Veterans of First World War Recall Armistice
By BOB SEYMOUR
Some may call it Veterans' Day but today is Armistice
in >?Day for Carteret County's World War I veterans. All of
?rti them remember that day 40 years ago quite well ? from
J^rtt'SN Grady Bell, home in Morehead City on sick leave, to
tmiiPfc. I. E. Pittman in the front lines between Metz and
ww Verdun.
Mr. Pittman, now vice-president of Firet-jpitizens Bank,
Morehad City, was a veteran ol
' trench warfare and was "up there
'"^'shooting them as hard as we
could" when the armistice waa
M '.' signed. He was with the 81st Di
vision.
Mr. Pittman recalls that shortly
,nr after the armistice, several Ger
man soldiers came over for a visit.
"'/The American soldiers, however,
1 1 stayed put. "We had no liberty
i'*'i and stayed in our positions for
four or five days. Some of the fel
J lows, though, piled up logs and
1 started a bon fire as soon as the
word came down that the armistice
was signed," he said.
Things were a bit different in
Paris, where John Crump, now of
: ' Morehead City, was a chief yeo
man in US Naval Headquarters,
-i. "By the time people in the United
States knew the armistice had
n, been signed I was drunk," he de
i dares.
Mr. Crump says he was one of
' the lucky ones overseas. He had
,r time to enjoy the sights of Paris
during the war and shortly after
the armistice he toured battle
scarred France with a group of
friends.
Mr. Crump now operates a real
estate and insurance office in
Morehead City. He has been here
since 1926.
Grady Bell, who was in More
head City when the armisticc was
^ signed, was recovering from pneu
monia. He had been in the Navy
for only seven months and was as
i: ' signed to a coastal supply boat.
Mr. Bell was quick to add that
his brother, Andrew, spent more
=^timc in the front lines than he did
in the Navy. Grady Bell had
served as mate on a party boat
that carried Josephus Daniels on
several fishing trips.
Mr. Daniels, secretary of the
Navy at the time, spotted Bell one
iday during an inspection. He walk
ed over to him, shook his hand and
asked how he was getting along.
Evidently the word got around
that Bell and the secretary were
buddies. "Things seemed to go my
way after that," he recalls. "I
missed extra duty and dirty jobs
and as soon as they started letting
men out I was toward the top of
?the list."
Floyd Chadwick Sr., Morehcad
City, was a corporal in a field ar
tillery unit when the firing ceased.
"We were all set to move toward
Metz. the town everybody said
--couldn't be taken," Mr. Chadwick
says. "Of course, the town would
have surrendered eventually, but
the armistice saved the lives of
lots of men from this area.
"The unit I was with, 113th Field
Artillery, was made up of men
from Pamlico, Carteret, Craven,
Jones and Onslow Counties. We
were restricted to our positions and
the nearest town, Verdun, was all
shot up anyway. We had no liberty
until we got to the forwarding area
on the way home."
Mr. Chadwick, like most soldiers,
counted the days he was in France.
"1 was there 11 months and 27
days," he says. "The most dis
tasteful part of the whole time was
while we were waiting to come
home. We had. to policc our area,
picking up all scraps of metal etc.
for salvage crews."
First I.t. Joe DuBois, now of
Morehead City Chamber of Com
merce, holds the distinction of be
ing the only officer to serve with
both the 26th Yankee Division and
:the 31st Dixie Division.
! He recalls the relief of the
(trainees when they found out that
?the war was over and they would
jnot have to go overseas as they had
;been fearing. "It was a great day,"
>he says.
? C. L. Beam, Beaufort, county
eterans service officer, was a ser
eant m?jor in headquarters of the
tilt Division. The division was in
the front lines up until the last day
.and Mr. Beam was sent back to
arrange billets for the troops two
or three daya later.
"I had to find placea for a di
vision of men to eat and sleep,"
Be remembers. "As soon as the
armistice was signed it made an
entirely different situation. It be
came necessary to observe more of
the social rules. No longer could
we move up and move in where
the Germans had stayed."
Mr. Beam spent about one year
in France and another year in the
United States.
Robert Atkinson, manager of the
Blue Ribbon Club, was in the med
ical cofos during the war. "I was
with tig 58th Pioneer Infantry Di
vision. the only outfit ever moved
from the United States to the front
lines by presidential order," be
aays.
When asked what be did when he
heard the armistice was signed, be
said, "I did what everybody else
did ? beaded straight for town)
The Germans were in trenches a
few yards away and they did the
same thing. We all threw down our
(una and packs and took off.
It <Ma*t take the Americans
long to discover that there weren't
Joe DuBoii
John Memikls
C. L. Beam
enough girls to go around. "Wc
finally decided the best thing to do
was have parties at the camp. Wc
would send out 'hospitality com
mittees' to find women and whis
key for the party and bring them
to us," Mr. Atkinson declared.
Mr. Atkinson proudly states, "I
was a private from beginning to
end!"
Another member of the medical
corps waa John Memakis, More
head City. "1 won a bottle of beer
from a German-American when the
armistice waa signed," he recalls.
"I had a dream that the war
would be over soon and when I
mentioned it this soldier laughed
and said all of us would die. 1 bet
him a bottle of beer that the war
would be over within six months.
It was over in 1( days."
Mr. Memakis sayi it was his
tour of duty in the hospital that
caused him to come to Morehead
City. "When I got to New York 1
had bad hcadachcs and the doctors
told me I had probably been ex
posed to mustard gas from patients
In the hospital.
"When the doctors told me to
move beside salt water 1 moved to
my cousin's home at Belhaven.
When I continued to have head
aches I checked with the doctor
and he said I should be closer to
the ocean. That waa when I moved
to Morehead City ? 38 years ago
? and opened the Busy Bee Cafe,"
he continued.
"In all my years at Morehead
City, I have never had another one
of those heaiiaches after the first
three or four months I was here."
Yes, Armistice Day means a lot
to these men and to thousands of
their comrades all over America.
It ia to men like them, as well as
veterans of World War II and the
Korean War, that we offer our
thanks for a free America.
Nat a Dream
El Paso, Tex. (AP)? Oralis Del
gado told police ahe woke up
screaming, thinking abe felt a hand
on her face. She dismissed it as
a bad dream and went back to
aleep. In the mornnig she found
burglars had ripped out a acreen
and made off with a purse near
w ' ?'i? -
John Cramp
Robert Atkinson
Grady Bell
I. E. Pittman
Juit Thinking
What Became of Stella
Social Hall Association?
By TUCKER R. LITTLETON
Beaufort Faculty Member
In our very first article we gave
as one of the five purposes for
this column the dissemination of
information which we believe to
be of interest to local readers. Ac
cordingly, today's article wUl deal
with a little bit of history that
would be of interest to nobody but
a citizen of Carteret County? or
maybe Onslow.
It seems that we should take a
greater interest in the history of
our section of the state than what
we do ? if for no other reason than
that no one else seems to be in
terested in it. There are two or
ganizations that every citizen of
Carteret County should be interest
ed in and belong to. They are your
own Carteret County Historical So
ciety and the North Carolina Folk
lore Society, Box 523, Chapel Hill.
The little bit of history men
tioned deals with the town of
Stella. It seems that most people
visiting the towns along the White
Oak River today have the idea
that these little towns have always
been this secluded and dead.
In fact, I suppose I had that idea
until, after delving into some of
my grandfather's papers, I came
across some evidence that Stella,
Swansboro, and Maysville were
booming little towns about fifty to
seventy years ago.
During that generation the White
Oak River, part of which belongs
to this county, was the scene of
a considerable commerce. The
manufacture of naval stores had
long been an important source of
income; the lumber industry was
occupying the foreground; and the
Swansboro Mill and Gin Co. was
carrying on a pretty good business.
At Stella there was a fairly good
industry of shipbuilding at what
was called Shipyard Point. All of
that trade meant a good income
for those days; and whdrever there
is plenty, there is also a little
leisure.
Back in those days when money
?any amount of it ? was big, the
fellow who had a dollar or two in
his pocket could afford some ex
travagant recreation. And appar
ently someone had an idea? he'd
start a recreation ccnter! At least
that seems to have happened at
Stella.
I had never heard any of the
older people mention such a ven
ture and was, therefore, surprised
this summer when I found a re
ceipt which established the fact
that someone tried to start a so
cial hall at Stella in the 1890's.
What resulted or came of it is un
certain.
The receipt, however, read as
follows :
No. 35 Capital Stock $200
Stella Social Hail Association
of Stella, N. C.
Number of Shares, 200 at $1.00,
Unassessable
This certifies that James Parkin
is the owner of Three fully paid
shares of the capital stock of the
Stella Social Hall Association.
Stella, N. C., April 30th, 1892
William Kuhn, Treasurer
It seems laughable in our day
that a receipt would read "fully
paid" for only three dollars, but
that was a lot then. If any of the
older folk at Stella know any de
tails about the association or the
location of the Stella Social Hall,
I'd like to know of that.
However, suffice it to say that
whether the Stella Social Hall As
sociation was a success or not, no
one in the family remembers ever
getting rich off those three shares
of stock in the booming little town
of Stella.
For our poem today, the reader
will have to tolerate one of my
compositions, a poem in unrhymed
dactylic hexameter.
Down by the Riverside
Down by the riverside let me live;
down by the riverside let me die.
Down by the riverside after death
let me be carried and call it
heav'n.
Give me the sands of the outer
banks, sunsets that paint up the
rolling dunes.
Give me the twisted old cedars
weird leaning away from the
itorray gales.
Give me the stiff, salty breeze in
my face and the hurricanes
raging wild.
Send me the thunderclouds from
the sea lifting their heads in the
swirling black.
Give me eternal, resurging waves
beating my lonely, enchanted
shores.
Give mc to stroll o'er the shell
lined beach making mc one with
the ocean's roar.
Down by the riverside let me go
after this life with its storms
is o'er.
There let the sun in its warmth
come out lighting the green,
wooded riverbanks.
Sunlight to play on the stretching
marsh, sunlight on islands that
dot the bay,
Sea gulls to soar, and white clouds
above? give me all these and
I'll call it heav'n.
Give me the mem'ry of former
times, faces of others who've
walked these shores.
Voices of fishermen working hard,
shouting to sec the roe mullets
come.
Give me to hear the Darkies sing,
farming the fields of the coun
tryside.
Give me the smiles of our native
folk, salty old seamen and
grandams good,
Speaking our lingo, our ancient
brogue, telling our legends of
long ago.
Down by the riverside, calm and
still, give me all these and I'll
know it's heav'n.
?Tucker R. Litlteton
Stopped Car
Causes Wreck
Because a motorist had hoped to
tow away a car blocking highway
24 Sunday night, a collision oc
curred at 10:25.
According to J. W. Sykes, high
way patrolman, three Negroes in
a 1955 Chevrolet were sitting in the
middle of the highway about 10
miles west of Morehead City. The
patrolman said all three were pass
ed out inside the car.
David Clark Guthrie, Port Ar
thur, Tex., headed cast in a 1955
Ford, saw the stopped car and took
stock of the condition of the occu
pants.
He was going to tow it off the
highway when William Oliver Da
vis, Beaufort, in a 1951 Ford pick
up truck, struck the Ford in the
rear. Guthrie had a trailer on the
back of the Ford.
Davis said he was meeting a car
and didn't see the stopped car and
trailer. The pickup went off in a
field to the right.
Damage to the Ford's trailer was
estimated at $25, to the pickup $300.
Clara Sutton, woman under the
wheel in the stopped car, was
charged with driving drunk. Her
two companions were charged with
public drunkenness. There was no
damage to their car.
Israel has practically no rain
from April to November.
Carteret has a World War I group.
Toast masters Will
Meet Tomorrow Night
The Carteret County Toaatmas
ters Club will bear talks by Lecil
Smith, Dave Willia and W. C. Wil
kina when they meet at radio sta
tion WMBL tomorrow sight at 7:S0.
Oiff Lewis will be toaatmaater,
Thomas Price will be topic master
and John Baptist will give the in
vocation. Dr. W. L. Woodard will
be the alternate prepared speaker.
Critics will be Paul Bray, U. L.
Davis and Dr. Theodore Rice, with
Oscar Allred as master critic.
Porcupines Compete
With Pulp Companies
New York (AP)? The porcupine
is making smorgasbord out of
newspulp.
The Newsprint Information Com
mittee says these quilled animals
take a heavy toll of Canadian pulp
trees. Kor instance, one porcupine
on the loose can destroy 2,000
trees, and if half are pulp trees,
the raw material for more than
SO tons of newsprint is lost, the
committee says.
Meat-Cutting Deauastrmtiea
Mr?. Floy Garner, home agent,
announces that there will be ?
meat - cutting demonstration it
Camp Glean School at T:30 Friday
night. Anyone interested is in
vited.
SINCLAIR
HEATING Oil
with RD119*
COSTS HO MOKE
Helps keep your oil borne*
la lap operating condition.
Automatic Metered
Delivery Service
? ?
T. T. "Tom" Potter & Son
Phoac Morehead PA t-321f
Phone Beaufort PA B-3(S7
Only Oil But it So
Safe, Clean and Modern
ROCKETS IN THE NEWS
Golf pro likes luggage space In *69 Olds
Oldsmobile's conquest of "inner" space gives you more room where If countsi For the mon who travail
on hit job, Oldsmobile's increase in trunk capacity? up to 64%? meant valuable extra luggage
space. In addition, you'll find more passenger room In every Oldi model for '59. Make a date k
space-test the new Rockets ... at your local authorized Oldsmoblle Quality Dealer's, today I
SOUND CHEVROLET COMPANY, INC., 1308 ARENDELl STREET
- TUN1 IN TNI NNIW OLDft SHOW," ITARRINO PATT1 PA?I ? IV MY WUK ON AiC-TVI ? ?
How This Newspaper Helps Advert/sera..
With a defined
audience
i
Any spttker knows that in order for him to get his message across
to his audience with greatest effectiveness, he must first be
fcmiliar with that audience.
That's why we biake every effort to define our circulation
Jiudience with absolute accuracy and clarity? with facts verified by
A. B.C.* audit. We want you to know the size of your audience,
where members of that audience live, what they pay, and other
information designed to help you prepare more effective
sales messages.
Ask to see this information this week.
THE NEWS-TIMES
Carteret County's Newspaper
This newspaper it s member of the Au
dit Buresu of Circulations, a nonprofit,
coopers It* association of publiahera, ad
vertiser*, and adyertbiinf agenciee. Our
circulation la audited at refular intervala
by experienced A.B.C. circulation audi
tors and their reports ara made available
to our advertiser* without obligates.
M ? A ? U W ? or ? ?HVICB...HIAWK OP INTIORITY