Sept. 20

100 Years ago – 1924

A Gentlemen’s Bridge Club was active in Martinsville, with a recent meeting at the home of Mr. J.E. Redd on Starling Avenue.

75 years ago – 1949
Bobby Shelton, 15, who had been in the hospital in Richmond for polio, took a turn for the worse, so he was put into an iron lung. An iron lung is a rigid case fitted over a patient’s body for administering prolonged artificial respiration by means of mechanical pumps.

1960

Steed College of Commerce at 209 Broad Street offered courses in stenographic, accounting and secretarial, “Shorter Way to Better Pay,” according to their advertisement. (That location is the old DMV which for several years then housed the circulation and classified sections of the Bulletin.)

50 years ago – 1974

The local Foot of the Hills Arts and Craft Show opened at Virginia National Bank. The show was staged by the Piedmont Chapter of the Virginia Museum, a local group. Polly Randolph was the president of the Piedmont chapter. The show featured original artwork by 131 residents of Martinsville and Henry County and adjoining counties. Mr. and Mrs. Dermot Murphy rigged all the boards, wires and other items necessary to hang the art.

25 years ago – 1999

Corey Mayo, 13, had been hit by a car on the first day of school as he was walking to the bus stop. He was badly injured and in a coma. On Sept. 20, a Monday, he came home from the hospital – in a limousine. However, the stop home was brief: He next went to the Lewis Gale Children’s Rehabilitation Center in Salem.

Lucy, a Walker hound owned by Sue Brown of Sunset Road in Bassett, fell into a dry abandoned well and was rescued by Kathy McGrady of the Bassett Volunteer Rescue Squad, Harry Byrd of the SPCA, Junior Lynch of the Bassett Volunteer Fire Department, two deputies and another fireman.

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