10 Years Ago
Week of March 14, 2013
SUGAR GROVE
Things of Good Old Days Bring a Smile to the Face
- Sprinkle bottles…clothes were sprinkled down after they dried and were rolled up tight and put back in a basket. Everything was ironed; but once steam irons came, the sprinkle bottles were thrown away.
- Wringer washers…what work that was! If one didn’t get an arm caught in the wringer, one had to lug a basket of wet clothes to the backyard and hang them on the line.
- The smell of Old Spice, playing Mother May I, Jacks, marbles.
- Red Rover, Red Rover, won’t you come over?
“Step on a crack…break your mother’s back,” climbing trees, Cowboys ‘n’ Indians, licking mom’s mixer beaters. - You’ll wonder where the yellow went when you brush your teeth with Pepsodent.
- Wooden folk toys…spinning top, idiot stick, lumberjack man, tic tac toe, ox yoke puzzle.
- Doctors made house visits to care for extended families, including parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins, all living under the same roof.
Snowstorm
Slams County
A late winter snowstorm dumped almost two feet of heavy, wet snow on the county last Wednesday.
The snow began falling in the county seat late on Tuesday evening and left 14 to 20 inches on the ground in the Franklin area. The storm also pummeled the Shenandoah Valley, dropping more than a foot of snow in Harrisonburg, VA, and a reported 29 inches on Elkton, VA.
A violent late winter blizzard dropped up to three feet of snow on parts of the county over the weekend of March 12-14 in 1993. Snow drifts as high as 16 feet blocked Rt. 33 on Allegheny Mountain and Snowy Mountain.
20 Years Ago
Week of March 20, 2003
SUGAR GROVE
Writer Shares ‘Things’
I Wish I’d Known
Last week’s article regarding the Appalachian dialect was met with humorous appreciation by many readers. The writer enjoyed compiling the article from notes written while attending an Appalachian culture class several years ago.
Internet has contributed many interesting antidotes to computer owners. “Things I Wish I’d Known” was a delightful piece of information the writer would like to share with her readers—
- Any and all compliments can be handled by saying, “Why, thank you!” (It helps if one has a southern accent).
- Never give yourself a haircut after three margaritas.
- Never continue to date anyone who is rude to the waiter or doesn’t like cats or dogs.
- The five most essential words for a healthy, long-lasting relationship are “I apologize” and “You are right.”
- Everyone seems normal until you get to know them.
- When you make a mistake, make amends immediately. It’s easier to eat crow while it’s still warm.
- The best advice my mother gave me was “Go! You might meet somebody!”
- Pick your battles. Will this matter one year from now? One month? One day? Don’t sweat the small stuff.
- Never pass up an opportunity to use the bathroom. It may be your last chance for a long time.
- Work is necessary, but it’s not the most important thing.
- Be nice to your friends. You never know when you are going to need them to visit you in the nursing home.
30 Years Ago
Week of March 18, 1993
Pendleton Paralyzed by Violent Winter Blizzard
High Winds Cause
Deep Snow Drifts
Pendleton County was hit by a winter blizzard of unusual intensity over the past weekend that dumped up to three feet of snow on some areas of the county and subjected it to high winds measured up to 71 miles per hour. Temperatures as low as six above zero were recorded.
Snow drifts as high as 16 feet blocked Route 33 on top of Allegheny Mountain and on Snowy Mountain. Snow blowers and bulldozers were brought in to open paths in the mountains of snow.
Electric power was interrupted for approximately six hours Saturday night in the Sugar Grove, Crummetts Run and Dry Run areas of the county.
Problems with electric power were caused by trees falling over electric power lines.
Reports indicate that at least 170 lives were lost in the eastern part of the nation during the storm which extended from Florida to Maine.
40 Years Ago
Week of March 17, 1983
DAHMER
Johnny Arvin Dahmer cut a locust tree from which he made 86 fence stakes. The top of the tree was rotten or it would have made over a hundred.
50 Years Ago
Week of March 15, 1973
Snake Found
In Post Office
Mrs. Raymond Cowger, a postal clerk at the Franklin Post Office, did some high stepping Monday morning. When she opened the post office early in the morning, she found a four-foot blacksnake lying in the middle of the floor.
As soon as she caught her breath and made sure it wasn’t crawling up her leg, she got Postmaster Gene Scott Hammer on the telephone and summoned him summarily to the office.
Hammer put the snake in a box and took it out into the woods and released it. He said someone apparently put the snake through a mail slot as a practical joke.
60 Years Ago
Week of March 21, 1963
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.
Silence Finally Broken In Virginia
General Robert E. Lee was in Richmond 100 years ago this week, conferring with Jefferson Davis, president of the Confederacy. Suddenly, news arrived from the front, and Lee quickly headed post haste for Fredericksburg, Va., 50 miles to the north. Even before he left, a division of Texans under Gen. John B. Hood was marching from Richmond for the front, as women of the city cheered them and passed out bread to them.
The news: Federal troops had crossed the Rappahannock River near Fredericksburg, breaking nearly three months of silence on the Virginia front.
At the same time that fighting broke out in Virginia, the Civil War had begun to grow lively again on the dormant front in Tennessee.
In Virginia, throughout the first three months of 1963, Lee’s army had waited on the south bank of the Rappahannock River watching the huge Federal army under Gen. Joseph Hooker, encamped on the northern bank. On March 17, Hooker decided to test Lee’s cavalry around Culpeper, just north of Fredericksburg, and on that morning, 2,100 Federal cavalrymen splashed across the Rappahannock at Kelly’s Ford.
The Federals were successful at first. They drove back a band of Confederate cavalrymen on the south side of the ford, then charged into a Southern cavalry brigade at Culpeper.
The Confederates gave way briefly, but they counter-charged, and the Federals gave way. For five hours the horsemen battled until more than 150 had fallen.
Among the victims was a boyish Confederate captain who had come to Culpeper to appear as a witness in a court martial. When the fight broke out, the youth had rushed to the front, where he was killed by an artillery shell.
He was John Pelham, a promising young Alabama boy who had been in the class of 1861 at West Point and whose use of artillery at Fredericksburg had made him, perhaps, the South’s youngest war hero. His commanding officer, “Jeb” Stuart, broke into tears on Pelham’s death and wired Richmond: “The noble, chivalric, the gallant Pelham is no more.”
The little fight at Kelly’s Ford ended as it had begun. The Federals gradually were forced back to the river, and as dusk came, they splashed back across to their own side. Silence returned to the Virginia front.
In Tennessee, there had been fairly constant skirmishing in early 1863 between the armies of Federal General William S. Rosencrans and Confederate General Braxton Bragg on a line running roughly along the Duck River from McMinn-ville west to Shelbyville and Columbia.
Then, in early March, Confederate Gen. Earl Van Dorn, with the aid of the famous raider Nathan Bedford Forrest, badly whipped 3,000 Federals between Columbia and Franklin, taking most of them prisoners. On March 18, another Federal detachment tried to capture Gen. John Hunt Morgan, another famous Confederate raider, northeast of Murfreesboro. Morgan attacked the Federals and was beaten off with heavy losses.
Spring was coming. You could tell it by the shooting.
Next week: Grant meets failure.
70 Years Ago
Week of March 19, 1953
More Water Mains
Will Reduce Rates
“If an additional 350 feet of water pipe were installed in Franklin, there is a good possibility that the fire insurance rates would be reduced for the entire town,” Mr. B. J. Aulde said today.
“The town has about 350 feet of pipe left over from last year, which has been paid for,” he said. “It would cost about $1,000 to lay the new line, but reduction of rates would probably run about $1,000 or $1,500 for the insured people.”
Form Chess Club
A number of Franklin people have become interested in the playing of chess in the past few weeks, with the result that there has arisen a need for the formation of a chess club. We are asked to state that a meeting of all persons interested in the formation of such a club will be held at Dahmer’s restaurant this Friday evening about 7:30 o’clock. Those who can play this ancient and absorbing game and those who would like to learn are equally welcome. If a club is formed those who are unfamiliar will be instructed in the rudiment of chess which, while an intricate and strategic pastime, will begin to assume a familiar pattern after four or five games.
Bands Clear $90
On Recent Dinner
The Franklin School bands gave a turkey dinner in the Presbyterian Church on March 4th from 5 to 7 p.m.
It seems there was a good turnout. There was about 200 served and according to Mr. Judy, the band cleared about $90.
We, the band members wish to thank you all for helping to make it a success by coming to our dinner. Also, we wish to thank the band mothers for helping to sponsor it, and everyone who helped and donated.
The purpose of this dinner was to raise money to buy new instruments and suits for the children coming into the band.
EDITORIAL
To what extent the sudden death of Stalin will affect the present world tension has created wide speculation. A partial answer came last week when a Russian MIG shot down an American Thunderbolt over Germany. The first indications seem to be that the “cold war” may get slightly warmer.
It is unlikely, however, that the Russian attacks on our planes were meant to provoke a war. Most of the experts agree that Russia will strike hard when and if an attack comes. She would not be likely to start a war over the destruction of one obsolete American fighter plane.
If she attacks, it is more likely that it will be a blow designed to cripple American industry—an atom bomb raid which would destroy great American industrial centers, the nation’s capital, and cities with dense populations. It is unlikely that she would deliberately provoke an incident that would put us on guard, or in a position to bomb Russia first. She would lose the element of surprise—in modern warfare, a country’s most potent weapon.
Russia’s attitude most probably will remain the same. It is not likely that Stalin would have chosen a successor who was not in complete agreement with his plans. The Russians, however, are unpredictable and their culture radically different from our own. What other people would play Russian roulette for a pastime—the game in which a cartridge is placed in a pistol, the cylinder spun, and the player, placing the gun to his head, pulls the trigger. It would be nice if this game, played very little today, would be revived—and the Russians would hit a streak of bad luck.