Thursday, April 11, 1946
Our Army and Navy Boys
Gibraltar – Boyd R. Cassell, chief machinist’s mate, Greenbank, West Virginia, arrived at this port recently, while serving aboard the USS Cone, a destroyer attached to the 12th Fleet.
The Cone is one of two destroyers escorting the heavy cruiser, USS Helena, flagship of the 12th Fleet, which brought Admiral H. Kent Hewitt, USN Commander of the 12th Fleet and U. S. Naval Forces in Europe to Gibraltar. At this port, Admiral Hewitt transferred to the USS Missouri, which is carrying to Istanbul, Turkey, the ashes of the late Turkish ambassador to the United States.
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Corporal Roy Simmons, son of Mr. and Mrs. Nelson Simmons, of Lobelia, is home with an honorable discharge. He served three years with 18 months overseas in the Pacific area. He was in the invasion at Saipan and Iwo Jima. He carries a Purple Heart for wounds in the latter campaign.
POPPY DAY
Poppy Day will be observed in Pocahontas County and throughout the United States on Saturday, May 25. Mrs. Beatrice H. Gladwell, President of Pocahontas Unit No. 50 of the American Legion Auxiliary, has announced.
Memorial poppies to be worn in honor of the dead of both world wars will be distributed on the streets throughout the day by volunteer workers from the Auxiliary and cooperating organizations. Contributions re- ceived in exchange for the flowers will be used in relief and rehabilitation work for disabled veterans, their families and the families of the dead…
FARM WOMEN’S CLUB
On last Saturday, a group of thirty officers of the Farm Women’s Clubs met at the Marlinton Methodist Church for a training school in parliamentary procedure. In addition, goals and plans for the rest of the year were discussed. Clubs represented were: Marlinton, Lobelia, Minnehaha, Swago, Dunmore, Edray, Seneca Trail, Mt. Zion, and Greenbank.
WEDDING
Ray Lemasters and Miss Wilma Nottingham were united in marriage at the Methodist Church in Marlinton on Wednesday, April 3, 1946. The bride is the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Austin Nottingham, of Durbin. The groom is the son of Mr. and Mrs. Samuel Lemasters, of Durbin. He is just out of the Navy with an honorable discharge after 32 months of active service…
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The flower-banked altar of the Hutchinson community church was the scene of the Valentine Day wedding of Miss Lila Lee Scaggs, of Hutchinson, and Mr. Earl Beverage, of Beckley… The new Mrs. Beverage is the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. E. H. Scaggs, of Hutchison, and Mr. Beverage is the son of Mr. and Mrs. Walter K. Beverage, of Cass…
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Before an altar flanked by white carnations in golden urns, Miss Ora Virginia Sheets, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. E. A. Sheets, and Donald M. Smith, of Detroit, exchanged nuptial vows after the Rev. Edward Wilcox, in the First Methodist Church at 4 o’clock Saturday afternoon.
FIELD NOTES
J. O. Kellison, of the Lobelia country, reports he could only get sixteen foxes this year, five grays and eleven reds. Sickness in the family prevented him from the general average of thirty foxes he has maintained for about thirty years. Mr. Kellison reports that the reds have moved in on the high mountains, driving the grays to lower ground.
In the month of February while out hunting, Mr. Kellison came upon a raven’s next on Briery Knob. It is located on a cliff near the old coal bank. The three young ravens are now fully half grown; ready to fly away by May first. The nest is so situated it can be looked down upon; easy to be photographed.
Henry Perkins is the gamekeeper on the big Black Mountain Forest area, set aside under the joint game management project between the National Forest and the State Conservations Commission…
Another big area lies along the Alleghanies from the Coe Beverage’s east to the top of Alleghany Mountain, then south to the High Top, west of the Beaver Lick and thence back to the point of beginning. This area embraces about 30,000 acres of forest land. Nearly all of it is in the Monongahela National Forest. It is also a joint game management area of the National Forest and State Game Commission. Frank Crigger is the resident manager. He lives in the Rimel house at the Riders Gap.
They are now talking about the ideal wild turkey at ten or twelve pounds for hens; twelve to fourteen pounds for gobblers. They say those twenty-five and thirty pound gobblers are merely showing up the domestic blood they are tainted with. To prove their case, they fetch out the reported poundage of the heavy turkeys reported form Hardy and other South Branch counties with the ten to fifteen pounds reported from the big woods of Pocahontas.
All I know along this line is that the biggest wild turkey I heard about was a 27 pounder killed on the head of Slaty Fork on Elk. Some years ago, a citizen of Elk imported a grand bronze gobbler of about thirty pounds in weight to improve his flock. The first spring the big purebred tom went to the woods to eat ramps, took up with a bunch of wild hens, and has never gotten home again. This gobbler ran those woods for years. I always imagined some one knocked him over during gobbling time, and I never heard his fate. If he had been killed legitimately, I just know it would have been reported to the paper. Anyway, Elk Mountain wild turkeys have been unusually large.
Monday, April 1, the first white of a blossoming service tree was noticed on the mountains round about Marlinton. By Friday such patches of white showed everywhere.