Sunday, March 1, 2015

TIME MACHINE ... 1934, 1889, 1989, 1886, 1959.

"Friendliest Town On The Eastern Shore."  Our tradition runs deep.  Excerpt from a letter to the editor from a visitor to Newtown, (former name of Pocomoke City) published in the Baltimore Sun, April 28,1847.

This place (Newtown) is a pretty snug little village, containing about 500 clever and hospitable inhabitants; it has good wide streets, quite clear of that "eye sore," known mostly over the Peninsula by the name of "deep sand"; the houses, though built of frame, are generally built substantially and with some discretion and taste; there are two neat, new, and quite handsome frame churches in it; as for the merchants of the place, suffice it to state that they are very clever and hospitable.  F. Mezick, Esq., the landlord with whom I stopped, and his very obliging and jolly assistant, are richly deserving of a passing notice, for the good treatment and the extension of the many civilities to "the stranger."

(Reader-friendly viewing of news archive/historical archive material)


February, 1934
The News-Herald (Franklin And Oil City, Pa.)

COAST GUARD TRIES TO GET FOOD, FUEL TO 350 MAROONED

NORFOLK, Va., Feb 15. -UP-  Coast Guard patrol boats today attempted to navigate ice-choked Chesapeake Bay in an effort to get food and fuel to 350 residents of Tangier Island.

The patrol also attempted to aid two men ice-bound in an open boat off Saxis Island. 

Suffering was widespread among the Tangier inhabitants because supply boats have been unable to break through the heavy ice. If the Coast Guard is unsuccessful in getting food and fuel to Tangier, which is off the coast of Maryland, airplanes will be used to drop provisions.


July, 1889.. 


Peninsula Enterprise



November, 1989
The News (Frederick, Md.)

'Friendliest Town' opens shelter

POCOMOKE CITY (AP) - Officials in the town that bills itself as the "Friendliest Town on the Eastern Shore," said they have learned there are many misconceptions about the homeless since they opened the area's first homeless shelter two years ago.

 "The people we have seen are not chronically poor," said Daniel P. Blair, a Pocomoke City businessman who helped launch the emergency shelter and now serves is its part-time director. "These are everyday working people who have gotten into some bad problems. Look in the mirror. These people could be you or me." 

Two years ago, a grant from the Presbyterian Church allowed a group of volunteers to renovate a two-story frame. At first, some people objected. Members of this rural community feared the urban elements they saw so often on television: alcoholics, drug abusers and mentally ill derelicts lining up for soup kitchens, pushing grocery carts and sleeping on steam grates. 

Today, Pocomoke City's Samaritan Shelter has become an accepted part of the small town. 

Over the past six weeks, Samaritan Shelter has housed 34 people. Its sponsors predict at the current rate it may house more than 300 people over the coming year. In comparison, the shelter provided lodging for 110 people in its first year of operation. 

The shelter serves a three-county area that includes southern Worcester County, Somerset County and northern Accomack County, Va. Most tenants have been battered women who left their abusive husbands, but did not have the resources to rent an apartment or buy furniture.


The Samaritan Shelter today.


February, 1886 (Time Machine archive)
(Iowa State Reporter- Waterloo, Iowa)

  A GOOSE FARM- There is a goose ranch on the eastern shore of Virginia, covering nearly 3,000 acres, over which the feathered occupants, nearly 5,000, are free to roam.  The farm is devoted exclusively to producing the raw materials needed for the fine down quilts.  Several species of geese are bred, all of them being however of American lineage.  The largest specimen of all is of snowy whiteness.  The birds are regularly fed with corn or other grains, and are given the utmost freedom consistent with the prevention of straying and loss.  Herders are employed to keep a watchful eye on them, and sheds for shelter are provided in case of inclement weather, but the birds very rarely use them.  

About every six weeks the plucking takes place.  Only the breast and portions of the sides are touched, and feathers of the back, the wings and the tail being left intact.  It requires nearly 190 average geese to furnish a pound of the down, though the smaller feathers, which are also taken, weigh much heavier. These feathers, however, form an entirely separate grade from the valuable down.

The average life of a goose is said to be forty years, and they produce from five to ten eggs per annum, a large portion of which are hatched.  A bird hatched in February is in condition for plucking the following August, and so on thereafter every six or eight weeks.  The feathers are packed in sacks , and sent to the Philadelphia factory, where they are trimmed, washed, steamed and otherwise prepared for their legitimate use.

1959..


"Barbie" makes her first television commercial. View it here:
http://www.bestoldcommercials.com/first-barbie-doll-commercial-from-1959/



Do you have a local memory to share with PPE readers.. such as a big snow storm, a favorite school teacher, a local happening, something of interest your parents or grandparents told you about?  It can be just a line or two, or more if you wish. Send to tkforppe@yahoo.com and watch for it on a future TIME MACHINE posting!



PPE remembers JMMB.

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