MID-SOUTH MEMORIES

25 years ago — 1996

KNOXVILLE – A Harriman church left a mission group after a year-long dispute that began over whether men could grow beards or mustaches and remain true Christians. The quarrel between members of the Evangelist of Truth Fellowship widened. Other issues included whether doctors and nurses should work for money on the Sabbath, and whose opinion was closest to that of Rev. David Denton, the deceased founder of the fellowship. Paul Bates, vice chairman of the fellowship and a prison chaplain in Indiana, led those who felt beards and other ”rebellious” facial decoration were a concession to worldly pressures upon believers within the Holiness movement. But fellowship chairman David Turner and others said God might prefer facial hair. Turner wrote a pamphlet in the fellowship newspaper saying Christians throughout the ages have deemed clean-shaven men effeminate, and an effeminate man won’t make it to heaven.

50 years ago — 1971

HOLLYWOOD – Actress Jane Fonda said she wants to entertain troops in Vietnam with an antiwar show this Christmas to offset comedian Bob Hope’s annual yule visit. Miss Fonda said her troupe, the Free Theater Association, which has presented antiwar shows near American domestic military bases, had asked the White House for permission to go to Vietnam. Miss Fonda said Hope is allowed to entertain troops “because he is pro-war, pro military. He makes a lot of money off the war, apparently.”

75 years ago — 1946 WASHINGTON – Henry A. Wallace, fired from President Truman’s Cabinet for his foreign policy views, accepted Saturday the editorship of the New Republic, a weekly magazine in which he can express them as he pleases.

100 years ago — 1921

PARIS – Parisian women greatly outnumber the men. There are 66,947 women in one arrondissement alone, where the men number only 47,418. This preponderance is especially manifest among persons between 20 and 30 years of age, where the war made such gaps in the ranks of the men.

125 years ago — 1896

The steamer J. N. Harbin commanded by Captain Ed Nowland arrived this morning from Arkansas River with 500 bales of cotton and 1,000 sacks of cotton seed.

THE COMMERCIAL APPEAL FILES Oct. 6, 1955: An 1,100-pound Hereford was chosen as grand champion steer at the Tri-state Fair. The animal was fitted and shown by Robert Williams, a 15-year-old New Farmers of America member of Arlington.