Oct. 6
100 Years ago – 1924
Diphtheria-prevention clinics were being held in the area, with one on Oct. 6 at the Martinsville Grammar School. The charge was 50 cents per child. The Shick Test, which lets doctors know which children are naturally immune to diphtheria, also just had been developed. Children who passed the Shick Test would not need the toxin-anti-toxin treatment. Thirty years previously, 80 out of 100,000 persons had died of diphtheria each year; the development and widespread use of antitoxin cut the death rate to 15 out of 100,000 by 1924. (There has been only one death from diphtheria in the US since 1990.) Meanwhile, Roxie Minter, 6, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. J.H. Minter, had died of diphtheria the week before. Her funeral, at the family home, was conducted by Rev. W.B. Jett and Dr. J.P. McCabe.
75 years ago – 1949
W.D. Nunn of Chatham Heights harvested six bushes of sweet potatoes off 100 hills of potatoes. One of the big ones was 14 inches around and 3 ½ pounds.
The Rotary Club sponsored a theatrical company from New York to perform the musical play “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” at the Martinsville High School auditorium.
At the meeting of the Optimist Club, a representative of the Standard Oil Company showed moving pictures of historic sites and places of interest in Virginia, including Fairystone lake in Patrick County and historic places in Williamsburg, Jamestown and Richmond.
1960
The Henry County-Martinsville Ministerial Association ran the Transient Aid program to help travelers stranded en route between points. Over the past year, it provided 34 meals, 10 nights of lodging and 58 gallons of gas to 51 stranded travelers.
50 years ago – 1974
Henry County School offered general education classes at Fieldale-Collinsville High School in: personal typing, bookkeeping, GED Review, auto mechanics, woodworking, electricity and metalwork. Classes ran from 7-9 p.m.
25 years ago - 1999
Showing at MovieTown were “Stir of Echoes,” “For the Love of the Game,” “Double Jeopardy,” “Blue Streak” and “The Sixth Sense.”
— Information from museum records and the Henry Bulletin and the Martinsville Bulletin.