In 1965 one of the articles in The Brewton Standard was about the vandalism of a local cemetery. Jernigan Cemetery, located on Kirkland Road, was desecrated by unknown vandals. Its isolation probably had something to do with how much damage was done.
Now, why in the world would someone destroy headstones in the cemetery? I am sure that anyone doing such a thing doesn’t do much thinking about it. If it were the last resting place of someone they love, they might look at it a little differently.
I remember several years ago when the old Coon Hill Cemetery across the state line in Florida, had a lot of damage done. This is an historical cemetery where many of the ancestors of some of earliest settlers were buried.
It was announced that the Escambia County Board of Commission gave the go-ahead to clear a place for the proposed stadium for T.R. Miller High School. It was to be located between the baseball field and the Appleton Road. This one took me by surprise a little bit. T. R. Miller High School is part of the city school system. Why did the commissioners have to give the okay on this one?
Another interesting story was about Earl Waters, a local man, who had been in World War II and used his skills as a duck hunter against the Japanese on New Guinea. It was quite interesting to read how he would disguise himself. I guess if it worked for ducks, it worked for Japanese soldiers.
The North Brewton Home Demonstration Club met at the home of Mrs. W. A. Lovelace on Old Castleberry Road. Peggy Bracken, who was the agent with the extension service, was on hand to teach how to make home decorations. This was during the days when women did a lot of their own sewing. I used to sew a lot myself, but over the years I stopped doing it so much. Today there are few places to buy fabric and sewing notions. I wouldn’t know where to start to look for patterns. It’s a shame because it was something that I really liked to do.
I grew up in the country and my clothes were all homemade except those that were handed down from my cousins. I don’t remember having a store-bought dress until I was in the fourth grade when I got a new dress to attend my cousin’s wedding. In fact, I may have told the story before, but this sewing story reminded me of other times. We had a cow and I have seen my mother go to the country store to buy cow feed. At the time, the feed came in sacks that were patterned. For a long time it took only one sack to make me a dress. Then came the time that I had grown so much that my mother would search through a stack of sacks to find one to match what she already had. I laughingly call it my graduation from a one sack dress to a two sack dress.
First Baptist Church of Brewton’s parking lot was the site of a the Minature Museum of American History. This display was valued at $250,000 and it was a traveling showcase for the public to see the tiny replicas showing such things as George Washington accepting a flag from Betsy Ross. I would love to have seen that one.
Last, but certainly not least, Piggly Wiggly had a sale of seven cents for a dozen eggs, but you had to buy $7 worth of groceries in order to get the eggs. At that price, it must have taken a lot of groceries to add up to $7.