Friday, May 16, 1930

The trials and tribulations of a census taker, from both the masculine and feminine viewpoints, were recounted to The Gazette recently by the hard-working enumerators who have been engaged in the 1930 census count in this city and vicinity.

All of the census takers, Rev. August Warnecke, Mrs. L. S. Kyle, Mrs. John  Kelly, Mrs. Clarence Clure and Otto Reissner, Jr. felt they were qualified to be tax collectors, assessors or anything else that required patience, perseverance and a generous percentage of luck by the time they were finished.

Strange as it may seem, the local enumerators were not bitten by dogs, chased by irate residents, insulted by grouchy old bachelors or pursued by footpads during their daily and nightly visitations around the community. Their greatest difficulty, they reported, was to find anyone at home, without making three or four calls at the same dwelling. In many instances both the husband and wife were working and the census taker was forced to return to the residence several times before finding anyone at home to answer the necessary questions.

The majority of residents, when interviewed, were friendly and accommodating, the census staff asserted, but feminine members of many households objected strongly to divulging their age, and in a few instances it was found necessary to obtain this information from other members of the family.