A hard wind blows in Dalton

Gaylord Anderson, the catcher for Dalton, Nebraska, caught three outfield flies in a game on May 22, 1932. I learned this in John Hix' Strange As It Seems cartoon of August 20, 1932, displayed alongside human interest notes about monstrous Czechoslovakian carpets and human leopards from Liberia who attacked other humans with iron claws. 

A note below the cartoon explained that, incredible as it might sound, the wind was blowing in so furiously that fateful day in May that three Sydney [sic] batters' towering flies hit past second were driven back home, into the tender waiting catcher's mitt of Anderson.

Classic Great Depression. 

With a little searching I found that Dalton played in the Wheatbelt League in 1932, centered in Cheyenne County, Nebraska. Dalton's population of 453 was about par for the league, to give you an idea of its scale. But in those days even villages in middle-of-nowhere Nebraska had staunch weekly newspapers, and Dalton's team was covered by the Dalton Delegate.

While its account of Dalton's game of May 22 doesn't mention Anderson's great feat, it does note that "the game was played in a high wind from the southeast that made playing almost impossible, and anything but enjoyable for spectators." I am sure.

Dalton lost that game 11-6 to Sidney as the two teams combined to make 25 errors in the tempest. The devil was in these details:

I want to take a moment to acknowledge that Sidney's shortstop was named Clinginpeel.

The wind had been just as bad the previous Sunday: in that game, while Dalton and Gurley combined to make just 18 errors, don't go thinking it was some kind of pitchers' duel - Gurley won 23 to 22.  In case the apocalyptic winds weren't enough, it was so cold "the players had difficulty in holding the ball." The Delegate admitted the game was "everything disagreeable." The only bright spot was the umpiring (!). (The decisions had to have been good - there were four umpires.)

I feel really sorry for whoever had to put this box score together. 

Dalton's 1932 season was more grotesque than great; the team would finish with a 1-13 record. Anderson scored two runs in its lone win (a 5-4 squeaker).


With a little sifting on Family Search I found that Gaylord's full name was Gaylord LeRoy Anderson, and he was born on March 22, 1911, to Oliver Francis Anderson and Ellen Caroline Iverson. Anderson's father died in Exeter, Nebraska, in 1917, and his mother was remarried in 1918 to a Robert C. Shannon. 

Gaylord came to Dalton in 1927 after his mother died to stay with his uncle and aunt and their six children. His step-father died in 1930. 

Gaylord would himself die in January 30, 1971, in Los Angeles. 

That's his life as told by records. A kind of pointillist portrait of a period in his life can be built with scraps from the Dalton Delegate; having to fill eight pages every Friday with the doings of 450 people, the news had to be scraped thin. The Delegate told tales of visits and minor ailments and the other small excitements of ordinary lives. Being unused to that kind of reporting I find the normalcy of their notes kind of surreal. 

Here's a crazy quilt of "news" about Gaylord Anderson, strange to me by its very prosaicness. 

"Celebrated his eighth birthday anniversary with the help of seventeen of his little friends." (March 28, 1919.) 10 boys attended a surprise party for his twelfth birthday. They "had a most enjoyable time with games." (March 30, 1923.) He was absent from school. (April 13, 1923.) He came from Chicago to visit his relatives, the Frandsens, in Dalton after his mother passed away. He saved a lot of money going by bus instead of train. (June 17, 1927.) He decided to stay in Dalton and enroll in its high school. (August 19, 1927.) He worked in his uncle's drug store when not at school. (September 2, 1927.) He was "quite ill with the flu and complications" and "had his throat lanced for quinsy." (December 16, 1927.) He played Tubby Hays in "Smile, Rodney, Smile," a "Laugh Comedy in Three Acts" put on by the "Junior Class of the Dalton High School." (March 30, 1928.) His tonsils were removed. (July 13, 1928.) His watch, a "good timepiece," was stolen from his open locker during football practice. (November 23, 1928.) 

HEALTH WARNING: If this is boring you to death, you should quit reading now because it's like this to the end and I don't want you to die too.

But if you know what's good for you, you will bask in the magnificent minutiae. 

He acted as a judge in a debate on ''Immigration'' in his 12th grade ''Democracy'' class. (December 14, 1928.) When the results for the school popularity contest came out he was the boy with the prettiest hair. (February 8, 1929.) He played second base for Dalton high. (April 12, 1929.) He graduated from high school, one of six boys out of a class of fifteen. The class motto was "Launched But Not Anchored." A sermon was preached at the graduation by the Rev. E.E. Dagley, "new pastor of the Presbyterian church," upon the theme of "Keeping Pace With the Spirit of Tomorrow." (May 10, 1929.)

He began catching for the Dalton town team, which played in the Central League that year. He turned a double play while catching on June 16, catching a foul far behind the plate and throwing out a baserunner who was trying to go from first to second. (June 21, 1929.) He was one of three Dalton players to be struck upon the head with baseballs in a 14-13 win against Angora. (July 5, 1929.) 

"See Gaylord Anderson - and let him take your order for a made-to-measure suit, made by the Becker Tailoring Co., Cincinnati. Satisfaction guaranteed. New swatches to choose from. All the new shades and weaves.

    Prices $24.50   $29.50   $34.50   $39.50

        Also a special trousers line, two pairs for $9.90. 

        Order now and have your new clothes for Easter." (March 14, 1930.)

He was assessed $25 in taxes, a figure tied for third-lowest out of the many assessed in Dalton village. I guess not many people were letting him take their orders for made-to-measure suits. (June 20, 1930.) H.C. Blome drove Gaylord and four other Dalton lads and lasses to Lincoln State University for school. (September 19, 1930.) He returned home for Christmas break. (December 26, 1930.) A group of his friends held a dance for him at Frandsen hall; as "his finances are not weighting him down... his friends decided to help him along." He was studying to be a pharmacist. (December 26, 1930.) A large crowd raised $58 for him. (January 2, 1931.) He was held up while working at a "service station." The rascals made off with $16. (March 13, 1931.) 

He got a job in Lincoln, and consequently was not expected home. (June 12, 1931.) He hitchhiked from Lincoln back to Dalton but only stayed a week; school loomed large. He had worked at a cafe in the summer, and would work there again part-time in the school year. (August 28, 1931.) Spent Thursday night at the Bill Schuler home. (September 4, 1931.) He returned to college (September 4, 1931), but he may have dropped out after the fall semester because he attended a spring-time birthday party in Dalton. (March 18, 1932.) 

He got a dual job as truck driver and station attendant for the Western Nebraska Oil Co (June 24, 1932), ate dinner at the Bill Schuler home on Thursday (August 5, 1932), and resigned from his job with the Western Nebraska Oil Co. (June 16, 1933.) Went to Denver for work. (June 30, 1933.) Rode the 200 miles back home with a friend by box car, not quite legally. (July 28, 1933.) 

He applied to the Navy and was accepted; he reported in Denver. (September 15, 1933.) He returned from San Diego where he was stationed. "Gaylord likes his work and states it is pretty much of a revelation to him." (December 12, 1933.) Both the sentiment and the prose of that quote are kind of sad.  He returned to San Diego with two local boys who were also in the Navy; they thought (hoped?) they'd "be sent aboard a battleship... with the chances favorable for a trip to the Orient." (December 29, 1933.)

Dalton's young 'uns threw a party for him at Frandsen hall before he returned to the navy. (December 21, 1934.) 

Silent-film intertitle: FIFTEEN YEARS PASS. Cut to scene. 

"Gaylord Anderson of Los Angeles, California, visited his uncle and aunt, Mr. and Mrs. J. C. Frandsen and family from Thursday evening until Saturday evening when he went to Denver to join his wife and family. They planed [sic] to have a week each place, but a break down at Elks, Nev., delayed them five days. His uncle and aunt Mr. and Mrs. Wm. Schuler of Bridgeport accompanied him to Denver." (August 19, 1949.) Notice how he had become a stranger to the newspaper that had known him so intimately twenty years before? 

The Delegate wheezed its last breath in 1951, twenty years before Anderson. It was survived by 400-odd newspaper-less citizens, a number that dwindled to 284 by the 2020 census. Gaylord was survived by fewer people but I bet he got more flowers.

Long Beach Press-Telegram, 1971-2-02, p. 29

(Where'd his family go? The Delegate said he had a wife and family in 1949 but neither the obit nor his page on Family Search show any signs of them. Was the Delegate mistaken? Had it really lost touch with him that badly?)