April 29
By Holly Kozelsky and Pat Pion
100 Years ago – 1924
Ad for Kearfott & Son: “With pleasure we inform our customers and public that we have secured the agency for the well-known Whitman’s chocolate and confections. It is fitting that this store, noted for reliable merchandise of all kinds, should be selected to serve you with these delicious varieties of Whitman’s candies. Call and inspect the assortment.”
75 years ago – 1949
The late George A. Clark, a 52-year-old well-digger from the Old Center Church community, was honored with a Carnegie Hero Fund Commission award. He died from suffocation on Sept. 21, 1948, while trying to sav John Henry Bryant, who was trapped in the well. Clark was overcome by monoxide poisoning when he went 67 feet down the well in which he and Bryant had been working. Moments after he entered the well, he called to men at a windlass to pull Bryant up on a rope. After Bryant was up, a rope was lowered to get Clark, but he did not get the rope. His body was recovered 3 hours later, when Lum Carter of Old Center Church entered, wearing a gas mask. The well was being worked on for Russell Foley of Route 692, between Old Center Church and Patrick Springs, 2 miles west of the Henry-Patrick line.
1960
A word of caution to local drivers was issued by Sheriff Morton T. Prillaman. Both adults and youngsters were operating Go-Karts without driving permits, inspection stickers, license tags and often no mufflers, on public roads, in violation of state traffic laws, creating an illegal traffic hazard on County roads. Hopefully a word to the wise was sufficient.
Frank’s Food Fair offered sirloin steak for 89 cents a pound, corn 3 ears for 19 cents, two pounds of fresh yellow squash for 19 cents and 2 one-pound loaves of bread for 29 cents, as well as 50 extra S & H Green Stamps with a $5.00 purchase. The cost of living was expected to increase during the summer.
50 years ago – 1974
About 1,000 people were expected to participate in a protest march around the Henry County Courthouse over the proposed subdivision ordinance, but the crowd estimate came to between 400 and 500. Gerda Law and Joseph C. Hankins led the marchers around the courthouse and through City streets. The Henry County Board of Supervisors were meeting at the courthouse that day, but the ordinance was not on the agenda.
— Information from museum records and the Henry Bulletin and the Martinsville Bulletin accessed on microfilm at the Martinsville Branch Library.