Archie Weaver Used Kitchen Stove As Safe

Decatur, IL, 1913

USED KITCHEN STOVE AS SAFE

Archie Weaver's Pile Looked Like Iron Money.

If you use the kitchen stove as a safety deposit vault or a burglar proof safe, don't leave the making of the fire in the morning to your wife. Archie Weaver, who conducts a grocery in the 2100 block North Main, having no safe in his place of business Friday night, carried home his money in a canvas bag and tossed it in the kitchen stove as the most unlikely place for burglars to look for it. It was an unlikely place for anybody to look for it and next morning a fire was kindled in the stove just as usual. After awhile Mr. Weaver thought of his cash and the fire was hastily drawn. The bag was gone and the money bore but slight resemblance to coin of the realm.

Fortunately there was nothing but coin in the bag and the heat required to reduce a beefsteak and boil coffee is not sufficient to fuse silver. The coin looked like iron money, but it was not mutilated and after Mr. Weaver had properly explained its unusual appearance it passed at par. After this Mr. Weaver will hide his money in the clock, bury it in the backyard or build the fire himself.

—The Daily Review, Decatur, IL, Oct. 26, 1913, p. 3.