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This morning we look back just over a century to the Dec. 22, 1925 edition of the Franklin Sentinel, the weekly newspaper that served the town until the late 1970s. Second only to a rumination on the birth of Christ by a local minister, was this surprising story:
NO DELIVERY CHRISTMAS
Post Office Workers to Enjoy Day of Rest – Office Lobby Open
For the first time in the history of the Post Office, there will be no Christmas Day delivery of any any class of mail matter in Franklin or anywhere else in the country. Special delivery matter is the only exception. This departure enables post office workers to have the day off and enjoy it with their families. All fair-minded people will agree that it is a merited holiday and should have been introduced before this.
Postmaster Carlson states that the office lobby will be ‘open a portion of the day for the accommodation’ of those renting boxes. No mail matter, however, will be handed out through the windows.
Much Local Interest in Beckwith Tangle
Estate of Late Norfolk Young Woman involved in Court Action
Infant Son Center of Controversy – Left Estate Estimated at $500,000
Norfolk residents who knew Miss Lorania C. Beckwith intimately, and Franklin people who were acquainted with her personally or at least knew of her, have read with a great deal of interest in the past few day, about the changed state of affairs in which her estate is at present, through her having failed to make provisions for her son, born to her in California and whom she survived only a few days.
The following is from the Boston Post and present a current summary of the case:
“A Sportswoman to the last, Miss Lorania C. Beckwith of Norfolk and Providence, whose tangled affairs are now before the courts of three States, gambled the future of her new-born son against death, and lost.
“When warned by the doctors that she must undergo a serious operation in a Los Angeles hospital, they recommended that she make some provisions for her baby, she answered [Unreadable Gap in Text] numbers, play in good luck and I’ll take one more chance. I’ll provide for the baby when I get better.
Kept Romance Secret
“This picture of the indomitable spirit of the crippled woman which came over the wires from the California city, is reflected in her will, on file in the Probate Court at Dedham. In disposing of her estate, which is estimated at $500,000, she made no mention of her infant son, Lawrence Beckwith.
“From sources on the West coast it was learned that Miss Beckwith, the last child of the respectable and wealthy Beckwith family of Providence…..
[That sad and salacious story went on to a great length/]
