Thursday, January 12, 1950
FIELD NOTES
One of those hot days of last week, Garland Gum killed a big rattlesnake at the snake den on Nicholas Run, a tributary of Cochran’s Creek. The near seventy degree heat had brought the snake out of his winter’s sleep to take in the warm sun.
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Durbin – Reports persist of a pair of coyotes, ranging Shavers Cheat and other wilderness country of the head of Greenbrier River. There is also the unconfirmed rumor these coyotes escaped from a carnival attraction traveling over the Staunton and Parkersburg Turnpike last fall. The detail of this rumor is that a drunken attendant attempted to water the wolves at a wayside stop, and the animals jumped through the open cage door to make good their escape into the surrounding forest. Sign has been reported where deer had been killed and eaten. No reports as yet about raids on flocks of sheep.
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Still writing about Shavers Cheat and the rest of the upper Greenbrier wilderness country. It has been a long time since I made mention of the long-distance dog calling of that champion of hound dog callers, my late friend, Uncle Johnny, of the West Fork of Greenbrier River. As I recall, he was living on the Hamilton place on Old Road Run and White Camp Run. His nearest neighbor was a full seven miles downstream on the Pike, at the forks of the Greenbrier, where Dur-bin is now. This neighbor kept bear dogs and deer hounds. So, when Johnny needed hunting dogs to reinforce his own pack, he merely took down his hunting horn, went to the river, put said horn close to the gurgling water and bugled a few low notes. Johnny calculated the dogs would be reporting in about 20 or 30 minutes if at home. And, sure enough, they would be there as a usual thing and on time, too.
Of course, in those days such remarkable result was laid to water as a good sound carrying medium plus the excellent hearing sense of hunting dogs.
Of course, in these present days of thin spun scientific theories, someone is liable to spring the pretty well proven fact that the ears of dogs are sensitive to notes keyed too low and fine for the human ear to match.
Anyhow and anyway, I still hold that seven miles off hand is a good far cry to successfully call a pack of hounds.
TOP NOTCHERS
Beaver Creek – Shelby Underwood, Barbara Burr
Brushy Flat – Eleanor Friel, Nellie Cain
Buckeye – Donna Jean Weiford, Carol Auldridge, Gladys Schoolcraft.
Campbelltown – Carroll Schumaker, Tommy Beale, Neva Lee Davis, Dewey Ross, Peggy Jean Sharp
Cass Graded – Louise Barkley, Gwendolyn Blackhurst, Johnny Davis, Connie Hamrick, Joe Jackson, Kenneth McLaughlin, Tommie McLaughlin, Helen Ray, Gene Tallman, Russell Burris, Retha Galford, Mary Geiger, Billy Moats, Glenda Phillips, Katherine Sheets, Lillie Mae Sheets, Janet Tallman, Virginia Weber, Elmer Workman, Jerry Long, Teddy Nelson, Kenneth Tallman, Mary Frances Gum, Yvonne Lambert, Ella Mae Shields, Ernestine Moore, Evelyn Mace, Barbara Slaven, Loraine Thomas, Doris Hamrick, Colleen Dill, Maryin Moss, Charles Howell, Billy Geiger, Wayne Foe, Carol Wright, Hunter Hamrick, Gary Dan McPherson, Eugene Meador, Barbara Blackhurst, Wadella Brewster, Marlene Cassell, Jessie Elza, Bernice Royals, Wanda Sue White.
Cummings Creek – Elaine Alderman
Draft – Carolyn Sharp, Monda Lee Shinaberry.
Dunmore – Ernie Mc-Laughlin, Judy McLaughlin, Lyndell Brooks, Roy Carpenter.
Durbin – John Bosley, Jo Ann Teter, Joan Collins, Joyce Eye, Connie Day, Judy Hedrick, Carl Allen Feather, Connie Palmer, Donnie Shrader, Phyllis, Hickman, Bonnie Tallman, Dorothy Ratliff, Fave Ervin, Daisy White, Robert Hook, Chester Cromer, Charles Peck, David Cromer, Ben Elbon, Dale Mullenax, James Ratliff, Jeanne Lambert, Peggy Ann Tharp, Betty Greathouse, Colleen Hughes, Nancy Wilfong, Vernon Beckett, Rodney Gainor, Ben Rose, Donald Cromer, Larry Ervin, Georgia Puffenbarger, Lola Belle Ryder, James Beard, Leo-nard Beverage, Elbert Whanger, Jennings Wright, Bobby Vance, June Hughes, Phyllis Myers, Margaret Vint, Shirley Peck, Doreen Simmons, Nancy Varner, Connie Wilfong, Betty Young.
To be continued…
DEATHS
Richard Luther Gibson, aged 53 years, a son of the late Samuel M. and Emma Showalter Gibson. Funeral service was held from the Slaty Fork church with burial in the Gibson Cemetery on Elk.
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Mrs. Katherine Kayes Williard died January 7, 1950 at the Weston hospital. The funeral service was held from the Campbelltown church with burial in Mt. View cemetery. She was a daughter of Frank Kayes, of Valley Bend.
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George W. Beard, aged 77 years, a son of the late John G. Beard. Funeral service was held from the Smith Funeral Home with burial in Oak Grove cemetery.
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Creetus H. Sharp, aged 54 years, the eldest son of Hanson and Margaret Ann Irvine Sharp. Funeral was held from the Fairview church with burial in the family cemetery nearby.