Monday, July 31, 2017

That time in 1914 when my great-grandmother got a speeding ticket

My family clipped and scrap-booked endless numbers of birth announcements, wedding announcements, obituaries and other items from newspapers throughout the 20th century. But here's one I came across on Newspaper.com that probably wasn't considered a family highlight worth saving for posterity.

It's from the July 18, 1914, edition of The Morning News of Wilmington, Delaware. My great-grandmother, Greta Miriam Chandler, would have just turned 20 years old when this happened.


That $10 fine for speeding in 1914 was no laughing matter. Ten dollars then is the equivalent of about $243 today, so I think it's possible that her driving privileges were curtailed by her father, Lilburn Chandler, following this incident. In fact, while my Mom isn't around to confirm or augment this tale, I don't think my great-grandmother did much driving at all after this.

Full disclosure
As of this date, I have received three speeding tickets during my lifetime, two in Pennsylvania and one in South Carolina.

2 comments:

  1. I'll bet she was doing at least 15 mph. Hellion.

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  2. Great-Great-Grandfather Lilburn would have been especially peeved considering his litigious pursuit of miscreants and scofflaws galore: https://books.google.com/books?id=E9MzAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA315&lpg=PA315&dq=Lilburn+Chandler&source=bl&ots=0qPBJwZDjz&sig=45FYEQ7m3oxa06ILAilN4NanKso&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwif0-zE2rbVAhVV-GMKHXEYBxEQ6AEIQDAG#v=onepage&q=Lilburn%20Chandler&f=false

    By the way, on August 21 of this year, Great-Grandmother Greta would have been 45,000 days old.

    -- M.F.

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