Thursday, August 17, 1944
Our Army and Navy Boys
Mrs. Eva Jane Cloonan White has received word that her brother, Private Clarence B. Cloonan, died in England August 5, 1944. He was in the Army Air Force with a bombing squadron. He entered the Service in September 1942 and has been overseas 14 months. He was a son of the late Mr. and Mrs. Jason Cloonan.
Word was received that Easter Gibson, of Elk, serving in France, was seriously wounded in action.
Mrs. H. J. Menefee has received from the War Department through the Red Cross the Purple Heart Decoration awarded to Price Menefee, who was wounded in action on the Italian Front last April. Price is again back in service.
Corporal Gerald R. McNeill and Private Manuel L. McNeill, sons of Mr. and Mrs. Arnot McNeill, of Marlinton, recently met in England. It was the first time they had seen each other for three years.
Bedford R. Taylor, P. O. 2C., of the United States Merchant Marine, recently spent a fifteen day leave with his parent, Mr. and Mrs. Russell Taylor, of Green Bank. He was accompanied by his wife and son. A sister, Miss Ethel Taylor, R. N., of Elkins spent her vacation at home with her brother and parents.
SUIT DISMISSED
In the trial of the suit against the Marlinton Tannery in Squire McNeel’s Court last Friday, on the charge of killing fish in the Greenbrier River, the case was dismissed. By reason of low water and drouth conditions, dead fish are being found in all the streams.
Cow Adopts Beaver
Mrs. Floyd Oscar, of the McClintic Swago Farms, Buckeye, reports the unusual – her cow has adopted a fifty pound beaver, and the family cannot sell it for a calf either.
For the past two months, the cow has hung around a swampy piece of timber and brush land on a small spring branch of Rush Run, on the McClintic farm.
It was noticed she did not graze in the open. She was going down in her milk, but as the weather is so dry as to approach drouth conditions, little mind was paid to it. At milking time each day, Mrs. Oscar would send the faithful stock driving dog out for the cow, and he would bring her up to the milk gap.
Last Sunday evening, the dog was not around at milking time, so Mrs. Oscar sent her son, Roy, aged 15 years, for the cow. He called back that there was a brown animal much bigger than a ground hog with the cow, that she would not be driven in and wanted to put up a fight.
Mrs. Oscar and an older son, Ramas, went to see about things, and the cow again showed fight in protecting her companion, the big brown animal, which they easily recognized as a beaver. Nor would she come to the milk gap until Ramas picked up the beaver and carried it along. The cow followed up and allowed herself to be milked. When the beaver was taken away, the cow bawled for it as for a newly weaned calf.
Equally strange was the behavior of the beaver in allowing himself to be picked up, and then carried along without a struggle…
FIELD NOTES
Wade Galford, up on Galford’s Creek, had a right smart time with a big rattlesnake on Postum the other day. He was out to round up his stock ranging on the Allegheny, to salt and to see what the bears might be doing to his sheep. He was riding a young horse, but he thought he could be depended on to smell out a rattlesnake, so he was not paying much attention. Suddenly, the horse veered, as one whale of a rattlesnake struck at him from the side of the trail. The snake coiled again, and Wade dismounted to kill him. There was plenty of loose stone, and he rocked the snake to a fare you well. The stones bounced off him as from a rubber hose and with as little effect, apparently. Every time a rock would land on him, he would strike out and then back into a coil, like a spring. Finally, Wade got himself a stick and one properly placed blow disjointed the snake’s neck. This was a big rattler, about five feet long. He had plenty of rattles, but he never rattled a single time.
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Emory H. Smith, of Colusa, California, writes –
I am fully in accord with the idea of Miss Louise McNeill to perpetuate the saga of the lumbering industry in the Greenbrier Valley and would be proud if I could make some worthwhile contribution to the work. I have often heard the expression “Once a woodsman, always a woodsman,” and the adage certainly applies in my case. People who grow old are inclined to live in the past and my mind often goes back to the cold winter nights when I lay in bed on the McLaughlin place, near Dunmore, and heard the boom, boom of logs in the slide and chug, chug of the little engine named after my brother Jim, as it delivered a load of logs to the landing and hurried back to the woods for another. No symphony of Bach or Beethovan was ever sweeter music to my ears. And where can you match the thrill of seeing a log jam give way in turbulent water and the jam breakers nonchalantly riding a log to the next stop.
Fowler – Holebrook
At the Methodist parsonage at Edray, Saturday, July 8, 1944, Harry Winters Fowler and Miss Nelle Ann Holebrook were united in marriage by the Rev. R. S. Skaggs, pastor of the Edray Charge. Mrs. Roy VanReenen and Mrs. Hazel B. Fowler were their only attendants.
BIRTH
Born to Mr. and Mrs. J. H. Arbogast, of Slaty Fork, a son, named Jesse Lynn.
OBITUARY
Bernice Rhoda Walker, youngest daughter of Mrs. Susie Walker and the late William Walker, was born February 11, 1925 and passed quietly to rest July 16, 1944, at her home in Brownsburg, after a short illness. She leaves to mourn her passing, her mother, three sisters, Mrs. Edward Boggs, Mrs. Forrest Mc- Chesney and Mrs. Virginia Covington, all of Brownsburg. Five brothers, Johnny, Howard, Harry, Frank, James and George at home, Pfc. Edward Walker, stationed at Venice, Florida, and Cpl. Nathan A. Walker, somewhere in Italy and many other relatives and friends.
Bernice was always active in Sunday School and Church work. She was a member of the W. S. C. S. of Wilson Chapel. We will always remember her cheerful spirit and endearing ways. She always gave her service when and where ever needed.