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Page 10B City of Petty 175th Birthday, Nov. 17, 1999, Houston Home Journal What they did for fun News from the old Home Journal paints picture of lively community By Kristina Simms SfffiAi.Tg ra HSMUaafWr For the past couple of months 1 have been engaged in the task of abstracting marriages and death notices that appeared in the Houston Home Journal from 1890-1899. It’s a major genealogical project and also an interesting trip into the past. We are now in the last decade of the 19005.... yet almost every day I make a trip to the Perry library and immerse myself in the last decade of the 1800 s. It’s definitely a trip back in time. Young people today can hardly imagine a world without movies, computers, automobiles, telephones, and ,hey, no televi sion and no air-conditioning! So what did our ancestors do for fun in the last decade of the previous century? They fished and swam in creeks; they hunt ed; they played inter-community baseball. They had frequent picnics, suppers, holiday parties, and Sunday School outings. They took buggy rides and train rides. They went to fairs and agricultural expositions and bush-arbor revivals. They shared jokes and tall talcs and gossip. They played card g..mes and par lor guessing games and stunts. They formed life ary, dramatic, and needlework clubs. They gathered around the piano and sang, and if they could find a fid dler, they gathered around him and danced. The end of the school year in those days was a time for performances and recitations by the children, and no one wanted to miss that pro gram. And certainly the Houston Home Journal was an essential part of their entertainment. Chatty, gossippy and opinionat ed was the rule for weekly news papers in the 1890 s. The editor would frequently write “Madame Rumor has told me that ” Elopements were treated with considerable editorial merriment and narrative detail. One wed ding report included the fact that the floor fell in under the combined weight of the guests. One obituary included the fact that the lady of the house had made some soup that caused the whole family to become ill, and one unfortunately to perish. And perish they did in the last decade of the past century. The causes of death were fre quently included in the obituar ies: malaria, typhoid fever, con sumption (tuberculosis), ipoplexy (stroke), heart disease, blood poisoning, La Grippe (flu), and even hydrophobia (rabies). One particularly poignant article tells of how the citizens of Perry collected money to send a man who had been bit ten by a rabid dog to New York to be treated (futilely) at the Pasteur Institute. Infant, child, and maternal deaths were heart breakingly common. Of all the advances we have made in the past one hundred years, those of most benefit to mankind are surely the advances that have been made in medi cine. Most young people do not even realize that antibiotics have been in widespread use only since rhe World War II era. In the 1990 s in Houston County Bathing beauties at Houston Lake in the 1930 s JPe a/ t e tuHtud to be hart oftA re- yreaf city of 175th s&u*thdcuj!V Longhorn's Butcher Shop 1207 Sunset Ave., Perry, GA ’PFouruleit (*)76' we have medical care that would have been considered nothing short of miraculous to our fore bears in the 1890 s. Some characteristics of Houston County have remained constant over the past 100 years. Houston Countians were and still arc intensely proud of their churches, their commerce, their schools, and the fruitfulness of their fields and orchards. Not a bad way to begin a new millen nium, actually! Kristina Simms is a retired educator and author living in Perry. She is the author of Macon: Georgias Central City, An Illustrated Congratulations to the City of Perry on 175 years of progress & prosperity. fuanita . Mason Houston County Tax Commissioner 1040 Macon Road Acre#* from Stanley Furniture JEWELRY CHINA CRYSTAL FINE GIFTS a ACCESSORIES BRIDAL GIFTS & REGISTRY Georgia Historical Plates Barbara Jones (912) 987-1531 ‘//T salute on her ifoth MirtJuhuy The New Perry Hotel t-Proad to 1/e //art of'lfierry A* heritage of hos//itatity fßaffyj tißirt/u/ay , serry ! Downtown Perry has changed a lot in the last 175 years, but one thing that never changes is the hometown friendliness and warmth of the people we see every day on Historic Carroll Street. l'oelebfatef \ / A Classic on Carroll ©rnfaeMio/i ifr 912 Carroll Street, Downtown Perry 987-2255* Mon. - Fri. 9:30 - 5:30; Sat 10-5 Happy 175th Birthday to the City of Perry! 1 Happy 175th Birthday, Perry! You are always welcome at JONES JEWELERS, INC. 904 Carroll Street Perry, Georgia 31069