The Way it Was

100 years ago

Suspected runaway match

A young man, accompanied by a young lady, sauntered into the office of Probate Judge Hudson this afternoon and asked to be married, says Monday's Fort Scott Tribune. They gave their names as Mr. Albert Monkers and Miss Mabel Hall, both of Nevada. The license was issued and when the court asked for the ages he gave his as 21 and his financee as 18 next December, and also that is when both spoke up and declared that the parents were willing and had consented to the marriage. The judge then compelled both of them to make affidavit that he was 21 and she was 18 and would be 19 next December, and also that the girl's parents were willing for the marriage. The couple was then married.

50 years ago

Guardsmen 'outfox' mob today

National Guardsmen "outfoxed" anit-integrationists at Clay, Ky., today as two African American children were escorted to the previously all white school.

State Adj. Gen. J.J.B. Williams, commander of the Kentucky National Guard, personally escorted Mrs. James Gordan and her two children, James, 10, and Teresa, 8, to the school.

"We outfoxed them again/" Williams said, "It was part of my strategy to have the children to school at Providence yesterday to throw the people off the scene."

Mrs. Gordon enrolled her two youngsters at the all African American Providence school yesterday and it was thought racial troubles in Clay were over. Twice mobs formed to turn away the Gordon children when they attempted to enter the Clay school.