125 years ago, 1896

Taken directly from The Vindicator:

“A Snow Woman Nearly Frightens the Life Out of a Veteran Engineer.”

Con Linehan, a veteran passenger engineer on the Erie, who has been running for many years between this city and Cleveland, has the reputation among officials and employees of having an abundance of courage and never gets rattled, but he nearly had the life scared out of him the other day while pulling a train out of Cleveland.

He was holding the throttle of the locomotive on Train 10, the fast passenger train leaving Cleveland every afternoon for New York, and upon rounding a curve near Wilson Avenue he discovered a woman on the track. He sounded a warning whistle several times, and as she paid no attention to it he concluded she was deaf and did not realize her peril.

Hoping to save her life, he applied the air brake, but the wheels slid, and as he realized that he could not avert striking her, he turned his head to one side believing that the woman would be thrown down and badly mutilated. An instant later the pilot of the locomotive struck the object and it melted away. Some of the boys, desiring to have a little sport, had made a snow woman, rigged her up with a sun bonnet and dress and placed it in the middle of the track. Con is laying for the boys who perpetrated the practical joke, and though it may be a long time, those who know him best realize that he will more than get even for the snow woman.

Engineer Linehan was at one time a member of the grievance committee of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers, and had occasion to call upon the general superintendent. The official had been a colonel in the Confederate Army and was a regular martinet, between whom and the employees there was constant friction owing to his pompous ways.

During the conference the official said: ‘Perhaps you do not know who I am. You will find that I have plenty of sand.’ The threat implied aroused the ire of Engineer Linehan, who said: ‘Well Colonel, you will find that we have plenty of sand. The boys here and myself served at the front in the Union Army and killed a good many better men than you. Good day.’

The committee at once left the room, but the superintendent sent for them, admitted that he had been hasty, and from then until he left the road always had the highest respect for Engineer Linehan and his comrades.

70 years ago, 1951

A group of 27 auxiliary policewomen were sworn in, ready to serve in a civil defense capacity. Sgt. Dan Maggianetti, law enforcement coordinator for Mahoning County’s civil defense, initiated the program with help from Policewoman Lorena Martin and deputy coordinator Jane Louise Lyman. Dolores Olson, a member of the city’s law department, administered the oath while also taking it herself as a member of the new unit.

The training included all regular police procedures with an emphasis on first aid, as the women would be expected to take over ambulance duties in emergencies. Other areas of focus included police communication systems, fingerprinting, self-defense, and administrative roles. Most of the women in the unit worked as clerks and stenographers at city hall, while others were employed in various downtown businesses. Maggianetti noted that the goal of the unit was to train 150 women to join 1,000 auxiliary policemen for civil defense needs.

60 years ago, 1961

Today, many of us carry around a calculator in our pockets that can perform serious math… and about a thousand other tasks in the form of a smartphone. In 1961, electronic calculators were brand new technology that would never fit in a pocket. About 500 Youngstown area elementary and junior high students were learning how to use these new machines called “Educators,” from the Monroe company.

The Educator weighed about eight pounds and was roughly the size of a portable typewriter. It had seven columns and could perform addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division but it was not intended to take away the mental work involved. Students were encouraged to use their pencil and paper and simply check their work on the Educator. Teachers hoped that the machine’s knobs and handles would entice students to be more active in learning math.

“Pupils who use these Educators, which are hand operated, show greater improvement in arithmetical skills, in reasoning and computing, that those pupils who have not used the machine,” noted Robert Conway, director of guidance and research for Youngstown’s city schools. “Children interested in a subject have a better chance of learning it.”

• Compiled from the archives of The Vindicator by Traci Manning, MVHS curator of education.