Scanning past newspapers I found the following pieces to share:

70 years ago: A pet parade was held in Cardington sponsored by American Legion Post 97. Louis Waterer won the prize for the smallest pet, an ant!

Phyllis Levings’ grasshoppers placed second in the small pet class. Largest pets in the parade were dogs, the dog shown by Ronald Heacock, first and a dog owned by Larry Taylor, second.

Most unusual pets in the parade were three coons owned by Anne and Wayne Schwartz and a pigeon owned by David Fisher was second. Two cats won the best dressed awards: Jeanne Ann Fisher took first with her cat and Barbara Schwartz received second for her dressed up cat.

Other pets entered in the contest were the mother and two kid goats, Franklin White; rabbits, Billy Ocker; pups, Corky Ocker; turtle, Jane Showalter; and a turtle by Sam Mosher, Tommy Truax, Jimmy Fisher and Charles Miller..

60 years ago: The county’s last Spanish War veteran, Charles Wesley Lockwood, age 84, died. He was a Cardington resident and a retired grocer.

He was the last living veteran of the Spanish American war in Morrow County and was a member of the camp in Bucyrus. He had moved to Cardingon from Florida; but prior to his retirement had operated a grocery store in Johnsville and a candy shop in Mount Gilead.

Sad news in September, 1960, was the accidental drowning of a father and his two sons at the Fulton Stone Quarry. The quarry had been abandoned for 45 years and these were its first victims. The 45-year-old father was an erector at HPM and his sons were 10 and 9 years of age.

They were fishing in the quarry when one of the boys lost his footing and slipped into the water and his brother extended his fishing pole to help him and he fell into the water. The man dived into the water to save his sons, but hit his head on a ledge in the water. His wife and two younger sons watched helplessly from the bank.

The quarry was said to be 120 feet deep in spots with the cold water fed from a spring. It was difficult to reach the quarry but in earlier years it was a popular swimming place until pools were built at Mount Gilead and Cardington. Although these were the first drownings in its history, a young man working as a water boy when the quarry was being built, slipped and fell from a ledge and drowned.

80 years ago: Two homes in Cardington were placed under quarantine due to polio cases. One patient was two years old and the other boy was 13 months. Five teenage girls who visited one of the homes were each placed under home isolation for two weeks.

On September 28, Katherine L. Wilt, a Cardington High School senior, died of polio. She had been ill with the disease for only three days. She passed away at the home of her parents, Mr. and Mrs. Frank Wilt of near the Windfall community.

It was believed that the occurrence of polio in the county was a partial reason for attendance at the 90th Morrow County Fair to be below expectations.

70 years ago: Three sets of brothers were members of the 1950 Cardington football squad: Gene and Dale Coomer, Steve and Melvin Maceyko and Noel and Dale Underwood.

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By Evelyn Long

Contributing Columnist