May 16 through the years

100 Years ago – 1925

 A meeting of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union was held at the home of Mrs. J.R. Taylor on Brown street. The WCTU presented a write-up on “Whis-key: Whis-key unlocks the doors that lead to the poorhouse, penitentiary, and the grave; unfastens the gates of sorrow, the windows of want, the doors of health; opens the way into the jail, up the scaffold, through the trap; it unlocks the heart of the wife to let in regret the heart of the mother to let in sorrow, the heart of a child to let in shame; it lets loose rivers of tears …”

75 years ago – 1950

The Virginia Orchestra performed two concerts in the high school auditorium, sponsored by the Rotary Club.

50 years ago – 1975

The Mother of the Year, as named by the Retail Merchants Association of Martinsville and Henry County, was Mrs. Gayle Adkins Compton of 43 Riverview Court, Martinsville. She was the mother of two young daughters, and she taught the young adult Sunday school class at Fontaine Baptist Church.

25 years ago - 2000

Owner Mark Tosh of Town Police Supply store was working toward supplying the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, Australia, with 950 walk-through metal detectors.

— Information from museum records and the Henry Bulletin and the Martinsville Bulletin.