Rome was getting ready for Christmas a half-century ago this week, marking the beginning of the merchants’ big co-operative Christmas Trading Festival, which was to continue through the following week.
Merchants were reducing prices of all merchandise for the big sales and offering to pay for railroad tickets for customers throughout the district, and thousands of visitors were expected. A highlight of the festival was to be the celebration planned for Wednesday, when the Great White Way would be turned on along Broad Street.
***
The old stork was a busy bird in Lindale Thursday fifty years ago, when he made four visits in the village with results as follows: L.E. Bennett and wife, a fine and dandy daughter; Abros Green and wife, a bouncing baby boy; Claude Mathis and wife, a thriving daughter; John McIntosh and wife, a thrifty son. … Lindale was about to get at herself again in the matrimony business. In the past nine days no fewer than nine marriages occurred in the mill city, and 18 hearts were made glad, according to Charles J. Ogles, Lindale correspondent of the Tribune-Herald. …
Another body was unearthed on the North Side by workmen making extensive improvements on Broad Street. On the casket was a plate bearing the name M.K. Attaway, who was known to the old citizens. He had been toll keeper of the Fourth Ward bridge, then being known as DeSoto, a fee being charged to cross the bridges in the city. He lived on Bridge Street (Fifth Avenue) near the Rome side of the bridge and died in 1860. The body was re-interred in Myrtle Hill.
Later in the week Mrs. Margie Franks Read, grandniece of Mr. Attaway, said that the casket did not contain his body, that he had died in 1875 and was buried in Myrtle Hill, that she believed the casket to be that of his first wife, Kittie Attaway, or of a son who died when a lad in 1860. Both were supposed to have been buried in the old North Rome Cemetery, at that time in the location of North Broad Street.
***
While cranking an automobile in front of the residence of Dr. Walker Curry on East 4th Street, Sproull Fouche, president of the Citizens Bank, had his right wrist broken. The crank rared back and struck his arm with great force.… The hose wagon of No. 4 fire company was damaged while making an exhibition run on lower Broad Street for the motion picture people. The horses were moving at a lively rate, and when near Second Avenue the axle broke, and a serious accident would have occurred had the driver not been in complete control of the animals. … John Calloway, 17, died at the residence near Silver Creek as the result of gunshot wounds received on Thanksgiving with a hassle with his young step-brother, Griffin Darnell. … While coming into Rome the chauffeur for C.R. Porter ran the machine against the curbing near the approach of the East Rome bridge, damaging it considerably. He was driving at a lively clip when the car skidded and he lost control. …
Post a Comment