Seventy-Five Years Ago

Thursday, August 7, 1947

STATE SHEEP SHOW

A big feature of the Pocahontas county Fair next week will be the West Virginia State Sheep Show. About one out of every ten sheep in the whole State is in Pocahontas county, anyhow.

Then the sheep show each year at the Pocahontas county Fair year after year has ranked in quality with about any show anywhere. Exhibits and exhibitors go each year from here to the really big shows, and count in the showing, too. So with the transfer of the Sheep Show to the county Fair is the step forward to rank with the biggest and best.

Last year, it looked like the Horse Show at the Pocahontas county Fair had just about reached the limit for quality and number of horses. Now, while one never knows when you have a horseman in hand, it can be said never, at this time, were so many owners listed for appearance nor so many stalls assigned to horses.

FIELD NOTES

An unusual thing happened at the home of Pete Madison, near the airport, one day last week. The back of an upholstered chair on which the baby had been sitting, when taken by the family to gather the eggs, was smoking and smoldering. It was found a flaw in a window pane had centered sun rays on the cloth and set it on fire. The proof was putting a bare hand in the hot rays.

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A farmer from the Hun- tersville District came in to report that he recently had occasion to go on the big wooded mountain back of his farm. In the hollow he went up he was surprised to find there had been wholesale digging up of that hot member of the vegetable kingdom, the Indian turnip or jack-in-the-pulpit… The stalks were there to show what had been dug, but the turnips were missing. Now, what was the sign, he wished to know? The answer is easy. A bear is the only animal I know with perverted hankering for the fire hot Indian turnip. I know not whether it is used as condiment, strong spring tonic or merely an item of plain country fare. While my friend had noticed no tracks, he was not surprised when I told him bears had been so near his house, for he then recalled that bears had killed sheep this spring for a neighbor three hollows up the valley from his farm.

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Cecil Carr caught a four-pound bass in the Gay Eddy by the Fairground one evening last week. It measured 19 inches.

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Up at the home of A. T. White on Douthards Creek, for several mornings, there has been a scattering among the chickens. A red fox was seen as the disturber. The other morning, Mr. White was at home when the chicken trouble began. He shot the said fox. It was better than half grown, and very lean.

You know the old saying that when red foxes move into a given territory, the grays move out. Of course, I have heard it the other way around – that the grays run the reds out. Personally, I back the reds; you can bet on the grays.

However, it is well-established fact that gray and red foxes do not run the same range. Here we expect to find the reds in the limestone mountains; the grays on the Greenbrier peneplain and river ridges, and the mountains east of the river. The reds do come down to hunt rabbits and grouse in the flats, and I have known gray foxes denning in limestone ledges on Bucks Mountain.

The only way I now will admit that a gray fox can run the valiant red off his range is to move in in-force and wipe out the food supply. This they are able to do, and it is what they do, too. So, this gets us around to the mysterious matter of cycles of increase and decrease in the number of wild animals. This is a fact I know little about. However, here I am hoping the tidal wave of gray foxes which have plagued the eastern country from Canada to Georgia is now on the fading out side of the swing of the circle.

DEATH

George Albert Chestnut was born in Mountain Grove, Va., September 29, 1931, departed this life June 28, 1947 after a three-day illness.

He leaves to mourn their loss his parents, Mr. and Mrs. Edward J. Chestnut; seven brothers, Merl, Howard, Billy, Grady, Larry, Franky and Bernard; three sisters, Mary Grace, Lucy Frances and Erma Gene, all at home… Burial was in the family cemetery near Mountain Grove…

Truly we live in a world where solemn shadows are continually falling upon our pathway. Shadows that teach us the uncertainty of all temporal blessings and warn us that “here there is no abiding stay.” We have however the blessed satisfaction of knowing that death cannot enter that sphere to which the departed are removed. We must let hope and faith mingle with our natural sorrow, and look to the future where the sundered ties of earth are reunited.