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The gravestone of Washington Alley in Mt. Ayr.
Let’s revisit an old mystery that has since been forgotten by most people. During the winter of 1997-98, the Mount Ayr Depot Preservation Corp. members found a gravestone while landscaping the depot grounds. The stone indicates the name of the deceased as Washington Alley. In a bit of irony, the railroad came into Mount Ayr in 1879 on……..Washington Street. So, it can be said the grave marker was discovered in an alley off Washington Street. Washington Alley.
An effort was made to find the grave of Mr. Alley but no success was found. So, the marble stone was placed in a concrete bed on the south side of the Mount Ayr Depot and there it sits today. Let’s look at what we do know.
The stone says Mr. Alley died April 3, 1881 at the age of 74 years, 5 months, and 27 days. An article was placed in the Mount Ayr Record-News in the February 5, 1998 edition seeking information. It was discovered that Washington Alley appeared in the 1880 Ringgold County Census as a resident of Mount Ayr. But, nothing more was turned up.
My search of the digitized newspapers yielded a little info. I found an Alley family living in Afton in 1881 and I found mention of an Alley family in Mount Ayr in the 1880s. Mr. David Alley had an interest in a barbershop with L. B. Imus. But I wasn’t able to find any Alley obituaries.
When I got into Raymond Banner’s 2003 cemetery book, I found only one Alley burial in Ringgold County. That being William T. Alley who died in 1876 at the age of six months with burial taking place at Marshalltown in Washington Township. Mr. Banner included a note on the Washington Alley tombstone saying that three of Mr. Alley’s grown children also appeared in the 1880 census, but did not include their names. So, the mystery remains.
Now, I’ll share a story I found in the June 8, 1893 Ringgold Record newspaper. I come across some really weird stuff and this one of them.
Charles Thorla had been feeling out of sorts for some time, so he sought the treatment of Dr. Ogden of Mount Ayr. The good doctor suspected correctly and gave Mr. Thorla a concoction to consume. Several hours later, Dr. Ogden was able to extract a sixty-foot tapeworm from Charles Thorla. The newspaper reports Thorla was now able to eat heartily and derive nutrition from his meals. In a later Knowlton newspaper, the editor joked that if Thorla had stayed in Knowlton, Thorla would not have come into contact with the dirty animals that caused the tapeworm.
Of course, publication of such information would not be presented today (except of social media!). Doesn’t there seem to be an absence of discretion here? How does one allow a tapeworm to reach that length and how does one live down the humiliation of having medical issues published in the newspaper? And who supplied this info to the newspaper? And how does one dispose of a sixty-foot tapeworm? Would you want to have lunch with Mr. Thorla?
So, if you spend twenty years reading old newspapers, you realize that some news isn’t fit to print, depending on which century you’re in!
