On this page from a 1908 issue of the Brooklyn Daily Standard Union, about halfway down the fifth column, there is a little article entitled Max Heatter Wins First Prize for Elocution. Max Heatter was my maternal grandfather, and was about 15 years old at the time. The article reveals that he was the president of the Lowell Literary Society, which sponsored the contest. It appears that the society also had a baseball manager and a prosecutor. I believe Max left school after the eighth grade to go to work. I suppose societies like this provided a way for kids to continue some sort of intellectual pursuits when they were no longer going to school. I can understand that the kids also played baseball when they got together, perhaps against other similar societies; I havent figured out what they needed with a prosecutor. The whole thing is a fascinating glimpse into the period, including the fact that the local paper reported on their elocution contest. (The rest of the page is pretty fascinating too.) As usual, this is a result of my brother Steves genealogical research. fultonhistory/Newspaper%2014/Brooklyn%20NY%20Standard%20Union/Brooklyn%20NY%20Standard%20Union%201908/Brooklyn%20NY%20Standard%20Union%201908%20-%200080.pdf
Posted on: Sun, 10 Aug 2014 16:02:19 +0000
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