With the news rightfully concentrating on the COVID-19 virus I searched for news that occurred in past Aprils for some diversion for the reader.

• For instance the May 10, 1916 edition of the Morrow County Sentinel describes the delivery of the wrong corpse from a Columbus hospital to a Galion undertaker.

“The family gazed on the features, believed the man was their relative and prepared for his burial when the hospital authorities called that evening and said there had been a mistake — that man was alive and the body shipped out was of another man from Defiance who had passed away in the hospital.”

• That same edition related the story of a group of men in Butler who decided to spend their Sunday afternoons at Sunday School instead of sitting in a poker game. The decision had caused a flood of “scurrilous” anonymous letters that stirred the population of 800 and prompted an investigation by the post office authorities.

The poker players numbered 20 and included some leaders in the village. They formed a Bible club after renouncing the poker games in a body and joined the new devotional activity. In that same issue is a small piece noting that Cardington became the “smallest town in the United States to have free mail delivery.”

• An April, 1935 edition notes that 19 rural Morrow County schools would be holding graduation exercises at Levering Hall in Mt Gilead. As a personal observation, I was surprised to learn there were that many rural schools as late as 1935.

They were Quakerdom, North Woodbury, Guiding Star, No. Four; Miracle, Lone Star, Stackhouse, Pulaskiville, Willamsport, Dewey, South Miller, Westfield, Climax, Johnsville, Blue Jay, Woodbury, McMillin, No. 1 and Half Acre.

Several of these schools had only one graduate.

• A story in an April 1946 edition of the Independent describes the planting of 4,000 trees in the Lutheran Camp site, which later became the Lutheran Memorial Camp.

These included 1,000 Red Pines, 1,500 White Pines, 500 Tulip Poplars and 200 Black Walnuts planted in a section of the tract from Route 61 west to the woods.

• An April, 1966 edition pictures cancer fund solicitors, all members of the Cardington FHA: Paula Owens, Sharon Teasdale, Sandy Crum, Linda Pecko Loretta Garverick, Vickie Clinger, Becky Klinefelter, Nancy Fate and teacher June Moor.

Of course, one of the most tragic and memorable events was the sinking of the Titanic in April, 1912.

Hopefully April will turn to May with much better news for the country and the world in 2020.

April, 1940: H..S. Kirkpatrick of Cardington Township, resigned from the Morrow County Fair Board April, 1950: Dottie Lou Haycook, Cardington, won the annual spelling contest of the Morrow County School System.

April, 1970: George Sherman and Son Hardware, South Marion Street, was named as a boat registration agency.

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By Evelyn Long

Contributing Columnist

Reach us at [email protected].