People in the News - Nov 13, 1956

[David]

[Jean Raby Nelson]

I worked at the paper and use to get a kick out of how important it was to some people for everyone to know each move they made. You couldn't fart in Hamlet without half the town knowing about it.
Now days people read these (if they still print them) to see who is in and who is out of town.

[mwj]

You're right Jean and now we have Facebook!

[Bruce Osburn]

Jean is right... this item was important only to the ones who submitted it -- a not so subtle way of letting folks know how well their children were doing. But, no matter how much we may have thought the parents were bragging, small town newspaper "fluff" items such as this are what today's genealogists search for. And a hundred years from now, when we are all gone from this world, a descendant of one of those college students will retrieve this item and discover which college their several-times great-grandparent attended.

Family events were widely reported back in the 1800s, sometimes as much as several paragraphs and sometimes just a line or two. And I have found those tidbits extremely valuable when determining lineage, such as who was a son or who was a nephew. I have even filled gaps and connected lines which were only speculative at best.

(I was in the same class of at least six of the college students named in this item and also with Mrs. Roy Peele, the former Sylvia McManus.)

[Jean Raby Nelson]

I have frequently said that due to social media and the fact that no one I know actually pens letters anymore there will be no history for people to go through. A good computer crash wipes it out of existence. I love going through plantations when we lived in Louisiana. Most of their reproduction came from well penned journals. They would write down the names of the people, marriages, deaths, ect (the usual geneology items), the fabric of their draperies, the color on the walls, who painted the massive ceilings in beautiful art work, what they planted in their gardens, the cost of the seed, what they sold it for at market. the boundaries of their land. They were very interesting and a wealth of information. That is all certainly lost. When those people got a house they stayed in one place. Many have been fortunate to stay in their homes in Hamlet. My husband's job moved us about ever 5 years with a few exceptions so I don't even remember all of my addresses.

[Jean Raby Nelson]

That is true about facebook. I don't post my trips away from home on there either. I put nothing on facebook that I care about anyone not seeing. That is why you have the option of a Private Message. I'm going to lunch now