Jefferson County Online A part of the IAGenWeb and USGenWeb Projects The 'Madegood Family' Mandley C. Caviness

"The Fairfield Daily Ledger"
Fairfield, Iowa
Thursday, May 14, 1925
Front Page and Page 4

NO. 13--MANDLEY CHAPMAN CAV INESS (sic)

"Does the man see the ball coming?"

"He does see the ball coming."

"Will he man hit the ball?"

"He will hit the ball."

You out-fielders play 'way back there beyond the fense (sic) for Mandley Chapman Caviness is now at the bat and has one eye on the ball and the other scouting over the landscape looking for a place to put the pill.

Never knew Mandley Chapman was such a much as a baseball hitter? Huh, where you been? Mebbe you wasn't in attendance at that classic event, the Rotary-Lions ball game couple years or so ago. Mandley was there; so was a certain baseball that Ed Gentry, Lion's crack twirler, sent up to Mandley's bat. Mandley is still in town, but the ball ain't--or isnt', or aren't. Engineer at the Bernhardt pumping station reported that day that he saw it going over his place about 800 feet high and at a 70-mile-an-hour gait, and still going good. Parsons observatory turned their big telescope on it but lost it some where in Wapello county in the smoke from Ottumwa's factories. 'Twas a great hit, that of Mandley's. Other members of the Rotary club team who hadn't made three bases at one time since they played "old cat" or "scrub" jumped up and ran around the bases a few times just to see how it felt to be making a home run. Yeh, broke up the game.

Mandley had the good judgment to be born right here in Jefferson county, but erred in his judgement when he thought he'd like to work on a farm. Went to work for Gregg Chandler out near town. That was in the days when the hired man on the farm didn't get seven evenings and two half-days off each week. Gregg had an idea that a husky young fellow like Mandley could do a lot of work if he was given time enough to do it in. So Gregg obliged by letting Mandley get up about 3:30 in the morning and work until 'round about 9:30 at night. Gregg had the right idea, for Mandley got a lot of work done. Got so much done, in fact, that he thought he had done about all that could be done on a farm, so reluctantly gave up this pleasant, easy labor nd (sic) went to work at the Cable lumber yard. Job was all right--in fact, 'twas pie, after the farm job. But he decided to go into the coal business for himself. Tried it here a couple of years, then out at Afton a while.

When Mandley came back to Fairfield he went towork in a butcher shop. At first his job seemed to be the best yet. But grief drove Mandley away from this job. Yezzir, grief. You see he'd be carrying around the carcasses of departed hogs and cattle and it set him to worrying about his old friends on the farm. Was afraid that some day he might be cutting up one of these old friends; besides, it caused too many poignant memories of the farm. Got so every time Mandley touched a hog's carcess (sic) he expected the porker to squeal, and to hear Gregg Chaldner's voice calling, "Hey, it's 3:30--time to git up and feed the hogs."

So Mandley Chapman went to work then as manager for the Block Coal company here. Friends facetiously called him a block-head, but as this particular kind of a Block head he hasn't minded. Mandley has brought his baseball prowess into use as manager for the coal company. He has been keeping his eye on the ball all the time. Hasn't mattered what kind of a curve or twist there's been on the ball, he's had his eye on it all the time. Batting in good form too, thank you. Runs? Well, he's run the Block business in this town up to a $150,000 a year. Pretty good batting average! 'Twasn't all coal, because the company has all kinds of building material for sale as well as coal, and Mandley makes it a point to keep acquainted with any chap who is planning to do some building. But he sold a lot of coal.

As a baseball player mandley Caviness played the game square. He's playing the game the same way in the coal business. Was a coal shortage here some years back, you remember. A coal dealer with rather an elastic conscience had a chance to make a tidy bit of money on the side by playing favorites just then. But Mandley says, "Our regular customers first, and everybody else in their turn." You see, baseball traning again--picking out the straight ones and letting the crooked curves go by.

People may think a coal dealer has a snap in the summer when the mercury is around a hundred in the shade and folks so fed up on heat they don't want to ever think again of a furnace. Not so. 'Tis then that Mandley Chapman earns his $50,000 a year salary, for that is the season of his harvest. He comes then with his annual stories of the possibilities of a coal shortage, a miner's strike, a railway tie-up, and a few othr calamities, any or all of which will make the coal situation exceedingly precarious next winter, to say the least. "The safe way," he will urge, "is to let us fill your bin now." And you let him do it. But it takes nerve to sell a man coal on a hot July day.

It may be just an acident (sic) that Mandley Chapman Caviness happens to hold the retail sales record of the eleven Block company stations, population considered, here in Fairfield, and yet again it may be because he has kept his eye on the ball all the time and, when a straight one came over the plate, clouted it for a home run. Mandley is no bush-leaguer, you see. But as to that home run in the Rotary-Lions game, the Ledger does not vouch for the statements made in that connection, other than to advise Mandley himself related the incident as we have given it.