REPORTER-
PHOTOGRAPHER
Th^ Tell About
Wlls of Home’
A few years ago Oscar J. Fox, American
composer, conductor and folklorist, wrote
about the “Hills of Home.” His song gave
universal expression to the sentiment which
memory entertains about the scenes of
Yesterday.
While the majority of people employed
here have always been familiar with the
cotton stubble and the red clay of the Pied
mont, several hundred folks who work here
are adoptees of “these parts”.
To tell you something about their home
towns, here are Mrs. Robert Kilby, Main
Office; Lela Cobb, Weaving (synthetics);
Bernard Aim, Shop (carpentry); S. P. Bold
ing, Industrial Relations (plant security);
and Ernest Keenum, Supply.
Lela Cobb, Murphy, N. C.; My
hometown is in the extreme
Southwest corner of the state, 91
miles from Asheville. It is a
summer resort in the Nantahala
National Forest near the Geor
gia state line.
Industries include factories
for making veneer, packing
boxes, furniture, lumber,
hosiery, general textiles. Timber,
apples and berries are leading
crops for the county and sur
rounding area.
Murphy, county seat of Chero
kee, puts on the “Wagon Train”
celebration every July 4. Near
by is the Fields of the Wood,
famous Church of God Park. It
features, in concrete, the world’s
largest tableau of the Ten Com
mandments; also arches, crosses,
altars and other religious mark
ers.
Most interesting fact about
Murphy is this: Her people live
closer to the capitals of seven
other states, than to their own
at Raleigh. The 375-mile trip
from Murphy to Raleigh is long
er than the mileage to the cap
itals of Georgia, South Carolina,
Mississippi, Alabama, West Vir
ginia, Ohio and Kentucky.
S. P. Bolding, Pickens, S. C.:
My town, seat of government
for Pickens county, is in the
Northwest comer of the State.
North of town is 3,560-foot-high
Sassafras Mountain, loftiest
point in South Carolina. The
county bears the name of an il
lustrious family. Andrew Pick-
ens, a general in the Revolution,
later was a member of the State
legislature, also served in Con
gress. His grandson, F. W. Pick
ens, was a Congressman, later a
governor of South Carolina.
Pickens has lumber and grist
mills, and textile works. Some
thing unusual about one of the
county’s oldest textile mills is
that employees enter and leave
through the tower. Pickens is a
tourist resort in the Blue Ridge
mountains. Of historical interest
is nearby Cowpens Battleground.
Among points of interest in
Oconee county — immediately
West of Pickens—are Fort Hill,
home of John C. Calhoun;
Oconee State Park; Old Indian
Trading Post and Fort; Issa-
quenna Falls, Lake Cheohee; and
Whitewater Falls, highest cas
cade in Eastern America.
Bernard Aim, Hinckley, Minn.;
This town in Pine county is 80
miles below Duluth. Hinckley,
like all Minnesota, is cattle-and-
dairy land. Besides this, there
are poultry farms, and potatoes
and rutabagas are main crops.
Hinckley will long be remem
bered for the great forest fire of
1894. This tragedy is recalled in
Stuart Holbrook’s book, “Burn
ing an Empire.” The awful fire,
driven by a wind of hurricane
force, killed 700 persons. A
monument has been erected to
their memory.
Around 500 persons fled in
some boxcars and were pulled
out of town by a switch engine.
Ten miles north, the train raced
across Kettle river only two
minutes before the burning
trestle collapsed. My maternal
grandfather was saved on the
St. Paul-Duluth train.
The fire caused Minnesota to
enact its first forestry law, and
made America more aware of
the need of forest fire preven
tion. I hope it doesn’t take an
other tragedy like the one at
Hinckley to drive the lesson
home in our time.
Mrs. Robert Kilby, from New
port, Tenn.: In Cocke county,
Newport is 42 miles east of
Knoxville, and at a location
near which the Big Pigeon river
joins the French Broad. Nearby
are the John Sevier Preserve
and the Great Smoky Mountains
National Park.
Settled in the 1700s, the town
in later years became famed as
a great lumbering center, op
erated by European investors.
But in the late 1800s the Pigeon
river “busted its britches”—as
the natives say—and the flood
ended the fabulous business
venture.
Newport has tanneries, wood
extract industries, hosiery, and
grain-processing mills. It is best
known as a food-canning center.
The leading plant of this kind
was the first to successfully
process sugar peas that far
South. Two brothers founded
the company after they had
raised some tomatoes in the
garden and had their mother
can them on the cookstove. They
sold them, canned other vege
tables, and developed their busi
ness into one of the nation’s
leading canneries.
Ernest Keenum, Friendship,
N. C.; Go West to Friendship in
Cherokee county, and you’re in
a stone’s throw from Georgia
and Tennessee. This little com
munity is in the Nantahala
Forest area, also the Appalachia
and Hiwassee reservations, and
the Unicoi mountains. Hiwassee
Lake is a sportsman’s paradise.
To the South is the Georgia
highland country; across into
Polk county, Tenn., are Copper
Hill and Ducktown, great min
ing and smelting centers. Today,
on U. S. Highway 64 you can
see a man-made desert of thou
sands of acres, caused by the
killing acids of careless copper
mining, then erosion.
In recent years, the harmful
smolce has been controlled and
a reforestation program has been
carried out by the Tennessee
Valley Authority and the min
ing company. Kudzu vine, the
Japanese legume, has been
planted and is doing wonders
to heal the ugly earth scars. The
green things you see growing
there today remind you that
once a great forest covered the
region—that some day another
one may stand there again.
To Talk Of Fire
At May Meeting
Fire-control leaders from
around the world will meet at
Montreal, Canada next month to
deal with ways and means of
making people and property
safer from fire.
Topics from industrial plant
protection and fire department
equipment to school fire prob
lems and community fire safety
education are on the program of
the 64th annual meeting of the
National Fire Protection Asso
ciation, beginning May 16.
Among subjects to be discuss
ed are developments in ex
tinguishing agents, flammable
liquid hazards, storage of gases,
and cutting and welding haz
ards.
One panel discussion will deal
with people's awareness of fire
hazards in the home, and simple
rules of personal fire safety.
Other topics: A report on a
study of fatal fires, improved
safety in school buildings, hos
pital operating room fire haz
ards, and methods to improve
fire protection for libraries and
museums.
NE WSWEA VERS.
FIVE GENERATIONS
☆
☆
☆
Represented here are five gen
erations in the family of Mrs.
Robert C. Wallace of Weaving
(synthetics). Arranged from
right to left in picture, they are:
Mrs. J. M. Reynolds, mother of
the employee here; Mrs. Brady
Cook, Mrs. Reynolds' daughter;
Mrs. Floyd Bridges, daughter of
Mrs. Cook; Mrs. Hugh Eaker,
Mrs. Bridges' daughter; and
Sherry Eaker. Besides Sherry,
Mrs. Reynolds has five other
great-great grandchildren. The
five persons in this picture live
in the Spartanburg-Clifton-Cow
pens area of South Carolina.
APRIL. 1960 PAGE 7
PEOPLE, PLACES, THINGS
Payroll manager Mrs. Clayton Wilson, with Mr. Wilson and in
company with Mr. and Mrs. Joe Wilson, toured portions of inland
South Carolina in March for a preview of the State’s famous
landscaped garden attractions. They visited the beauty spots at
Camden and Bethune, before going on to Columbia.
This year’s extended winter delayed most blooming shrubs
and other plants for which the gardens are well known, the Gas
tonia visitors reported. Peak season for many spring blossoms
will be pushed to around mid-April in such inland gardens of the
State as Edisto, Lamis, Kalmia, Swan Lake, and Dunndell.
Robert B. Hull and Ray Pearson are among eight men elected
recently to three-year terms as deacons at First A. R. Presbyterian
Church of Gastonia. Mr. Hull is manager of the Quality Control
department at Firestone; Mr. Pearson, an electrician in the Shop.
The two Firestone men were elected at the same time the
church chose three new elders, a congregation chairman, and a
clerk. All officers assumed their duties on April 1.
Mrs. Frank Peele of Salisbury, N. C. spent a recent weekend
in Bessemer City, where she visited in the home of Mrs. Pearl
Peele, a twister tender in this department.
E. P. McArver, second hand in Winding (sales yarn), was re
covering nicely in late March, after a surgical operation in a local
hospital.