Thursday, March 18, 1971
The frogs were out in full chorus Saturday night. One of the delights of spring is to hear the frogs. Snow Wednesday!
Stanley Wooddell reports a flock of geese flying north last Wednesday.
PIONEER DAYS
The parade will be at one o’clock this year, followed by the horse pulling contest. Lyle Campbell and Kenneth Cohenour will be in charge of the parade and Eugene Simmons and Fred Burns will again handle the horse pulling contest.
The favorite Quadreelers will be back for the Square Dance at the Southern States lot.
A dog show will be a new feature…
This year, Pocahontas County is 150 years old. The badge will feature this and tours of Huntersville are being planned. Our Centennial Songbird, Mrs. Dotty Clutter O’Donnell, thinks she can be here for Friday night’s program, which will also feature some historical pageantry.
DEATHS
Mrs. Rachel V. Taylor, 70, of Loudonville, Ohio; born at Green Bank, a daughter of the late George and Mary Gillespie Sheets. Burial in the Loudonville Cemetery.
Brown Miller, 80, of Huntersville, a farmer; burial in the Dilley Cemetery near Huntersville.
Mrs. Goldie Mae Lee, 59, of Cass, a member of the Cass Baptist Church.
Ray L. Sutton, 49, of Minnehaha Springs; born at Raywood, a son of the late James R. and Nannie Ray Sutton. Burial in Mountain View Cemetery.
Paul Combs, 61, of Hillsboro; born at Woodrow, a son of the late Jacob and Lucy Combs. Burial in the Cochran Cemetery near Marlinton.
Mrs. Sarah Viola Champlin, 98, of Durbin; burial in the Odd Fellows Cemetery at Elkins.
Mrs. Fannie Mae Cutlip, 78, of Frost, burial in the Mt. Zion United Methodist Church cemetery on Droop.
Mrs. Teresa Ethel Higgins, 69, of Cass; burial in the Hilltop Cemetery near Cass.
Mrs. Maxine Ervine Clayton, widow of the late Dr. C. F. Clayton, of Fort Worth, Texas; born on Browns Mountain, a daughter of the late G. M. and Elizabeth Sharp Ervine. Burial in Fort Worth.
Around the County
By Beth Barrell
It will soon be garden time again, and I find it interesting to observe how people plow and plant. Most wait until the ground warms up and then get out their rototillers and go to work, or, if lacking their own equipment, wait for a neighbor with a tractor to plow for them. Then they prepare and plant. But there are others who study the almanac before hand and plow and plant only when things are favorable up above. Is the moon on the way up? Are the signs right or wrong?
To those who set no store by the almanac, this seems like a superstition left over from the days of our grandparents, all right for them, but not for us who have been exposed to science and the new ways. Actually, as it turns out, our grandparents differed about planting by the almanac as much as people do today.
Not long ago I asked J. W. “Hoot” Jones if he could remember what some of the old folks thought. (Mr. Jones used to live in Pocahontas County. As his friends know, he is a good teller of stories, and has a long memory.)
Here is what he wrote: “I don’t talk too much about the almanac signs since I was sort of taken down a few notches, so to speak, by a farmer who used to live near Hillsboro and is now deceased. One day I told him he was planting in the wrong sign, and he told me in a few words something like this, “I plant my seeds in the ground, not in the almanac, and besides, I have seen many an almanac, and I have never seen your picture in it.
“So, since then, I have been sorta careful whom I give advice to about the almanac….”