100 Years Ago

100 years ago as presented in the November 1921 editions of the Rome TribuneHerald

The banks, the post office, wholesale grocers and joobers will be closed Thanksgiving Day and practically all retail stores and other places of business will close at noon, many of them before. The day will be celebrated here as usual by family dinner parties and other at home pleasures.

On Thanksgiving afternoon, the big annual Turkey Day football game between the Darlington and Rome High School occurs at Hamilton Field beginning at 2:30 in the afternoon and the usual tense feeling between the pupils and friends of the two schools in regard to the game is already in evidence.

--The bowling alley at the new Lindale Auditorium is proving an interesting and big feature. There has been organized a bowling league, so to speak, in which there are six teams, and three games are played each week, giving each team one game a week and to schedule running for 15 weeks has been adopted. The teams are not named but are numbered from one to six. --Ten of the motorcycle racers who left Atlanta in their recent round trip run to Montgomery, Ala., were disqualified because they failed to reach Rome, the first stop, at 10:20. The other 11 riders were in the contest when they reached Rome.

The riders who reached here gave themselves a very short rest after checking in at the Gulf Refining Company station on Broad Street and getting gasoline.

Eugene Dix, riding a HarleyDavidson, led the field, reaching the checking station at 9:18, 48 minutes ahead of his schedule. Harry Sweet, a Rome rider, arrived at 9:55, 16 minutes ahead of his schedule. Fred Ashcraft, a Rome rider, also arrived ahead of his schedule.

All the riders reported the roads wet and slippery.

Wednesday, November 24, 1971

Rome Days Sale, parade to open Christmas season Rome area merchants Friday will begin their annual Rome Days Sale “to open the Christmas season.”

The sale will continue Saturday and end Monday, climaxing in the annual Santa parade down Broad Street, scheduled to begin at 6 p.m. “Special values” will be offered to shoppers the three days and many of the city’s stores will begin remaining open until 9 p.m. every day through the Christmas season.

The parade Monday, predicted to be “the largest ever,” will feature beauty queens of Rome and Floyd County, the Rome Boys’ Club Choir, Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts, cheerleaders from elementary and high schools in the city and county, bellringers from the First Baptist Church of Rome, the Rome Shrine Clubs Motor Corps, the Antique Auto Club, seven high school bands, homecoming queens, members of Junior Achievement, Future Business Leaders of America clubs, the Cougarettes drill team from Anna K. Davie Elementary School, members of the Rome Girls’ Club, a float sponsored by the Rome Area Chamber of Commerce, the Marine Corps Color Guard, the American Legion Auxiliary, members of the Rome Teen Club, the Cave Spring Pep Club, and, of course Santa Claus and his rocket sleigh.

Santa will hand out candy to the children and will throw the switch to light the decorations strung across Broad Street. The city of Rome’s musical Christmas tree also will be lighted.

After Santa’s departure, his rocket sleigh will remain in Rome Tuesday and Wednesday. Children may ride it between 2 p.m. and 8 p.m. those two days. Free tickets may be obtained from any Rome area merchant.

Sunday, November 21, 1971

‘Male witch’ gets 90 days behind bars

When David P. Delbridge, 23, Chicago, told Milwaukee County Judge F. Ryan Duffy he was a male witch living in a girls’ dormitory at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, the judge uttered a magic spell of his own.

Ninety days in durance vile (jail) for lewd and lascivious conduct, the judge intoned Friday.

Delbridge, who said he was the founder of a witchcraft cult, was arrested earlier in the week in a girl’s room in Sandburg Hall, where he had been living for more than two months.

Delbridge told Judge Duffy he was conceived by a warlock — a male witch or sorcerer — and had begun a cult called the “Order of Dark Persuasion.”

The Chicagoan told the court he and the coed whose room he was found in, while nude, were engaged to be wed. He also said other men were living in women’s dormitories at UWM.

Campus police told the court they had not known he was living in the girl’s room until the girl called them to complain. Duffy passed sentence and said:

“Maybe this will scare a few of those male freeloaders out of the women’s dorm. UWM should be a learning institution, not a sex organization.”

Friday, November 26, 1971

Plane makes safe landing

A twin-engine Beechcraft Queen Air owned by Georgia Kraft Co. crash landed at Russell Field north of Rome Wednesday near 5:15 p.m. There were no injuries.

Only two people were on board the plane, pilot Garvis Reed, and co-pilot Joe Myrick. Both are from Rome and both are employees of Georgia Kraft.

The plane departed Rome earlier in the day to carry several Georgia Kraft executives to Macon. Upon leaving Macon, Reed and Myrick discovered that the right main landing gear would not retract fully into the plane.

On the return trip, several futile attempts were made to dislodge the damaged gear. “We talked to the Beechcraft man in Atlanta, said Reed. “He offered suggestions, but none of them worked.”

The flyers tried to manually lower or raise the bulky wheel, but to no avail. “We even carried her up to 8,000 feet a time or two and put her into a dive trying to throw it loose. But that didn’t work either,” said Reed.

The pilots said that they consider going to Atlanta or Chattanooga to land because those airports have the proper fire control facilities, including the equipment to spray a layer of foam on the runways. “But we came on to Rome,” said Reed. “We decided that if we had to do it, we might as well do it at home.”

A pumper from the Rome Fire Department, an ambulance from the Floyd County Ambulance Service, a unit of the Civil Defense Rescue Squad, and airport employees were all standing by when the plane finally came into view.

The flyers made a “dry run” over runway 3-1 while the fire and rescue equipment positioned itself on the end of the runway.

The Beechcraft circled the field in the cold, pre-holiday twilight, then aligned itself for the final run. It passed over the waiting equipment with all its landing gear retracted except for the damaged wheel hanging half up and half down. The engines shut down, and the plane glided smoothly toward the runway. The small puff of smoke rose from the ground when the wheel touched the asphalt. The plane rolled less than 100 feet before the gear collapsed dropping the belly of the plane onto the runway in a hail of sparks.

After a bumpy, 2,000-foot skid to the sounds of metal grating on asphalt, the plane came to a stop. Airport officials called the belly of the plane with fire extinguishers and Reed and Myrick climbed out.

Reed said later that the main problem was the sparks and heat generated by skidding the plane on the ground. “We were still carrying two hours of fuel,” he said.

It was a happy ending to what could have been a disaster. Although it was noisy and there was a jolt when the landing gear collapsed, one observer remarked that he’d been through rougher landings on commercial flights. Other than damage to the underside of the plane and a broken propeller, the only visible injury was a scraped knuckle on one of Reed’s fingers. 100 years ago as presented in the November 1921 editions of the Rome TribuneHerald

Princess Mary made her first public appearance with Lord Lascelles, her fiance, since their betrothal, when they left Buckingham Palace in London in an open carriage with Queen Mary for a drive through Hyde Park.

A large crowd assembled in the vicinity of Buckingham and cheered the royal party heartily as the carriage drove away.