An S. C. Phenice Incident

Getting a little late start today.  I knew that would happen, so I planned a little bit ahead.  At least I know what I’m writing about.  This post is about an incident that showed up in the local newspaper in Almena, Kansas.  That is in northern Kansas, just south of Nebraska.  That’s near the area that my Phenice ancestors lived around the turn of the century when the 1900s began.

Samuel Charles Phenice was born in Pennsylvania and that’s where he spent his boyhood.  When he became an adult, he went off to war in the Civil War.  He only fought in one battle that I know of – the Battle of the Wilderness in Spotsylvania, Virginia.  He was injured during that battle, and he became part of the Invalid Corps.  It was during the time with that group that he ended up being assigned to Ford’s Theatre in Washington, DC, during that pivotal point in American History.  He was a witness to the Lincoln Assassination.  I know that he talked about it to anyone who would listen, and several newspaper articles were written about it.

After the war he married Cathrine Foster in their home state of Pennsylvania.  They started their family in Pennsylvania, had their second child in Tennessee, then moved back to Pennsylvania for the births of their next three children.  The family then moved to Nebraska in 1880 or so and had their last three children in that state.  They started off in Milford, moved on to Hitchcock, but ended up in Beaver City in Furnas County.

If you were familiar with the area, you would know that Beaver City, Nebraska is just a short trip from Almena, Kansas.  I only know this because I’ve studied the area that my ancestors lived in and I’ve been there once.  Beaver City (and Precept) is in the southernmost part of Nebraska, just north of Almena.  I don’t think there are any major roads that go directly from one to the other.  The most direct route are some old farm roads.  Along that road is the graveyard that Samuel and Cathrine are buried in.

But this story happened between the deaths of Cathrine and Samuel.  Cathrine had her accident at the end of 1920, and then she died at the beginning of 1921.  Samuel was a widower for almost 20 years.  He probably lived by himself for the first years, but when he got older, he went to stay with his daughter Lola Mrytle who lived in Almena.  One day they decided to go to town and do a little shopping.  They were going from one shop to another and then all of the sudden – BLAM – Samuel walked into a plate glass window and it shattered everywhere.  

Old Samuel was 87 years old at the time, but he sounds like he was pretty sturdy.  He ran into the plate glass window thinking it was the entrance.  His head hit the window and broke it.  Samuel fell back against the other side of the entrance, but he reported that he was fine.  He did have some cuts on his hands.  This is the second article about Samuel that talks about an incident that happened, and the results were injuries to his hands.  When Cathrine’s clothes caught fire, he tried to help her out and he burned his hands as a result of his actions.

But this article reports less serious events than previous incidents.  He was shot during the Battle of the Wilderness, Lincoln was shot at Ford’s Theatre, and his wife died as a result of her clothes catching fire.  This was just a little tumble in a small Kansas downtown and all he had were a few cuts on his hands.  But somehow it still made the news.  Otherwise, we would not know about that particular outing back on September 26, 1931, in Almena, Kansas.

I’m glad to know that he was all right and that people cared about his welfare.  He lived a long, interesting life.