Newspapers / The New Bern Mirror … / Sept. 3, 1971, edition 1 / Page 1
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The NEW BERN PUBLI8HID WIIKLY IN THI HIAKT OP ■ASTIRN NORTH /.o CAROLINA VOLUME 14 NEW BERN, N. C., FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 3, 1071 NUMBER 2b Yesterday was when there were 22 eager applicants within a week, after Mrs. Eula M. (Mammy) Jones announced vacancy of a four-room bungalow on property adjoining her own National Avenue residence. The very first couple dejectedly admitted at the outset that their belongings included two small children. You could have chopped up the gloom with a didl hatdiet, but it didn’t last lmg. “That’s one of the requirements,’’ Mrs. Jones told them. “I don’t rent unless there are kids, and if the kids have pets, this is even better. They’ll havea yard to play in, and if the yard isn’t big enough, they can come next door and use my flower garden.’’ Mammy Jones was like that, a gracious, white haired lady whose own chUdren had long since grown up and moved away to establish homes themselves. In their place she adopted, in her heart, dozens of other small fry. “If children can’t have happiness vdien they’re little, they miss an awful lot,’’ said Mammy. “Before I built the bungalow in 1945,1 planned it as a rented home, not Just a rented house. I wanted it to. be a ideasant (dace for the tenants, a piace to remember after they were gone.’’ Since New Bern is located close to Oierry Point, her renters were frequently service couples and they ' weren’t aroind very long. But just as she wi^ed, they would forever remember the bungalow, and their former landlady. Before she built the cozy house. Mammy rented an up^ stairs apartment to young Marine couples. That was diving World War n, when apartments were as rare in New Bern as a visiting preadier without a hearty apetite. Some local prop^y owners were reluctant to rent to service personnel, and complained about the abuse that furnishings got at the hands of such cou[fles. Actually, a lot of the furniture was already shamefully shabby. However, Mammy Jones told us she had no unpleasant ex periences. “The service couples who rented from me were grand,’’ she insisted. All of them became dear friends, and we’re still corresponding, although they’re scattered in many states. Mammy wasn’t the sort who pries into someone else’s business, but she did ask a lot of questions befixre she accepted a tenant. “It’s better to find out what’s what befordiand,” she reasoned, “Than it is is to come snoo|rfng around afterwards.’’ Aside from the fact that she insisted on children. Mammy was anxious to find couples who got along well in their domestic life. She diifa’t want to have a ringside seat for any marital battles. After building her happiness hotMe, Mrs. Jones had plenty of dunces to sell it at a hands^e profit. ‘T diih't build it to sell,’’ (Continued on page 8) ★ ¥ WAY BACK WHEN-Our thanks to Albert Brooks of Havelock, a native New Banian, for digging up this rare idioto of Ghent Casino, a large wo(^en structure that stood long ago across from what is now the far end of Park Avenue. Callie McCarthy built it to attract local recreaUon seekers, who he rightly figured would happily pay a nickel to ride his trolley cars firom Down Town and Riverside to the spot. The genial Iridunan, repeatedly New Bern’s Mayor, provided free entertainment, in cluding movies on an outdoor screen. As seen here, only a few in the huge crowds that frequented the place owned automobiles. Anyhow, riding the trolley cars was cheaper, and a lot more fUn. Eventually, Ghent Park was established back of the Casino. Graham (Hap) Barden’s famed New Bern High school gridders of the early Twenties played their home games there, as did other NBHS teams. Syracuse of the International League used the park and building seen here when the ball club held its spring training in our city in 1922. New. Bern’s B^rs of the old East Carolina League became a lasting l^end on the diamond that is no more. In its final, ramshackle days, die Casino, much the worse for wear, still served as the best facility available for New Bern High school basketball games. Gme is every visible reminder of the joy and excitement that once reigned on this patch of land, south of the Atlantic cioast Line railroad track, but the monories will not die.
The New Bern Mirror (New Bern, N.C.)
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Sept. 3, 1971, edition 1
1
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