Just a quick little post today on a humorous little piece I found in the Thursday, February 7th, 1884, edition of The Northern Pacific Farmer. A digitized version of this short-lived (1878–1885) paper was scanned by the Minnesota Historical Society and is available online through the Library of Congress’ Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers site.
Without further ado, here is the piece I found:
It reads:
Our Sunday School still goes on under the superintendence of Mr. Askew who is at considerable inconvenience to attend, being at work at Dower Lake, for the Lumber Company. He has rather a cold berth but never gets chilled so bad that he is found at his post in the Sunday School.
Thanks, Mr. Anonymous Correspondent from Northeastern Wadena, for that double-edged recognition. Hopefully the Joseph and the anonymous correspondent were friends having a bit of fun. Or perhaps Joseph himself was the anonymous correspondent? The previous submission by this anonymous correspondent (shown a little further below) does mention Joseph and Jane Askew in a positive light.
The full page from on which this piece was found is shown below:
Here’s the previous submission by this anonymous correspondent mentions both Mr. and Mrs. Askew, presumably Joseph and Jane Askew as they were the only Mr. and Mrs. Askew in the area at the time (their eldest daughter was their only child married by 1884, and she was then Mrs. Young):
