DAYS OF YORE: 60 years ago
60 YEARS AGO
(From the June 18, 1942, files of the Peabody Gazette-Herald)
The Rationing Board has been reorganized. Roscoe King of Marion was named chairman. One 12-man board is to serve all of Marion County. The only member from Peabody is W. Ed Brewer.
The U.S. Dept. of Agriculture, through various agencies, is emphasizing the urgent need for all available scrap iron to be sold off the farms and hurried to the blast furnaces. It is pointed out that roughly 50 percent of the steel used in making guns, tanks, battleships and other such items can come from scrap metal, with the other 50 percent coming from new steel. On this 50 percent basis, the men with only 100 pounds of scrap metal, for instance, have the material to mix with an equal amount of new steel to make into eight .30 caliber machine guns. A few hidden "iron piles" around the farms are the equivalent to an army jeep or two that might be hidden away behind the barn.
Mr. and Mrs. Keith Covell are the parents of a son born Tuesday morning at the hospital in Newton.
Mrs., J.M. Jacobs and children, Marjorie and John, went to Enid, Okla., for a week's visit with Mrs. Jacobs' sister, Mrs. Ed Klein and family.
Light switches will be pulled in six counties — Pottawatomie, Wabaunsee, Riley, Geary, Dickinson and Saline — some night between June 15 and 20 in a trial blackout, according to post commander Col. Wm. R. Irvin. Army planes will fly over various towns in the area to check on success of the test.
