GASTONIA • NORTH CAROLINA
VOLUME XIV - NUMBER 12
NOVEMBER • 1965
Tir«$ton«
i~.
Your Symbol
of Quality
and Service
m
Your $25,425.68
Helps 28 UF Agencies
Record another high mark in Firestone Textiles com
munity concern, with the largest gift in history to the
Greater Gastonia United Fund. The total employee contribu
tion of $25,425.68 represents an increase of $2,043 over the fig
ure for 1964 which also was a record contribution.
^ collection of framed prints telling the his-
'^I'y of natural-fibers textiles was for years
^^nibited on the office wall of Frank Davis at Firestone Textiles until
retirement in 1963. This drawing “When The Cotton’s Rollin’ In”
E. M. Schiwetz was given to Firestone News. It brings out a touch
“things as they used to be” when the South rightfully claimed King
^otton, before the growing of the natural fiber moved toward the
'^est Coast and became a mechanized operation.
, The drawing represents a disappearing Southern scene replaced
scientific progress which brought manmade fibers to textile pro-
“^liction. In 1935, when Firestone began operating the Gastonia plant,
production was cotton. Today more than 97 per cent is in the syn-
^^tics family—principally nylon and rayon, but also others such as
f’^lyesters, olefins, sarans and glass fibers. It is a lesson in keeping up
^ith progress to stay in business and serve growing needs of the
^^stomer.
when the cottons
rollin ’
• in
From days
gone by
Solicitation among employees
here was completed in early
October just as the community-
wide UF campaign was being
launched. Firestone pledges rep
resent the largest single collec
tion toward the community goal
of $248,556 to provide 28 local,
state and national services for
health, welfare, recreation and
character-building.
P. R. Williams Jr., division
production manager, and J. G.
Tino Jr., plant engineer, were
chairmen in what is the only in-
plant financial drive during the
year.
They reported an average giv
ing of $18.61 among employees,
along with still another record;
984 persons making pledges by
the "fair-share" method.
General manager Harold Mer
cer and production manager
F. B. Galligan (this year first
vice president of the Greater
Gastonia UF) recalls that"
throughout the many years of
plant united giving, employee
concern has steadily increased.
They cited, for example, that as
recent as 1961 the UF gift here
was $15,549, compared with this
year’s figure of $24,737.
—more on page 2
Three Scholarship
Students
Are In School
Three students from Firestone
. ^xtiles families are currently
School under the
College Scholarship
Daniel
of
Firestone
Program.
Fowler Jr., win-
the four-year company
scholarship in 1963, is a junior
at the University of North Caro
lina, Chapel Hill. He is working
on a double major in zoology
and chemistry.
Brenda Louise High, a 1965
scholarship winner, has begun
her four years at Wake Forest
College, pursuing a major in
education. Erna Jane Bagwell,
the second 1965 winner, has be
gun her studies toward a major
in chemistry and pre-med at the
T^hat First Thanksgiving
'— In North Carolina
. thanksgiving Day, with
p sideline traditions of
^rkey dinners, football
and commercialized
^stivals, is essentially a re-
observance. It is a
for giving thanks to
^od for the harvest and His
oundless blessings during
year.
1 all began, we are told in
^story and reference books, by
6 Piigrirns in New England,
he Pilgrim influence has per-
^ded American life. They set a
of courage and faith and
^ story has'been told to gen-
^^tions of school children. To-
We honor their high purpose
keep it as a part of our tra
dition.
Added to the tradition from
Old Plymouth are some other
facts which also go into our
Thanksgiving Story.
In recent years a number of
articles have appeared which
bring to light some obscure his
tory on the subject.
ONE ARTICLE by John
Gould, a citizen of Maine and
himself a descendant of Pil
grims, says that the Mayflower’s
passengers were not the first
settlers in New England—that
in one instance, there was a
landing of Englishmen on the
shore of Maine Aug. 9, 1607.
And, he adds, “the arriving set
tlers immediately held a service
University of North Carolina,
Chapel Hill.
Neil Tate is the most recent
Gastonia-area student to gradu
ate on a Firestone scholarship.
With a major in political science
from Wake Forest, he has start
ed work on the MA degree in
political science at Tulane Uni
versity. He is studying under a
fellowship program for future
college teachers, sponsored by a
Ford Foundation grant.
of thanksgiving for their safe
crossing of the severe North At
lantic.”
This, of course, was before
tlie Pilgrims came in 1620.
More interesting still is word
from the distinguished histori-
an-editor Virginius Dabney who
presents evidence that South
erners started Thanksgiving at
least 14 years before the Pil
grims. Says Dabney:
“The first Thanksgiving held
in America” has long been
credited to the Pilgrim Fathers.
Major histories and encyclo
pedias unite in declaring that
our annual custom of giving
thanks began at Plymouth in
1621.
Mr. Dabney goes on to say
that the first Thanksgiving in
this country occurred in April,
1607, when the Jamestown col
onists erected a cross and knelt
to give thanks for their safe ar
rival. Another well - document-
The 100-Level
DeLuxe Champion
Stylish . . . Dependable . . .
Durable . . . Supersafe. The new
100-level DeLuxe Champion tire
from Firestone. It comes on
most of the 19S6 automobiles.
There are many improvements
in the all-new tire with the
wrap-around tread for better
cornering. Whitewall is slightly
ed service of thanksgiving was
held at Jamestown in June 1610,
and “it was conducted by the
emaciated survivors of the
‘starving time’.”
Dabney holds that the most
significant of the early Thanks
giving services in Virginia was
held in 1619 by the “39 settlers
who had just landed at Berkley
Hundred up the James River
from Jamestown. It was the
first in America to be formally
designated as ‘Thanksgiving
Day’, with directions that it be
repeated annually thereafter.”
IHANKSGIVING
THE HISTORIAN could have
gone further and given credit
to North Carolina. From his own
more than a half inch wide. Five
years ago the average whitewall
was two and a half inches.
Firestone Akron secretary Sara
Wolford shows off the new tire.
account, he wrote that at least
two Thanksgiving services were
hold in Virginia more than a
decade before 1621—not count
ing one described by Capt. Ar
thur Barlowe (who had been
sent out to Virginia by Sir Wal
ter Raleigh) as having been held
there by his expedition in 1584.
This places the first Thanks
giving in America in the present
North Carolina. The Amadas
and Barlowe expedition entered
Pamlico Sound and reached an
island which the Indians called
Roanoke. Later the land was
christened “Virginia” but that
part of it visited by Barlowe is
now in North Carolina.
Credit for being “first” is not
so important. It is good to know
that our forefathers generally
expressed a spirit of thanksgiv
ing to God for His blessings.
And in this free land still, we,
too, have the same privilege.