June 17, 2016 Coats Museum News
Last week you read of the death of Henry Clay Stewart. Mr. Stewart was the owner and operator of the “Ole” grist mill built in approximately 1918. According to Alfred Stewart, Henry’s brother of Akron, Ohio, his daddy Claud Daniel Stewart, once a teacher and principal of Coats School, helped his son Henry build the mill. During the hard times, Henry furnished the family of eleven with flour and corn meal.
The mill consisted of three mills according to his daughter, Evangeline Stewart. Originally there were two but a third was later added. Three flat rocks called boulders were placed on top of a bed of rocks and the top one rotated by force of an electric motor driven by pulleys and belts. Each mill had a little wheel attached to it that raised and lowered the top rock to make the cornmeal grind.
The rocks had to be whetted or sharpened, every so often, to make the cornmeal grind right. Evangeline recalled that most farmers wanted the meal made from the corn they had raised on their farm. She recalled that most of the corn brought to the mill had to be shelled by her dad’s electric sheller.
Did Mr. Henry have help? After WWII, Keith Wayne and Laverne helped operate the business. Eventually the mill became the property of his wife, Mrs. Myrtle Stewart, who was indeed the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Lonnie and Nettie Stewart who did operate a general store on the Main Street of Coats when Coats was just developing a business district. By the way, was their business in a brick or wooden structure?
This I do know. Two of the sons operated the mill from 1958 until their mother died in 1969. After Mrs. Stewart‘s death, the four children inherited the mill. The two brothers who had operated the mill bought the shares of Kylce and Evangeline. The brothers operated the business until 1978. The total job consisted of shelling, grinding, and looking after the mill such as sacking, tying, loading, and delivering the corn to surrounding towns. Laverne operated the mill while Keith tended the books. The meal was marketed in all areas of Harnett and in Benson. Some folks actually carried the meal to distances as far as California.
The mill was located on the property of Dr. Harry C. Roberts who never took rent money-only a bag of cornmeal. Steve Stewart, Henry’s grandson, said that was “horse trading”. After Dr. Robert’s death in the plane crash, Henry paid only $25.00 a year to Mrs. Edna Roberts, the doctor’s widow. House’s Mill bought the bed rocks in the mill in 1978-79. The flat rocks were placed in the yard of the old Henry Stewart yard (Evangeline Stewart-Harnett County quilt- square #30 Row 60).
Does anyone remember going to the mill to have corn ground? Stacy Avery shared that he recalled being a youngster of about eight when he and his dad carried their corn on a wagon and mule to get their corn milled. He said he has never forgotten seeing Mr. Henry Stewart covered from head to toe in white corn dust and the only color on Mr. Henry’s body was the irises in his eyes. Can you not see that picture?
How many of you know where the Stewart Mill was located in Coats? I do know that another family in the Coats area was also confronted with death in their family. Mrs. Iona Ennis McLeod had died on a Saturday night at her home. Her services were at the Church of God with burial in Prospect Cemetery (Daily Record August 18, 1958).
Elsewhere, Mr. and Mrs. M.B. Pleasant hosted the Joseph Marion Langdon Annual Reunion at the Pleasant Grove Community Building (Daily Record Aug. 19, 1958).
Another joyful event was that of Miss Joyce Williams when she feted her wedding attendants at a dinner party at the home of her mother. Miss Charlotte Ferrell, Miss Ann Beasley, Miss Diane Williams and Mrs. Stacy Avery were given tokens of appreciation (Daily Record Aug. 20, 1958).
Miss Lodis Butts of Lillington, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. H.T. Butts, and Robert Paul Gauldin, son of Mr. and Mrs. Robert Gauldin, planned their wedding in their future home in Coats on September 5, 1958.
Wonder if the couple attended the Williams –Stewart wedding at the Coats Baptist Church. The groom, Robert Stewart, saw his bride, Joyce Williams, walk down the aisle wearing a ballerina dress of Chantilly lace over antique taffeta. Kenneth Keene, Donald Stewart, and Franklin Stewart ushered the guests.
Another local couple was also married in the Coats Baptist Church in August. The Rev. Ben Eller married Miss Gloria Faye Wilmoth, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Tom H. Wilmoth, to Stewart Hough, son of Mr. and Mrs. Clarence Hough. Sybil and Ann Beasley presented music. Barnes Clayton and Frank Westbrook were ushers. The couple entered the church together. The bride wore a dress of white organdy with a fitted bodice and hat with a short veil. The couple had graduated from Coats High School. The bride was employed in the bookkeeping department at the News and Observer while the groom was employed by Carolina Telephone and Telegraph Company in Fayetteville (Daily Record Aug. 25, 1958).
Stewart was a very popular name in the Coats area and it appeared again in the paper when it was announced that Mr. Carlos Stewart was very ill in N.C. Memorial Hospital in Chapel Hill (Daily Record Aug. 28, 1958). Do you recall reading about his horrible accident while working on a cotton gin?
The new interstate highway near Dunn was not to be called the “new highway 301”. It was to be known as “Interstate 95”. In Coats, principal R. Hal Smith shared that there would be several new teachers on the Coats staff –Mrs. Roena Honeycutt, Miss Ann Pleasant, Miss Frances Owens, Miss Shirley Byrd and Miss Lois Sykes (Daily Record Sept. 1, 1958).
Mrs. Alton Wood was honored at her house with a cradle shower. Mrs. William L. Taylor, Mrs. Victor McLeod, Mrs. Wesley Pleasant, Miss Wanda Stone, and Mrs. Henry Lloyd took part in the games. When is the last time you heard the expression-“cradle shower”?
Deaths, births, weddings, and showers kept people in the Grove Township busy traveling from one to the other. This time it was to the funeral of Mrs. W.H. Turlington, 86, of Turlington’s Crossroads. Affectionately known as “Lizzie”, her funeral service was at the home place with burial in the Coats Cemetery. Elders P. Floyd Adams, Blaney Godwin, and Millard Westbrook officiated. She was the widow of the late Sheriff W.H. Turlington. She was survived by sons-Henry A., T. Jeff, Randall. Lee, William H., and Hilton Turlington and daughters-Mrs. Vernon Jackson, Mrs. Sam Byrd, Mrs. Harry Wolfe, Mrs. Curtis Croon, Mrs. J.P. Morgan, Mrs. Guy Hill, and Mrs. James Honeycutt. Her Penny siblings were Joe H., Archie, Victor, and Jeff and Mrs. Eli F. Turlington and Mrs. Roger Coats (Daily Record Sept 1, 1958).
It is interesting to note that one of these daughters, Allene Turlington Honeycutt, donated to the Coats Museum three generations of handcrafted items - a handmade jabot of her mom “Lizzie” Penny Turlington(born 1872), the handmade baby cap of Lizzie’s mother Unity Coats Penny(born 1852) and the baby cap of Allene T. Honeycutt)born 1913).
Mr. and Mrs. Malcolm Fleming Norris had a new son, Michael Fleming Norris. Mrs. Norris was the former Judy Garland Avery (Daily Record Sept. 2, 1958).
The Senior Class of 1959 had elected their class officers: Larry Denning, president; Ronnie Langdon, vice president; Ann Godwin, secretary; Betty Sue Ennis, and Linda Parrish, co-treasurers; and Sybil Beasley, reporter (Daily Record Sept. 11, 1958).
Mr. and Mrs. Maylon Avery announced the engagement of their daughter Faye to Francis Allen Dunbar. Both worked at Dillon Supply. Elsewhere, death visited eastern Grove where Mrs. Hermie Norris, 57, died at her home in the Bethel area. Funeral was in the Bethel PBC by Elders J.D. Capps and Glenn Bacley. She was the wife of Noah Norris (Daily Record Sept. 12, 1958).
A special thank you goes to Robie and Lynda Butler for remembering their friend Becky Adams who would have celebrated her 50th wedding anniversary this week had her husband not died from a fire accident last year. Thank you, H.L. Sorrell, for giving a donation to the Coats Museum Endowment to honor your Aunt Hazel Sorrell who celebrated her 100th birthday last week.
Last week you read of the death of Henry Clay Stewart. Mr. Stewart was the owner and operator of the “Ole” grist mill built in approximately 1918. According to Alfred Stewart, Henry’s brother of Akron, Ohio, his daddy Claud Daniel Stewart, once a teacher and principal of Coats School, helped his son Henry build the mill. During the hard times, Henry furnished the family of eleven with flour and corn meal.
The mill consisted of three mills according to his daughter, Evangeline Stewart. Originally there were two but a third was later added. Three flat rocks called boulders were placed on top of a bed of rocks and the top one rotated by force of an electric motor driven by pulleys and belts. Each mill had a little wheel attached to it that raised and lowered the top rock to make the cornmeal grind.
The rocks had to be whetted or sharpened, every so often, to make the cornmeal grind right. Evangeline recalled that most farmers wanted the meal made from the corn they had raised on their farm. She recalled that most of the corn brought to the mill had to be shelled by her dad’s electric sheller.
Did Mr. Henry have help? After WWII, Keith Wayne and Laverne helped operate the business. Eventually the mill became the property of his wife, Mrs. Myrtle Stewart, who was indeed the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Lonnie and Nettie Stewart who did operate a general store on the Main Street of Coats when Coats was just developing a business district. By the way, was their business in a brick or wooden structure?
This I do know. Two of the sons operated the mill from 1958 until their mother died in 1969. After Mrs. Stewart‘s death, the four children inherited the mill. The two brothers who had operated the mill bought the shares of Kylce and Evangeline. The brothers operated the business until 1978. The total job consisted of shelling, grinding, and looking after the mill such as sacking, tying, loading, and delivering the corn to surrounding towns. Laverne operated the mill while Keith tended the books. The meal was marketed in all areas of Harnett and in Benson. Some folks actually carried the meal to distances as far as California.
The mill was located on the property of Dr. Harry C. Roberts who never took rent money-only a bag of cornmeal. Steve Stewart, Henry’s grandson, said that was “horse trading”. After Dr. Robert’s death in the plane crash, Henry paid only $25.00 a year to Mrs. Edna Roberts, the doctor’s widow. House’s Mill bought the bed rocks in the mill in 1978-79. The flat rocks were placed in the yard of the old Henry Stewart yard (Evangeline Stewart-Harnett County quilt- square #30 Row 60).
Does anyone remember going to the mill to have corn ground? Stacy Avery shared that he recalled being a youngster of about eight when he and his dad carried their corn on a wagon and mule to get their corn milled. He said he has never forgotten seeing Mr. Henry Stewart covered from head to toe in white corn dust and the only color on Mr. Henry’s body was the irises in his eyes. Can you not see that picture?
How many of you know where the Stewart Mill was located in Coats? I do know that another family in the Coats area was also confronted with death in their family. Mrs. Iona Ennis McLeod had died on a Saturday night at her home. Her services were at the Church of God with burial in Prospect Cemetery (Daily Record August 18, 1958).
Elsewhere, Mr. and Mrs. M.B. Pleasant hosted the Joseph Marion Langdon Annual Reunion at the Pleasant Grove Community Building (Daily Record Aug. 19, 1958).
Another joyful event was that of Miss Joyce Williams when she feted her wedding attendants at a dinner party at the home of her mother. Miss Charlotte Ferrell, Miss Ann Beasley, Miss Diane Williams and Mrs. Stacy Avery were given tokens of appreciation (Daily Record Aug. 20, 1958).
Miss Lodis Butts of Lillington, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. H.T. Butts, and Robert Paul Gauldin, son of Mr. and Mrs. Robert Gauldin, planned their wedding in their future home in Coats on September 5, 1958.
Wonder if the couple attended the Williams –Stewart wedding at the Coats Baptist Church. The groom, Robert Stewart, saw his bride, Joyce Williams, walk down the aisle wearing a ballerina dress of Chantilly lace over antique taffeta. Kenneth Keene, Donald Stewart, and Franklin Stewart ushered the guests.
Another local couple was also married in the Coats Baptist Church in August. The Rev. Ben Eller married Miss Gloria Faye Wilmoth, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Tom H. Wilmoth, to Stewart Hough, son of Mr. and Mrs. Clarence Hough. Sybil and Ann Beasley presented music. Barnes Clayton and Frank Westbrook were ushers. The couple entered the church together. The bride wore a dress of white organdy with a fitted bodice and hat with a short veil. The couple had graduated from Coats High School. The bride was employed in the bookkeeping department at the News and Observer while the groom was employed by Carolina Telephone and Telegraph Company in Fayetteville (Daily Record Aug. 25, 1958).
Stewart was a very popular name in the Coats area and it appeared again in the paper when it was announced that Mr. Carlos Stewart was very ill in N.C. Memorial Hospital in Chapel Hill (Daily Record Aug. 28, 1958). Do you recall reading about his horrible accident while working on a cotton gin?
The new interstate highway near Dunn was not to be called the “new highway 301”. It was to be known as “Interstate 95”. In Coats, principal R. Hal Smith shared that there would be several new teachers on the Coats staff –Mrs. Roena Honeycutt, Miss Ann Pleasant, Miss Frances Owens, Miss Shirley Byrd and Miss Lois Sykes (Daily Record Sept. 1, 1958).
Mrs. Alton Wood was honored at her house with a cradle shower. Mrs. William L. Taylor, Mrs. Victor McLeod, Mrs. Wesley Pleasant, Miss Wanda Stone, and Mrs. Henry Lloyd took part in the games. When is the last time you heard the expression-“cradle shower”?
Deaths, births, weddings, and showers kept people in the Grove Township busy traveling from one to the other. This time it was to the funeral of Mrs. W.H. Turlington, 86, of Turlington’s Crossroads. Affectionately known as “Lizzie”, her funeral service was at the home place with burial in the Coats Cemetery. Elders P. Floyd Adams, Blaney Godwin, and Millard Westbrook officiated. She was the widow of the late Sheriff W.H. Turlington. She was survived by sons-Henry A., T. Jeff, Randall. Lee, William H., and Hilton Turlington and daughters-Mrs. Vernon Jackson, Mrs. Sam Byrd, Mrs. Harry Wolfe, Mrs. Curtis Croon, Mrs. J.P. Morgan, Mrs. Guy Hill, and Mrs. James Honeycutt. Her Penny siblings were Joe H., Archie, Victor, and Jeff and Mrs. Eli F. Turlington and Mrs. Roger Coats (Daily Record Sept 1, 1958).
It is interesting to note that one of these daughters, Allene Turlington Honeycutt, donated to the Coats Museum three generations of handcrafted items - a handmade jabot of her mom “Lizzie” Penny Turlington(born 1872), the handmade baby cap of Lizzie’s mother Unity Coats Penny(born 1852) and the baby cap of Allene T. Honeycutt)born 1913).
Mr. and Mrs. Malcolm Fleming Norris had a new son, Michael Fleming Norris. Mrs. Norris was the former Judy Garland Avery (Daily Record Sept. 2, 1958).
The Senior Class of 1959 had elected their class officers: Larry Denning, president; Ronnie Langdon, vice president; Ann Godwin, secretary; Betty Sue Ennis, and Linda Parrish, co-treasurers; and Sybil Beasley, reporter (Daily Record Sept. 11, 1958).
Mr. and Mrs. Maylon Avery announced the engagement of their daughter Faye to Francis Allen Dunbar. Both worked at Dillon Supply. Elsewhere, death visited eastern Grove where Mrs. Hermie Norris, 57, died at her home in the Bethel area. Funeral was in the Bethel PBC by Elders J.D. Capps and Glenn Bacley. She was the wife of Noah Norris (Daily Record Sept. 12, 1958).
A special thank you goes to Robie and Lynda Butler for remembering their friend Becky Adams who would have celebrated her 50th wedding anniversary this week had her husband not died from a fire accident last year. Thank you, H.L. Sorrell, for giving a donation to the Coats Museum Endowment to honor your Aunt Hazel Sorrell who celebrated her 100th birthday last week.