Thursday, July 15, 1920
A report issued today by the Rev. W. A. Snow, general secretary of the West Virginia Sunday School Association, shows that 296,244 pupils enrolled in West Virginia Sunday schools so far this year, as against 290,750 last year.
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Jesse McNeill, a boys club member of Buckeye, received a registered Jersey bull by express from the Experimental Station at Morgantown last Thursday evening. It was awarded him at the Prize Winners Week last month when he won the Jersey cow judging contest.
SHERIFF GIBSON WOUNDED
Sheriff William Gibson was shot and slightly wounded Monday afternoon while attempting to arrest Holmes Sharp and Si Bowers on a charge of moonshining. He was hit on the hip and given a slight flesh wound.
On Saturday, state prohibition officers raided the home of Holmes Sharp near Minnehaha Springs and captured a 30 gallon still and a lot of mash in the cellar. Sharp was not at home at the time of the raid.
Monday afternoon, Sheriff Gibson and officers Moore and Wooddell went to arrest Sharp who lives in the old Lockridge homestead now owned by Dennis Dever. When the officers approached the house, Sharp, accompanied by Si Bowers, got out the back way and made a run across the fields toward the Alleghany. They stopped in a wheat field and commenced to shoot at the officers. The distance was about two hundred yards. In all, about thirty shots were fired. The sheriff, it appears, was the special target, his black suit and white shirt making a plain mark.
Bullets struck all around him, there are three bullet holes in his coat, and he was hit in the hip, a slight flesh wound an inch or more long. From the shells picked up, Sharp and Bowers used a 44-40 and a 30-30 gun…
Holmes Sharp is a man of about 43 years of age, married, and has a number of children. He belongs to a good family.
Si Bowers was a soldier in the late war, was a member of the 14th division, and was considered the crack shot of his division, winning a medal for his marksmanship.
KILLED BY TRAIN
Otis Johnson, a fireman on the log train of the Parsons Pulp and Lumber company, was instantly killed while making coupling on the log train June 27, 1920. He was the victim of an accident not uncommon on the lumber roads. Engine 10 was placing cars and young Johnson uncoupled a loaded car.
Evidently he expected the air brakes to hold, as he stepped across the track between it and the engine. The car came on and caught him, killing him instantly.
The young man was a son of Mr. and Mrs. S. H. Johnson of the Sinks of Pocahontas county. His age was 22 years and 9 months. He had worked as a railroader for 2 1/2 years, and had an enviable reputation for faithfulness and industry.
Burial in the Arbogast burying ground…
Surviving him are his parents, three brothers and five sisters.
BIRDS SERVE THE EARTH
The earth could get along without Man, but not without Birds. Man is not essential to the earth; birds are.
Birds are the flying squadrons of Nature, doing police duty, now north, now south. They follow the seasons, not for comfort, but on duty. As summer comes, danger comes from pests, and so the birds come. As summer goes, danger recedes and the birds go back to their southern duty.
Wherever there is an abnormal outbreak of insect life, the birds mobilize there to check it. Flying over a country they can tell by the foliage of the trees if they are needed there; withered forests tell them that the enemy has appeared in force.
Birds are the great planters of the earth; they seeded vast spaces of wilderness, and crowned the crests of rocky hills with trees. They are the guardians of our orchards and grain fields. Carnivorous birds, like Eagles, Vultures, Crows, Hawks and Herons, keep the earth clean of decaying flesh that would otherwise pollute soil and water.
Whenever you look at a bird, you see a most wonderful creation. It is a great traveler and a stronger creature comparatively than you will ever be.
To kill it is to affront Nature. The bird has beauty, music, fleetness, wonderful domestic skill and devotion, and these have always appealed to refined natures.
To lower natures, the economic appeal must also be made.
Don’t kill birds. If the birds were entirely to disappear tomorrow, human life would not endure long thereafter. Dearborn Independent
DEATHS
HENRY MCDONALD MCCOMB
Henry McDonald McComb, of Huntersville, died at his home July 9th after months of lingering illness. For the past two years he had been suffering from chronic catarrh of the head. A few weeks before the end, the trouble seemed to move to his throat and chest and his suffering became intense. The complications that soon set in made it evident to himself and to all those who so faithfully waited by the bedside that it was just a matter of a few days with him. The end came peacefully Friday morning.
Mr. McComb was born September 21, 1862, the son of James Price and Eliza Moore McComb. September 4, 1889, he married Miss Ida Belle Cochran. To them, God gave a happy family of children, Harvey, Clarence, Opal, Grace, Beulah and Francis, all of whom are living, save Opal who preceded her father just a few months ago.
Mr. McComb was a farmer, a man who went quietly about his work. He was a good neighbor and in consequence had many faithful friends… Thus passes away another good father, devoted husband and kind neighbor.
He is survived by his wife and the children, four brothers, Charles, George, Willis, Beckly, and one sister, Mrs. Wagoner, and a host of friends who deeply sympathize with the family in their great sorrow.
MARY RUTH WOODDELL
Died, June 19, 1920, Mrs. Mary Ruth Wooddell, wife of Glen Conrad Wooddell. On the day following, the funeral service was conducted from the Arbovale church by Rev. J. W. Rosenberger. Interment in the Arbovale cemetery, beside her in the grave being the bodies of her two little infants, for whom she had gone down into the Valley of the Shadow only to come out in the light of the Eternal City.
Mrs. Wooddell was the daughter of Mr. and Mr. A. J. Shinaberry, of Cloverlick. She was a faithful and loving wife, and professing Christian in the pale of the M. E. Church. Her husband, her parents, two sisters and four brothers survive her.
