Stories from Across North Carolina, June 1919

“N.C. State News: A Digest of Everything Worth Knowing About Old North State Folks and Things” from the Friday, June 27, 1919,  issue of the Elizabeth City Independent

The three-year canning club record of Miss Tazzie Dean and her two sisters of Granville County is considered an unusual achievement by the United States Department of Agriculture. On one-fifth of an acre in this period of time the girls have earned enough from their canned vegetables to remodel and paint their home and buy new furniture; to pay half the expenses of one girl in college for two years, and to pay a part of the cost of a new automobile. In addition, they supplied the family table with garden products, all from this plot of ground.

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Sheriff J.E.C. Bell of Vance County has been indicted on a charge of gambling. The case is now being tried in the courts of the county.

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Ed Coley, charged with criminal assault on 11-year-old Glady Stanberry, whose disappearance from her home in Nash County occasioned much alarm last week, has been bound over to the Superior court without bail. Coley was a laborer on the Stanberry farm.

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Edward Kidder Graham Jr., son of the late President Graham of the University of North Carolina, has been adopted by the trustees of the University, who will care for and educate the boy as a memorial t his distinguished father. The boy’s mother died two years ago.

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Paul Wagner of Newton, a member of one of the Agricultural Extension Service poultry clubs, has a flock of 15 hens which have laid 1,108 eggs in four months from Feb. 1 to June 1. Wagner has realized a net profit of $33.40 on his small flock, or an average gain of $2 per hen.

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The combined exhibits of several United States Government departments will be shown at the State Fair to be held in Raleigh in October. This material will include photographs, charts, and miscellaneous samples from the Department of Agriculture, Trophies of the Great War from the War Department, and models of ships with all sorts of navy equipment from the Navy Department.

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North Carolina Masons celebrated Tuesday, June 24 as St. John’s Day at the Oxford Orphanage. Many members of the organization were present at the exercises, which included a barbecue and the presentation of the Grand Lodge Memorial to Past Grand Master Claude L. Pridgen of Kinston.

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Rev. Joe Johnson, pastor of the colored Church of God and Saints of Christ in Wilson was assaulted in the pulpit last Sunday by a member of his congregation armed with a knife. Parson Johnson beat off his assailant with a chair, and both were fined in police court next day.

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To meet the great and increasing demand for competent highway engineers in North Carolina, the State College at Raleigh has created a new department of highway engineering, which will be a suibdivision of the civil engineering department. All this year’s graduates in civil engineering are going into State highway work.

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The tax rate for the city of Durham has been fixed at $1.50 per $100 property valuation for the coming year. Due to the economical administration of the city government, a surplus of about $11,000 has accumulated. Salaries of the city clerk and city auditor were increased, and the city tax collector was placed on a salary basis of $2,400 per year.

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The National Prisoners’ Relief Society is endeavoring to have the Department of Justice investigate prison conditions in North Carolina, following a recent investigation by the North Carolina prison board, by whom charges were declared groundless. The board likewise denies that prisoners reporting cruel treatment were severely punished.

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The city commissioners of Raleigh have decreed that public dancing in that city must be above reproach, but they are uncertain just how to cope with the quivery “shimmie” and other ultra-modern dances which they argue are being carried on in an objectionable manner. It is suggested that a police matron be present as a chaperone at each dance.

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Two bold burglars recently entered the home of Miss Corrinna Rogers of West Durham and at the point of a pistol made her submit to being gagged, blindfolded and tied hand and foot to the bed, after which they ransacked the room, appropriating $75 in currency. Miss Rogers was found and released by the cook early in the morning. The robbers have not been apprehended.

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A red flag was raised at the naval air station at Morehead city one night last week, and as a result four sailors are locked in the guard house awaiting trial for mutiny. The trouble is said to have arisen over discontent among the men due to the cancellation of discharge orders. The flag has been sent to Washington for finger print tests.

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Stripped utterly naked and with a 5-ounce bottle of poison lying two-thirds empty besides her, Vassie Thompson, 35-year-old white woman was recently found dead in a vacant house in Raleigh. The woman has long been addicted to the use of drugs, and when under their influence was possesses of an insane mania to tear off her clothes. She has a son in France.