100 Years Ago
100 years ago as presented in the February 1920 editions of the Rome Tribune-Herald
One mule sold at public outcry at the county courthouse on the regular sheriff’s sales day for 75 cents, and four sold for the total enthusiastic sum of $11.10.
The mules were sold by order of an attorney, L.H. Covington, who bought two of them for $4.00 apiece, and later sold them for the same price, while Harrison Payne bought one for 75 cents, and solicitor Fred Kelly, of the city court, bought another for $2.35 and sold it in a few minutes for $2.50.
Monday, Feb. 2, 1970
Satellite wedding
ATLANTA, Ga. (AP) – With the words, “I do. Over,” relayed by satellite, a soldier in Vietnam today married an attractive brunette in Atlanta, after keeping her waiting an hour for the telephone call.
The bride, Phyllis Sheets, 36, wearing a blue wood dress and carrying pink roses, clutched the telephone in the crowded office of Justice of the Peace Neill Leach.
“Do you, Paul D. Hales, take Phyllis Sheets to be your lawful wedded wife? Over,” asked Leach, holding another telephone, to Hales, a sergeant stationed in Vung Tau, Vietnam.
The justice of the peace was nervous enough to have substituted well for the unseen bridegroom. His hands shaking, he nervously smoked cigarette after cigarette, while waiting for the call, which came an hour later than expected.
The bride, cool and smiling, spent the hour joking with about 20 newsmen and photographers jammed into the judge’s tiny office.
“Do you think you’ve been left at the altar?” newsmen quipped.
Mrs. Sheets, a divorcee with three children, sighed and asked for water and cigarettes. With her were two women, who work in her office at the Atlanta Army Depot, serving as her witnesses.
At Vung Tau, the 28-year-old Hales had a buddy serving as best man.
CWO Theron McElwaney of nearby Ft. McPherson, substituted as best man in the Atlanta part of the ceremony, by slipping the wedding ring on the new Mrs. Hales’ finger. The rings came by mail last week.
When Leach pronounced the man and wife, the new bride told her husband, “Congratulations to both of us. We are married now, darling. Over.”
The judge kept forgetting to say “over.” Mrs. Hales kept reminding him.
“Congratulations. Over,” Leach said.
In the absence of the bridegroom, McElwaney kissed the bride.
Thursday, Feb. 5, 1970
February proclaimed ‘Music Month’ in Rome
The Rome City Commission and the Floyd County Board of Roads and Revenue have proclaimed the month of February as “American Music Month” in Rome and Floyd County to join the nationwide observance of this month.
The proclamation read in part: “Whereas music, the universal language of peace, is one of the great arts and an outstanding feature of culture; and whereas the National Federation of Music Clubs, having as a foremost objective the promotion of American Music, will stage its sixteenth annual ‘Parade of American Music’ throughout the month of February; and whereas the parade is designed to give our own worthy United States’ composers recognition, encouragement and support, and to impress upon the public of the United States that it has creative as well as performing musical artists and a musical culture equal to that of other countries.”
The proclamations were signed by Ben Lucas, chairman of the Rome City Commission and Horace Cline, chairman of the Floyd County Board of Roads and Revenue.
Friday, Feb. 6, 1970
WestPoint Pepperell to join in contract
WASHINGTON, D.C. – A Defense Supply Agency contract of $1,123,861 has been awarded to the Prestex Corp. of New York.
The contract calls for one million yards of navy blue cotton and nylon cloth, 45 inches wide.
WestPoint Pepperell of Lindale will weave 150,000 lineal yards of the material. Erlanger Mills of Lexington, N.C., will weave 850,000 lineal yards and the finishing will be done by the American Finishing Co. of Memphis, Tenn.
100 years ago as presented in the February 1920 editions of the Rome Tribune-Herald
Does anyone want to adopt a brown-eyed baby girl? If there is such a family in Rome, and the Tribune-Herald knows that there must be many, Miss Davis, the district nurse, has such a little girl in her care.
Miss Davis says that she wants a nice home for the little tot, that is a bright little girl, pretty too, and it’s just the kind of baby to bring happiness to a home not blessed with children, or one already blessed with little ones.
If there is anyone interested all they will have to do will be to communicate with Miss Davis and she will gladly tell them all the details of her little ward. --The people who live in the high water area on the local rivers need not fear the water will reach over 24 feet according to information given out by a local weather forecaster. The water reached 23.3 feet, and the weatherman says that if there is no more rain — which is very improbable, as it is getting colder — the rivers will not reach more than 24 feet.
--A motion picture actor was killed in Los Angeles when he fell several hundred feet from an airplane while performing in making a comedy. He was a professional “stuntman” and was trying to cast a dummy from the machine when he fell. The photographer thought the falling body was the dummy and continue photographing.