Iowa
Old Press
The Red Oak Sun
Red Oak, Mills Co., Iowa
November 11, 1927
FINDS ROMANCE IS CUT OF EXPLORING
Amundsen to Devote Time to Lecturing.
Moscow. --Capt. Roald Amundsen, the man who had peeped at the top
and bottom of the world is through. "The airplane and
dirigible have taken the romance out of exploration" he
said. "Dog sleds nowadays fly through the air. The good old
times when terrific hardships were a pleasure are gone. "The
man who starts north or south in a dog team today feels like a
piker. Some 'Byrd' comes along and squeezes a year's trip in one
day of twenty-four hours. he packs up a couple of chicken
sandwiches and then is to excited to eat. We in the old days
dragged a ton of hard tack over the ice and were glad to munch
every crumb."
Though resolved to spend the rest of his life lecturing amid the
luxuries of civilization, Amundsen believes there is much to be
done. The eleven day train trip in across the steppes of Siberia
put him in a reflective mood. He waited five days for the weekly
express at Vladivostok and it pulled into Moscow three and a half
hours late. "Has nobody started to dig a hole in the
ground?" he mused. Think of the unlimited possibilities of
such a venture. We go down a couple of thousand feet and bring up
limitless treasures. There must be something or nothing in the
8,000 miles down from New York to China. Judged by comparative
developments up to the present time. Amundsen pinned his hopes
for future commercial and scientific flying on the dirigibles as
against the airplane.
With a little greater perfection at maneuvering apparatus, he
said he had no doubt but that dirigibles could be anchored over
any given spot on the face of the globe while scientists
descended by means of rope ladders to make observations on the
ground.
"LOST" FORT IN CANADA FOUND AFTER CENTURY
Montreal. -- Old Fort Halkett, in the Lizard river country,
abandoned almost 100 years ago by the Hudson Bay company, has
been rediscovered by Allaire Deizell, a trapper, who has reached
Telegraph Creek British Columbia, from the river country.
MRS. VICTORIA McCRAY DEAD.
Funeral services for Mrs. Victoria McCray, 80, widow of Addison
McCray, and a highly respected resident of this county for 58
years, who died Friday, Nov. 4, at 1 a.m., at her home, 707 Fifth
st., following sickness which lasted over eight months, were held
Sunday at 2:30 p.m. from the Methodist church. Rev. Ira Carney,
pastor of the Christian church, conducted the services and
friends who served as pallbearers were Frank and Day Shires,
Frank and Harry Shearer, L. E. Marsden and O. C. Mellott.
Interment was in Red Oak CemeteryRelatives from a distance who
were here to attend the funeral included Florence V. Hopkins,
Seattle, Wash; Mr. and Mrs. M. A. McCray, Putnam, Tex., Helen M.
Wright, Ft. Worth, Tex., Mrs. Theo. Eland, Fairfield; Mrs. Ora
Hucheroft and L. P. and M. L. Blake, Mediapolis, and Mrs. Addie
Sims and daughter, Miss Myrtle, of Council Bluffs.Victoria Blake
was born in Des Moines county, Iowa, Jan. 24, 1847, andwas a
daughter of Luther and Dolly Blake. She was married there Feb.2,
1856, to Addison McCray and to this union six children were born.
They are L. B. McCray, Cartage, Mo.; M. A. McCray, Putnam, Tex.,
and Florence V. Hopkins, Seattle, Wash. Three children preceded
their mother in death.Besides the children she is survived by two
brothers, L. P. and M. L. Blake, of Mediapolis. Mr. and Mrs.
McCray moved to Montgomery county in 1869 and settled on a farm
in Sherman township. They retired from the farm in 1919 and moved
to Red Oak, where Mr. McCray died April 1, 1913.Mrs. McCray was a
good Christian woman and for more than 40 years she taught in the
Sunday schools of the church and assisted in the various
departments of the church work, until her health would no longer
permit. She was a member of the Methodist church and the W.R.C.
AXEL JOHNSON DEAD.
Funeral services for Axel A. Johnson, 45, a resident of this
county for the past 28 years, who died Sunday at 8:45 p.m., at
the home of his sister, Mrs. Ivar Hanson, three miles north of
Red Oak, from tumor. The funeral was Tuesday at 2:30.
[transcribed by C.D., November 2010]