Looking back: From our files

Published 8:58 am Sunday, October 16, 2016

An Advocate reporter had a very interesting interview with a prominent farmer who has valuable tips on how to judge pumpkins. This farmer has 40 acres of pumpkins this year. He says aside from pumpkin bread, pumpkin pie and pumpkin cream and butter for the housewife, the pumpkin is a very successful diet for hogs. They enjoy these melons and are quickly fattened on them. This expert farmer also said the best pumpkins are always heavy.

Little Johnny Moler had a narrow escape when he fell off the back of a buggy and escaped without a broken limb. He was on his way to school with a bunch of other children when he decided to hook a ride. He lost his hold and fell. James Crouch, who happened to be passing in a car, took the boy home and a doctor was summoned. It is a wonder more children are not injured than they are. There is hardly a wagon, buggy or car that passes down the street that two or three don’t climb on and hook a ride.

King Swope, Republican elector for the eighth congressional district will be speaking at the Danville Court House Saturday night. Ladies are especially invited and space will be reserved within the railing for them.

Those who went to Junction City last night to get a glimpse of Teddy Roosevelt were very much disappointed. Several motor parties from here went over and waited around for a time, but finally came home, satisfied that they were chasing a rainbow. One old man drove a mule from Middleburg. The round trip was about 60 miles and yet he didn’t get to see the lion hunter.

A jury has awarded Mary Debaun $1,400 in damages against the estate of Sam J. Sims. The suit was for $20,000. Homer Debaun, the girl’s father was killed by a shot fired through a window of his drug store in Cornishville in October, 1915. Sims, who had threatened Debaun, was found hanging from a rafter of his barn and with a bullet in his brain the day following the murder. He was suspected of the crime.

Plans call for construction to start in the next 90 days of another “Sanders Court” tourist hotel on Maple Avenue just out of the city limits. Ground for the tourist hotel has already been purchased three-tenths of a mile out of the city limits and immediately beyond the Bunny Inn on the road to Harrodsburg. The building is expected to take about 10 days to construct. The new court, which will be of brick and tile, will contain 24 rooms. It will feature central heating and air conditioning, individual showers and ample parking. Eating arrangements will be handled by the Bunny Inn. Danville City Council has been approached about the possibility of extending sewerage lines to the court at the same time water connections are laid.

“Smokes for Soldiers” campaigns are being worked in many communities. Those who want to do something for the boys who have been called to defend America have an opportunity to do them a real service. Not only cigarettes, but cigars and smoking tobacco are included. Anyone interested in donating may call The Advocate-Messenger for more information.

Dr. W.M. Craig, guest speaker at the meeting of the Danville and Boyle County Historical Society, said, “Danville is the cradle of Kentucky, but St. Asaph, now Stanford, rocked the cradle.” Many communities claim to be “first” in the settlement of Kentucky, and most of them are right because this section of the state was all settled about the same time.

Several projects either being set up or planned for introduction into the program of the Danville City schools have been discussed at the board of education meeting. Among items considered were the curriculum in English; and Opportunity Workshop; an art gallery at Danville High School; a tutoring program at Danville Bate Junior High; and an ungraded reading experiment in the fourth, fifth and sixth grades at Mary G. Hogsett Elementary School. The board also recommended that Miss Ella Pryor be paid $300 for her additional responsibilities as extended employment next June.

More than 1,000 people attended the formal open house of the Arrowhead Division of Burlington Mills Inc. in Danville. The facility is the first new industry in the Industrial Foundation Park which owns 330 acres of industrial sites adjacent to Danville off the Parksville Road and Stewart’s Lane. The plant produces felt and fabric industrial trim and currently employed about 100 people.

A large supply of boys’ clothing and some men’s garments were stolen from Jacob Baer Inc., a men’s clothing store at 217 West Main Street. Entrance was made by breaking out glass in a window at the rear of the building. Taken chiefly were boys’ suits, sweaters, jackets and shirts and some men’s apparel, all neatly lifted from clothes racks and shelves, with possibly two or three hats taken from the showcase.

T-Sgt. Glen H. Short, son of Mr. and Mrs. Irvin L. Short of Yosemite, has retired from the U.S. Air Force after more than 21 years of service. Sergeant Short served as a missile launch equipment technician prior to his retirement. He served in the European Theatre of Operations during World War II and is a veteran of the Korean War. A graduate of Middleburg High School in Casey County, Sergeant Short is married to the former Miss Gladys F. Hannan of England.

Pauline Lawson thought she was taking a temporary job in 1961 when she became an assistant to former Mercer Circuit Clerk Helen Davenport. “It was only going to be no more than a year and a half,” Lawson said just before celebrating 30 years in the office. “I didn’t even apply for the job.” The year and a half turned into years when Davenport’s term lasted longer than expected and the next clerk, R.H. Gash Jr., asked “Miss Polly” to stay.

Victoria Collier is encouraging people to make stitches of love. As Kentucky’s area coordinator and distributor for At-risk Babies Crib (ABC) Quilts, Collier is looking for people to help make quilts for HIV/AIDS infected babies. “We can’t heal these babies. We can’t fix it, but we can offer a symbolic, as well as practical gestures to say, “Somebody out there cares about you,” she said. Collier is a former teacher at Bate and the Kentucky School for the Deaf.

Junction City Police Chief A.E. “Tex” Smith is studying for his GED certificate because he has been unable to produce evidence of a high school diploma. Smith said he doesn’t  have his diploma because of a house fire that destroyed all such personal records some time ago. City attorney A. Jack May, tried to track down the records in Pennsylvania, but was unsuccessful because the school Smith attended no longer exists.