10 Years Ago
Week of December 13, 2012
SUGAR GROVE
We are entering into a month that is full of Christmas traditions. We need to keep the worthy ones and cast out the ones that detract from the true meaning of Christmas. As I read the news, I see that people aren’t at peace…with each other or with themselves. With wars and rumors of wars, violence and unspeakable terrorism, unrest and tumult, where is this peace on earth? We all need to find peace…regardless of circumstances.
Peace isn’t something for which we wish. It is something for which we work.
We need the spirit of loving and giving of ourselves…not just at this season, but it should be a way of life.
Week of December 20, 2012
SUGAR GROVE
The question arose wondering whether the postal service ever delivered mail on Christmas Day. Yes, according to Raymond Swadley, it did deliver a message to inform his family, who lived at Brandywine, about his brother, Virgil Swadley, having been wounded in the Italian campaign of World War II. This was Christmas Day, 1944, when the Brandywine Post Office delivered the message.
20 Years Ago
Week of December 12, 2002
C & H Cash Store
To Close, Ending
50 Years Service In
Cherry Grove Community
It’s going to be missed when it goes, and it will be gone around the first of the new year.
“It” is the C & H Cash Store, a convenience store/gas station in Cherry Grove.
“The place was handy,” Bernard Raines commented a few days ago, and Bobby Bennett agreed. “You didn’t have to travel too far to get something,” he said. “It’s definitely going to be missed here in Cherry Gorve.”
The Cash Store, like so many little shops in rural locales, means a lot more than mere “convenience.”
It’s also a focal point for an entire community, a friendly place where the locals like to gather and be neighborly.
And the discussions the local folks have at stores like the C & H are wide-ranging — from politics to county goings-on, from the weather even to a little bit of harmless gossip.
The talk might not be fancy, but it’s straightforward, and it can get lively.
The Cash Store was started in 1954 by Farrell Heavner’s grandfather, Charlie Wyant.
Week of December 19, 2002
County
Chamber of Commerce
To Be Organized
The creation in January of a Pendleton County Chamber of Commerce has been announced by Bill Loving, the CEO of the Pendleton County Bank.
“It will be a viable chamber of commerce and a funded chamber of commerce,” Loving said in an interview on Friday. “And it will be a county-wide chamber of commerce. Our goal is to have every business in the county as a member.”
30 Years Ago
Week of December 17, 1992
First Winter Storm Dumps Deep Snow
On Pendleton
Winter came early and emphatically to Pendleton County this year.
The heaviest snowfall in more than a decade blanketed the county under 12 to 24 inches of snow last Thursday and Friday.
Although the temperatures accompanying last week’s snow ranged between the low 30s and high 20s, the snow was preceded by frigid weather and high winds during the preceding weekend.
50 Years Ago
Week of December 21, 1972
How to Re-Use
Gift Boxes, Cans
Don’t be too quick to throw out those good boxes or cartons that hold your family’s Christmas gifts—you can make them into handsome containers for everything from hair rollers to sewing materials, not forgetting the canisters and cookie tins you can make out of those plastic-lidded coffee cans!
Cover your boxes and coffee cans with self-adhesive plastic, decorate them with braid or tape and label them with cut-out letters. It’s easy to do with self stick plastic—just make sure the surface of the box or tin is clean and dry. Then cut your plastic to fit, allowing for an overlap at seams or edges, and press it down smoothly. Or you can use fabric or gift paper, which you’ll have to glue on.
It’s a great way to “recycle” your boxes and cans—and you’ll have attractive containers for all sorts of things, in kitchen, bathroom, or at desk or phone.
You can make a pretty pencil jug out of a juice can…and never again have to say, “Wait till I find a pencil,” while talking on the phone!
60 Years Ago
Week of December 20, 1962
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.
Grant’s Army Halted
By Forrest, Van Dorn
The week before Christmas brought good news to the Confederacy 100 years ago this week, but the news was not very Christmassy. Rather, it was that the army of Federal Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, which had been pushing slowly southward through Mississippi, had been halted.
Grant’s setback did not come in battle but in a series of important raids made by Confederate Gens. Earl Van Dorn and Nathan Bedford Forrest. Van Dorn’s raid resulted in the capture of Holly Springs in northern Mississippi, Grant’s base of supplies. Forrest’s raids were in western Genesee, where he broke the telegraph wires and railroad tracks leading to Grant’s army and cut the Federal general off entirely.
Together, the two generals forced Grant to pull in his wings and retreat northward to get things organized again.
Van Dorn, the Confederate general who had been defeated at Corinth in the autumn, made his raid December 20. Leading 3,500 cavalrymen, he moved northward through Mississippi into the rear of Grant’s lines, which then were located near Oxford.
Grant learned of Van Dorn’s movement and messaged his commander at Holly Springs, Col. R. C. Murphy, to stand ready. But when Van Dorn arrived at Holly Springs, Murphy stunned his commanding officer by surrendering without a fight. About 1,500 Federals were taken prisoner, and Van Dorn’s men took over or destroyed vast quantities of food, clothing and ammunition.
On that same day, Forrest was hard at work, too. Moving northward behind the Tennessee River, Forrest had crossed it December 15 to begin his raids along Grant’s supply lines.
Forrest’s raids, like Van Dorn’s, had been forseen, and Federal armies took out after the raider the moment his presence became apparent. But Forrest dodged among them, fighting on occasions, gathering recruits as he moved and arming them with the weapons of the Federals he defeated. One after another, Federal installations fell to his raids; telegraph wires fell to the ground, and the important Mobile and Ohio Railroad, Grant’s life-line, was torn up over a 60-mile stretch. On December 20, the day that Van Dorn captured Holly Springs, Forrest was raiding the railroad center of Jackson, Tenn.
In all, Forrest and about 2,000 followers had wrecked Grant’s communications and supply system and had captured, killed or wounded about 2,500 Federal troops. They then re-crossed the Tennessee to safety.
There was nothing left for Grant to do but pull back, and he did just that. His march for Vicksburg had been seriously checked, but that still was not the end of the damage.
For as Grant pulled back, Federal Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman, working under Grant’s orders, set out from Memphis with 30,000 men to descend the Mississippi and attack Vicksburg. Sherman was depending on some assistance from Grant in central Mississippi. Now, that assistance would not be forthcoming.
Next week: Sherman’s defeat at Chickasaw Bayou.
Santa Claus Lives
In Every Loving
And Useful Gift
This is our annual Christmas Story which was written by the Rev. Frank Plybon, pastor of the Franklin Methodist Church.
We often have qualms of conscience when we permit and encourage our children to believe in Santa Claus.
Is the trust and confidence that our children have in Santa Claus based on historical fact or is it simply a figment of the imagination based entirely on myth?
Well here is the truth:
Sometime about 300 A.D. in the Roman town of Patara on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea, a boy named Nicholas was born to a family of great wealth. This family was faithful to Christianity and noted for its generosity. When he was just a lad both his parents died and Nicholas came into possession of tremendous wealth of his family. The influence of his home and parents began to show in the life of Nicholas. He soon became noted for his unselfishness and willingness to help the needy. By day he was among the people of Patara noting the poor, hungry, the ill and the needy. And by night, to avoid recognition, he would make his gifts anonymously to those in need.
Nicholas had a neighbor so poor that he was unable to provide marriage dowries for his three daughters who had come of age. The three girls had decided that one of them would sell herself as a slave to provide dowries for the other two. Each girl had volunteered to be the girl to be sold as a slave. When news of this reached the ears of Nicholas, he promptly proceeded to provide three purses of gold, enough to provide dowries for the three daughters with enough left over to provide the father with a comfortable living. And this gift was delivered that night anonymously.
Nicholas’ reputation for unselfishness and generosity began to spread far and wide. On a sea voyage to the Holy Land he rescued an elderly sailor who had accidentally fallen overboard. This act of unselfishness and heroism endeared him to seamen forever. When Nicholas returned from the Holy Land in later years, he took up residence in the seaport city of Myra about 40 miles east of his home town of Patara. He continued his anonymous giving to the needy and became more active in the church serving under the Bishop of Myra. When the Bishop died, Nicholas, though quite young, was appointed the Bishop of Myra. More than ever he labored in the church, yet he always found time to continue his giving and extending help to the needy.
One year the whole countryside around Myra was threatened with famine and starvation. Nicholas prayed and counseled with God. A heavily laden grain ship enroute to Egypt stopped in Myra. Nothing would persuade the captain to unload the precious cargo among the starving people of Myra. He was determined to take the grain to Egypt. But Nicholas appeared on the scene. All the seamen had heard of the man who had rescued the elderly seaman on the voyage to the Holy Land. The captain was persuaded to leave the cargo in Myra and the city was safe from starvation.
As Christianity spread throughout Rome, the Emperor feared its growing power and ordered its suppression. Bishop Nicholas was imprisoned and tortured in an effort to make him renounce his faith. One story has it that he died on the torture rack without recanting. Others say he held firm and was eventually released. Whatever happened, the efforts of Rome failed and Christianity stood firm in Myra.
After Nicholas was made a Saint his fame spread throughout the entire world. He became a patron Saint in Austria, the Holy Land and Imperial Russia. He was especially popular among sailors, children and virgins.
When the Dutch settled in the New World, St. Nicholas was known among them as “Saint Nikolaus” and also as “Sinterklaas.” This name gradually evolved into the name “Santa Claus.” This is how we know him today. He is no longer the tall stately bishop with the red mitre on his head, but rather the jolly round man in a red suit with a long white beard. The name and the image have changed. But he still stands for the same things—generosity, unselfishness and giving.
Some would say that St. Nicholas is dead and buried in the Church of St. Nicholas in Bari, Italy. Yet others would say no, Santa Claus still lives. He lives in the spirit of the Christmas Season. He lives in faith, gentleness, generosity and in every loving and unselfish gift.
