Surnames: Townsend, Beilfuss

----Source: Clark County Press (Neillsville, Clark Co., WI.) September 21, 1950

Townsend, Dan (1950)

85, But he still has not learned a lesson - Dan Townsend is confused about how he came to be a forger

If a man at the age of 85 has not learned not to commit forgery, what prospect is that he will acquire that knowledge?

This was the question before Judge Beilfuss last Saturday, when Dan Townsend of Jackson County appeared before him in Neillsville for sentence. Mr. Townsend is hard of hearing, but he evidently understood that the court wanted some information about this conundrum. He was unable to give much help. He just did not know how it happened, years ago, that he got into the way of putting other people’s names on checks.

It was clear from the record that he had had quite a bit of opportunity to learn, for he had served at least two stretches in Waupun for forgery. Certainly he had not learned his lesson there, for his fingers still itched after he got out, and he tried it again.

Judge Beilfuss could see no hope in trying more of the same kind of education. So he suspended sentence, with the understanding that the old man will go to the home for old people on the edge of Black River Falls. There a weather eye will be upon him when the old man takes pen in hand.