Sept. 29

100 Years ago – 1924

It was the Jewish holiday of Rosh Hashanah, the New Near of the Jes, and several stores and businesses in Martinsville were closed in observance. The holiday marked the start of the year 5685 and the first day of the north Tisri. Stores to be closed were: Globman’s Department Store, Sam Kolodny, M. Berlin, The Allen Store, S. Heiner and The Sample Store. They also would be closed again on Oct. 8 for Yom Kippur.

75 years ago – 1949

Swift and Company meat packers in Danville was charged in Martinsville police court with selling bad eggs to local food dealers in three separate instances.

Mrs. James Mills, 19, of Dillard Street, was thought to have polio and was taken to the Medical College of Virginia Hospital in Richmond (that was confirmed the following day). Seven-year-old Earnest Hodge Jr. and 23-year-old Jessie Millner, both of East Martinsville, who had been thought to have polio, ended up testing negative for it. Meanwhile, four other people from Martinsville were in the Richmond hospital with polio: Mrs. Ervin F. Russ, 33; Bobby Shelton, 15; Jerry Mays Doss, 4; and Lora Labovsky, 3. Richard P. Gravely III, 12, had died of it.

Martinsville Kiwanis Club voted to donate $370 for the establishment of a blood bank at Martinsville General Hospital. That money came from the proceeds of the U.S. Marine Band’s recent concert.

1960

A new Senior Citizen Club was formed, and it was the first group to make use of Martinsville’s new Community Recreation Center. They got in the building to meet, even though it would not open officially until Oct. 1.

50 years ago – 1974

One South Carolina man was dead and two adults and five children were burned or shot in an early morning attack at a trailer in Axton. The trailer, parked off Va. 615, was set on fire. Thomas Robertson, 23, of South Carolina, was shot in the back as he carried a 2-year-old from the burning trailer.

25 years ago - 1999

David Edwards retired as Martinsville’s police chief, and Mike Rogers was named to the role.

— Information from museum records and the Henry Bulletin and the Martinsville Bulletin.