An interesting day

Kent was called into jury selection today, so he needed a ride to town. His friend Chad needed to go grocery shopping, as well, so I combined those trips. Dropped Kent off just after 9 a.m., put gas in the car ($3.57/gal at Walmart, but 10 cents off/gallon because I used a Walmart gift card), took Chad to Fareway, did a little shopping and went out to the car to wait for Chad.

While I was waiting for Chad, I wrote some research questions in a notebook about a relative who is a big black sheep in our family. Wilbur Carr, 23, shot the Gowrie, Iowa, town marshal to death in July 1908. Wilbur's father was Ira S. Carr Sr., and Ira's sister was Lydia Carr Caylor Burrell Baxter, my great-great-grandmother. Which makes Wilbur my first cousin three times removed, if I have figured it correctly.

So, one of my questions is what is Wilbur's actual name? I think that in census records he's listed as Wilbur. But most of The Messenger articles about the crime and the aftermath refer to him as William. So I headed back to the courthouse to look up Wilbur's birth record to see if I could find his real name.

As I pulled into a parking spot in front of the courthouse, Kent hollered "hey" at me. He was just leaving and ready to go home. But I made him wait while I went up to the recorder's office and did my lookups. We went to Walmart, where I picked up some items for Mom, and discovered that gas had gone up 11 cents since I was there about 2 hours before. ($3.68 now!)

As it turns out:
  • the person who wrote most of the entries in this birth registry had really bad handwriting
  • hardly anyone listed a birth name when they turned in the records - probably because it was the medical attendant/doctor who turned in the records.

So now I'm home, ready to work on stuff, and with lots of typing to do because that news article appeared on July 12 and I've got to post it today. But I'm going to take a nap first because the Tuesday copy editor has the day off so they are having a reporter copy edit - which isn't bad, unless he needs to go cover stuff like a fire or bad weather, as happened last week. Plus the paginator was indisposed yesterday, so I offered if circumstances require it (if paginator is still indisposed and reporter needs to go cover stuff) I can come in for the evening. So in case that happens, I need to take my nap now.

And since it's an on-again, off-again rainy day, it's not too sunny and that should help.

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