Thursday, August 18, 1949
PERSONAL NOTES
Mr. and Mrs. Bill Bob Meadows have returned from a wedding trip to Niagara Falls and Canada and are now at home in their apartment in the Bank of Marlinton building.
Keith Dilley, of the Coast Guard, is on leave at the home of his parents, Mr. and Mrs. Paul Dilley, at Clover Lick. He will report to Cleveland, Ohio, for assignment to duty.
Mr. and Mrs. Alex Arbuckle were up from Lewisburg Monday. Mr. Arbuckle recently became the representative of Allis-Chalmers Farm Machinery in the Greenbrier Valley. He will have a full line of this machinery on display at the State Fair at Lewisburg next week.
The Cranberry Glades
Deep in West Virginia’s Yew Mountains is a curious bit of land, a strange combination of arctic tundra and tropical fen, that has begun to take the fancy of the touring public just as it has had the rapt attention of biologists since the 1890s.
West Virginians know the area as Cranberry Glades for the masses of cranberry plants that grow there. The Glades is a genuine far northern muskeg placed by a quirk of nature 1,000 or more miles south of where it ought to be. It has the same tangled matting of reindeer moss, sedge, sphagnum and lichen that characterizes the muskeg. This moss blanket is grown into hummocks just as it does up north, resembling frozen waves, some of them measuring three feet from trough to crest…
The far northern motif is continued in the animal life of the Glades. The golden cheeked meadow mouse lives there, as does the tiny jumping mouse, a kangaroo like creature which, though only four inches tall, can jump five or six feet when they are frightened.
A northern species of flying squirrel, never before found south of the Catskills, was found in numbers in the Glades. Birds native to Canada are also common in the area.
The fact this misplaced muskeg has attracted southern animal and plant forms has been of especial interest to every Glades observer.
The orchids have received, by far, the most publicity, but the biologists have found it equally interesting to find southern voles, mice, shrews, and hares living in close juxtaposition with their northern opposite numbers.
The theory of the Glades’ origin is that the Great Glaciers, grinding down from the north, pushed arctic plants and wildlife before them and, stopping just short of West Virginia, dumped the load of flora and fauna over the state.
When the ice receded and the temperature returned to normal, all of the stranded arctic life died out. That is everywhere but on one or two specks on the West Virginia map where conditions were ideal to sustain those types of plants and animals. One of these specks is Cranberry Glades, “the muskeg farthest south.”
BIRTHS
Born to Mr. and Mrs. Eary James Bennett, a son.
Born to Mr. and Mrs. Guy Grogg, a daughter, Diana Pearl.
Born to Mr. and Mrs. Reuben Weatherholt, a daughter.
Born to Mr. and Mrs. James Shearer, a daughter.
Born to Mr. and Mr. William Carr, a daughter, Linda Carol.
DEATHS
Rosie Louise McComb, infant twin daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Eldridge McComb, of Huntersville. Funeral service conducted by Rev. T. G. Alderman, with burial in the Beaver Creek Cemetery.
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Dolpha Ware, 71, of Charleston, a son of the late T. C. Ware; burial in the family cemetery on Buffalo Mountain.
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Lemuel H. Kennison, 77, of Hillsboro; burial in the McNeel Cemetery, the service being held from the Hillsboro Methodist Church.
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James Pierce Wooddell, 97, of Greenbank, died of the infirmities of extreme old age at the home of his son, Mayor Joe C. Wooddell, in Cass. Funeral service was held from the Cass Methodist church, and the body was laid to rest in the family cemetery near Greenbank. Thus is noted the passing of one of the oldest and one of the best of our citizens. The deceased was a son of the late Jacob S. and Kedena Pugh Wooddell… Mr. Wooddell lived his life on the farm he was born on near Greenbank. In his span of life, no less than 19 presidents occupied the White House in Washington. He cast his first vote for General Grant, and he voted in every presidential election since.