June 5 across the years
100 Years ago – 1925
Martinsville merchants were encouraged to keep a light burning in their stores all night long to discourage potential thieves, following a rash of overnight break-ins and thefts.
Burglars stole some cigars, tobacco, candies and gum from West End Filling Station on West Fayette Street by entering through a rear window. The got through it by standing on a settee, then removing the putty from one of the windows, taking out the glass carefully. The culprits were thought to have been some of the neighborhood boys. The store was owned by Messrs Barbour and Carter and Mr. Larry Carter was in charge.
75 years ago – 1950
The Ellsworth Street Baptist Church was for sale. It was built in the fall of 1938. It had 3,700 square feet and accommodated 350 people. It had an automatic hot air heating plant fed with a stoker. It was being sold because the congregation was moving to a new location, the new Central Baptist Church on Church Street. That church building now is home to Soul Winners Ministry, and before that it had been the local Catholic Church. The cornerstone was laid for it on April 9, 1950. Meanwhile, the white frame church building on Ellsworth street is now vacant with boarded-up windows and vines growing on it; it last was Truth and Faithful Gospel Church.
Mr. and Mrs. Jerry Chaney were at Randolph-Macon College at the graduate of Mrs. Chaney’s brother, Irving Groves Jr.
50 years ago – 1975
The entire Edd Redd family took the Defensive Driving course together: Mr. and Mrs. Redd, aged 64 and 62, respectively; a son, Luther, 18; another son, Frank, 40; and three of Frank’s children, Gatha, 18, and twins, Darrel and Dephiene, 16.
25 years ago - 2000
U.S. Cellular at 391 Liberty St. offered unlimited cell phone night and weekend minutes for $2.95 per month, and by using a coupon you could get 500 minutes for $35.
Sanville Elementary School Principal Deborah Nemec kissed a pig – in keeping a promise to her students that if they read a total of more than 638,000 hours, she’d do it.
— Information from museum records and the Henry Bulletin and the Martinsville Bulletin.