From our files, Feb. 2
Published 4:18 pm Friday, February 1, 2019
100 YEARS AGO — 1919
Advertisement from the L.B. Sapp Furniture Company: Danville’s largest furniture and rug store: How to keep the children at home in the evenings. That’s the question that faces many parents. Too old to be disciplined, too young to select a desirable environment. Just how to hand children in their teens is a problem. Why not make the home so attractive that they’ll want to stay there? The new Edison “The phonograph with a soul” will help keep the young folks at home. It will make your house a center for your children’s friends and you can feel safe about their surroundings. What rollicking good times the new Edison assures. The young people can dance to it, sing with it and then as their mood becomes quieted, can slip in some of the beautiful grand opera airs and listen to the world’s greatest artists. Call for a demonstration.
Boyle Sheriff M.J. Farris Jr. has begun an active campaign to round up all the dogs in the county that have no license tags on them. Mr. Farris has already captured about 20 dogs, which will be killed unless the owners call for them and pay the license and expenses for keeping them in the pound.
Many of the Danville boys are returning almost daily from military camps and from overseas duty, and they are as glad to get back home as the home folks are glad to see them.
75 YEARS AGO — 1944
Lt. Fred Seiller and his son Marine Private Fred E. Seiller Jr., 19, of North Fifth Street in Danville, are among the few father-and-son groups from this area serving in World War II. Private Seiller was 17 when he enlisted and he qualified as a sharpshooter and attained an expert rating for his dexterity in using the bayonet. He was an 11th grade student at Danville High School when he joined the armed forces. Mrs. Seiller remains in Danville.
Donald Duck was due to arrive here at 12:30 to stage a series of 20-minute shows at five local schools in the interest of the sale of War Bonds and War Savings stamps in the current Fourth War Loan campaign. The famous Mr. Duck will visit Maple Avenue school, Broadway school, Danville High School, Bate colored school and East End Consolidated school.
The Danville Chamber of Commerce heard a report on the referendum on the extension of the city limits. The returns on the referendum showed 81 in favor of extending the city limits and 12 people against a change. A committee was appointed to represent the chamber in an appearance before the city council to discuss the question.
50 YEARS AGO — 1969
A group of interested real estate brokers from Danville and Boyle County held a meeting at Gregory Colonial Restaurant for the purpose of laying groundwork to form a local Board of Realtors. A steering committee was appointed and included Sam Dexter, Laura Carson, Bobby Garrard and R.A. Chinn.
Jan Edmiston and Herbert Miller, both seniors at Danville High School, made the highest scores in the school’s 33rd annual current affairs tests. They have been awarded certificates of excellence by Time Magazine.
25 YEARS AGO — 1994
Genesco will close at the end of February. It opened in 1949. The announcement came to the 200 workers and “it came as a surprise,” said Jim Worland, plant manager. One employee who had worked at Genesco for 22 years said, “People were crying. It was very emotional. Supervisors were all torn up.”
Rep. Joe Clarke has suggested that local officials in Boyle County cease their turf battles and start working together on a plan for a merged government. “Boyle County is ripe for an urban county government like they have in Lexington. The towns in this county are too small to be governed effectively,” Clarke said. The main stumbling block to merged government here is the “fear of people out in the county that Danville would try to control it.” That fear, he said, could be overcome by a plan that would recognize the historic and cultural uniqueness of each part of the county but breaks down artificial political barriers that have resulted in duplication of services, too many taxing districts and other inefficiencies.