Monday, Dec. 24, 1917
A few Saratoga County soldiers are home for Christmas from the Camp Devens training facility in Ayer MA. Even fewer have made it home from Camp Wadsworth in Spartanburg SC, where the county’s former National Guard troops are receiving advanced training in trench warfare.
One soldier who did make it home is Corporal Richard J. Sherman, who learns today that he’s been promoted to color sergeant of the 105th U.S. Infantry regiment, formerly the Second New York National Guard regiment.
Sherman is a 1911 graduate of Saratoga Springs High School and a 1913 graduate of Eastman Business College. He served with the Second New York during its border-patrol duty in Texas last year, and was in his junior year at Albany Law School when the regiment was called into federal service, shortly before the U.S. declaration of war with Germany last April. A precocious politician, he was the youngest man ever to serve on the old Saratoga Springs village board of trustees.
“His many friends here will be elated to hear of his appointments, as he is deservedly popular,” The Saratogian reports. Sherman is on holiday furlough until Thursday, December 27.
Corinth centenarian
The Saratogian’s Corinth correspondent interviews Laura Marilla Nims, who celebrated her birthday on December 8. How old Nims actually is is unclear from the report. The headline says, “Corinth Woman is 102 Years Old,” but the reporter writes that she has “just celebrated the 103d anniversary of her birth.” The writer then states that Nims was born on December 8, 1816, which would make her 101.
“Time has left no mark on Mrs. Nims,” the writer claims, “She goes about visiting friends years younger than herself whose failing strength will not permit them to journey about….Her health is excellent and she looks as vigorous as a wellpreserved woman of sixtyfive.”
Nims “has a wonderful memory, being able to recall incidents which happened before most persons were born.” Asked for her secret for long life, she answers, “Never put up your umbrella until it rains, a good disposition, and keep smiling.”
Saratoga Elks and Worthy Poor
Every Christmas the Saratoga Lodge of Elks distributes dinners to “families which would not be reached by any other organization,” in order to “make Christmas merry for families who otherwise would have no holiday cheer.”
Families deemed deserving receive dinner baskets containing “one can of soup, one can of milk, one pan of baked beans, one quart of onions, four quarts of potatoes, one four-pound roasting chicken, one package macaroni, one package soda biscuit, one-half pound tea, one pound mixed nuts [and] three oranges.”