February 3, 2017 Coats Museum News
Summer was fast approaching in June of 1961and likely the farmers’ wives had been cooking and preserving the fruits of their labor in the farm gardens. Possibly those families were not so concerned as were their urban counterparts over the fact that Governor Terry Sanford had won the fight to put a tax on food (Daily Record June 14, 1961).
I do know that one man who would be dealing with the collection of that food tax was a patient at Good Hope Hospital. Coats grocer and merchant Martin E. Ennis was the patient. Elsewhere, little Gary Beasley was spending time with his grandparents, Mr. and Mrs. Charlie Jackson (Daily Record June 15, 1961).
One advantage of spending time in the museum is that one always learns so many new bits of information. For example, many years ago when we had our first military open house to showcase pictures, weaponry and other items belonging to locals who were veterans of varied wars, a large picture of Carlie Cobb was brought in by his granddaughter Betsy Pollard who shared that Carlie had been killed in WWI. You say-“So! -Many U.S. men were killed in WWI.” The rest of the story is that Monroe Surles was near Carlie when he was hit and he died in Monroe’s arms. Two young Coats men were fighting side by side and one of them dying in a friend’s arms for our country. Monroe was very affected by the war as are most of our veterans. Monroe was later hit and killed near his home by a car. Facing the enemy gunfire on foreign soil and surviving but being killed by a driver of a car in his very neighborhood must have been hard for his family to understand.
I do know that his wife lived several years after Monroe’s fatal accident for Mrs. Ina Poole Surles, 71, widow of Monroe Surles, had died at the home of her daughter, Mrs. J.D. Lamm. Mrs. Surles was a native and lifelong resident of Coats. She was the daughter of William Henry and Charity Williams Poole. Mrs. Melvin Rhodes and Mrs. J.D. (Lottie) Lamm were her daughters. R.A. and Z.L. Poole of Coats were her brothers while her sisters were Mrs. Minnie Winstead, Mrs. Lillie Stewart, Mrs. Maggie Williams, Mrs. Ed Dixon, Mrs. Frank Stone, and Mrs. Cass Williams-all of Coats (Daily Record June 16, 1961).
The story of Monroe Surles reminds me of another story of a Coats veteran of a later war. Decorated Raymond Pope courageously had risked his life in the jungles of Viet Nam and survived only to be killed in an automobile crash a few miles from his home shortly thereafter.
Did your parents tell you the do’s and don’t’s during a thunder storm? Do animals have an instinct on what to do? I do know that 16 fine head of cattle were killed when struck by lightning on a farm 13 miles southwest of Lillington. What does one do with sixteen dead fine cattle? Wonder if Mr. Lonnie Stanley and Myra Brewington heard anyone talking about this event while they were patients in Good Hope Hospital (Daily Record June 19, 1961).
In Dunn, twenty Indian youngsters were approved for admission to Dunn High School. The school board had ruled the applications were okay (Daily Record June 20, 1961).
The Turlington HD Club had met at the home of Mrs. C.D. Turner. Mrs. T. J. Turlington presented the program on “Housecleaning Supplies and Equipment”. You have to wonder what those items were.
Having recently read a book titled “SHARECROPPERS: the way we were” by Roy G. Taylor, I discovered that in years past, a house was scalded for chinches once a year. Everything in the house was removed from the floors and walls and then scalding water was splashed onto the walls and ceilings to kill the chinches. It had to be done well with rolling, boiling water splashed into the cracks where he wrote chinches like to hide. They also scalded the bed springs and slats. The floors were scoured and he implied that the water contained lye. Kerosene was placed in squirt cans and were used to work on the bedsteads and mattresses by squirting it into ever crack and tuft. Taylor wrote that he “could see them chinches” crawling out of the crevices in the mattresses when he squirted them and the only good chinch was a dead one.
Taylor said that it was the most dreaded day of the year, but after everything was placed back into the house, the nerves were settled and if the bedbugs still pestered them, it was not because of nastiness.
Let’s hope that the supplies and equipment that Mrs. Turlington talked about were not kerosene, lye and a squirt can that Mr. Taylor wrote about.
This I do know. Mrs. W.E. Nichols, Mrs. MO. Phillips, and Carolyn Phillips were hostesses to a dinner party honoring Ann Beasley Jones, a recent bride. The guests were Mrs. Curtis Guy, Mrs. T.O. Beasley, Miss Sybil Beasley, Mrs. Lucy Kelly, Miss Eva Carol Miller, Mrs. Dallas Jones, Miss Norma Lee Johnson, Miss Eloise Johnson, Miss Becky Honeycutt, Miss Mattie Bain, Miss Dixie Bryan, Miss Gayle Johnson, Mrs. Exie Smith, and Miss Jone Godwin. At another event, Miss Norma Lee Johnson and Mrs. Bland Fleming honored Ann Beasley Jones with a shower at the Coats Community Building.
Some of those same ladies were likely at the Woman’s Club of Coats that was held at Barefoot’s Grill. Mr. Guyton Smith presented the program on “Civic Pride.” Wearing costumes, little Donna Penny and Shearon Roberts entertained with tap dance numbers (Daily Record June 21, 1961).
The same edition of the paper also reported that Thurman Barefoot and David A. Byrd were hospital patients and Mr. and Mrs. T.O. Beasley had spent time at Carolina Beach.
Are there any of you who have heard the old expression that many of parents or grandparents lived by-“Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without?” Did they have little need to recycle? Did they have recycling in 1961? I do know that Clester Johnson had put in the low bid of $34,500 to pick up curb garbage in Dunn but failed to put in for backyard pickup.
“The Progress of the Presbyterian Church Since 1880” was the topic of the program for the Ebenezer Presbyterian Women which was hosted by Mrs. Callie Adams and Mrs. Ada Barefoot (Daily Record June 22, 1961).
Mr. and Mrs. Stacy L. Whittington of Erwin (formerly of Coats) announced the engagement of their daughter Carolyn Margaret to Jerry S. Butler of Erwin.
Mrs. Audrey Stewart and Mrs. Joyce Turlington were Good Hope patients (Daily Record June 23, 1961). Mrs. Ida Stewart and Mrs. lola Stewart joined them on June 26th (Daily Record June26, 1961).
The Coats Chapter FFA won the 1961 State FFA Safety Award. This was a special Chapter and Community effort in obtaining and erecting traffic control signs in the business sections of Coats.
Jasper (Red) Pleasant, 64, of Coats, had died on Monday. His wife, Mrs. Vada Pleasant; two daughters and one stepson survived him. He also had three sisters and one brother. (Who were they?)
Another Coats individual had died on Friday. Mrs. John Weaver, 80, had died. Elder Blaney Godwin conducted the service. One son, Floyd Weaver, survived her. Do you know the descendants of this lady?
I do know that Mr. and Mrs. Dunbar Stewart of Winston Salem had visited their families in Coats and Mrs. J. R. Dixon returned home with them for a week’s stay in Winston Salem. Mrs. Gladys Phillips of Orlanda, Florida, a former teacher at Coats and Lillington, was visiting a few weeks with friends in the area. Mr. Harold Dixon had returned to Wake Forest for summer school. Mr. M.E. Ennis was doing nicely after surgery at Good Hope. The Fidelis Class at Coats Baptist Church had met with Mrs. Grace Harmon, Mrs. Zola Roberts and Mrs. Ross Stewart. Wallace Wade Dixon of Dunn and Ted Malone of Coats had pre-registered in the General College Pre-Registration Program at UNC. Ted was the son of Mrs. Mildred Malone and the late Ted Malone, Sr.
Do you agree Coats was buzzing with activities in 1961? I do know that the museum is also busy. We had a wonderful time entertaining the Coats town staff for lunch recently. It was a rewarding opportunity to meet the individuals who keep our town running smoothly and beautifully.
We also were honored to welcome the dedicated Angier Museum team to the museum and talk about both our museums. We are hopeful that they can soon find a larger location that will accommodate all the items that have been shared with them to show how changes occur from one generation to the next and how society has benefitted from those innovations.
Thank you goes to Chris Coats of Coats Cabinets for dropping by the museum to see if everything is okay with our beautiful display cabinets. A big thank you goes to H.L. Sorrell for remembering Lib Guy with a memorial to the museum endowment.
Summer was fast approaching in June of 1961and likely the farmers’ wives had been cooking and preserving the fruits of their labor in the farm gardens. Possibly those families were not so concerned as were their urban counterparts over the fact that Governor Terry Sanford had won the fight to put a tax on food (Daily Record June 14, 1961).
I do know that one man who would be dealing with the collection of that food tax was a patient at Good Hope Hospital. Coats grocer and merchant Martin E. Ennis was the patient. Elsewhere, little Gary Beasley was spending time with his grandparents, Mr. and Mrs. Charlie Jackson (Daily Record June 15, 1961).
One advantage of spending time in the museum is that one always learns so many new bits of information. For example, many years ago when we had our first military open house to showcase pictures, weaponry and other items belonging to locals who were veterans of varied wars, a large picture of Carlie Cobb was brought in by his granddaughter Betsy Pollard who shared that Carlie had been killed in WWI. You say-“So! -Many U.S. men were killed in WWI.” The rest of the story is that Monroe Surles was near Carlie when he was hit and he died in Monroe’s arms. Two young Coats men were fighting side by side and one of them dying in a friend’s arms for our country. Monroe was very affected by the war as are most of our veterans. Monroe was later hit and killed near his home by a car. Facing the enemy gunfire on foreign soil and surviving but being killed by a driver of a car in his very neighborhood must have been hard for his family to understand.
I do know that his wife lived several years after Monroe’s fatal accident for Mrs. Ina Poole Surles, 71, widow of Monroe Surles, had died at the home of her daughter, Mrs. J.D. Lamm. Mrs. Surles was a native and lifelong resident of Coats. She was the daughter of William Henry and Charity Williams Poole. Mrs. Melvin Rhodes and Mrs. J.D. (Lottie) Lamm were her daughters. R.A. and Z.L. Poole of Coats were her brothers while her sisters were Mrs. Minnie Winstead, Mrs. Lillie Stewart, Mrs. Maggie Williams, Mrs. Ed Dixon, Mrs. Frank Stone, and Mrs. Cass Williams-all of Coats (Daily Record June 16, 1961).
The story of Monroe Surles reminds me of another story of a Coats veteran of a later war. Decorated Raymond Pope courageously had risked his life in the jungles of Viet Nam and survived only to be killed in an automobile crash a few miles from his home shortly thereafter.
Did your parents tell you the do’s and don’t’s during a thunder storm? Do animals have an instinct on what to do? I do know that 16 fine head of cattle were killed when struck by lightning on a farm 13 miles southwest of Lillington. What does one do with sixteen dead fine cattle? Wonder if Mr. Lonnie Stanley and Myra Brewington heard anyone talking about this event while they were patients in Good Hope Hospital (Daily Record June 19, 1961).
In Dunn, twenty Indian youngsters were approved for admission to Dunn High School. The school board had ruled the applications were okay (Daily Record June 20, 1961).
The Turlington HD Club had met at the home of Mrs. C.D. Turner. Mrs. T. J. Turlington presented the program on “Housecleaning Supplies and Equipment”. You have to wonder what those items were.
Having recently read a book titled “SHARECROPPERS: the way we were” by Roy G. Taylor, I discovered that in years past, a house was scalded for chinches once a year. Everything in the house was removed from the floors and walls and then scalding water was splashed onto the walls and ceilings to kill the chinches. It had to be done well with rolling, boiling water splashed into the cracks where he wrote chinches like to hide. They also scalded the bed springs and slats. The floors were scoured and he implied that the water contained lye. Kerosene was placed in squirt cans and were used to work on the bedsteads and mattresses by squirting it into ever crack and tuft. Taylor wrote that he “could see them chinches” crawling out of the crevices in the mattresses when he squirted them and the only good chinch was a dead one.
Taylor said that it was the most dreaded day of the year, but after everything was placed back into the house, the nerves were settled and if the bedbugs still pestered them, it was not because of nastiness.
Let’s hope that the supplies and equipment that Mrs. Turlington talked about were not kerosene, lye and a squirt can that Mr. Taylor wrote about.
This I do know. Mrs. W.E. Nichols, Mrs. MO. Phillips, and Carolyn Phillips were hostesses to a dinner party honoring Ann Beasley Jones, a recent bride. The guests were Mrs. Curtis Guy, Mrs. T.O. Beasley, Miss Sybil Beasley, Mrs. Lucy Kelly, Miss Eva Carol Miller, Mrs. Dallas Jones, Miss Norma Lee Johnson, Miss Eloise Johnson, Miss Becky Honeycutt, Miss Mattie Bain, Miss Dixie Bryan, Miss Gayle Johnson, Mrs. Exie Smith, and Miss Jone Godwin. At another event, Miss Norma Lee Johnson and Mrs. Bland Fleming honored Ann Beasley Jones with a shower at the Coats Community Building.
Some of those same ladies were likely at the Woman’s Club of Coats that was held at Barefoot’s Grill. Mr. Guyton Smith presented the program on “Civic Pride.” Wearing costumes, little Donna Penny and Shearon Roberts entertained with tap dance numbers (Daily Record June 21, 1961).
The same edition of the paper also reported that Thurman Barefoot and David A. Byrd were hospital patients and Mr. and Mrs. T.O. Beasley had spent time at Carolina Beach.
Are there any of you who have heard the old expression that many of parents or grandparents lived by-“Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without?” Did they have little need to recycle? Did they have recycling in 1961? I do know that Clester Johnson had put in the low bid of $34,500 to pick up curb garbage in Dunn but failed to put in for backyard pickup.
“The Progress of the Presbyterian Church Since 1880” was the topic of the program for the Ebenezer Presbyterian Women which was hosted by Mrs. Callie Adams and Mrs. Ada Barefoot (Daily Record June 22, 1961).
Mr. and Mrs. Stacy L. Whittington of Erwin (formerly of Coats) announced the engagement of their daughter Carolyn Margaret to Jerry S. Butler of Erwin.
Mrs. Audrey Stewart and Mrs. Joyce Turlington were Good Hope patients (Daily Record June 23, 1961). Mrs. Ida Stewart and Mrs. lola Stewart joined them on June 26th (Daily Record June26, 1961).
The Coats Chapter FFA won the 1961 State FFA Safety Award. This was a special Chapter and Community effort in obtaining and erecting traffic control signs in the business sections of Coats.
Jasper (Red) Pleasant, 64, of Coats, had died on Monday. His wife, Mrs. Vada Pleasant; two daughters and one stepson survived him. He also had three sisters and one brother. (Who were they?)
Another Coats individual had died on Friday. Mrs. John Weaver, 80, had died. Elder Blaney Godwin conducted the service. One son, Floyd Weaver, survived her. Do you know the descendants of this lady?
I do know that Mr. and Mrs. Dunbar Stewart of Winston Salem had visited their families in Coats and Mrs. J. R. Dixon returned home with them for a week’s stay in Winston Salem. Mrs. Gladys Phillips of Orlanda, Florida, a former teacher at Coats and Lillington, was visiting a few weeks with friends in the area. Mr. Harold Dixon had returned to Wake Forest for summer school. Mr. M.E. Ennis was doing nicely after surgery at Good Hope. The Fidelis Class at Coats Baptist Church had met with Mrs. Grace Harmon, Mrs. Zola Roberts and Mrs. Ross Stewart. Wallace Wade Dixon of Dunn and Ted Malone of Coats had pre-registered in the General College Pre-Registration Program at UNC. Ted was the son of Mrs. Mildred Malone and the late Ted Malone, Sr.
Do you agree Coats was buzzing with activities in 1961? I do know that the museum is also busy. We had a wonderful time entertaining the Coats town staff for lunch recently. It was a rewarding opportunity to meet the individuals who keep our town running smoothly and beautifully.
We also were honored to welcome the dedicated Angier Museum team to the museum and talk about both our museums. We are hopeful that they can soon find a larger location that will accommodate all the items that have been shared with them to show how changes occur from one generation to the next and how society has benefitted from those innovations.
Thank you goes to Chris Coats of Coats Cabinets for dropping by the museum to see if everything is okay with our beautiful display cabinets. A big thank you goes to H.L. Sorrell for remembering Lib Guy with a memorial to the museum endowment.
