Thursday, January 1, 1947
FATAL SHOOTING
Mrs. Sarah Loving, wife of Ryan Loving, is dead of a gunshot wound in the head received at the hands of Sam Walker, aged 38 years, who is in the Pocahontas Memorial Hospital with a self-inflicted wound in the shoulder.
The woman was employed in the home of J. A. McLaughlin in Marlinton. Walker came to the house about six o’clock Monday evening, followed the woman into the front room and there shot her down with a 20- gauge shot gun. The charge took effect in her head. He then went out on the street and shot himself with no very serious results. A shotgun is a rather unhandy weapon for a short-armed man to shot himself with.
No reason has been given for the rash act.
Walker was a soldier in the late war, with long service overseas.
FIELD NOTES
The old settler was in from the back hacking looking the worse from wear. There had been some family differences, and the son-in-law finally had to pile on the old man, who came out of the mix-up with his face all scratched. Us old timers knew better than to inquire how come, but a younger man full of sympathy did ask how come. Brother, the old man said, I was a sorting out a passel of wild cats; the last one in the bottom turned out to be a panther, and he naturally scratched the very dickens out of me.
Speaking about wild cats, I heard this one on my friend, George. He had been catching coons in a hollow log trap, set back on Gauley Mountain, up from the Crooked Fork of Elk. George’s right hand was all scratched and cut up by coon bites, for his habit was to reach in the hollow log bare handed, and haul the varmint out by a hind leg, regardless of bites and scratches… One morning George looked at the trap and the door was down. He reached in for his coon, and got something by the hid leg. There was a spitting instead of a growling, but it was too late to let loose then. Out came a chunk of a wildcat, a scratching and a spitting. For that extra clawing, George vowed he would end it all for that cat by slamming him against a tree. In attempting to swing it around his head, the cat did not complete the circle. It clawed the heavy mackinaw coat to pieces, and George finally had to let go. Then to add insult to injury, that there cat jumped back on George.
Cam Armstrong reports there are two rabbits left on his farm on Dry Branch of Swago. These would have been gone, too, but they have changed their habits. Now they feed by day and stay in a rock pile at night to keep the foxes from getting them.
WEDDING
Married at Hernando, Mississippi, Captain Edward Stanley Wilson, of Marlinton, and Miss Wilma Elean Hunt, of Whitesdale, Tennessee, on Sunday, December 21, 1947.
BIRTH
Born to Mr. and Mrs. Ralph Bennett, of Arbovale, a son, named William Eugene.
DEATHS
William P. Miller, aged 29, of Marlinton, died in the Mt. Alto Veterans Hospital in Washington, D. C. Tuesday, December 23, 1947. On Friday afternoon, the funeral was held from the Marlinton Presbyterian Church by his pastor, Rev. Roger P. Melton. His body was laid to rest in the family plot in Mountain View Cemetery with full military honors.
The deceased was the son of Mr. and Mrs. J. D. Miller, of Buckeye. He married Miss Lena Moore, who survives. During the late war, he served long and honorably in the Navy. Upon his return he and Mrs. Miller built a house and established a home in Marlinton.
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Mrs. Bessie K. Baxter, widow of the late Frank Baxter, of Edray, departed this life on Friday, December 26, 1947. She was the daughter of Samuel Bryson and Mary Ann Moore, of Edray…
Her funeral was conducted on Sunday afternoon by Rev. R. J. Skaggs from the Edray Methodist church, of which she was a member from early childhood and to which she contributed of her musical talent in a large measure at the time. Interment was in the Moore Cemetery by her husband.
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Mrs. Bessie Ida Cochran, aged 71 years, wife of Raymond Cochran, of Beard, died December 21, 1947. On Wednesday, the funeral service was held from Laurel Hill Presbyterian church by her pastor, Rev. Edward Williams. Burial was in Old Droop Cemetery.
Mrs. Cochran is survived by her husband and their six children, Walter and Clarence of Beard; John G., of Covington; Miss Delpha Cochran, Mrs. Dolly Wells and Mrs. David Blankenship, all of Beard.