Back in Time for Dec. 26, 2023
1923
Monthly report of school nursing for November 2023:
Visits to schools: 23
Classrooms visited: 28
Pupils inspected by nurses: 239
Pupils with defects: 116
Pupils excluded for contagious skin diseases: 3
Pupils excluded for communicable disease: 2
Number of corrections made: 20
Pupils examined by doctor: 6
Pupils weighed and measured: 239
Talks to pupils: 12
Home Nursing Classes held: 5
Diphtheria Clinics held: 6
Number of children treated at these clinics: 236
Number of home visits: instructive, 77; nursing, 11
Number of homes visited: 44
Number of hours spent in Infant Welfare Work: 36
1948
City police were busy on Christmas day. Four people were charged with being drunk and creating disturbances; one was charged with simple assault; one was arrested for driving a car without an operator’s permit, and three were arrested for public drunkenness.
1973
Martinsville City Council was negotiating with Henry County Public Service Authority on a regional sewage treatment contract. Originally the City had the position that PSA should pay a lump sum to buy into to the City’s sewage treatment plant; but in a meeting at the Dutch Inn, the City switched gears and offered to let the PSA pay for usage as it used it.
The Henry County Jail on Kings Mountain Road was under construction. By December 1973 cinderblock walls were going up. After the jail would be finished, construction on county offices and the county general district court would begin.
1998
More than 1,000 area homes had a Christmas without electricity following a major ice storm which left more than 300,000 homes and businesses without power across Virginia.
2023
The area continues to be ranked high by the Virginia Department of Health for deaths by drug overdoses, particularly for methamphetamine and fentanyl, Bill Wyatt reported in the Martinsville Bulletin. Henry County had 51 to 64 meth deaths per 100,000, and it had 48-70 per 100,000 for fentanyl overdoses. For several years the area had ranked highest in the nation.