Pat Smith
Greensburg Daily News
Greensburg —
The column planned for today was put on hold because I neglected to get one bit of information that would make it more interesting. I've never failed to turn in a column so you might imagine the scurrying about I did to put together a column that would interest some of the readers. Having heard of a man who lived here many years ago and a special talent he had for whistling, I decided on the spur of the moment that would do just fine. I hope you think so.
Maybe I shouldn't brag, but frankly I'm sort of an expert on whistling. When I was about 10 years old my older brother taught me how to whistle using one finger from each hand. The result is that I can whistle louder than anybody. Mind you now, after spending all summer teaching me how to whistle louder than anybody else, he told me that I should never do it again - "It's not ladylike," he said.
Not long ago I heard the following story about a man named Sumner Carson who lived here during the teens and 1920s. Maybe you've heard about him but I never had. Sumner wasn't related to the Carson families that have been part of our history since pioneer days. He had worked in Indianapolis at a wheel factory for several years. While there he held membership in the Capitol Lodge #124 of the Odd Fellows. Later he and his wife and three children moved to Ohio and then, in 1911, he and his wife moved to the Odd Fellows Home in Greensburg which had been open only about six years at that time.
Sumner and his wife were welcomed into several of the churches in town where Sumner always whistled the hymns as the choir and congregation sang them. He had a reputation for being an outstanding whistler and his addition to the music was appreciated.
Sumner Carson was blind but had developed an acute sense of hearing. After hearing someone's voice only once, he could recognize the voice and always surprised people by greeting them by name. He was said to be a friendly and religious man who enjoyed life even though he was blind. In addition, while at the Odd Fellows Home he had to have a leg amputated. Sumner Carson died in the early spring of 1929. His wife and grown children were at his side. He was buried in South Park Cemetery.
Judging from the blindness and the leg amputation I would imagine that Sumner Carson had diabetes and back then there wasn't much that could be done for it. So I checked to learn what the doctors might have known about the disease when he was at the Odd Fellows Home. It seems that although people have known about the disease for centuries, it wasn't until 1920 that the diet for diabetes was developed and in 1921 insulin as a medication for the disease was discovered. Since Carson died early in 1929 he no doubt didn't have the advantage of the treatment, at least in time to help him much. One more fact I learned is that Indians called diabetes the "sweet urine disease" because they had observed that ants were attracted to a person's urine if the disease was present in the body.
That's the column but in order to meet the standard Smith column length I must find something of interest that totals nearly 100 words. Reading over what's been written made me curious about whistling and the many words that we use with whistle in them. The word "whistleblower," for example. That word comes from the English police officers who blew their whistles when they knew a crime was being committed. The whistle warned the public and other policemen about the possible danger.
The word, "dog-whistle," is used these days to describe the distortion politicians make of words as kind of a code. It's sort of baffling mishmash of words that mean nothing, Examples include, "wonder-working power" and "vertical leadership." You can probably think of a dozen more. A Republican uttered those words but the Democrats have done their share of "dog-whistles" too.
The word whistle itself comes from China where the men who watched for Mongolians blew the tops of acorns to alert the people. No kidding, I looked that up and it's true, I don't know how they did it though.
That takes care of today's column. I will not allow myself to be so complacent in the future and will from this day forward have all the information needed for whatever the subject when I sit down to write.
Please feel free to email me at patjsmith@verizon.net or write to 122 W. Sheridan, Greensburg.
