10 Years Ago
Week of February 17, 2015
Remembering
Miss Emmel Bennett
By Vickie Skavenski
I have two candles tonight in memory of “Miss Emmel,” who departed this life Feb. 21, 2014, at age 91. The first is for the things about her that are commonly known. Emmel Alice Zickefoose was born on May 15, 1922, on Hunting Ground. She graduated from Circleville High School in 1940. She then married Vivian Bennett, who preceded her in death on April 23, 1997.
Miss Emmel taught at the Cherry Grove and Hinkle schools before moving to Circleville Elementary from which she retired in 1982, having taught for 39 years. She was a member of Delta Kappa Gamma, the Pendleton County Retired Teachers Association, Alpha Shrine #19, WVEA, NEA, the Order of the White Shrine of Jerusalem and Woodman of America. In 1973 she received the Outstanding Elementary Teacher Award. She was a member of the Circleville Presbyterian Church, where she served as a Deacon and an Elder.
Miss Emmel was survived by a son, Melvin Bennett, and his wife, Kathryn, and grandchildren.
The second candle is for things not commonly known about Miss Emmel. I keep saying, “Miss Emmel,” because I find it difficult to call anyone I had as a teacher by his or her first name. Miss Emmel was my second grade teacher who gave me the only smack I ever received in school. We were all lined up to go to recess and her buddy who taught business upstairs came into the room and said, “Emmel, these kids look like they’ve been bad and need a smack.”
So, Miss Emmel tapped each of us on the rear with her mammoth paddle that had holes bored into it. We were convinced that the air running through the holes would make the paddle hit harder than a normal one.
Miss Emmel loved geography and loved to travel. All her life she had wanted to ride a gondola in Venice, so, in 2000, when she was 78, she traveled to Italy with my English Club students, and Chad Alt and Drew Seymour saw that she got into a gondola where she was serenaded by a very handsome gondolier as we traveled the canals of Venice.
Miss Emmel loved stuffed pepper soup and lemon pie—but she absolutely refused to eat instant mashed potatoes. She loved flowers but could not stand to have any mess, so Kathryn finally solved that problem by hanging baskets of artificial flowers in the carport.
I spoke to Charlie Teter, her neighbor and co-teacher for years, the other night and asked him what he would say about her. He said she loved her home and her country and that was the best thing you could say about anyone. I would add that she loved that last classroom on the right at Circleville School. She asked that any memorial contributions be made to the CHS Preservation Fund. She also loved the Mountaineers. Miss Emmel was glued to the TV for every football and basketball game and woe to the phone company if the cable went out and caused her to miss the action.
Miss Emmel was loyal to her friends, calling Bonnie Murphy every morning to check on her and Aunt Louise every evening before she went to bed.
Miss Emmel was my teacher, my supporter through high school and college, my colleague and my friend. She will be missed.
County Thaws
On Tuesday, Prepares
For Round Two
Temperatures dropped to sub-zero over the weekend while a snowstorm blasted the area starting before noon on Monday and lasting throughout the evening. Today, the high is forecast to be zero with more snow expected on Saturday, possibly eight inches.
20 Years Ago
Week of February 17, 2005
Cooper Retires
From AD Post
A celebrated Circleville High School basketball, football and baseball player in the 1960s, Dave Cooper has retired from the position of athletic director at Fairmont State College.
He had served as athletic director at his alma mater since 1997 and will continue to serve at Fairmont State as a part-time consultant.
60 Years Ago
Week of February 18, 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.
Charleston, S. C.
Back In Federal Hands
Columbia, the capitol of South Carolina, was ransacked and burned 100 years ago this week and before the flames had gone out, Charleston, South Carolina’s biggest port where the Civil War began, dropped like a ripe plum into the Federal army’s hands.
The two events, coming simultaneously, effectively ended South Carolina’s existence as an active Confederate state and set off demonstrations of jubilation throughout the North. At long last, Fort Sumter, the site of the Civil War’s first battle, was back in Federal control. And the size of the Confederacy had shrunk to less than two states.
The burning of Columbia caused arguments for generations, but one thing is not debatable: from one-half to two-thirds of the city was destroyed in a conflagration that was needless.
When General William Tecumseh Sherman’s 60,000 veterans neared Columbia, panic seized the city. Many residents fled; Confederate soldiers abandoned the city; mobs formed, and by the time the Yanks arrived, freed convicts, Negroes and others were looting stores.
Columbia’s Mayor rode out to greet the Federals and surrendered the city unconditionally on February 17, but that did not save the devastation. Federal troops poured into the city, and somehow the fire started.
Federals reported that Confederate cavalrymen set fire to cotton bales before departing, and that set off the conflagration. Confederates countered that Federal soldiers caused the fire. Probably, both sides contributed to it.
To make matters worse, the Federal troops found liquor awaiting them in the city (Federals charged it was given them by Columbia citizens), and Sherman, himself, noted some of his soldiers were drunk in the streets.
At any rate, that night, February 17, the holocaust broke out and a gale wind blew the flames from house to house, block to block. Federal soldiers and Columbia citizens both worked to put the fire out, but they could not. And while some tried to fight the fire, others looked and ransacked homes and stores.
The wind changed about 4 a.m. next day, and finally the fire burned out, but more than half the city lay in ashes, chimneys standing solitary among the ruins. Hundreds of residents had fled from their homes and wandered in the streets.
Sherman, himself, was angry about the burning, but he resumed his warfare. Those buildings that could contribute to the war—depots, arsenals, granaries, factories—were destroyed if they had escaped the fire. And two days later, Sherman and his men pushed on northward.
When Columbia fell, Charleston was useless to the Confederacy. It was cut off to the North, hoping to stop Sherman in North Carolina. Federals immediately entered, and the Union flag, for the first time in four years was raised over the ruins that had once been Fort Sumter.
The importance of the fall of the two cities could not be under-estimated. A war clerk in Richmond wrote in his diary, “My wife wept, my daughter prayed, upon hearing the news.”
Next week: Wilmington falls.
70 Years Ago
Week of February 17, 1955
EDITORIALS
Don’t Call Me “Reverend…”
By JAMES M. McDANIEL,
Pastor, Presbyterian Church
The vast majority of ministers do not like to be called “reverend” when spoken to or when being introduced. This, however, is not just a matter of personal preference. It is also a matter of correct English usage.
The word “reverend” is not a title or a noun like the word “professor,” “judge,” or “dean.” The word “reverend” is an adjective and should be used exactly like the word “honorable” when placed before the name of the president and vice-president, members of the cabinet, governor, senators, congressmen, judges. One does not say, “Honorable Senator Brown,” but “the honorable Senator Brown.”
And so with the word “reverend.” If anyone wants to use the word “reverend” and wants to use it correctly, he should remember always to put the article “the” in front of the word “reverend,” followed by the term “mister” and his last name, or put the article “the” in front of the word “reverend” followed by the first and last name of the person referred to.
If a minister happens to be a doctor, of course it would be correct to refer to him as “Doctor Chaplain Brown” unless he requested you not to use the title “doctor.” And in the ministry, there are many types of “doctors.” The most common are the D.D.—doctor of theology, which is a purely honorary degree. Then there is the Th.D.—doctor of theology, an earned degree that requires four years of college work, three years of seminary work, plus at least two additional years of study. Then, too, there is the Ph.D.—a doctor of philosophy. This requires from two to three years of study beyond that of a college bachelor’s degree.
If the above is too much English grammar and likely to be confusing, the best advice to follow is to just forget the word “reverend” entirely and refer to the minister as “mister,” or, if he is a doctor refer to him as “doctor” unless he requests that title not to be used.
(Note: An article could be written in regard to the Lutheran minister. Unless he happens to have a doctor’s degree—honorary or earned—he prefers to be called and referred to as “pastor.”)
Folly . . . and Junk Yards . . .
The other day we were driving past one of those modern junk yards, a “graveyard” for automobiles.
There were scores and scores of cars there. Many of them looked almost new. It struck us a sad commentary on the way folks in our nation drive—and the tremendous economic waste which results from such wild driving.
But the next time you pass an auto junk yard or place where they take them apart for the parts and for the scrap metal they can reclaim, just take a good look at the cars there. You too may be amazed at the great number of the newer models, cars which were handsome and serviceable, even luxurious, a month or two ago.
80 Years Ago
Week of February 16, 1945
48 HOUR WEEK
URGED FOR MINERS
WASHINGTON—“The best answer to the current coal shortage in seventeen eastern states is a forty-eight-hour work week,” said Rep. Robertson (D-Va.).
The Virginia congressman issued his statement following conferences with coal operators who he said agreed with him.
He pointed out that the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the Department of Labor announced yesterday show absenteeism among coal miners was considerably above the national average.
Robertson asserted, “We would not have before us today a compulsory work bill if we had adopted a forty-eight-hour work week when we entered this war.”
Our military program has suffered from failure to do so and if farmers had not voluntarily worked a sixty-hour week and longer this would have been to us on the home front a hungry winter as well as a cold one,” he concluded.
ROBINS
WINTER IN STATE
CHARLESTON, W. Va.—Despite the severity of the weather, many robins found it advantageous to winter in West Virginia this year, according to reports from game protectors. Following reports of large numbers being seen in Nicholas County came a report from Protector M. F. Eye in Raleigh County. Flocks “numbering in the thousands” were seen daily, he said, going to and from their roosts and feeding grounds. “Many times,” he added, “they darkened the sky from one to two hours at a time.”
As an explanation for this presence, he said that in most parts of Raleigh there was the largest crop of black gum and dogwood berries he had ever seen. On these the birds fed. Ruffed grouse and quail also benefitted from these berries.
YANKS USED
SLINGSHOT TO TAKE NAZI POSITION
WITH THE TWENTY-NINTH DIVISION IN GERMANY—Ordered to take a Jerry position when they were so close to the German lines that shooting would have brought them under fire, members of Company A, One Hundred and Seventy-fifth Infantry, stretched an old inner tube between two trees and hurled grenades slingshot fashion. It worked.
