Mail's Here!

Lotta messages came in - this is about half of them. More will be included in the May edition.

- MTJ

*

On Route 35, north of Severn and just below the Meherrin River in Northampton County.

Miss Georgiana, August 1972

Purchased from Copeland's Drug while waiting for a BLT sandwich from the counter. After 8 or so years lost in a closet, it is no longer white nor creamy, but the kink in my knee is gone.

Virginia Flood Robbins' rooster, 1972

My great-grandfather, George James himself.
He was a farmer and the owner of the gristmill at Montgomery Pond near Brantley's grove. Sometime after he was widowed in 1925, he started calling on a widow in Cofield. They'd sit in the living room while a young fella courted the widow's daughter out front. A few years later, the porch Romeo, T.W. Jones, married George's granddaughter.

Betty Massie, Albemarle Regional Library Winton, NC

*

I was one of Jim's biggest fans. Hope you can carry on some of his "tradition" here. I know I greatly miss the Poor Town News and Jim's friendship. Our thoughts and prayers stay with Becky.

The [Military CALLOUT] can be neat.... I really think your site has great potential.

...I am photo documenting as many graveyards as we can find....usually the old family burial plots and such before they all disappear. It is part of my genealogy love. Hope to be up that way myself in a couple of weeks to start my spring "shooting"
By the way I live near Fayetteville now

Claudia Harrell Williams

*

I'm not sure how you got my email address... but from what I am seeing, I'd say that I am the winner.

I was never a resident of that area, but I did own property at Arrowhead Beach and Boat Club (our Granddaughter has it now) so knew the area well, plus our daughters husband's family came from Bertie County and Pasquatank County area, so had an interest in the stories and people.
Jim [Pearce] (Boweaver as I knew him) and I met on a Genealogy site and became friends for several years. I was saddened to find out from Becky that he passed on.
I hope you will continue to include me in your stories or add me to you subscribe list.

Norma

*

I always enjoyed Jim's Poor Town News. I grew up in Durham Co. about the same time that Jim was coming along. Jim was just a shade older than I was I graduated HS in '46 and went in the Marines for 5 years.
Keep up the good work,

Carl Pollard

*

Hello, my name is Rod Baines from Chesapeake, VA but my Mom was born and raised in Bertie County around Roxabel, NC. My dad met her in the late 30's working at a lumber mill in Roxabel and they were married shortly after and moved to Norfolk, VA. Mom always told me that nine months and one week later I was born.

They lived in the Norfolk area for a while and then My dad bought a house in South Norfolk which is now Chesapeake, VA. Dad bought a sawmill and lumber yard in Woodville just across the tracks from Lewiston in the early fifties. He would travel there on Monday morning and return home on Friday evening or Saturday morning. I spent a lot of my youth there and with my grandmother and grandfather who lived about half way between Lewiston and Kelford on the main highway.

There place was next to the Hoggards who still live there. Mom and I use to ride the train from Norfolk to Kelford sometimes when I was a boy and it was an exciting trip. My cousins lived there to, right across the road from the mill and that was good for me. Lots of memories in Bertie County and one of my cousins who retired just a few years ago moved back to Lewiston. Grandmother let me keep my pony on the farm and I kinda learned to drive in the lane up to the house and around the lumber yard.

The picture is of my Dad, Jack Baines, my Mom, Rennie Tillery Baines and myself.

Rod Baines

*

I was born in Ahoskie in 1951 and moved to Pitt County about 1955, although many on my relatives still live in the Bertie, Hertford, Chowan and Northampton counties. I have enjoyed visiting your site to keep up to date with the news in the Ahoskie area. A year ago I started a website to record
my family information which includes many families from that area. If you have time, please visit my website: www.myfamilynames.com.

John Tayloe

*

I am a native, now former, Bertie County guy with roots in the Roanoke-Chowan area. I was born over the drug store in what was then a doctor's office in the town of Colerain, NC. My parents at that time lived in the Trap/Harellsville area on Evanstown Road. We moved away to Midway in Bertie County when I was about four years old.

My dad was first a sawmill hand, working for 25 cents a day; then a truck driver and finally settling for the job he would hold for most of his adult life; sharecropper. I grew up dirt poor but loved every minute of that life. I have fond memories of Midway and Merry Hill where I started the first grade.

Before I could finish my first year of school however, we moved to Edenton, in Chowan County, where I attended school there until January of the third grade. My mom worked in the Cotton Mill and dad drove long distance trucks for Leary Brothers.

Dad still had a longing for the farm that just would not go away. In January, we moved to Bertie County into a home we shared with my grandparents while my grandfather and dad farmed the Black Rock farm, bordering the Chowan River, as share croppers. This lasted for two years and, ever faithful to his nomadic lifestyle, we moved from there to return to the farm life in Hertford County, again on the Evanstown Road. I believe the farm was known as the "Thompson Farm" since he was the land owner. We remained there until I reached January in the seventh grade, attending the Harrellsville school.

My maternal grandparents lived in the "Gawk" area of Hertford County and I was a frequent visitor to their home since we could all go down the lane to the Chowan River for a quick swim. I recall riding the horse and cart from "Gawk" to Ahoskie with my grandfather to buy the semi-weekly grocery staples that either could not be grown on the farm or raised to kill [chickens, hogs, cattle, ducks, etc.] or killed in the wild. I remember my grandmother slaving over a wood cook stove to make some of the best meals I have ever eaten. I also recall how mean a man my grandfather was, often taking a tobacco stick to the backsides of his children.

I read with great interest that your Great Aunt Rosa Smith Copeland was from Gates County. My paternal grandparents were from Chowan County and I believe, had some kin in the Gates County area. He was William P. Copeland [my name sake] and my grandmother was Mary Cofield Copeland. I do not know if there could be any relationship since here is also another clan of Copelands in Bertie County.
I have many memories which I would enjoy sharing with you at a future time. In the meantime, sign me up for a subscription to your journal.

William Copeland

-NOW WHERE IS "GAWK", William?

Gawk is northeast of Harrellsville. It's a God-forsaken hunk of land that has nothing but red clay and will not grow anything but grass! My grandfather tried to eke a living from the farm but never got much of a yield from anything. I remember having to cross the Wiccacon (sp) Creek via ferry to take the short cut to his home. I vaguely remember turning down a rural road to the right immediately after crossing the Wiccacon River, traveling for what seemed like 8-10 miles and then turning right again onto a dirt road. But back then, most every road was dirt! This rod led past my grandfather's farm and continued on to end at Chowan River.

William Copeland

*

I’d like to subscribe, please. My corporate spam blocker might eventually block transmission, but I’d like to enjoy it for as long as I can (as I did the Poor Town News).
I’m afraid that I’m not a North Carolinian, but I did go to undergraduate school in tidewater Virginia! And my roommate was from Damascus, Virginia, which I believe is in the vicinity that you cover.
All best,

Jim
James E. Bagg, Jr.
Executive Editor
Texas Heart Institute Journal

*

I wish you luck with your new web site.
Thank you for taking the time to email me with the information. Please keep me on your list. I am a cousin of the late Jim Pearce. He was a generation ahead of me. Our connection is shown below.

GOD Bless, Joe Pearce

*

... what is this? A webmag, column, cyber-board, or whut? Whatever it is I enjoyed reading! Love your photo of the dirigible crash site (there wasn't a red 1949 Ford under it, was there???) and enjoyed the "Great Commonwealth" piece.

As you may know, I'm a transplanted Commonwealther myself, living 'way out here in Colo, and remember the state fondly. We had the beach, swamps and real barbecue, things which just can't be found here! Sugar does not stand up on your spoon here, your shower towels dry before you are finished using them, and nobody has ever heard of mildew (something that gathers on flour processing buildings at dawn, maybe?) 'course, your fresh bread dries out before you can get it to the toaster (or your mouth) and seems to have gone stale within seconds. No one in this state has ever eaten a fresh fig, and our rivers are seldom wider than you can stretch a rubber band and in summertime last about that long, too.

No one goes barefooted in Colorado (tumbleweeds---THORNY!) and no one knows how to swim (but we CAN breathe the air above 4,000 feet-- we HAVE to!) and there is no need for cottonmouth repellent (our rattlers ate 'em all, years ago!) I'm pretty content in this high, dry place, and I do miss Virginia from time to time, so thanks for asking.

Now, about your piece on "The Great Commonwealth"... what, exactly IS a "North Carolina"?

-Ron Lupton, at the well-shod foot of Pike's Peak

*

Very interesting website, I wish you success...

John Gilbert (A Tidewater Virginia boy in the land of LA LA)..... Visit California Coast Jazz At:
<http://community-2.webtv.net/johnnyjazz/johnnyjazzsjazzpage

*

I was born in Gates County and grew up in Hertford county (Ahoskie) and I am a graduate of Ahoskie High School (1949) so the years are advancing!! I attended nursing School at Norfolk General Hospital(now Sentara Norfolk General) graduating and passing my nursing boards and became a registered Nurse in 1952!! I am now retired and live in Arden N.C. just outside of Asheville, NC!!! I still love Ahoskie and its people!! I knew James David Pearce and enjoyed his "Poor Town News" and was sorry about his death!! I look forward to reading your web site containing news about the Roanoke-Chowan area!!

Ina Perry Harrell !!

Thank you Marvin -- Have you been by to visit my site?
Sally

-Sally Koestler's sallysfamilyplace.com is way ahead of me in compiling regional tales and history. You'll be spending a lot of time at her site!

*

Very nice web-site you have put together. My name is Jeff Turner and I am the Riverkeeper for the Blackwater and Nottoway Rivers. These rivers are tributaries of the Chowan and are part of the Chowan Watershed. I was wondering if our web-site link could be posted on your links page. It is a very popular web-site as my river stories have made Moonpie my little doggie quit a celebrity. I patrol the rivers about three times a month staying out there for 3 days and two nights, year around. I have been on these rivers since I was 4, so I was well suited for this role.

Jeff Turner
BNRP Riverkeeper
www.blackwaternottoway.com

-You gotta see Moonpie! Go visit Jeff.