June 17, 1897 —
A committee from the Catholic church visited Pierce this week for the purpose of soliciting funds for their church. They succeeded admirably.
The Jury in the Rasch [Raasch?] murder trial brought in a verdict of insanity and he has been taken to the asylum. Everyone has their opinion of the justness of this verdict but we think the cuss should have been hung.
Yesterday morning Chas. Burchert, Chas. Rohrberg, Chas. Penwell, Scott Fullen and Ernest Uecker left for a few days fish in the Missouri. We hope the boys may have great luck and come back with enough to supply the wants of the village.
100 Years Ago. . .
Bruegman & Reed had a demonstration and sale of Heinz products. A Heinz representative was at their store to show many new dishes made from the 57 varieties. Also, free hot coffee was served.
Word was phoned in that the stubble field of Henry Schuttler was on fire, and that the blaze was racing toward the John Schmitt place. Fire Chief A.
W. Marek, Chas. Rosburg, Edward German, Paul Thomsen and Frank
Kratochvil manned the fire truck and were quickly at the scene of the fire.
It had reached the road south of John Schmitt’s and would soon have been in a grove of trees there. Had the trees caught on fire, the high wind would have whipped the blaze into the build- ings and so our fire boys stopped the blaze before it crossed the road, and put an end to all danger of a fire at the Schmitt home.
A special notice in the April 2, 1925, Osmond Republican stated “We the undersigned businessmen of Osmond do hereby agree to close our respective places of business at 6:30 p.m. except Wednesday and Saturday nights of each week. This agreement is to take effect Monday, April 6th, 1925.” It was signed by the owners of 17 businesses. It concluded with “The above agreement puts Osmond in line with all its neighboring towns as they have been closing at this time for the past 4 or 5 years.
The American Legion Auxiliary met at the home of Mrs. James Cizek.
Comfort kits were made and also knitted sleeping caps for the soldiers in the tuberculosis hospitals.
Burt Davis was carrying one arm in a sling, the result of breaking it when a horse reared up and struck it.
75 Years Ago. . .
One morning about 2 a.m., the fire siren sounded and the fire boys were quickly at the scene of the blaze, a straw stack on the Fred Schmitz farm just on the edge of town. Fred had burned another straw stack during the day, located about three or four hundred feet north of the stack consumed, and the high wind which came up during the night blew embers onto the other straw stack, completely burning it. This straw stack was only about a quarter of a mile north of the farm buildings, and with the strong north wind there was danger of the farm buildings being set on fire, and so the fire boys were quickly on the
job and stayed, ready to save the farm buildings should they catch on fire. To Father Kings belonged the honor of being the first one to turn in the fire alarm for a fire.
The above-mentioned fire appar -
ently caused the fire chief, A. W. Marek, to publish the following: Do
not retire at night leaving coals or live embers from your bonfires of during the day. This is against village ordinance as well as state law. One can never tell when wind will raise at night and cause a disaster. Cooperate with us and help keep down fire hazards.
A report received here listed complete results of the recent Grand Island American Legion sponsored handicap bowling tournament. Osmond’s team came out 10th best in a field of 53 teams. The local five's handicap score was 2,842 pins. Ted Tunink, Osmond Tigers pitcher, who went in for bowling in the colder seasons, came out 35th in the singles handicap, with more than 200 entered.
65 Years Ago. . .
Floods due to normal melting of heavy snow coupled with rains ranging to more than an inch in many places brought serious flooding and untold thousands of dollars in damage to communities in Iowa and Nebraska. Because of its relatively high position in the North Fork of the Elkhorn river, Osmond was spared catastrophic damage, though justifiable apprehen sion ran high and damage was done to a number of properties along the “Osmond” creek course at the south edge of town. Damage was mainly done by flooding of basements. This occurred to only a few properties. An indication of the flood's height was gathered from a one-foot water depth on the Osmond ball diamond and a similar flow across the road several blocks south of the Osmond depot.
Mrs. Phil Beckwith was appointed 1960 census taker for the town of Os- mond and Plum Grove precinct. Mrs. Anna M. Gudenkauf was appointed for the work in McLean, Allen, East ern and Logan precincts.
H & G Skelly Service at Osmond reported the theft of $38 from the filling station cash register. The Skelly station is on Highway 20 at the southwest edge of Osmond. Henry Schuettler, who with Gene Kruse leased the station, said there was a possibility that someone was in the station when it was closed for the night, or that the intruder gained entrance through a window, locked the window after his entry and left through the front door. There was no evidence of forced entry. Missing from the register that morning was a $20 bill, a $5 bill and 13 $1 bills.
The OHS seniors left Osmond at 5 a.m. by chartered bus for Omaha on April 8. The group ate breakfast in Fremont, an annual custom. They arrived at Boys Town for a guided tour of the trade school, the field house and general school facilities. The next stop was the Kitty Clover plant, where they were shown each of the manufacturing processes from peeling the potato to the stapling of the bag. From there, they separated into small groups. Some went to the Ben Hur matinee, while others went sightseeing, took airplane rides, or went shopping. Then the ones who had seen the Ben Hur matinee attended the Follies and others went to the evening showing of Ben Hur, before heading home.
50 Years Ago. . .
Marvin Neubauer was selected by the American Legion Post 326 to represent Osmond at the 35th annual Cornhusker Boys State. Brenda Folkers was chosen as Girls State representative from Osmond by the American Legion Auxiliary.
Pam Warneke was named winner of the “What County Government Day Means to Me" essay contest held in conjunction with County Government Day. Pam was one of 15 OHS juniors chosen by their classmates to represent Osmond at Pierce and was elected to the office of county treasurer. She received a 415 first prize given by the American Legion.
At the monthly meeting of the Osmond Volunteer Fire Department, members heard a report from Delmer Neubauer, equipment committee, on the fire truck recently purchased by the city. The used truck — a 500-gallon pumper truck — was purchased from Meadow Grove and was to replace the 1941 city fire truck. A training session for the department was planned for April 21. Included in the training was familiarization with the newly acquired truck and transferral of equipment to the truck.
A picture on the front page of the April 9, 1975, Osmond Republican was headed: City of Osmond accepts delivery of utility tractor on April 8. It showed the utility tractor and a small dog, and was captioned, "Official Inspection? Moments after a new utility tractor was delivered to the city Tuesday morning, a little black dog appeared on the scene, looked at the machine and went on its way. The tractor, purchased from Hesse’s Inc. of Crofton, was one item to be bought with revenue sharing funds.”
25 Years Ago. . .
Names of Cornhusker Boys and Girls State representatives from the Osmond community were released by the program sponsors. OHS junior Clint Weyhrich would attend the Boys State session. Sheila Vinson, also an OHS junior, was the Girls State representative. Girls State alternate was Maggie Schultze. There was no alternate to Boys State.
Three letter winners returned from the previous year’s golf team — se- nior Matt Jochum and juniors Clint Weyhrich and Dan Kuhlman. Jochum was looking for his fourth year of qualifying for the state golf tournament in Lincoln and improving on the fourth place finish he had in his junior year.
10 Years Ago. . .
Five kids were lucky winners, find ing the one $5 bill in each of the age groups at the Easter egg hunt, held at the city auditorium. They were Jessa Backer, Keely Gubbels, Kobe Maertins, Adyson Poellot and Henry Stanosheck.
Osmond High School prom activities took place on Saturday, April 11, with a dance at the city hall and post-prom celebration at Osmond Community School. Named OHS prom king was Cole Kralicek, while Victoria Winninger was named 2015 prom queen.
