Allie Bell took First Prize at the Jewell County (Kansas) Fall Festival for both Cock and Hen with Plymouth Rock - Buffs in the Department H Poultry division, and received First for the Young Pen category with her Leghorns - Buff. She got a total of $5.00 in premiums in October, 1920. She took the prize for Young Pen, Buff Leghorns again in 1921. She also won prizes over three years of exhibiting for her apples, beets, beans, and a knitted scarf, and received 4th place for a decorated cake.
Those little bits of insight into an ancestor's life are fun to find in old newspapers. Thanks to a free weekend of a newspaper subscription site, I found all of this information and more about my Great Grandmother Allie Bell. These clippings were all about her prized chickens. Looks like she made good money with them, despite a set-back once in a while. Her competition was underselling her, but she sold "pure bred from selected pens". By 1924, her newspaper ad was quite a bit larger than in 1919 (I only found the one).
1919
Jewell Co Monitor, March 7, 1919
White Leghorn eggs, Yesterlaid Strain - 75c per dozen or $4.00 per 100 eggs. Also Buff Rock eggs, 75c for 15. - Allie Bell, Esbon, Kansas, Ionia phone 3052.
1921
Jewell County Monitor, March 18, 1921
For Sale: - Eggs for hatching. Buff Leghorns and Buff Rocks, Pure bred from selected pens. $6.00 per hundred or $1.50 per setting at the farm or delivered at Ionia. - Mrs Allie Bell, Ebson, Kansas - Ionia phone No. 3052
1922
Jewell County Monitor, March 3, 1922
Mrs. Cicero Bell is the first to report a brood of young chicks. She now has about 50 little chicks and about 600 eggs setting. She said she sold about $950 worth of eggs and chickens last year. She thinks she can do better this year. Mrs. Bell raises only purebred chickens and says they are the only kind that pays and Mrs. Belle ought to know as she has been in the chicken business for a long time and has tried both pure bred and mixed flocks.
Jewell County Monitor, October 6, 1922
Mr. and Mrs. Cicero Bell of the Ionia country were in town last Saturday. Mrs. Bell has just received a $50 pen of fancy Barred Plymouth Rock chickens from Iowa of which she is justly proud.
Western Advocate, March 23, 1922
Mrs. Cicero Bell came near having quite a blaze on account of the lamp in one of her incubators exploding.
1923
Jewell County Monitor, February 2, 1923
Mr. and Mrs. Cicero Bell were in Mankato, Friday, attending the Poultry show. Mrs. Bell did not make and [any] exhibits at the Poultry show this year, but she had some fine fouls in her pens.
Jewell Co Monitor, March 2, 1923
Mrs. Cicero Bell reports over 500 baby chicks over two weeks old and doing nicely. Besides hatching and caring for that number of chicks, Mrs. Bell has had to care for her entire family of boys, five of them, during this recent seige of flu.
In this same issue, she was reported to have bought some "fine purebred chickens at Jewell last Saturday", and then just a couple weeks later...
Jewell County Monitor, March 23, 1923
Mrs. Cicero Bell suffered quite a loss when she smothered some 385 little chickens last Monday night.
1924
Western Advocate, February 28, 1924
