Early Reflections of Madisonville isn't one of them, but 10 Theda Hagan titles are available at Amazon.com. She obviously knows what she wants to do, and she actually executes it; for that fact alone, I would have nothing but respect for and good things to say about her. ("I give thanks to our Lord Jesus, who told me to write it, and gave me the wisdom and ability to do so," she writes in the dedication of this book.)
Beyond admiring her discipline and follow-through, I learned some interesting things from Early Reflections of Madisonville, which my wife and daughter gave me for my first-ever Father's Day gift in 2009. Among them:
-- Mrs. Hagan writes that, when Madisonville improved its paved streets with sewer lines (in the 1920s, I gather), the fee for a homeowner to tap directly into the line was $5. Or, for a 50-cent fee to the city, a homeowner could access sewer service by connecting to his or her neighbor's $5 connection and then negotiating whatever one-to-one deal with the neighbor. I love infrastructure.
-- About 1932, "the Sears and Roebuck catalog had radios for the first time. Mrs. Mullenix ordered one and was the first person in Madisonville to own a radio. We went over to see this great invention and to order one ourselves. Dad couldn't believe that the speaker had to sit on top of the radio. He, being an artist and mechanically-minded, sat down and drew out a plan and sent it to the Sears and Roebuck Company. He told them he wanted to buy a radio, but he didn't want such a crude looking thing sitting in the house. He explained how a radio could be enclosed in a case, with the speakers hidden behind a heavy material at the bottom. In a few weeks they sent the radio, and charged Dad $175.00 for the case that held the thing. We were the first to ever have a radio without having the speakers on top. Mrs. Mullenix sent her radio back, and wanted one like ours. In a few weeks, the Sears and Roebuck Company put out another new catalog with the radio now designed according to my dad's drawing. Today, he could have made a lot of money for his invention, but he didn't know anything about patents." Hagan, Theda. Early Reflections of Madisonville (Kearney, Nebraska: Morris Publishing, 2007) 41-43.
-- Madisonville's Victoria Street was named for Victoria Mines, the site of which became the Victoria Shopping Center. Trover Clinic was built near the site of old Coil Mine. Reinecke Mine was on West Noel Avenue. Hall, Harrig, Scott and Franklin streets were named after early residents of their areas.
-- Ruby Mansion sat on a Main Street/U.S. 41 hill south of downtown that is now occupied by MultiCare Madisonville. "We would see the servants at the Ruby Mansion sweeping and cleaning as we passed by. Sometimes the chauffeur would be driving the car in or out of the driveway. I can remember how the grownups with us remarked about how they would hate to clean that house. We children thought it would be a wonderful place to play or to roam about in the many rooms." Hagan, 84.
-- "I read an article recently about how in 1936, from July 7th until the 31st it was over 100 degrees on many days. July 13, 1936, it was 108 degrees. It has been the hottest temperature ever recorded in the tri-state area. The article also said that there were about eight days in 1936 when the temperature was above 103 degrees." Hagan, 86.
-- Preachers in declining, main-line-denominational congregations sometimes point to end of blue laws as one of the big competitive threats to churchgoing. Mrs. Hagan remembers, "another subject the preachers wanred about was the 'ungodly radio'. The people began to get out on Sunday and go on picnics and joyrides in their cars, and stayed home from church. The preachers told of the evil in doing these things. The love of the joyrides, and listening to the radio was taking people away from the love of God and the curch." Hagan, 90-91.
-- "Everybody attended the County Fair, but only the sinners went to the Carnival when it came to town." Hagan, 93.
-- "One Sunday, Dad, Mother and I walked all the way ot the new 262 acre City Park. We got three bottles of soda-pop at a gas station and took them with us. We saw two lakes at the park, drank our soda-pops and walked back home." Hagan, 100. (Madisonville City Park, funded by government stimulus, is huge, fantastic and used regularly and widely, still.)
-- "It wasn't long before the undetaker shop quit bringing the dead to the home. There were no folding charis and large electric fans brought to the house when someone died. The dead were now taken to funeral homes, as they came to be called, and people no longer sat up all night be the coffin. The friends gathered at the funeral home instead of the house. There were fewer people who came to stay with the family. They would come to the funeral home for a while and then leave. The visits were short and the fellowship could be seen fading away." Hagan, 103.
-- Mrs. Hagan remembers when her parents replaced her china-faced doll, "Corn," with a "celluloid doll about eight inches long. ... One day I pressed my thumb into the face of the doll and pushed hard, even though I had been warned not to. The celluloid cracked, and a sharp place jutted up. Mother was afraid I would cut myself on the jagged piece, so I had to throw the doll away." Hagan, 120. This would be an outstanding and dark opening scene of a movie made from this book.
Early Reflections of Madisonville would be a good read for anyone who has heard about and been around Madisonville his whole life but only moved there recently with his native-born wife, right before the birth of their daughter. Following the Rhapsody rating method, I give it five out of five stars; I assume this means "Perfect."
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