December 15, 1927
The editor’s barrel of chestnuts has to be miraculously restored week by week like the widow’s barrel of meal. It is the scrapings from the bottom of the barrel this week. And starting on a long hard winter.
The old man observed that as far as his personal experience was concerned that he noticed that if he lived through November that he lasted all the rest of the year.
If the good old days came back when editors had a free hand to write about anything that they wanted to write about, it would be easier to fill the columns with words culled from the dictionary. In the days when the editor held himself personally responsible for everything that went into the paper and was ready to shoot at the count of three.
There is enough ill natured stuff brewed every week in a community to keep the ferment up indefinitely, but I would not want to live in constant turmoil. There would be no satisfaction in a life of that kind where the standing order was pistols for two and a coffin for one.
I think it is the truth that I have never intentionally offended anyone in writing, though that does not say that no one became offended. The most innocent assertions have been construed as deadly insults. In the early days of my journalistic career, I wrote a short paragraph on a political matter and in a day or two, I got a blood curdling letter.
This letter informed me that the writer would come to this place in a few days and cut my throat for me. The time was so indefinite as to when he would come that I paid no attention to it, and when I met him sometime after that, the whole matter had passed from my mind, and I was surprised when he made a pass at me with a cane and sheared the rim off of a perfectly good two dollar plug hat.
I think I must have seen the blow descending and moved my head…
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Ed C. Moore killed a big black snake on Andrew Moore’s farm near Marlinton December 11. The snake was out traveling around, and it was real lively. The morning before, the thermometer was down to zero. The snake was four feet long.
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On Monday night, Cliff Sharp was hunting coons on Thorn Flat at the head of Cloverlick. The dog treed and when Mr. Sharp came up, he thought he saw the form of a coon. He made a noise, and the coon seemed to expand and spread wings like an angel. He shot and down came a big golden eagle, which had a spread of seven feet four inches. The old coon dog was somewhat surprised when he got a mouthful of feathers instead of good coon hair. Mr. Sharp kept on searching and out of the same tree he took out a fine big coon – his sixteenth for this season.
CUMMINGS CREEK
The thermometer registered 4 below zero Thursday morning here.
A posse of men have been giving a bear quite a chase the past week in the mountains round and about Beaver Creek and Burr Valley.
J. W. Crigger and Alford Dean have completed the State telephone line through to Burr Valley which will be a great benefit to that community.
Miss Island, teacher of the Beaver Creek school will preach at Beaver Creek on the night of Dec. 18. Miss Island is from Florida, and is a school teacher and a missionary preacher. It looks as though she has been directed here by God, as we have no preaching or Sunday school. We are glad to have Miss Island with us.
DUNMORE
Leo Davis and Marvin Grogg are hauling lumber for Charlie Sharp and Nuivey Moore to Cloverlick.
Brown Miller of Michael Mt. is burning a lime kiln.
BIRTHS
Born to Mr. and Mrs. R. L. McLaughlin, October 4, a daughter, Dottie Lou.
Born to Mr. and Mrs. Beecher Meadows, December 14, 1927, a son.
SCHOOL NEWS
Buckeye Graded School, Florence Howard, teacher. Upper grades, Perfect Attendance: Glen and Paul Duncan, Ross and James Miller, Lou Morrison and Madaline McNeill. Faithful: Bernard Hinkle, Glen Rucker, Pearl Auldridge and Mary Graham.
Lower grades, Carrie Morrison, teacher. Perfect: Martha O’Brien, Helen Young, Mae Miller, Gladys Thomas, Elizabeth Rucker, William Miller, Herald Thomas, Jimmy Tyree, Everette Young and Jay Graham. Faithful: James Weiford and Denny O’Brien.
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Honor roll. Linwood School, third month, Anna Denison, teacher. Perfect Attendance: Clyde and Norman Beale, Faye Hannah. Faithful attendance: Jack Dunlap, Clyde Mace, Luther Mace, Susie Mace, Nettie May Vandevender.
DIED
Mrs. Fannie Cameron Beard Callison, widow of the late Richard Callison, died at her home near Beard on Saturday, December 10, 1927, after a prolonged illness. Her age was 68 years. On Monday afternoon her body was laid to rest in the Droop graveyard…
Mrs. Callison was the oldest daughter of the late Charles W. and Elizabeth Perking Beard, of the Little Levels. Of this family there remain three sisters, Miss Nannie Beard, of Beard; Mrs. Lucy Hill, of Covington, and Mrs. Rachel Sheets, of Dunmore.
The deceased was the wife of the late Richard Callison, who has been dead a number of years. They were the parents of five sons, four of whom survive, D. M. and Elba Callison, of Beard; G. S. Callison, of Marlinton, and Orion Callison, of Fayette county.
MRS. GEORGE L. CLARK
Go to the grave; at noon from labor cease; Rest on thy sheaves, thy harvest work is done.
Such was the summons that came September 10, 1927, to Mrs. George L. Clark. Calling from the labors of earth to the rest of the heavenly home, one whose influence for good in the church and community only the years of eternity can reveal. Her beautiful life and faithful and efficient service will be greatly missed, not only by the bereft husband to whom she had been an ideal helpmeet from the day that their hearts were linked in holy wedlock and their only child, whose life has been blessed by constant care and with wise counsel of an ideally Christian mother.
During the ill health of her latter years, she was patient, cheerful, hopeful and uncomplaining, sustained by an abiding trust in God… The new mound of earth marked her resting place in the Oak Grove Cemetery, as friends turned homeward from it with saddened hearts. Buried beneath beautiful and fragrant flowers, which in their perishing brief moment proclaimed these qualities of a life that can never be forgotten.