June 1
By Holly Kozelsky and Pat Pion
100 Years ago – 1924
The Martinsville Garden Club held an elaborate reception for the Virginia Garden Club, at the home of MGC president Mrs. J.D. Glenn. In 14 cars, with minor mishaps such as a punctured tire and lost key, the group toured local gardens: Berry Hill, the home of Mr. and Mrs. Malcome Graeme Bruce (with a half-mile long avenue of ailanthus trees); it was Mr. Bruce’s family home, with original deed by his great-grandfather William Byrd in 1769 – Col. and Mrs. W.T. Hughes, entered by a roadway between stone walls and views of the Dan and Staunton rivers – lunch at Prestwould. At this state convention, the Martinsville Garden Club and the Rivanna River Garden Club of Charlottesville were admitted into the Virginia Garden Club.
75 years ago – 1949
In the front-page “Briefs” section of the Martinsville Bulletin: Miss Edith Graham of Martinsville had her tonsils removed at a hospital in Roanoke – A marriage license was issued at the office of Henry County Circuit Court Clerk to Spencer W. Morten Jr. of Martinsville and Mary Elizabeth Bassett of Bassett – and – A sneaky thief stole a ham from O.D. Merriman’s smokehouse in Oak Leve.
1960
Valley Steel Corporation was awarded the contract for 735 tons of reinforcing steel to be used in the upper dam of the Smith Mountain Hydro-electric Project, for the concrete arch-type dam spanning Smith Mountain Gap.
In the previous week three illicit whisky distilleries in Henry County had been located and “chopped up”. Two 500-gallon capacity units were discovered by officers on Philpott Lake: one at Bowen Creek and the other near Fairy Stone State Park. An additional 300-gallon capacity unit was found in the area between Axton and Mount Vernon Church. ABC agents and members of the Sheriff’s department made no arrests nor recovered any whisky, but fully disabled the units.
50 years ago – 1974
The Martinsville Chapter of the American Business Women’s Association awarded its Woman of the Year award to Mrs. Mary Ruth Brandt of Glenn Court, Ridgeway and Shirley Cox, an education major at Patrick Henry Community College, was awarded a scholarship.
Top bassmaster Tomm Mann of Eufaula, Alabama, “The Old Injun,” brought his famous Ranger bassboat with him on a visit to Powell’s Sporting Goods Store on Figsboro Road, to great acclaim. He was greeted by store owner Bill Powell and his son, Tom, and other fishermen. Meanwhile, Philpott Reservoir was reporting good largemouth and smallmouth bass catches with fair strings of crappies and trout.
25 years ago - 1999
Nancy Amanda Redd recently had won the Coca-Cola Scholars Program’s $20,000 college scholarship. It was awarded to her at a ceremony at Laurel Park High School by Lucy Holmes, a vending account manager for Coca-Cola Bottling Co. Consolidated in Martinsville. Redd won the scholarship after competing in rounds of interviews one weekend in Atlanta, and was one of more than 137,000 applicants overall.
— Information from museum records and the Henry Bulletin and the Martinsville Bulletin accessed on microfilm at the Martinsville Branch Library.