Rome Free Academy - De O Wain Sta Yearbook (Rome, NY)

Page 24 text:

22. Tur SENIOR ANNUAL purchase two good mules and a stout cart, in which he drives about and makes political and socialistic speeches to the miners, selling to the crowds that gather a very fine brand of miners’ soap. William Evans I find disdained the wealth about him. Gold nuggets charmed him not. He bent his efforts on organizing a separate branch of the Sal- vation Army, and is now settled in the mining district with his wife, whose name you will remember is a very “tower of strength.” Francis O’Brien and Stuart Groff are his chief lieutenants at Rome. As a direct contrast to William, I find that Thomas Flanagan and Thomas Wilson are proprietors of one of the largest entertainment houses in Rome’s new “Coney Island,’”” an amusement resort called Mohawk Park, built on Rome’s outskirts on the Mohawk River, a stream I scarce recognize now; it has been so enlarged by engineering feats. Messrs. Flanagan and Wilson run the Full Elite Music and Art Palace, a place for refined entertainment of all kinds. Besides Thomas Flanagan and his family of fourteen children, who play musical instruments of all kinds, and Thomas Wilson, who does the “ light- ning artistic acts’? with chalk or brush, there is an old acquaintance, Delos Humphrey, who does a wonder- ful act on the trapeze and bars, and also exhibits his powers over thirty Nubian lions—a truly wonderful performance. Also at the palace is Charles Herman, who is the leading clown and whose tricks and antics take me back to school days again. On my first visit here some few weeks ago I met Floyd Bell, who seemed to be the same fickle creature as of old. Out of all the numerous fair sex he seemed to have settled on no par- ticular one, for he had transferred his attentions from one to another through the years that had elapsed. It did not surprise me to hear that after graduating from three colleges in a wild rush for high classical fame, Harry Harrington had settled down in Binghamton as foot ball coach for the famous Binghamton team. Dr. Ernest Countryman is shut up in his laboratory hard at work trying to study and learn the habits of the political microbe called the ‘ Presidential Bee.” If he should, by any chance, become in- fected by this bacillus, it is said that his great popularity will put him in the Presidential chair. William Wolff, although naturally intended for a safe miner, for he needs no lamp in his hat, grew tired pitching nuggets and now is manager of one of the finest base ball teams in the country. He still plays a game himself now and then. I was very sorry when I heard what had become of Lucius Gaines. It seems after he took his heart of ‘‘ Grace,” and proposed, and was married, he lived as a minister of Wampsville, and spent his week days at the resorts in Mohawk Park and Rome at the races. Finally his conscience rebelled and he reformed and gave up the ministry and led an honest life as proprietor of one of the same hotels he used to frequent in other days Joseph Keating is back in Rome after many changes. They tell me that after spending his time selling peanuts on the American corner, he finally went to Cal- ifornia, where he drove an ice wagon. But not satisfied with either of these vocations, he returned to Rome and secured a more lucrative position as Sergeant of Police. He is now fabulously rich. Rome could not keep John Baynes at home. Taking a few large nuggets in