On June 13, 1916 James Nelms was enjoying the hospitality of the Bloomington jail on a charge of public drunkenness. Because the jail cells were full, James Nelms was at large in the jail cell corridors and trusted with providing the prisoners with water. Of course, in this situation Nelms was not in a position to enjoy the luxurious accommodations at the jail pictured above. Instead, Nelms was so enterprising as to find a shovel (perhaps one of the tools of the chain gang?) and was busily digging his way out of the jail. He had gotten so far as to remove a couple of bricks from the wall before his plans were discovered.
Helms had been arrested before and named in the paper around the same time. It appears that he did learn to be more discreet in his drinking, because he was not heard of again in the Pantagraph until his death in June of 1930. At that time he was living with his sister Mrs. George M Pearson on Douglas Street. Mr. Pearson was a tailor and had not plagued his wife the way her brother had. Mr. Pearson was an upstanding citizen of Bloomington, a member of the Elks and on the committee for providing Christmas cheer to the poor of Bloomington.
In June of 1915 Mr. Pearson was picking cherries when he fell from the tree and received a severe scalp laceration. Perhaps he was picking those cherries for his wife. He was not so unlucky as George Strainer, who was also picking cherries in June of 1915, but when he fell from the tree, he broke his leg so badly the the entire leg had to be amputated.
Such were my perambulations through the Pantagraph seeking a story to tell on these pages.