r'- —
The NEW BERN
Ifr# & lira.A. U, !iirphy
2000 Arcndi’,11 8t.
Korchoad City, H. c.
 CAROLINA
5 Per Copy
VOLUME 3
NEW BERN, N. C., FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 18, 1960
NUMBER 33
New Bern’s Lela Prescott Tar-
box, who has authored one novel—
“Sign In The Dust”—and is cur
rently working on another, knows
in full measure the joy of creative
writing.
gsr
“After the tragic death of my
. husband in 1941,” she told us in a
Mirror interview the other day, “I
seemed to have little interest in
life. In other words, I seemed to
be existing without a purpose. I
began to look around for that pur
pose—a lifeline—and finally while
going over my old files found the
scattered pages of an unfinished
book.”
Picking up the lohg-neglected
threads of her incomplete story,
she wove a narrative that actually
had its beginning years before she
put the first words on paper. “Do
ing what can be done is the glory
of living”—this quotation has re
mained with me all the way
through the book,” she says, “and
somehow gave me the courage to
keep on writing.”
“I do not feel that all the glory
for writing the book should go t6
me,” Lela admits, “but to my fa
ther and to the unknown author
who penned the above lines. And
to others who have given me
helping hand in many ways.”
The local author says, “the soul
of my heroine” was born bf a
song her 1 father sang once at a
school commepoegient, titled "The
Old Concert As she recalls,
“He sang this |png with so mviph
feeling that myjifroifte was fl
•rV'r-;
} come a kind of companion.’’
Finally, Lela told ps, she asked
her father to tell her the story of
dbe girl in the song. “The story was
related to me in chapters in a way
a child cOuld understand,” she ex
plained. When the story was ended,
her father added, “You may actual
ly meet the girl in the concert hall
sometime.” And, as the years pass
ed, these chapters were gradually
unfolded, one by one, until at last
the book was finished.
“Some years later,” she remem
bers vividly, “I happened to stum
ble upon my title. My father had
sent me to a little country store
about half a mile away to purchase
a plug of Brown’s Mule tobacco
He also gave me a dime to pur
chase something for myself.’
On the-way to the store she met
an elderly couple—barefoot and
apparently poverty-stricken. As
much as she valued the dime, and
what it could purchase, she gave
it to the couple.
“Coming back home from my
mission, my heart felt light,” she
recalls, “yet I couldn’t keep the
tears back. My dime was gone for
a good cause, but NO CANDY. Not
wanting my father to know I had
been crying over parting with my
dime, I decided to stop at my
grandmother’s for awhile.”
As she opened the old farm gate,
. there gleaming in the sand before
her was a shiny dime. It even had
the same date as her original dime
—1904. “1 held the coin tightly in
my hand and pressed it to my
heart,” she says, “and this time
there were tears of real joy be
cause I felt heaven had rewarded
me for my sacrifice. And it sud
denly came to me—someday>I’ll
write a book and call it “The Dime
In The Dust.” That’s how the name
of her novel—“Sign In The Dust”
—^was born.
“I have often wondered about
this incident,” Lela admits, “and I
have asked myself many times
whether the old couple could have
realized the extent of my sacrifice,
and, thinking my grandmother’s
home was my own, placed the dime
there for me to find. This I’ll never
know, but I do know it was the
very beginning of mf book.”
Friends and casual acquaint
ances are quite familiar with Lela’s
love for animals. She digs deep in-
snow, are just around the corner in the Carolina coast coun-^-.
try.', Meanwhile, the wistfully tender beauty of a lingering
stiinmer has beeji inviting Mew' Bferfflahl'ife
oh the picturesque waters of the rippling Neuse and
Trent.—^Photo by Billy Benners.
eakerSaid
Has Made Lasting Impression
New Bern, through the years,
has had its share of interesting vis
itors^ Human nature being what it
is, most of these strai\gers who
pause briefly in our midst are
quickly forgotten.
Not so with Lucien Harris, direc
tor of the Hadassah Information
Service in Israel, whose recent talk
here keeps bobbing up in the
minds of those who heard it. Ob
viously a dedicated man, his firm
belief that world peace can and
will come to troubled mortals is a
contagions thing.
Because Harris, his high ideals
notwithstanding, is.a practical and
realistic individual it is hard to
shrug off his dream of global
brotherhood. In Israel he has per
sonally witnessed the remarkable
blending of imigrants from a hun
dred different lands into a Democ
racy of well established institu
tions.
Jews and Arabs are slowly but
surely reaching a common ground
of understanding, Harris told The
Mirror during his short stay in this
city. Considering deep enmity that
extends back into the haziness of
antiquity, this is no small accom
plishment.
' Israel has its local and central
governments, its just and respect
ed courts, and compulsory primary
education for children between the
ages of five and 14. As Harris says,
industrially and agriculturally. Is
rael is literally making the desert
blossom like the rose.
What has been achieved in es
tablishing improved -relations be
tween Jews and Arabs, and in
blending^ outsiders of many nation
alities, wasn’t done by force. The
Golden Rule—a basic part of ev
ery major religion known to man—
has done what armed might could
never do.
Israel is no Utopia—not yet—
but it has come a long way in a
short period of time. For example,
mother and child clinics have been
gratefully welcomed by the Arabs,
and the country points proudly to
the fact that it has one of the low
est infant mortality rates in the
world.
Other health services have been
extended into Arab villages, and
rural vocational centers have been
set up. Enlightenment, not just for
the Arabs but for all peoples who
have converged on Israel, from the
four corners of the earth, is paving
the way for understanding and uni
ty.
Hadassah, the largest women’s
organization in the world and easi
ly one of the most charitable, has
made much of the progress in Is
rael possible. Here in New Bern,
the Jewish women who comprise
the Hadassah membership are tire-
to her purse to aid ailing dogs and
cats that come her way, and is de
voting profits from her writing to
the care of homeless and starved
animals. So interesting is Lela ihat
someone could write a book about
her, and may eventually do it.
LUCIEN HARRIS
.. Visualizes Peace
less in their work for the organiza
tion, and liberal with their own giv
ing to the worthy cause they repre
sent.
Undoubtedly, the objectives al
ready reached in Israel are a
source of gratification to these
women, who perhaps more than
any other New Bernians are keen
ly aware of the challenge that is
posed for those who earnestly and
actively strive for world peace.
Born in Antwerp, Belgium, Har
ris learned early^ about the hor
rors of war. His first childhood
memories are of a homeland that
was ravaged by the Germans in
World War I, and he was living in
England during World War H
when Hitler’s bombers tried re
peatedly to make a shambles of the
British Isles, and almost succeeded.
Harris graduated with Honors
in Classics and Law from Oxford
University. He served in the Royal
Air Force from 1942 to 1946, and
rose to the rank of Flight Lieuten
ant. He and his wife, the former
Marie Polinsky, were among the
first families from the West to
settle in Israel after the establish
ment of the State.
A lover of nature, he was quite
impressed by the beauty of North
Carolina’s countryside when he
came here. Israel isn’t blessed with
trees in profusion, as is the Old
North State, and he was intrigued
by the ones he saw in and around
New Bern.
Ducien Harris had a real mes
sage in his heart, when he arrived
in this city. Here was a man who
not only dreamed of world peace,
but was convinced that the dream
can come true. He’ll be remember
ed, along with his words, for a long
long time.
-i r«
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