groggy from exhaustion were the two principals, but Farmer was not to be denied and kept pressing forward until he crossed the line, but he could not have gone much farther as he had nothing left. Butch was game but about half way up the hill, he fell from sheer exhaustion and lost the race. Farmer won but insisted afterwards that no more disagreements will be settled by the "Marathon Route" as far as he was concerned.
Okay, so I had to look up Nurmi and Ritola and Hahn. I didn't find a Hahn that had the proper birth year to be considered, but Nurmi and Ritola can both be assigned to Finnish runners who were alive and running in 1927. Both were slender guys. So, I am thinking that Farmer was a big guy and Butch was most definitely not, which does add quite a bit to the story if you visualize the race that way. They sure knew how to have a good time in Winside back in the day. I wonder how many spectators there were.
The photo is of Ville Ritola.
I remember "Farmer" Leary. He was a short slender man. Butch Ehlers was also short but in the days I knew him he was pretty heavy.
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