Thursday, September 25, 1947
Deep Freeze
Temperatures of 28 degrees and lower in Pocahontas County on Tuesday morning. No particular damage on the river, but plenty of damage on higher ground. Fifty years ago to the day, there was a freeze in this valley, according to the record of Squire A. R. Gay.
Freedom Isn’t Free
THIS week the whistles will blow and the church bells will ring in Philadelphia. For there, where our Constitution was born, the most remarkable railroad train in history is beginning a national tour – a train transformed into a rolling shrine to display the great documents on which our American freedoms are based.
AS the school children of Philadelphia – and 300 other cities to come – gaze on Jefferson’s draft of the Declaration of Independence, or the official manuscript of the Bill of Rights, or Lincoln’s pen notes for the Gettysburg address, sober thoughts will run through the minds of their elders.
FREEDOM, as world events have taught us, isn’t free like the air we breathe. It isn’t from everlasting to everlasting. It was won by bitter struggle, and it can be lost with tragic ease, if we and other Americans take it for granted.
THE lesson of our time is that freedom must be earned in each generation. Either we continue to earn it, or we shall wake up some morning to find that it has slipped through our fingers, as it slipped through the hands of other people in the world. A dictatorship will have taken it from us…
IN the words of Tom Paine: “Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must bear the fatigues of supporting it…”
That, to us, is the import of the Freedom Train. And the Chesapeake & Ohio, which is one of many railroads over whose tracks this national shrine will pass, salutes it on the start of its historic mission. We will guard it well when it comes our way. May it have a fruitful journey!
FIELD NOTES
Word comes of misadjustments in domestic relations among the animals of the barnyard at the farm of Mrs. Clawson Dilley on Greenbrier River at Clawson. To begin with, the big hound gyp gave birth to a family of nine pups. These pups were sold and otherwise disposed of until only two remained. The mother did not take kindly to these pups and started to wean them. So, they were taken away from her to be hand fed.
About this time a sow brought forth a family of a half dozen pigs. Something happened to the pigs, and all died save one, a little runt. This one was doing only tolerable like, for he was not favored by his mother at all.
Then the big hound mother took the little pig up, gave him nourishment and moved him into the dog house. After three weeks of such treatment, the little runt has come out of the kinks, is fat and fine and growing lustily.
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Along in the latter days of August, some Richwood men went over on Cranberry River to look for the rattlesnake den they had heard about, somewhere in the country between Fox Tree and Barrenshe. They came on the place before they expected, and the leading man just about got himself snake bit by the big guard rattler doing sentry duty near the den. Then the killing began. The score stood at better than a hundred rattlesnakes, big and little. There were thirty big ones. This was the time of year rattlers give birth to their young. There were plenty of little snakes around, about the size of lead pencils. Some of the snakes killed had not yet given birth to their young.
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Ressa Wilfong has just been in, and I made inquiry as to how well he was fixed up with hound dogs. He said not at all. Knowing the family lines from which he came, I chided him about being on the back ground in this important matter of hounds. The reply was that he found more joy in watching of an evening the does and fawns come into his fields to nip the clover than he could get out of listening to a whole pack of hounds give voice in a chase. If he kept hounds, there would be no deer in his farm woods to come out in his fields unafraid…
FAMILY GET-TOGETHER
Mrs. Maggie A. McClure returned to her home at Marlinton Sunday after spending some time with her granddaughter, Mrs. Pat Bennett, and her great-granddaughter, Mrs. Virgil Hanshaw, of Tioga. Last Sunday was a get-together for Mrs. McClure’s family…
Those present were: Mrs. Icie VanReenen and children, Walter, Irene and Floyd; Mr. and Mrs. Oliver McCallister and children, Kay Frances and David Lee, of Charleston; Mr. and Mrs. Paul Beverage and daughter, Paula, of Marlinton; Layton and Roy Beverage, sons of Mr. and Mrs. Howard Beverage; Mr. and Mrs. Pat Bennett, Mr. and Mrs. Virgil Hanshaw and children, Shelbia Jean, Madonna Lee and Virgil, Jr, of Tioga.
A bountiful table was soon spread by the daughter and granddaughters and a good time was had by all.
Mrs. McClure, despite her advanced age of 86 years, gets around fine and enjoyed the day greatly.
BIRTHS
Born to Mr. and Mrs. Ray Warren, of Buckeye, a son.
Born to Mr. and Mrs. Harford Swisher, of Cass, a daughter.
Born to Mr. and Mrs. Fred Phillips, of Cass, a son.
DEATHS
Mrs. Mary Arminta Galford, 70, of Cass, died at her home September 17, 1947. Her body was laid to rest in the family plot in Arbovale Cemetery.
George Preston Shisler, 81, of Lobelia, died September 16, 1947; a son of the late James Shisler. His body was laid to rest in Emmanuel Cemetery…
Fred C. Dolin, 28, of Alvon. He spent one year and seven months in service overseas.
Mrs. Rhoda Mays Byrd, 64, of Marlinton. Her body was laid to rest in the family plot in Mountain View Cemetery.