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Community News

Potts Camp News
Dale Hollingsworth

Nancy Germany Lane visits from Wichita Falls

We welcome spring! People start having yard sales, mowing grass and the birds and squirrels come out to visit. I put feed for them in my magnolia tree in the front yard. I enjoy sitting in my front porch rocker.

Fred and Mary Jo Whaley enjoyed a fish supper on Friday night at the home of their granddaughter, Stacy and Johnathan Morrison and son, John Gray at Hickory Flat. Other relatives attended also. Stacy Morrison teaches school at Mary Reid in Potts Camp.

Pray for Bill Lawson who had a recent stroke; he has returned from New Albany Hospital.

We were saddened by the recent death of a friend, Adell Hudson, age 83.

Happy birthday to Olivia Dickey on April 26; Brook Hale, April 28; Tracy Pipkin, my granddaughter, and David Quills, my nephew, April 29; and Lauren Dickey April 30.

Get well wishes to Lena Faye Work, Sank Owen, Diane Clayton, Henry Tutor, Elaine Jarrett, Mary Frances Clayton, Charles Henderson, Mary and Henry Jarrett, Sandy Byrd, G.R. Thompson, Gussie Davis, Betty Fincher and Connie Work; and to all those who have lost loved ones.

Get well wishes to Henry Tutor, my neighbor, who spent last week in the VA hospital in Memphis.

Nancy Germany Lane of Wichita Falls, TX, is visiting family and friends in the area. While here, she, Katherine Greer Sundstrom, and Mary Minor attended the Tippah River Players production of Hee Haw, a Relay for Life fund-raiser, in New Albany. They also attended the Holly Springs Garden Club Pilgrimage and the Booker Hardware Cutlery Case Historian Event, along with Joan Gurley.

Joan Gurley, Jeanette Stone, Emily Stone and Mary Minor attended the first annual Music at the Tracks event in Myrtle. There were vendors and music groups throughout the day and it was a very well-attended event.

Mitch Stone provided music at the Booker Hardware Cutlery Case Historian Event, along with other musical groups.

This has been a beautiful spring with all shrubs, plants, trees, etc., showing off their spectacular colors - a wonderful time of the year.

Belated birthday wishes to Kyleigh Paige Rowland, Laura Beth Goolsby and Hunter Farr.

Happy birthday to Weston Rowland on April 28, Arthur and Doris Poole, Holley Stone Muraco, and Jim Hart on May 1, Robby Goolsby and Roxanne Rowland on May 2.

Thoughts

Happiness is something you can have for just a day,
But you can never keep it,
If you forget to give it away.

“The Touch Of The Master’s Hand”

It was battered and scarred, and the auctioneer thought it hardly worth his while to waste much time on the old violin; but he held it up with a smile, “What am I bidding, good folks?” he cried. “A dollar, a dollar, then two, only two? Two dollars and who’ll make it three? Going for three,” but no – from the room far back, a grey-haired man came forward and picked up the bow; then wiping the dust from the old violin, and tightening the loose strings, he played a melody pure and sweet, as a caroling angel sings. The music ceased, and the auctioneer, with a voice that was quiet and low said, “What am I bid for the old violin?” and he held it up with the bow. “A thousand dollars, and who’ll make it two, two thousand and who’ll make it three? Three thousand and who’ll make it four and going, going, gone,” says he.”

The people cheered, but some of them cried, “We don’t quite understand, what changed its worth?” Swift came the reply, “The touch of the master’s hand.”

Many a man with life out of tune, and battered and scarred with sin, is auctioned cheap to the thoughtless crowd, much like the old violin. A mess of pottage, a glass of wine, a game and he travels on. He’s going once, going twice, and almost gone.

But the Master comes and the foolish crowd never could quite understand, the worth of a soul and the change that is wrought by “The touch of the Master’s hand.”

Memories and History

Many of you remember the Potts Camp Museum, opened in 1978 by Dallas and Louise King. The couple met in Oxford when he was visiting a friend in the hospital and Louise was his nurse. They married later while Mrs. King was teaching at Potts Camp School. The kids enjoyed his magic shows. Dallas’s younger brother, who attended school with me, C. Cary King was killed in1945 during WWII in a navy flight. Dallas built the museum in memory of him and other service men.

The museum was visited by people from 32 states and the District of Columbia and Canada in the first few years. Pictures were everywhere, including Potts Camp’s first settler, Colonel E.F. Potts (my great-grandfather). Dallas told a wonderful story about one interesting item I’ll never forget. “The Badge of the seven Confederate Knights.” His great-grandfather, William Nathaniel King, was captured with six others on the Battle of Lookout Mountain, and sent to prison at Rock Island, Ill. They were offered a pardon if they would take an oath of allegiance to the USA and go West to fight Indians.

Dallas said his great-grandfather and the six others carved badges telling they refused to accept their offers (only two of them are left), a picture of Dr. Vaughn and his family, the first doctor in Potts Camp, was on the wall. I had a few railroad pictures there, one showing my dad, J.B. Potts, 50 years service records as a Frisco Depot agent. I also had a CCC Camp Book with my late husband’s picture in it. I never received these two articles back after it closed down.

Annie Sue Bright of New Albany brought a quilt to the museum made in 1910 by the Potts Camp Aid Society; it had 150 names on it, and had been in the Taylor family all these years. The museum had a kitchen, bedroom, large dining area for club meetings and a big closet for clothes.

The church of Christ bought it for a fellowship hall after it was closed.

P.S. When we celebrated our 160th birthday of Potts Camp in 1988, Dallas King was the grand marshal in the parade with Louise beside him in the limousine.

Did you know?
Richard Simmons

...“Independence now, and independence forever”

I must be honest and say it is hard to find a way to ending my discussion on John Adams. His accomplishments and involvement in the beginnings of this great country are astounding. I am not saying he did any more than Samuel Adams, Washington or Jefferson; I just get caught up in the devotion and duty to country of these Founding Fathers.

Shots had been fired more than a year past, at the official beginning of the American Revolution. George Washington was in the field commanding the Continental Army while hopes for reconciling with England had passed. The Second Continental Congress was debating on a document that would explain to the world the need to separate from the mother country. Proclaiming independence would cause them to be treated as traitors to England. A committee was formed of five men to draw up the document. This committee was made up of Benjamin Franklin of Pennsylvania, Philip Livingston of New York, John Adams of Massachusetts, Roger Sherman of Connecticut, and Thomas Jefferson of Virginia.

Jefferson was assigned the task to draw up the first draft. Jefferson protested that Adams was more qualified. Adams told Jefferson why he should take up his pen. “Reason first – you are a Virginian and a Virginian ought to appear at the head of this business. Reason second – I am obnoxious, suspected and unpopular. You are very much otherwise. Reason third – you can write 10 times better than I can.”

They put their lives on the line by drafting The Declaration of Independence.

John Adams spoke these words at the Continental Congress to delegates from the Thirteen Colonies.

“Before God, I believe the hour has come. My judgment approves this measure, and my whole heart is in it. All that I have, and all that I am, and all that I hope in this life, I am now ready here to stake upon it. And I leave off as I began, that live or die, survive or perish, I am for the Declaration. It is my living sentiment, and by the blessing of God it shall be my dying sentiment. Independence now, and independence for ever.”

Did You Know On

April 28, 1788 – Maryland became the seventh state to ratify the U.S. Constitution.

April 29, 1854 – Ashmund Institute (now Lincoln University), the first college for African American students, was established in Chester County, PA

April 30, 1789 – George Washington took office as the first U.S. president.

May 1, 1963 – Jim Whittaker became the first American to climb Mt. Everest.

May 2, 1863 – Confederate General Stonewall Jackson was accidentally shot by his own troops, dying eight days later.

May 3, 1937 – Margaret Mitchell won the Pulitzer Prize for her novel “Gone with the Wind.”

May 4, 1626 – Dutch colonist Peter Minuit arrived in Manhattan; and later bought the island from the Indians for $24 in trade goods.

This Week’s Quiz

Who defended the British soldiers in the trial following the Boston Massacre?

Who served as John Adams’ vice president?

What was John Adams’ wife’s name?

What seaway connects the Great Lakes and the Atlantic Ocean?

How many children did John Adams have? Name three of them.

Answers to Last Week’s Quiz

John Wilkes Booth was killed by Federal troops.

Lincoln served as a captain in the Black Hawk War in 1832.

Elvis Presley’s first #1 hit on the Billboard Charts was “Heartbreak Hotel.”

The Federal troops occupied the South until 1877 after the Civil War.

The United States ended its occupation of Japan in 1952.

Questions or comments: mail to – richardps@centurytel.net.

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