Dec. 15
100 Years ago – 1924
Dr. C.S. Cowan opened a dental office in the Baldwin Building. He was there every Tuesday and Friday through December, after which he would be there every Tuesday and Saturday and probably every dau in the week. He had 8 years of experience, and his specialty was nervous women and children.
75 years ago – 1949
The Hooker-Bassett Furniture Co. announced its new “Forecast” trademark for seven of its dining room suites. Its salesmen across the nation were told that the company would introduce two new suite patterns in three separate wood and color schemes, making a total of six new suites under the “Forecast” brand name, and a Colonial suite also would carry the “Forecast” label. Advertisements were set to run in House Beautiful, House and Garden and Today’s Woman, costing between $50,000 and $60,000.
1960
J. Clyde Hooker Jr. was elected by Hooker Furniture Corp. directors to succeed his father, J. Clyde Hooker Sr., as president. The elder Hooker was renamed chairman of the board.
The Tullidge Memorial Clinic, a community medical clinic in Ararat and all the equipment inside it was destroyed by fire. The one-story brick building was only less than 2 years old and was valued at $50,000.
50 years ago – 1974
First United Methodist Church presented a Living Singing Christmas Tree performance, but there was a glitch – the “tree” (risers to present the singers at staggered levels) was lost. It had been built at considerable expense the year before and stored away for future use, but when the organizers went to get it, it wasn’t where they had stored it. The program was saved, though, when the organizers borrowed risers from an area school and arranged the singers in pyramidal order.
25 years ago - 1999
The Henry County Board of Supervisors approved an economic emergency plan in response to nearly 2,600 jobs lost in the area in the past 2 months. The plan included a short-term loan program and emergency funds for residents who had been laid off work plus intense lobbying efforts for the county and other areas by federal free-trade agreements with other countries. County Administrator Sid Clower estimated that Henry County had lost $50 million in wages in that 3-month period.
— Information from museum records and the Henry Bulletin and the Martinsville Bulletin.