10 Years Ago
Week of October 29, 2005
Idea of Daylight Saving Time Began with Benjamin Franklin
People have only been using Daylight Saving Time for about a century, but the idea goes back to ancient times when civilizations adjusted their daily schedules to fit the sun’s schedule.
In 1784, Benjamin Franklin wrote an essay to the editor of “The Journal of Paris” where he jokingly suggested that Parisians could save on candle usage by getting out of bed earlier in the morning and making use of the natural morning light.
It took World War I to push DST into practice. The Germans were first, adopting a light-extending system as a fuel saving measure in 1916. The British switched one year later. The United States adopted “fast time” in 1918 when Congress passed the Standard Time Act, which established time zones. The experiment in seasonal time change didn’t last after the war ended. Its repeal has been blamed on opposition from dairy farmers, whose cows didn’t understand, or care, about clock settings. World War II brought the time change back to the entire country.
20 Years Ago
Week of October 27, 2005
SUGAR GROVE
The West Virginia Mountains Are a Rich Ground For the Gathering Of Supernatural Stories
Is there any place in the world where ghost stories have not been eagerly told to listeners? There is no richer ground for the gathering of supernaturals stories than in the mountains of Virginia and West Virginia. The stories of “things that go bump in the night” were a popular form of entertainment from the earliest settlement days. Grandparents were wonderful storytellers, as well as older brothers and sisters who wanted to scare their younger siblings. No matter how the stories were told, many were remembered and preserved as family treasures. Ghost stories have been told in all cultures throughout time. Perhaps they were vehicles to excite one’s senses. Fear can be a wonderful stimulant event though deep down the ghostly encounter is due to the talents of the storyteller.
30 Years Ago
Week of October 26, 1995
DAHMER
Warner’s Drive-In Brings $99,500 at Auction Sale
Special commissioner’s sale of real estate consisting of 6.23 acres, more or less, and lying in Franklin District, known as Warner’s Drive-In, was held at the front door of Pendleton County Courthouse on October 20. The high bid was $99,500. Garry Propst was the auctioneer.
A West Virginian, Jerry Warner, will be building a new United States Post Office at Blue Grass, Virginia, in the near future.
SUGAR GROVE
Celtic Feast of Dead Was Forerunner Of Halloween
Halloween lasts just one night. But lots of Halloween-related events lead up to it, including haunting stories, trick-or-treating, haunted houses, and Halloween parties. In the ninth century, the church Christianized the Celtic Feast of the Dead by naming November 1 the Feast of All Saints (or All Hallows) and November 2, the Feast of All Souls. Children would do “a souling” or begging for sweet soul cakes in return for prayers for the dead. They would chant:
“Soul, Soul, for a souling cake I pray, good misses, for a souling cake.
Apple or pear, plum or cherry
Any good thing to make us merry.”
Since the alternative was to make them mad, we can see the origin of “tricks” or “treats.”
40 Years Ago
Week of October 24, 1985
West Virginia School Dropout Rate Continues to Decrease
“West Virginia’s public school dropout rate continues to decrease, although insignificantly,” according to State Superintendent of Schools Tom McNeel.
The new dropout rate is the lowest since the State Department of Education began collecting the data in a uniform way from all the counties in 1973-74.
Yesteryear in Pendleton
By Janet Conrad
My father was teaching school during the depression and we moved to a farm close to his school. Electricity had not reached out to farms and this was our first experience with oil lamps.
The rooms seemed very dark and full of shadows. The first evening in our new home my sister was washing the dishes and I was drying them—when Wham! Bang! Pop! Clang!
The most outlandish noise crashed around our new home. Never have I been so scared or puzzled.
But, our mother and father had helped on such occasions in their home community and they were delighted with the Bellin’ or Shivaree. It was a warm welcome from all the folks in the community for their school teacher and his family.
After we had been serenaded for about an hour, everyone came into the house, and we made homemade fudge, popped popcorn and played games. The rooms became bright and cheerful, all because everyone was so friendly. Even after all these years, I have a warm glow in my heart.
The Mountain Heritage Series has a lesson on culture and there is a paragraph on the honeymoon pattern of the Celtics. After my husband and I returned from our honeymoon, he knew we would be “belled” for had helped in serenading his friends — loud and long!
The pattern was to meet far enough from the house to keep down the noise. Then, on a night when it would seem to be unexpected, the crowd would gather.
On this particular night we did not hear anything until a shot was fired and then we were completely surrounded with noise. When I peeped out, it seemed that everyone was present for miles around and having a grand time. One man carried a brake drum while he systematically hit it with a blacksmith hammer. All kinds of cow bells, pans, and even a dog horn were used—anything to make a noise. The appearance of the couple on the porch was the signal to come in for refreshments that had been provided by the groom’s family.
It was a warm welcome to a newly married couple and compares to the Welcome Wagon groups in today’s communities. In fact, this coming weekend our community is bellin’ our newest married couples and from my collection of bells, I will select the one that is the biggest and has the deepest tone.
50 Years Ago
Week of October 23, 1975
Pendleton County School Buses Chalk Up Over 300,000 Miles a Year
Transporting pupils to school has become a big operation in Pendleton County. A total of 38 bus drivers have been employed to drive buses in the county during the current school term.
According to Richard Short, attendance and transportation director for Pendleton County schools, buses in this county chalk up 314,000 miles a year and use more than 50,000 gallons of gasoline.
Short said the county uses 33 regular buses to haul pupils to school in the county.
In addition to hauling children to the county’s six schools, three buses make an extra run to transport students to the vocational educational school at Petersburg, and one bus doubles up to transport pupils to the Developmental Center in Franklin.
Hauling pupils to school takes a big slice out of the school operating budget. Last year it amounted to $228,342.78.
“Since Pendleton County is one of the largest counties in the state—almost 700 square miles in area—it is readily understandable why transporting pupils is such a big operation,” Short remarked.
60 Years Ago
Week of October 21, 1965
Groundhogs More Afraid of Women
A recent study of the habits, customs and thinking of the groundhog population in Pendleton County reveals that they have little fear of men but that they are deathly afraid of women.
This phenomena had government investigators baffled until one stool pigeon told them about Mrs. Jimmie Moyers of Franklin.
According to their figures Mrs. Moyers killed 164 groundhogs during the summer of 1965 and 122 during the summer of 1964. The artillery used in the one-woman war is a trusty 12 gauge shotgun.
So devastating has been the attack that now every groundhog in the county shivers in his hole every time he sees a skirt swish by.
Market Here Buys 1,000 Pounds Walnuts
The Franklin Farmers’ Market will purchase walnuts in the hull each Tuesday from 8:00 a.m. until 12:00 noon for the next two weeks. Other types of produce will also be accepted on consignment until further notice. The market purchased over four thousand pounds of walnuts on Tuesday of this week. The price paid is fifty cents per one hundred pounds.
80 Years Ago
Week of October 19, 1945
FRANKLIN HI LIGHTS
Permanent Wealth
The only true and permanent wealth of a nation is its children. All other wealth is merely tributary to this. In order that childhood may be fed, and made secure, and given opportunities, men toil, amass riches, struggle for power, and even offer up their lives rather than permit posterity to be degraded. When the youth of a nation are unfit, all other wealth becomes a menace. Consequently, whoever labors to help the children to better things is adding to the most vital resources of humanity. —Frank W. Thomas.
Sweet Peppers
Gardeners who want to get the most in vitamin value from their sweet peppers will pick them red instead of green. Tests show that peppers increase in carotene (forerunner of vitamin A) and ascorbic acid (vitamin C) as they turn red.
FARM NEWS
Nothing in nature is more essential to human life than topsoil—that fertile upper layer of earth, averaging 6 to 12 inches in thickness, which alone can grow our food and forage and our valuable forest products. It takes nature from 300 to 1000 years to produce a single inch of topsoil. Yet that inch, and more too, can be washed off an unprotected field in a single storm. It is estimated that three billion tons of soil are washed out of the fields and pastures of American fields each year.
Each year erosion removes from the farmland in the United States available and potential plant food equal to 60 times the amount of commercial fertilizer used in 1934. Altogether, over 300 million acres of crop and grazing land have been virtually ruined by erosion. In addition to the damage which erosion does to farm land, there is also the damage done to highways, water reservoirs and other public works.
CLASSIFIED AD COLUMN
WHO WANTS GRANDPA’S OLD CANE? Will sell cheap. Since discovering the concentrated nourishment in those energy-pakin’, malty-rich, sweet-as-nut Grape-Nuts, Grandpa says he doesn’t need any pesky old cane. He walks on his hands. Runs, too.
105 Years Ago
Week of October 22, 1920
WARNING AGAINST USING HORSE-HAIR SHAVING BRUSHES
To the Citizens of West Virginia:
The State Department of Health has received the following letter from the Surgeon General of the United States Public Health Service.
“The Bureau has made every effort possible under existing laws and regulations to prevent the occurrence of anthrax due to the use of horse hair in shaving brushes. In regulations, horse hair shaving brushes which are down trade channels, and some of which are presumably infected it is doubtful if any effective measure can be taken by health officials except a direct appeal to the public not to buy or use horse hair brushes.
You are strongly urged to issue in your state such an appeal giving it the widest publicity, as the only remedy to obliviate the potential danger from these brushes pending additional legislation.”
The State Department of Health heartily endorses the above warning and urges the public to refrain from the use of these brushes.—R. T. Davis, State Health Commissioner
