January 24, 2025 Coats Museum News
As we continue our journey into the newsprint of yesteryear of Coats and the surrounding area, we learn that Bill and Martha Boyd of Coats had spent a glorious week on the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico, at the Caribbean resort of Cancun. Also we read that Mrs. Ruby Johnson had enjoyed her daughter Phyllis and her husband Dr. Ian Plenderleigh from Vancouver, British Columbia.
As I typed this, I thought it was just another day in the lives of the Coats area folks where trips from shore to mountains or from the Atlantic to the Pacific or from one foreign soil to another is not so unusual today. Our grandchildren even though in their teens have no fear of flying to foreign soils ten thousand miles away to learn of different cultures on spring or summer breaks.
Then my mind revisits our days of researching in the Daily Record Library and we volunteers read of families visiting in their “Touring Cars” filled with relatives coming from up north to visit their kin in the Coats area and then to make a trip to Carolina Beach. Even the paper shared stories of so and so coming home to visit for a few days. It was almost like the travelers were celebrities that people loved to read about.
However, there is one route of travel that was not always a desired journey and that was to a hospital. Illnesses of our locals made the press. C.J. Johnson was transferred from BJMH to Wake Medical Center. Buck Senter had had a heart procedure at Duke Medical Center. Paul Hollingsworth had undergone surgery at Wake Community while G.R. Stephenson was a heart attack patient at Rex Hospital.
Had these individuals lived during our earliest years of travel, there is the likelihood that the obituary would have read that the individual had died suddenly at home or had died after an extended illness. Speaking of deaths, a man who had made his living from deaths had died on Tuesday. Joseph R. Overby, Sr., 85, who had founded Overby Funeral Home in 1932, and had businesses in Raleigh, Smithfield, Angier, Benson, Four Oaks, Clayton and Coats. He also had organized Sunset Park in Smithfield in 1937. He was well known for dressing up as Uncle Sam (Daily Record Apr. 8, 1995).
At the beginning of this New Year there are a few things that cause an ordinary heart to skip a beat. Reval tax notices are arriving in our mailboxes from Johnston County and insurances on our properties seem to climb higher and higher- not by the dollars but by the hundreds of dollars.
What do some of our museum documents show about insurance, taxes and funerals? Community Fairs were very popular in the early days of Coats. A preserved copy of one of those events shared priceless info about the event but no date was published on the copy we have.
According to that booklet, we know that two men dealt in insurance and one was C.A. Daniels who was an agent for Aetna Life Insurance of Hartford Connecticut. He advertised that the company paid out over $14 million in 1913. A side note of interest is that Mr. Daniels’ grave is on Abattoir Road on the Monroe Lee’s cattle farm. Mr. Daniels, who has no connection to the Seth Lee family, had married into the Barnes family who apparently owned much property on Abattoir in early days. Monroe has respectfully protected that grave site.
A second insurance agent was Oscar Young-yes-Oscar Young. He was a teacher, surveyor, a banker and so many other titles but in this booklet he was a special insurance agent for Maryland Life Insurance of Baltimore and advertised that he offered insurance to his former students and neighbors.
Hence, insurance salesmen have a long history in our Grove area. What about funeral people? According to this same booklet, T.V. (Troy Vance) Stewart sold furniture, hardware, farming implements and undertaking goods. Possibly Mr. Delma Grimes went there to purchase his materials when he was called upon to make caskets for friends and neighbors. His wife was said to make the inside cushioning of the caskets. G.H. Stephenson was recorded as being an undertaker in 1913. How did the title “undertaker” become associated with death?
I do know that Jonathan Troy Wiley’s Funeral Records located in the NC Archives in Raleigh, NC share a list of the various items that a family could select in burying a deceased one. These prices are relevant to 1915-one hundred and ten years ago. The total cost of cheap funeral was $10.00 but other choices were available. A casket could be purchased for as little as $1.50 to $80.00 with the average being $5.00.The use of a horse and buggy was $5.00 but fancier ones could be between $6 and $10.00.
If a family wanted the body embalmed or have attendance, it was ten more dollars for each. Flowers would be furnished for $2.00 and gloves and hose were an additional fifty cents. Death notices in the paper, outlay the lot, opening the grave or lining it were options the family had to make.
You might ask what did Mr. Overby charge when he opened his first funeral home in the 1930’s and how did it compare to when he died in 1995?
I do know that taxes have been around a long time. Back in Troyville in 1874, A.W. Denning, Jr. paid Sheriff K.M. McNeill $6.65-two dollars and thirteen cents for state taxes, three dollars and nineteen cents for county taxes and thirty-three cents for special taxes.
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As we continue our journey into the newsprint of yesteryear of Coats and the surrounding area, we learn that Bill and Martha Boyd of Coats had spent a glorious week on the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico, at the Caribbean resort of Cancun. Also we read that Mrs. Ruby Johnson had enjoyed her daughter Phyllis and her husband Dr. Ian Plenderleigh from Vancouver, British Columbia.
As I typed this, I thought it was just another day in the lives of the Coats area folks where trips from shore to mountains or from the Atlantic to the Pacific or from one foreign soil to another is not so unusual today. Our grandchildren even though in their teens have no fear of flying to foreign soils ten thousand miles away to learn of different cultures on spring or summer breaks.
Then my mind revisits our days of researching in the Daily Record Library and we volunteers read of families visiting in their “Touring Cars” filled with relatives coming from up north to visit their kin in the Coats area and then to make a trip to Carolina Beach. Even the paper shared stories of so and so coming home to visit for a few days. It was almost like the travelers were celebrities that people loved to read about.
However, there is one route of travel that was not always a desired journey and that was to a hospital. Illnesses of our locals made the press. C.J. Johnson was transferred from BJMH to Wake Medical Center. Buck Senter had had a heart procedure at Duke Medical Center. Paul Hollingsworth had undergone surgery at Wake Community while G.R. Stephenson was a heart attack patient at Rex Hospital.
Had these individuals lived during our earliest years of travel, there is the likelihood that the obituary would have read that the individual had died suddenly at home or had died after an extended illness. Speaking of deaths, a man who had made his living from deaths had died on Tuesday. Joseph R. Overby, Sr., 85, who had founded Overby Funeral Home in 1932, and had businesses in Raleigh, Smithfield, Angier, Benson, Four Oaks, Clayton and Coats. He also had organized Sunset Park in Smithfield in 1937. He was well known for dressing up as Uncle Sam (Daily Record Apr. 8, 1995).
At the beginning of this New Year there are a few things that cause an ordinary heart to skip a beat. Reval tax notices are arriving in our mailboxes from Johnston County and insurances on our properties seem to climb higher and higher- not by the dollars but by the hundreds of dollars.
What do some of our museum documents show about insurance, taxes and funerals? Community Fairs were very popular in the early days of Coats. A preserved copy of one of those events shared priceless info about the event but no date was published on the copy we have.
According to that booklet, we know that two men dealt in insurance and one was C.A. Daniels who was an agent for Aetna Life Insurance of Hartford Connecticut. He advertised that the company paid out over $14 million in 1913. A side note of interest is that Mr. Daniels’ grave is on Abattoir Road on the Monroe Lee’s cattle farm. Mr. Daniels, who has no connection to the Seth Lee family, had married into the Barnes family who apparently owned much property on Abattoir in early days. Monroe has respectfully protected that grave site.
A second insurance agent was Oscar Young-yes-Oscar Young. He was a teacher, surveyor, a banker and so many other titles but in this booklet he was a special insurance agent for Maryland Life Insurance of Baltimore and advertised that he offered insurance to his former students and neighbors.
Hence, insurance salesmen have a long history in our Grove area. What about funeral people? According to this same booklet, T.V. (Troy Vance) Stewart sold furniture, hardware, farming implements and undertaking goods. Possibly Mr. Delma Grimes went there to purchase his materials when he was called upon to make caskets for friends and neighbors. His wife was said to make the inside cushioning of the caskets. G.H. Stephenson was recorded as being an undertaker in 1913. How did the title “undertaker” become associated with death?
I do know that Jonathan Troy Wiley’s Funeral Records located in the NC Archives in Raleigh, NC share a list of the various items that a family could select in burying a deceased one. These prices are relevant to 1915-one hundred and ten years ago. The total cost of cheap funeral was $10.00 but other choices were available. A casket could be purchased for as little as $1.50 to $80.00 with the average being $5.00.The use of a horse and buggy was $5.00 but fancier ones could be between $6 and $10.00.
If a family wanted the body embalmed or have attendance, it was ten more dollars for each. Flowers would be furnished for $2.00 and gloves and hose were an additional fifty cents. Death notices in the paper, outlay the lot, opening the grave or lining it were options the family had to make.
You might ask what did Mr. Overby charge when he opened his first funeral home in the 1930’s and how did it compare to when he died in 1995?
I do know that taxes have been around a long time. Back in Troyville in 1874, A.W. Denning, Jr. paid Sheriff K.M. McNeill $6.65-two dollars and thirteen cents for state taxes, three dollars and nineteen cents for county taxes and thirty-three cents for special taxes.
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