May 9 through the years
100 Years ago – 1925
Miss Sue Rice of the Soft Wheat Millers’ Association in Nashville, Tennessee, gave two demonstrations in the Home Economics department of Martinsville High School. All women of Martinsville and Henry County were invited to attend. Her program from 10 a.m. to noon covered yeast bread (quick compressed yeast), cheese straws and pastry. Her program from 2-4 p.m. covered cakes, including upside-down and devil’s food, with icing for each cake.
1950
A.T. Nolen was convicted in County Trial Justice Court of killing a raccoon out of season. He was ordered to pay court costs and pay the game warden $10 ($102 in today’s money) to replace the animal. Mr. Nolen said he shot the raccoon near his home in the Blackberry Church community without realizing what kind of animal he was shooting. Game Warden E.T. Lemon told the court that sportsmen in the Bassett area had distributed 30 raccoons in Henry County, shipped in from South Carolina, over the past few months.
50 years ago – 1975
Ronnie Harris, 57, of Lancer Lane, died, two weeks after he was burned in a fire at Chatmoss Auto Parts. He was the service manager there. Steve Harris, his co-worker, was in serious condition. The fire happened when they were working in the service pit underneath a Chevy van, installing a fuel pump.
The Henry County Board of Supervisors had a Canine Committee, chaired by Elmer Dalton, to study what to do about the problem of loose dogs in the county. They toured the dog pound at the Prison Farm, which had four pens, and the county facility, which was at Dog Warden L.E. Kidd’s house. The City Dog Warden was J.W. Bowles. Members of the committee included Supervisor Andrew Hodges, Mrs. Jo Maynard, Michael Pitches and J.E. Pigg. County Assistant Dog Warden Bob McClure said about 7,000 dog tags were distributed, but that probably represented less than a third of the dogs.
25 years ago - 2000
Kindergarten teachers and longtime friends Pat Walker of Spencer Penn Elementary School and Brenda Strickland of Snow Creek Elementary School developed a series of books that taught about historical figures such as Davy Crockett, Booker T. Washington, Harriet Tubman and Betsy Ross. The copyrighted books were called “Primary Points in History.” The books have fun features such as pop-ups, flaps, rhyme, simple facts, fake fur trimming Davy Crockett’s book and stripes that open one layer at a time in Betsy Ross’s flag-shaped book.
— Information from museum records and the Henry Bulletin and the Martinsville Bulletin.