March 8 through time
By Holly Kozelsky and Pat Pion
100 years ago – 1924
The Current Events Club held a sale Saturday morning, March 8, of cakes, pies, chickens and candy at Roberts Drug Store.
A new Prohibition bill passed both the Virginia Senate and the Virginia House of Delegates: Manufacture or sale of intoxicating liquor which poisons and kills the consumer is made first degree murder. It also provides that if the drinker is poisoned, the maker or seller would be guilty of an attempt to commit murder in the first degree. It passed the Senate by a vote of 73 to 11.
75 years ago – 1949
At his first City Council meeting as city manager, Martinsville’s first city manager Kent Mathewson gave a report on the Planning commission’s recommendation for a sidewalk construction program in the city. The proposal was for an annual appropriation of $15,000 over four years to finance the sidewalks. The city would pay the full cost of sidewalks on public property, and for sidewalks abutting private property, the city would pay half and the property owner would pay the other half.
1960
Patrolman Fred Nestor had the honor of awarding a carnation to Mrs. Irving Groves, Jr, of Martinsville, for her courteous and considerate driving. The award was the first of 24 to be made during the month of March’s “Mind Your Motor Manners” campaign conducted by the Martinsville Police Department in conjunction with the Governor’s Committee on Highway Safety.
Three Patrick County teenagers were convicted of operating a moonshine whiskey still. They each received three years probation for operating the 50-gallon capacity distillery close to Blue Ridge High School.
50 years ago – 1974
Teacher-director Steve Pratt and his students at Drewry Mason High School presented the play “1984,” adapted from the George Orwell novel of the same name – the show “which predicts what life will be like when ‘Big Brother’ (the government) watches every move citizens make,” the March 8, 1974, Stroller column said.
25 years ago - 1999
The funeral for 9-year-old Kandis Joyce, who had died of leukemia, was held at McKee Stone Funeral Services, with about 300 mourners. The Rev. Bob Bailey officiated. Kandis had been a third-grader at Druid Hills Elementary School.
Lafayette Jones of Second Street spoke before City Council to say that he was campaigning to get a homeless shelter established. He said he knew of seven or eight homeless people, including a woman with three children.
PHOTO: Dutch Inn, 1978, Library of Congress.
— Information from museum records and the Henry Bulletin and the Martinsville Bulletin accessed on microfilm at the Martinsville Branch Library.