June 6
By Holly Kozelsky and Pat Pion
100 Years ago – 1924
The Martinsville baseball team of the Textile League was having a successful season, with recent wins against Draper and Bassett.
75 years ago – 1949
The 100 students of Martinsville High School Industrial Arts Teacher Chester Lane held an open house at the high school after Sunday evening’s baccalaureate sermon and also before and after the next day’s commencement exercises. Hand woodwork, machine woodwork and metal machine products made were made by seventh- and eighth-graders, including six chests, a pair of twin beds, a three-quarter bed, bookcases and tables, footstools, book ends, tie racks, bread boards, metal-working machines and machine metal works. Before the open house, samples were shown in windows of Globman’s and Ward’s stores downtown.
1960
The Rev. Chevis Horne, pastor of First Baptist Church of Martinsville, was granted an honorary doctor of divinity degree from Wake Forest College.
City police were looking for an unidentified black man who was accused of raping a young white woman the night before. Chief Emory J. Bolejack said that the young woman and a young white man had been parked in a remote area an hour after midnight when the black man approached, held a gun on the young man, and forced the girl into sexual relations.
Du Pont announced wage increased to hourly employees of between 6 and 10 cents an hour, affecting about 2,400 hourly and clerical workers. It was the latest raise since June 1, 1959. The plant was operating at full employment and was hiring an additional 60 summer employees, with the jobs being offered to the sons and daughters of regular plant personnel.
50 years ago – 1974
Six people were injured, three critically, in an explosion and fire at Glazed Products Inc. on Hairston Street. Mrs. Linda Wagoner Hubbard, 28, of Indian Hills Apartments in Ridgeway was listed in “very critical’ condition. A helicopter brought her to the burn treatment center at Medical College of Virginia in Richmond. Theodore Petross, 25, of Cascade and Terry Wayne Miller, 25, of Rivermont Heights, both in critical condition, were brought there by ambulance. Also injured were Mrs. Betty Holt Hodge, 19, of Emannual Street; Alonzo Martin, 18, of Cascade; and Robert Hairston, 31, of Brookdale Street. Plant Supervisor Paul Smith said the blast apparently was caused when a 10-gallon peroxide catalyst pressure pump blew up, caused by a malfunction of a pressure valve.
25 years ago - 1999
Piedmont Arts Association hosted a concert by the Martinsville Community Band and a book-signing, both in the museum. The book-signing was of Charity League’s new cookbook “Barracuda in Velvet Gloves,” the cover of which was illustrated by Wanda Prillaman. She signed the books, and Charity League members served samples made from some of the book’s recipes.
— Information from museum records and the Henry Bulletin and the Martinsville Bulletin accessed on microfilm at the Martinsville Branch Library.