June 27, 2025 Coats Museum News
Have you ever been asked if time is a friend or a foe? Think about it. With every passing day in our lives, time adds new memories that are stored in our amazing brains for us to retrieve at another time. Then we encounter someone that we knew in our earlier times and we struggle to recall that individual as they ask, “Do you remember me?” We see others whose bodies and minds have been robbed of their earlier days by the struggles of disease and living. Is time- a friend or a foe?
This I do know. I will eternally be grateful for the time that several of my friends and I spent at the Daily Record in Dunn reading all the old newspapers in their library and noting all the articles that were relevant to the happenings in the Grove –Coats area and then compiling articles into a heritage book and still later being able to incorporate them into this Coats Museum News column each week.
For example, I had not thought about an event that had happened in our gardens many years ago until I revisited our heritage book and there the event was recorded in the Sept. 27, 1995 edition of the Daily Record that we had found in 2003 in the paper’s library.
We often have folks come into the museum and mention that a friend had clipped a particular Coats Museum News column in which there was information that would be of interest to them. My brain questioned-do they not subscribe to the paper? Then my brain reminded me of what my late husband responded to me when I mentioned how expensive our weekly and Sunday subscription of the News and Observer was becoming.
He said, “Do some math-which cost more- a copy of a newspaper or a Pepsi, coffee or tea at a fast food establishment?” Reading a newspaper must be an inherited trait because on many visits to my in-laws’ house in Johnston County, one would see H.L.’s dad reading either the Smithfield Herald or the Benson Review.
It was on that farm in Johnston County that hundreds of iron rocks had been carried to the sides of the fields so they would not break the plow points that were pulled through the clay soil to plant or cultivate the numerous crops planted in that soil.
Years later, many of those iron rocks would find themselves in the back of H.L.’s old Ford pickup, after which he would later transform those rocks into a beautiful waterfalls addition in our backyard in Harnett County. I have proof now that he transformed the rocks into waterfalls before Sept. 27, 1995.
The following is what the paper printed which shares the kinds of food and activities that occurred on the social calendar of some of Coats’ most active ladies. After reading about it, count all those that “time” has taken from us.
The article began with stating that rivulets of water flowed over the rocks into the goldfish water garden and eight little kittens peeped from behind the variegated lirope as 16 members of the Coats Woman’s Club met at the home of H.L. and Gayle Sorrell. Chicken-stuffed, in casseroles and fried-were in abundance. Turnip greens, cucumbers, deviled eggs, apple dumplings, coconut pie, apricot nectar cake were on the table for choices.
Julia Stewart had presided and Lucille May and her daughter-Gina May and David Hauer- presented the program. The 1995 club members present were Mary Denning, Frances Fanning, Gerri Honeycutt, Ann Kaneklides, Laura Langdon, Mary Langdon, Mary Jo Mann, Linda Massengill, Lib Nordan, Christine Parrish, Florine Penny, Joyce Rambeau, Gayle Sorrell, Sharon Stevens, Julie Stewart and Ruth Upchurch.
Yes, the waterfall garden is still there with beautiful water lillies that protect the numerous goldfish that swim beneath the huge foliage and flowers. Instead of young kittens, uninvited young deer now roan the back yard and nibble on the variegated hostas. Time has taken eleven of those beautiful ladies who attended that club meeting.
Elsewhere in the Coats area, someone had died in an auto accident and in his place; a younger man took over his role at the F-Bar-T Rodeo. Stuart Turlington, in his early 20’s, now operated his late Uncle Frank Turlington’s rodeo business off Highway 55 at Turlington’s Crossroad area.
Belle Williams in her “Notes from Coats” shared that heartfelt sympathy was extended to the family of Tommy Y. Carroll. Brian Turlington had spent a day in the State Legislative Building as the guest of State Senator Dan Page. Brian also met with Rep. Don Davis and was introduced to everyone by Dennis Wicker. Brian’s family celebrated his birthday and the fact that his older brother, Chad Turlington, had won the Soil and Water Conservation contest for Lee, Chatham, and Harnett County High Schools. The boys were the sons of Don and Debbie Ennis Turlington and grandsons of Rachel and Charles Ennis.
We all really miss Ma’s Grill. It was in the fall of 1995 that Polly Byrd took over the management of the decades old establishment.
Thank you goes to Robie and Lynda Butler, Randy and Rhonda Stephenson and Becky Adams for memorializing Norfleet Gardner in the Coats Museum records. Norfleet gave so much to the Coats community.
Have you ever been asked if time is a friend or a foe? Think about it. With every passing day in our lives, time adds new memories that are stored in our amazing brains for us to retrieve at another time. Then we encounter someone that we knew in our earlier times and we struggle to recall that individual as they ask, “Do you remember me?” We see others whose bodies and minds have been robbed of their earlier days by the struggles of disease and living. Is time- a friend or a foe?
This I do know. I will eternally be grateful for the time that several of my friends and I spent at the Daily Record in Dunn reading all the old newspapers in their library and noting all the articles that were relevant to the happenings in the Grove –Coats area and then compiling articles into a heritage book and still later being able to incorporate them into this Coats Museum News column each week.
For example, I had not thought about an event that had happened in our gardens many years ago until I revisited our heritage book and there the event was recorded in the Sept. 27, 1995 edition of the Daily Record that we had found in 2003 in the paper’s library.
We often have folks come into the museum and mention that a friend had clipped a particular Coats Museum News column in which there was information that would be of interest to them. My brain questioned-do they not subscribe to the paper? Then my brain reminded me of what my late husband responded to me when I mentioned how expensive our weekly and Sunday subscription of the News and Observer was becoming.
He said, “Do some math-which cost more- a copy of a newspaper or a Pepsi, coffee or tea at a fast food establishment?” Reading a newspaper must be an inherited trait because on many visits to my in-laws’ house in Johnston County, one would see H.L.’s dad reading either the Smithfield Herald or the Benson Review.
It was on that farm in Johnston County that hundreds of iron rocks had been carried to the sides of the fields so they would not break the plow points that were pulled through the clay soil to plant or cultivate the numerous crops planted in that soil.
Years later, many of those iron rocks would find themselves in the back of H.L.’s old Ford pickup, after which he would later transform those rocks into a beautiful waterfalls addition in our backyard in Harnett County. I have proof now that he transformed the rocks into waterfalls before Sept. 27, 1995.
The following is what the paper printed which shares the kinds of food and activities that occurred on the social calendar of some of Coats’ most active ladies. After reading about it, count all those that “time” has taken from us.
The article began with stating that rivulets of water flowed over the rocks into the goldfish water garden and eight little kittens peeped from behind the variegated lirope as 16 members of the Coats Woman’s Club met at the home of H.L. and Gayle Sorrell. Chicken-stuffed, in casseroles and fried-were in abundance. Turnip greens, cucumbers, deviled eggs, apple dumplings, coconut pie, apricot nectar cake were on the table for choices.
Julia Stewart had presided and Lucille May and her daughter-Gina May and David Hauer- presented the program. The 1995 club members present were Mary Denning, Frances Fanning, Gerri Honeycutt, Ann Kaneklides, Laura Langdon, Mary Langdon, Mary Jo Mann, Linda Massengill, Lib Nordan, Christine Parrish, Florine Penny, Joyce Rambeau, Gayle Sorrell, Sharon Stevens, Julie Stewart and Ruth Upchurch.
Yes, the waterfall garden is still there with beautiful water lillies that protect the numerous goldfish that swim beneath the huge foliage and flowers. Instead of young kittens, uninvited young deer now roan the back yard and nibble on the variegated hostas. Time has taken eleven of those beautiful ladies who attended that club meeting.
Elsewhere in the Coats area, someone had died in an auto accident and in his place; a younger man took over his role at the F-Bar-T Rodeo. Stuart Turlington, in his early 20’s, now operated his late Uncle Frank Turlington’s rodeo business off Highway 55 at Turlington’s Crossroad area.
Belle Williams in her “Notes from Coats” shared that heartfelt sympathy was extended to the family of Tommy Y. Carroll. Brian Turlington had spent a day in the State Legislative Building as the guest of State Senator Dan Page. Brian also met with Rep. Don Davis and was introduced to everyone by Dennis Wicker. Brian’s family celebrated his birthday and the fact that his older brother, Chad Turlington, had won the Soil and Water Conservation contest for Lee, Chatham, and Harnett County High Schools. The boys were the sons of Don and Debbie Ennis Turlington and grandsons of Rachel and Charles Ennis.
We all really miss Ma’s Grill. It was in the fall of 1995 that Polly Byrd took over the management of the decades old establishment.
Thank you goes to Robie and Lynda Butler, Randy and Rhonda Stephenson and Becky Adams for memorializing Norfleet Gardner in the Coats Museum records. Norfleet gave so much to the Coats community.