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Che Summerville News
The Official Legal Organ of Chattooga County
WINSTON E. ESPY WILLIAM T. ESPY
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JAMES BUDD
NEWS EDITOR
AL _EDT3
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S OUNDATIO N
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Address All Mail to: THE SUMMERVILLE NEWS, P. O. Box 310, Summerville, Ga. 30747
Editorials
Rep. McDonald On Taxes
Friday, April 15, will be the deadline
for filing your 1982 income tax returns,
an event that chills the heart of even the
strongest soul.
Although April 15 is the date you
must file your return, most wage earners
paid a substantial portion, if not all, their
taxes through withholding in 1982. Some
may be getting back a refund of their
money, without interest of course, while
others will owe additional taxes.
And compared to local and state
taxes, federal income taxes are extremely
high. Especially when one adds in the
Social Security tax. But many people.-
don’t seem to feel the pinch (unless they
owe more April 15) because it is withheld
from their paychecks. They never see it,
making it less likely they will miss it.
During fiscal year 1983, the govern
ment estimates that your tax burden will
be $578.7-billion. But in fiscal year 1984,
that will climb by $61.5-billion, or more
than 10 percent in one year, according to
economists at the Tax Foundation.
In Georgia, according to the Founda
tion, a total of $11,506,000 in federal
Fast-Growing States
Which are the fastest growing states?
The Census Bureau has released figures
for 1982 which show that since 1980 the
fastest growing states, in order, are
Nevada, Alaska, Texas and Florida.
California has slipped to 10th place,
behind Wyoming, Utah, Colorado,
Arizona and Oklahoma, in that order. The
other states growing faster than the na
tional average in this period — 2.2 per
cent — are New Mexico, Louisiana, New
Hampshire, Georgia, Hawaii, Virginia,
Washington, South Carolina, North
Dakota, North Carolina and Idaho.
D
46 YEARS AGO
The following are excerpts from the April 7, 1938, issue of The Summerville
News.
* * *
Formal Opening Of Menlo Gymnasium — The formal opening of the Menlo
gymnasium will be held Friday night, April 8, at 8 o’clock, when a three-act
mystery play, ‘Hobgobblin House,” will be presented by Menlo school faculty
and local talent.
Admission 15 and 25 cents.
* * *
CHATTOOGA COWS MAKE NEW OFFICIAL RECORDS — Peter
borough, N. H. — Four Guernsey cows owned by Riegeldale farms (the Trion
company), Trion, Ga., have just finished new official records for production
which entitles them to entry in the advanced register of the American Guern
sey Cattle club. These animals include 4-year-old Temple Place Fannie 375763,
producing 10,861.8 pounds of milk and 552.8 pounds of butter fat in class CC;
3-year-old Josephine of Ponce de Leon 394413, producing 10,998.6 pounds of
milk and 555.5 pounds of butter fat in class E; 3-year-old Mozingo’s Duchess
402324, producing 9,799.1 pounds of milk and 540.2 pounds of butter fat in
class EE; and 2%-year-old Radiant’s Evelyn of R.S. 440334, producing
11,236.6 pounds of milk and 490.6 pounds of butter fat in class F.
. s
IN FASHION NOW — Handbags seem bigger and simpler. Flat bags,
square or oblong, of good leather seem to be favorites. Colored crocodile is
popular for bags. They come in strawberry patch corn flower blue, butter
scotch and other colors and can be matched up with belts and shoes of the
same colors and materials. Some of the new hats resemble a huge bouquet of
flowers sitting upon the head.
* * *
ROUND DANCE — Be sure and make plans now to attend the big round
dance at Smallan’s place Saturday night, April 9, located two miles west of
Berryton, Ga. Music by Robert Towns and his Spencer Rhythms from Chat
tanooga. Regular price, 50c per c:)uple. Informal.
. ®. a 8
EYESIGHT SPECIALIST COMING — Have your eyes examined and fit
ted with correct glasses FRIDAY, APRIL 15, one day only, at our store. Dr.
Sapp in charge. Save money on your glasses. — McGinnis Drug Co., Summer
ville, Ga. / , '
SUBSCRIPTION RATES
Within County .. ........ ... $6.70
Out-of-Count.fi Rates
Available On Request.
Published Every Thursday By
ESPY PUBLISHING CO, INC.
Second Class Postage Paid
At Summerville, Ga. 30747
PUBLICATION NO. SECD 525560
taxes will be raised in 1983, jumping to
$12,747,000 in fiscal year 1984. This
breaks down to a per capita burden of
$2,009 in fiscal 1983 and $2,192 in fiscal
1984. For example, for a family of four,
their federal tax burden this year will be
$8,036, jumping to $8,768 in fiscal year
1984, on the average.
This may be surprising o most peo
ple, who thought they would be getting a
tax reduction. But, the fact is, Congress
and the Administration merely reduced
the amount of tax increase in approving
the so-called tax cut bill of a couple of
years ago. And when you add in the
tremendous tax increases last year and
scheduled Social Security taxes and the
new gasoline tax, taxes will actually in
crease.
Still, we face deficits of over
S2OO-billion! That’s why I continue to in
sist that we need reductions in non
defense federal spending and then real
tax cuts that would allow wage earners to
keep what they earn and encourage
business and industry to expand and
create new jobs. .
Five states and the District of Colum
bia lost population — Michigan (the
most), Indiana, lowa, Ohio and West
Virginia, in that order. Two states
registered no gain or loss — Pennsylvania
and South Dakota. The others showed
population gains from 1.9 percent (Kan
sas) down to 0.2 percent (Arkansas).
Biggest population gains among the
top states (as apart from percentages)
were in Texas, California and Florida —
as expected. The Census Bureau says the
national population increase for the two
year period was about 5,000,000 — a very
rapid rate of increase.
1A ESCEKBANDS
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1983 MAN e PR 9
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Mountain Echoes S
by Jimmy Townsend
We Called Them
‘Counterpins’
I have always thought of Calhoun as
being my adopted town. I live over here in
Jasper, but it was Calhoun that helped
my buy my first car. That was in 1935
when I was a junior in high school. I
would go over to Calhoun and pick up
white sheeting that had been laid out to
be tufted by hand. Some called them
bedspreads while us ole country folks call
ed them ‘‘counterpins.”
I would take the soon-to-be spreads
and distribute them to women in the
county with thread of different colors.
The women would tuft them by hand and
receive a nickle to fifteen cents for the
work. I would pick them up, take them
back to the plants and would be paid dou
ble for them. This is how I bought my
first brandnew Plymouth. It didn't
bother me at all that I had to remove the
back seat so I could haul enough to pay
off.
So, you see, I owe a lot to Calhoun
because I bought me a gold wristwatch,
too. This was in the days of the Big
Depression and not many men had work
of any kind. Why, the women made so
much money that when we had box sup
pers it was the women who had to do the
bidding. They had a little money while
the men had none at all.
Dialogue . ..
by James Budd
Here Today, Gone Tomorrow
The last time I saw him alive was
while traveling west toward Menlo last
Friday afternoon.
He waved at me and I waved back as
we passed in opposite directions. You
could always tell it was Bill White
because of the Styrofoam cup he kept on
the dash for a spittoon.
I finished my business in Menlo and
returned back down the highway toward
Summerville a few minutes later. As I
reached the vicinity of the chert pit, I
couldn’t believe my eyes as just seconds
before Bill White's car had crossed the
eastbound lane of the highway and landed
in the bottom of a ravine. He had ap
parently finished his business in Summer
ville and was returning home to
Cloudland when the accident occurred.
I got out of my truck and slid down to
the bottom of the ravine and with the help
of a couple of other guys, we pried open
the car door. It looked bad. I felt helpless
as heck.
He was unconscious and there was on
ly a slight pulse beat at his neck. A
woman from the rescue squad came along
and all four of us lifted Bill and carried
him up the gulch to the side of the road
for CPR. There was nothing I could do, so
I left, knowing it would be the last time I
would ever see Bill.
I couldn’t help but recall how just
three weeks ago, Mr. White and I talked
in Cloudland about various road projects
in the state. He was great friends with
DOT Commissioner Tom Moreland and
was always on top of any new highway
construction programs.
I mentioned something about a pro
The old 41 highway came right
through town back then, and sometimes
the traffic would be bumper-to-bumper.
Fsneciallv with the Dixie and Ohio Ex
press trucks. Of course, a Calhoun
policeman would arrest someone every
now and then so he could be paid. After
all, them Yankees were a lot easier to pick
than cotton.
Everybody was hungry, it seemed
like. Soup lines were everywhere, but
those girls would wear out shoes doing
some dance named after that coast town
in South Carolina. It was Babe Ruth’s
last year in baseball, and he pointed to
the centerfield bleachers in Chicago and
hit the ball right over there.
I think it was in Gordon County that I
saw my first red light. Bedspreads and
counterpins hung on lines in every yard
up and down that highway. Some would
have fancy tufted housecoats and throw
rugs. People didn’t have much, but they
were happy. Didn’t have to lock your
doors when you went off. Nobody had
anything worth stealing.
Yes sir, those were lean years, but
folks’ words were their bond. People
helped one another and visited and
shared.
Today’s days just won’t come up to
those days back then.
posed highway corridor from the midwest
to the Port of Brunswick on the coast,
which has been tossed around for years. I
told him I'd probably never see it in my
lifetime. He told me he ‘‘knew’’ he’d never
see it. The way he said he ‘‘knew’’ he’'d
never see it stuck with me. He was 75, but
nobody .‘‘knows’’ when they’re going to
die — we only know it is inevitable.
I didn’t know Mr. White very long.
We first met last summer while he was
campaigning for gubernatorial candidate
Bo Ginn. On the Fourth of July, I had
lunch with Bill and hjs family at the
Menlo Fiddler's Convention. He always
struck me as a man that had accomplish
ed a lot in his lifetime.
I know that everytime something
went wrong on Hwy. 48 going up toward
Cloudland, it was fixed in just a short
time. The highway was always cleared of
snow by DOT crews in a matter of hours
this past winter. I also know he was con
cerned about Chattooga County and
made every effort to improve our roads
and quality of life.
He was one of those restless, indepen
dent people who make life interesting and
get things done. It was a pleasure to have
known him.
DATEBOOK:
April 12, 1961, (22 years ago), Soviet
Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin inaugurated the
Space Age by orbiting the Earth; April
14, 1865, (118 years ago), President Lin
coln was fatally shot while attending
Ford’s Theatre; April 15, 1912, (71 years
ago), the luxury liner Titanic hit an
iceberg and sank with the loss of 1,513
lives. ;
F
PREERRR N st
| Facing South
A Syndicated Column
Voices Of Tradition
| In A Changing Ileglonm
TALES FROM A MISSISSIPPI FAMILY
PORT GIBSON, Miss. — Mrs. Hystercine Rankin
was born in the Blue Hill community on the old Oak
Grove Place near Port Gibson on Aug. 11, 1929. She is
the mother of seven children, and raised her five younger
brothers after her mother died. She
makes her living as a seamstress; she
has been making quilts since the age of &
12. She is very proud to know how to .;y; - )
make quilts and to express the family e
tradition with every quilt she makes. /LR
I interviewed Mrs. Rankin recently |£ W e
and she told me many interesting ( Buek ™ %
stories about her family: how they got JQ . X
their land and how they arranged mat- S B "SCE%~ 7
ters so that every member was taken
care of. She told me first about how their farm was built:
“I'll begin with my great-grandfather’s land. That
was Daddy Joe. He bought land at 25 cents an acre. And
he would come off the white man’s place, working the
limit, and cut those trees down on his own land at night.
That’s getting that land ready to work. He built him a
great big house with a big hall in it.
““He cleaned that land up, which is nothing but bot
tom land, and it is beautiful. And the pond is out there
now, which he dug with a slip. A slip is pulled with two
mules and it goes down and cuts into the soil. That mule
always walk to the top of the hill and pull the soil.
“Daddy Joe worked seven days a week up until he
couldn’t walk. They say he’d get his seven daughters
ready for church, and his wife, and put 'em in the wagon.
And he’d go to the field and you didn’t talk to him.
““He made baskets to sell in his older days. He sat
down there by the pond in a little chair with a little fire.
That’s where he made his baskets, big cotton baskets. He
would select an oak tree, and he could split that oak wood
so thin.”
Education seems to have been important in Mrs.
Rankin’s family, especially for the women: ‘‘Daddy Joe
had seven daughters, and he carried 'em down to Alcorn
(State University) in a wagon. That's where they went to
school. They wore white stockings and blue uniforms,
down to the ankle with®blue long dresses. Seven
daughters. He had one son. He didn’t want to go to
school: that’s why he got the biggest of the land, because
Daddy Joe says he educated his daughters.”
After Mrs. Rankin'’s father died when she was 10, her
mother and the 11 children went to live with grand
parents. Mrs. Rankin’s mother was a schoolteacher; the
“little winter money’’ she earned during the short school
sessions accounted for most of the big family’s cash in
come. The children all had to work hard to help out, both
in the fields and in the house. This was why Mrs. Rankin
learned to quilt at such an early age:
“I’ll say I had to, between 12 and 13 years old. My
grandparents had us quilting, those that was old enough.
My grandmother first started me on the quilt. She draw
ed a line and I had to sew straight on that line to even
start quilting.
‘“‘See, my grandparents on both sides, they wasn’t so
easy to get along with 'cause I guess it was so many kids.
We thought they was mean, but I guess they was just
trying to raise something and help take care of the kids.”’
Mrs. Rankin says her favorite relative was her great
uncle, Levi January, who was able to do extra things for
the kids because he had no children of his own:
‘““My great-uncle, he was the one. He'd always be br
inging you something. He’d always have something to
hand, a piece of material, or a pair of unions for the boys.
And when you went around to his place, it was always
something good to eat around. See, you didn’t have too
much nourishment, food like that at home, because it just
too many of them.”
Uncle Levi was also the relative who was supposed to
look out for Mrs. Rankin and her sisters after their father
died. He was the main one her husband had to ask before
he could marry her:
“My husband had asked my mother, my great-uncle
and my great-auntie before he asked me to marry him. So
that was the way — they really give you. Mama said,
when he ask her, say, ‘You gonna have to ask Uncle Levi,’
‘cause Uncle Levi was the boss over the girls 'cause my
daddy was dead. There was always a man to see after the
children.”
Today Mrs. Rankin raises a garden and fills a nine
foot-deep freezer with the vegetables she puts up every
year. She also makes quilts, three or four for each of the
seven beds in the house, and some to sell. She takes in
some sewing work, but says, “‘Right now, I knocked all
sewing out and just going all the way quilting.”
Excerpted from a longer piece in I AIN'T LYING,
Vol. 2 — available from Mississippi: Cultural Crossroads,
Box 89, ASU, Lorman, MS 39096. '
— OCTAVIS DAVIS
( recent graduate