I read an interesting question the other day — “When did it become illegal to mail children?”
The answer is in June 1920. After that date you could no longer have your children delivered to relatives by the US Postal Service.
The US Parcel Post Service began January 1, 1913, allowing rural communities to receive packages that weighed more than four pounds without relying on the private delivery services. This was a huge boon to both mail order companies and the rural recipients of their goods.
The original regulations for what could or could not be mailed through the Parcel Service were vague, leading to people mailing all kinds of unusual things, like bricks and snakes, just because they could. Regulations during those early years varied from post office to post office depending on how the postmaster interpreted the rules. Just weeks after the parcel service began, an Ohio couple, Jesse and Matilda Beagle, mailed their eight-month-old son to his grandmother who lived a few miles away. The postage cost 15 cents and he was insured for $50.
In February of 1914, four-year-old Charlotte May Pierstorff was mailed from Grangeville, Idaho and traveled by train to her
grandmother who lived 70 miles away. She was accompanied by her mother’s cousin, who worked as a mail clerk. The 53 cents postage was much cheaper than a train ticket and the stamps were affixed to her coat. When the Post Master General heard of this incident, he banned the mailing of human beings.
The ban didn’t slow some people down. In 1915 a woman mailed her six-year-old daughter 720 miles from Florida to Virginia by train for 15 cents. All in all there are seven verified cases of children being mailed. In August of 1915, three-year-old Maud Smith was mailed 40 miles to visit her sick mother in Kentucky. The postmaster got called onto the carpet for that incident and that was the last recorded child mailing.
People still tried to mail their children, however, and in June of 1920, the assistant Postmaster General refused the request to mail two children as “harmless animals” and the practice was officially outlawed. It was still legal to mail bees, bugs, baby chicks and other harmless animals, but not those of the human variety.
My husband and I moved to Winnemucca, Nevada in 1984 as newlyweds for a one-month drilling contract at a developing gold mine. We ended up staying for 32 years…as one does. I had my kids there and taught school in the area for 29 years. I still think of it fondly, nine years after leaving.
How wonderful it would be to have a device that cured every disease!
the skin into the body, of course. People of the era did not understand that oxygen could only enter the body through the lungs.
Guess what else? Dr. Sanche wasn’t really a doctor. He was a businessman who devised a field of medicine called diaduction. He believed that an undercurrent connected all natural organisms, and a disruption of that current created illness. Oxygen, he believed, could restore the disruption of the natural current, thus the Oxydonor. He moved frequently to stay one step ahead of the authorities as the complaints rolled in, but continued to market his device and to warn the general public against imitators.
Hello and Merry Christmas!
If you would like to read this story, please mark your calendars for December 24 and check your favorite
online book vending site for a free digital copy of 
As you may have guessed from his name, Henry Starr is a relative of 
gunfight ensued and Henry killed a Deputy Marshal and then escaped. Now wanted for murder, Henry and his partners began robbing banks instead of stores. While traveling to California by train, they stopped in Colorado Springs, where law enforcement were finally able to arrest Henry for murder and highway robbery. He was convicted of murder and sentenced to hang in 1893. His lawyers managed to appeal and the US Supreme Court overturned the decision, giving Henry a second trial. He was once again found guilty and sentenced to hang. His lawyers again appealed and Henry got a third trial, in which he pleaded guilty to manslaughter and was sentenced to 15 years.
that crime didn’t pay (even though it have been quite lucrative to him). He began speaking and writing to young people and encouraging them not to follow a life of crime, but to instead earn their money the old fashioned way. He was paroled in 1919 because of his good acts. He then turned to acting, producing and starring in a silent movie called A Debtor to the Law, which drove home the senselessness of crime. The movie was a success and he received an offer to make a Hollywood movie, but turned it down, once again fearing extradition to Arkansas. So what did he do then?
When I was in 4-H many years ago, I took a Veterinary Science project. As part of the project, I had to write about the way various equine ailments were treated. I had a great source–or so I thought. It was my great-grandmother’s old veterinary book, published in the late 1800s. I found out that I could cure almost anything by using turpentine, castor oil, pine tar, or kerosene. Sometimes these materials were used externally as wound dressings and at other times mixed with other ingredients for oral treatment. After finishing my paper and giving it to my mom to read, she gently informed me that veterinary science had moved beyond turpentine, pine tar and kerosene. I found a new source in the library and wrote a new paper, but I’ve always been fascinated by the use of turpentine as a medicine.
Turpentine is made from pine trees and has a long history of use as a solvent, paint thinner and water repellent, as well as a medicine. We now know that turpentine should NOT be ingested, as it causes kidney and lung damage, but before the side effects were understood, it was used routinely in medical treatments. Romans used it to treat depression. Doctors used it both internally and externally throughout history to treat wounds, infections and to kill internal parasites such as tape worms. It was a widely used component in the snake oil treatments sold in medicine shows in the late 1800s, and during Prohibition, turpentine was used to make fake gin. Also, many folk remedies contained turpentine and when ingested, it will make urine smell like violets.
Virginia City, Montana is the county seat of the area in which I live–the place where I go to renew my vehicle registrations and vote. Visiting VC is literally like stepping back in time with its wooden sidewalks and historical buildings. As one of the earliest mining areas in Montana the area has a rich and colorful history and today I’m going to tell you about the Virginia City Flour Wars.
The flour hunters managed to secure 82 sacks of flour which they stored in a building known as Leviathan Hall. The vigilante Flour Committee kept records and promised to pay the owners of the confiscated flour $27-$30 per sack, depending on the source of the flour.
I really enjoy doing the wood, but I’m cautious about chainsaws. Growing up in logging country, one couldn’t help but respect the machines and all they could do as well as the injuries they can cause. I prefer the splitter, but in today’s post I’m addressing the history of the chainsaw.
used it to aid in childbirth. The machine was used to cut away excess cartilage and bone if the baby got stuck in the birth canal. In 1830 a German Bernard Heine invented a chainsaw which he called the osteotome (bone cutter). this was used to remove diseased bone and joints. Eventually, however, the chainsaw was used to cut materials rather than the human body.
