June 11
By Holly Kozelsky and Pat Pion
100 Years ago – 1924
Child Specialist Dr. Samuel Newman held a free clinic for delicate children at the Martinsville Grammar School. The Red Cross invited mothers of Henry County to bring their children to the clinic “for correctional advice.”
75 years ago – 1949
Sisters Vera and Mary Stultz, Martinsville natives, had been separated more than 40 years before, when their mother died, and Mary was taken in by an aunt in New Jersey. The pair had not seen each other since, though they had written each other occasionally. In June 1949, Mary Stultz Champayne, of Port Mommouth, N.J., headed to Martinsville without telling anyone, to pay a visit to Vera Stultz Warren, who was staying with her daughter, Mrs. Leck Pharis, at her home on Watt street. Mrs. Pharis suspected Mrs. Champayne of being a salesperson and told her to go away, but Mrs. Champayne revealed that she was the younger woman’s aunt, and the two long-lost sisters reunited. Mrs. Champayne said she was surprised how much Martinsville had changed in the four decades she had been away. When she left, there had just been a few tobacco factories, a barrel factory and no paved streets.
1960
Ribbon-cutting and open house was held for the new Bassett Community Center, with 1,700 in attendance. Miss Martinsville Henry County Kay Isley and W.M. Bassett, chairman of the board of Bassett Furniture Industries, cut the ribbon. The J.D. Bassett High School Band performed. The 33,00-square-foot center cost $386,000 to build.
Summer school started on this day (a Saturday) with 300 students who reported to Martinsville High School for instruction. County students could attend also, if they paid a $30 tuition.
50 years ago – 1974
Members of the Martinsville Exchange Club were raising money by doing a door-to-door napkin sale.
At any meeting of the Patrick County Board of Supervisors, Patrick County Administrator Edward M. Turner Jr. would smoke between eight and 10 cigars.
25 years ago - 1999
By this time of year 1999, the area had received 11 inches less of rain than it normally would have. Henry County Public Information Officer Tim Hall said that the county was waiting to see if it would need to ask for voluntary water conservation efforts in the southern end of the county. Axton farmer Darrell Jackson said his tobacco plants were only about a quarter of the size they should have been. G.B. Washburn Jr., executive director of the Franklin Henry County Area Farm Service Agency, said the area was “in trouble, and 15 days away from being in severe trouble.”
Del Ward Armstrong was the speaker at the Fieldale-Collinsville High School graduation ceremony.
— Information from museum records and the Henry Bulletin and the Martinsville Bulletin accessed on microfilm at the Martinsville Branch Library.