February 28, 2025 Coats Museum News
Have you ever heard someone say, “That seems like it was just yesterday”? Hidden in time are all our memories of people and events in our lives. The longer one lives the more cumulative information is stored in the brain.
Let’s see who has the following stored away in the brain? Who were Dr. Donald Moore and Bruce Gomedella? If you are of a certain age, that question sounds ridiculous. But for the younger readers, they have no clue, but for those of that “certain age” know that Doctor Donald Moore was a medical legend in his lifetime and that Bruce Gomedella had a tremendous business impact on life around Erwin and especially in the Good Hope Hospital.
The May 12, 1995 edition of the Daily Record shared that the two men were honored for their dedication to the Good Hope Hospital. Young readers-you ask, “Good Hope Hospital?” Yes- there was a Good Hope Hospital.
You would not be reading this historical column if you did not have an interest in learning or recalling something from the past. So, let’s make this column one you might find of interest. Since Dr. Donald Moore was mentioned earlier-let’s talk medical care.
Some of my favorite memories of researching for “There and Back on a Paper Canoe” were the various people that I talked with about their “stored memories” of medical treatments. Shall we meet Mrs. Thelma Parrish Johnson?
She recalled “when one of us had sores on our arms or legs, Mama had a remedy that she doctored us with”. She recalled that they had plenty of fat-lightwood. If you have visited the Coats Museum you immediately know that fat-lightwood came from stumps of large, old pine trees that are full of resin.
She said her Papa would blow up stumps with dynamite to clear new land for farming, She recalled that they would pick up a piece of real fat wood and split it into long splinters until we had a good pile. Mama would dig a hole in the back yard and put a medium-size lard bucket in it with about two or three cups of lard in the one in the ground. Her mama would then cut a hole in a lard stand, keeping the hole smaller than the lard bucket, placing the stand over the bucket and filling it full of long fat splinters, not lying down but standing the splinters straight up, so that when they got to sweating out of the splinters would drip tar into the bucket of lard and be mixed with the lard. It would stay soft and not harden. When all the splinters were stood in the lard stand, the lid was put on tight and a slow fire was built all around the stand and Mama waited until she thought all the tar had sweated out of the upright splinters.
She recalled when things cooled down, her mama would remove everything, being careful not to let anything drop into the tar. She recalled they would package this tar and lard into jars.
Mrs. Parrish swore by this salve because she had witnessed that it had cured a dime-sized sore that had eaten to the bone on her brother Jeff Parrish’s leg that the doctor could not cure but her mama’s salve did so in about two weeks.
What a memory-but who recalls that I ask about Good Hope Hospital over in Erwin where Dr. Moore and Bruce Gomedella were honored?
Did you know the first hospital in Harnett County consisted of two wooden buildings in Erwin? The Harnett County News-Feb. 7, 1929 edition printed that a new hospital was located on a site next to the two wooden buildings in which the hospital had been located since 1913 when Dr. Holt established the Good Hope Hospital. The new building was constructed along the lines of a colonial home. It was a one-story structure and would handle 30 patients and was built by Erwin Mills.
I feel certain the Erwin Museum had lots more stories on that hospital as likely does the Dunn Museum have info on the first hospital around 1949 in Dunn. Was it a county hospital? Did Coats ever have hospital?
I do know everything and everyone has a story and these memories should be passed on to the following generations or there is no story. One family that has made amazing stories is the Barbee Family. The Barbee family gave a large portion of the land upon which University of North Carolina is located. C.C. Barbee married Kezia (K S) Barclay, daughter of the John and Mildred Barclay of Barclay’s Inn in Barclaysville, NC. C.C. and Kezia had a turpentine distillery and stagecoach line and he was one of the wealthiest men in the area and beyond.
I have had the good fortune of knowing many of the descendants of the Barbee family since my sister married into the Barbee family and my late neighbor across the road was in that Barbee Family. I never met a Barbee who was not compassionate, philanthropic, highly intelligent and humorous.
Last week my brother-in-law, Milton Farmer, who owned the Barbee Plantation in the Spring Hope area, died. He possessed all the characteristics of his mother’s Barbee ancestors and I am saddened but honored to memorialize him on our Funding at coatsmusem.com.
Have you ever heard someone say, “That seems like it was just yesterday”? Hidden in time are all our memories of people and events in our lives. The longer one lives the more cumulative information is stored in the brain.
Let’s see who has the following stored away in the brain? Who were Dr. Donald Moore and Bruce Gomedella? If you are of a certain age, that question sounds ridiculous. But for the younger readers, they have no clue, but for those of that “certain age” know that Doctor Donald Moore was a medical legend in his lifetime and that Bruce Gomedella had a tremendous business impact on life around Erwin and especially in the Good Hope Hospital.
The May 12, 1995 edition of the Daily Record shared that the two men were honored for their dedication to the Good Hope Hospital. Young readers-you ask, “Good Hope Hospital?” Yes- there was a Good Hope Hospital.
You would not be reading this historical column if you did not have an interest in learning or recalling something from the past. So, let’s make this column one you might find of interest. Since Dr. Donald Moore was mentioned earlier-let’s talk medical care.
Some of my favorite memories of researching for “There and Back on a Paper Canoe” were the various people that I talked with about their “stored memories” of medical treatments. Shall we meet Mrs. Thelma Parrish Johnson?
She recalled “when one of us had sores on our arms or legs, Mama had a remedy that she doctored us with”. She recalled that they had plenty of fat-lightwood. If you have visited the Coats Museum you immediately know that fat-lightwood came from stumps of large, old pine trees that are full of resin.
She said her Papa would blow up stumps with dynamite to clear new land for farming, She recalled that they would pick up a piece of real fat wood and split it into long splinters until we had a good pile. Mama would dig a hole in the back yard and put a medium-size lard bucket in it with about two or three cups of lard in the one in the ground. Her mama would then cut a hole in a lard stand, keeping the hole smaller than the lard bucket, placing the stand over the bucket and filling it full of long fat splinters, not lying down but standing the splinters straight up, so that when they got to sweating out of the splinters would drip tar into the bucket of lard and be mixed with the lard. It would stay soft and not harden. When all the splinters were stood in the lard stand, the lid was put on tight and a slow fire was built all around the stand and Mama waited until she thought all the tar had sweated out of the upright splinters.
She recalled when things cooled down, her mama would remove everything, being careful not to let anything drop into the tar. She recalled they would package this tar and lard into jars.
Mrs. Parrish swore by this salve because she had witnessed that it had cured a dime-sized sore that had eaten to the bone on her brother Jeff Parrish’s leg that the doctor could not cure but her mama’s salve did so in about two weeks.
What a memory-but who recalls that I ask about Good Hope Hospital over in Erwin where Dr. Moore and Bruce Gomedella were honored?
Did you know the first hospital in Harnett County consisted of two wooden buildings in Erwin? The Harnett County News-Feb. 7, 1929 edition printed that a new hospital was located on a site next to the two wooden buildings in which the hospital had been located since 1913 when Dr. Holt established the Good Hope Hospital. The new building was constructed along the lines of a colonial home. It was a one-story structure and would handle 30 patients and was built by Erwin Mills.
I feel certain the Erwin Museum had lots more stories on that hospital as likely does the Dunn Museum have info on the first hospital around 1949 in Dunn. Was it a county hospital? Did Coats ever have hospital?
I do know everything and everyone has a story and these memories should be passed on to the following generations or there is no story. One family that has made amazing stories is the Barbee Family. The Barbee family gave a large portion of the land upon which University of North Carolina is located. C.C. Barbee married Kezia (K S) Barclay, daughter of the John and Mildred Barclay of Barclay’s Inn in Barclaysville, NC. C.C. and Kezia had a turpentine distillery and stagecoach line and he was one of the wealthiest men in the area and beyond.
I have had the good fortune of knowing many of the descendants of the Barbee family since my sister married into the Barbee family and my late neighbor across the road was in that Barbee Family. I never met a Barbee who was not compassionate, philanthropic, highly intelligent and humorous.
Last week my brother-in-law, Milton Farmer, who owned the Barbee Plantation in the Spring Hope area, died. He possessed all the characteristics of his mother’s Barbee ancestors and I am saddened but honored to memorialize him on our Funding at coatsmusem.com.