40 Years Ago
Week of January 31, 1985
DAHMER
Did you ever ask the distance to a particular distance only to receive the answer, “Oh, it’s only a hop, skip and a jump”? What about, well now, as the crow flies, it is such and such a distance? Or, how about, now it’s quite a ‘fer’ piece? One of the most quaint measures of distance has to be, “a stone’s throw.”
Distance was not the only measure which was subjected to quaint description. Take for example, those mouth watering butterscotch pies. The recipe the writer is told just comes naturally to some people. Now, you take a dab of this, a pinch of that, just a smidgen of this and a touch of that, add a handful of this, a sprinkle of that, stir up the batch and some cooks will come up with a good pie.
Today, some still say Oh! we had several good messes of beans. Ask a store clerk for a mess of beans and the clerk may give you a funny look. We, too may look amazed if the clerk would say how about a lug of beans. A lug is a western measure of 1/2 of a bushel (the amount a person could comfortably carry).
Another measure is “a hand.” How big is a hand, yet horses are said to be so many hands high at the front shoulder.
It may sound silly today, but it hasn’t been all that many years ago a paper bag was called a poke. You brought home a poke of groceries or you bought a poke of potatoes at the store. In some areas, if you asked for a poke you were likely to get a poke in the face.
Week of February 7, 1985
Highland Inn
At Monterey
Sold For $320,000
The Highland Inn in Monterey, Va., has been sold by Pioneer Properties to Highland Inn Limited Partnership for $320,000.
SENECA ROCKS
1st Class Mail
22¢ February 17
All people should remember the effective date of February 17th for 22 cents, first ounce or fraction postage first class mail. Smallest size mail acceptable is 3.5”x5”.
Monday morning was a chilly two degrees.
You can see a beautiful sight of several frosty, snowy friends in the local yards, created no doubt by our energetic youngsters and aided perhaps by some of the older young at hearts.
Local Family Hosts
Australian Couple
Dan and Ann Cloud of Upper Tract hosted Roland and Marian Maddocks of Australia last week. Ann and Roland have been pen-friends for the last four years, and so they were thrilled to be able to meet each other.
DAHMER
A nice letter arrived from Lon Bodkin of Rawlings, Md., reminiscing on the yesteryears and belsnickeling at Upper Tract. It seems the older we get the more we look back on the memories of the past.
Mr. Bodkin so vividly recalls the era of the crank—it seemed that just about everything had a crank attached—churn, cream separator, sausage grinder, corn sheller and grinder, cider mill and oh, yes, the grindstone.
When Lon’s dad came out of the woodshed with a dull ax, he took a look around and the first boy he spotted got the nod. With a lot of elbow grease and a little water, the ax finally suited his thumb test.
In 1912, his uncle bought a Model T. This was Lon’s first chance to observe an auto up close. Walking around observing the rubber tires and in front he stopped and observed Henry Ford hand-stamped name in script on the radiator shell. Looking down sure enough, there was the crank.
Another item which has disappeared from the scene, but not Mr. Botkin’s memory, is the church stile. Some will know its original use was to give the lady side-saddle rider a place to board their mount. It was also the general collecting point before the services started. Here, it was discussed the state of the economy, woman suffrage, farm prices, and new cases of fever at Upper Tract.
60 Years Ago
Week of February 4, 1965
100 YEARS AGO
By LON K. SAVAGE
Editor’s Note—The following is one of a series of articles on the Civil War. Each weekly installment covers events which occurred exactly 100 years ago.
Sherman’s Invaders
Enter South Carolina
General William Tecumseh Sherman’s 60,000 veterans—the men who had devastated Georgia from Atlanta to the sea—turned northward 100 years ago this week and marched into South Carolina.
And there, in the state where the Civil War began, “Uncle Billy’s bummers” waged warfare that seldom has been paralleled. Perhaps it was the fact that South Carolina had been the first state to secede and had fired the first shot at Fort Sumter that moved these men; whatever it was, they amazed even the Confederates with their speed and their destruction.
There were relatively few Confederate soldiers to oppose them when they came into South Carolina, but what there were served only to inflame the Federals. A few Union troops were killed by stepping on land-mines in areas that the Confederates had abandoned, and the Federals thought this an unfair kind of fighting. There, stories were told that Union soldiers had been tortured and hanged in South Carolina. And the Federals moved up through the state with a vengeance.
So up they came, these pioneers from the Midwest, with their guns and axes, marching through near-freezing, shoulder-deep floodwaters, felling trees, corduroying roads over swamps, pulling with sheer human strength wagons and guns that mules could not budge through the mud.
In two wings they came, throwing aside the trees that Wade Hampton’s Confederate cavalry had felled in front of them, up and across the many rivers that ran through the lowlands, the right wing carrying a threat to Charleston, the left threatening Augusta.
And they resumed their destructive ways. Out in the countryside went Sherman’s foragers, outdoing their destruction back in Georgia, and barns, cotton gins, homes and public buildings went up in smoke. Each evening they returned hauling wagons of food, clothing and valuables they had found in their day’s wanderings.
Would they head for August or Charleston? Confederates tried to guess and protected both cities, but the Union force struck neither. Instead, the two wings of Sherman’s army pulled together midway between the two, 50 miles south of Columbia, and the target became clear: it was Columbia, the state capitol.
Near Blackville, S. C., they struck the all-important South Carolina Railroad, and it was Georgia all over again. They swarmed along the tracks, each man on a railroad tie, and with a big heave-ho, they pulled up the tracks, stripped the rails from the ties, set the ties afire, heated the rails over the fire and then twisted them around trees — “Sherman’s hairpins” making their ubiquitous appearance again.
In the flooded lowlands of the Salkehatchie River, they built a dozen bridges almost simultaneously. They spanned a half mile of water of the Edisto River in less than a day. And they fought off Confederate defenders regularly. Joe Johnston, the Confederate general, watched their progress and wrote: “I made up my mind that there had been no such army in existence since the days of Julius Caesar.”
Next week: Lee becomes commander-in-chief.
70 Years Ago
Week of February 3, 1955
Green and White
Will Be Color
Of Next Auto Plate
The next issuance of West Virginia’s automobile license plates will find a change from the yellow and black reversible motif which has been a familiar sight on highways of the nation since 1933.
Plates for Mountaineer motorists will be green and white, was announced by Joseph Condry, who is director of the state’s motor vehicles department.
In making the first official announcement of the color change Condry said he “personally” selected a dark green background with white lettering and numerals for the new plate which will be issued after April 15.
West Virginians have purchased yellow and black plates since 1933—the longest period in the state’s history for the use of the same colors, although the colors were alternated. The 1932 plate had a black background with gray lettering.
Fox Believed Rabid
Is Slain
On Schoolground
A fox believed to be rabid was killed by a group of teenagers Tuesday night between halves of the Circleville and Franklin basketball game. The animal was kicked unconscious and then finished off with clubs.
Apparently, the fox bit a Kimble boy who was near the grandstand on the baseball park. The group worked on the animal so thoroughly that the fox’s head was beaten to a pulp and principal John Dice expressed doubt there was enough left to send the head away for a laboratory examination. “The fox was on the warpath,” Mr. Dice said.
John Kee reported his dog was bitten by some animal Tuesday evening and he surmised the same fox was the villain.
“Dick Harper killed a rabid fox about three weeks ago near his place below Ruddle, after he had observed the beast biting at twigs.
80 Years Ago
Week of February 2, 1945
A BETTER AMERICA, NOT A NEW ONE
Most of us have been so busy arguing over plans to provide a greater quantity of medical care to the people, that the all-important item of quality has been neglected. However, the attention of medical men has been centered on both quality and quantity.
One medical authority points out that the advance of medicine has not been halted in the United States in the war period, but rather has proceeded with an intensity that is the amazement of all of the other nations of the world.
We have seen the death rate for pneumonia among American troops drop from 28 per cent in World War I, to a fraction of 1 per cent in this war. We have seen the death rate from meningitis drop from something like 80 per cent 35 years ago, to 3 to 5 per cent at this time. And recently a physician at the Great Lakes Naval Training Station reported 75 consecutive recoveries from meningitis—not one death until the seventy-sixth case!
It has been said that opponents of revolutionary changes in our form of government seek a better America not a new one. And that certainly applies to the medical profession. It opposes the sweeping away of a medical system that has brought such great benefits to the nation. Its approach to new schemes rests on the simple query. Will they improve medical service? If, through experiment and experience, they are found wanting, the doctors can be counted upon to make a last-ditch fight against them.
BRANDYWINE
SCHOOL NEWS
Four of the fourteen pupils in the fourth grade have undergone operations for appendicitis this year. Pasty Keister, Charles Harman, Carl Eye and Carol Simmons are the unfortunate ones. Marjorie Ann Smith of the eighth grade was in the hospital for the same reason.
The girls of the sixth and seventh grades recently surprised the principal by presenting a quilt top to the school for the First Aid cot.
GAME FOOD TREES
BEING OFFERED FREE
CHARLESTON, W. Va.—Game food seedlings embracing 11 species ranging in age from one to three years old in height from five to twenty-four inches are available at the state nursery at Lesage for free distribution to farmers and others who will agree to plant them for game food and cover purposes. The only expense will be transportation charges.
The species to be distributed this year are Red Pin, White Pine, Shellbark hickory, Chinese chestnut (limited to 10 per individual), Hazelnut, Black walnut, Bittersweet, Black Haw, Red Mulberry, Russian Mulberry and Black locust.
GI’S PACKAGE
REACHES HOME
DENVER—You can’t tell a certain American soldier down in the South Pacific that you have to have stamps to mail a package.
S/Sgt Cecil F. Bergman wanted to send a Christmas present to his parents, Mr. and Mrs. F. S. Bergman of Durham, Kansas, but it just was not possible to get stamps where he was.
The package arrived at the Denver post office recently, and sure enough it was minus the stamps. Instead, it carried almost three times the value of the postage in the form of British coins pasted in the top with Scotch tape. The coins amounted to 71 cents in American money and the postage would have cost only 28 cents.
Postal officials said the sergeant’s parents would be given the package intact and would be asked to pay the necessary postage.
