An interview with Kathleen Wohlford Newberry, 1976 - part 7 Q: What about the clothes you wore back then? K: I wore high topped laced shoes. Sometimes I would wear button slippers, black button slippers. I had my dresses down about the middle of the calf of my leg, they were that long, and I wore many petticoats. My panties were homemade. My mother made them and in fact she made most all my clothes. We could go to Roanoke and buy our hats, part of the time, and our clothes. My wedding clothes, I got the hat at a millinery shop in Pulaski and payed $12.00 for the hat. My wedding gown happened to be a suit. It was a blue tricklteen suit with a beautiful thin georgette blouse. I wore a corset - not a girdle, a corset - and you wore bras in those days. And instead of a lift up to show your breasts large, you would fasten it tight as you could. You didnt want anybody to know what you had. You did not dare wear anklets. You wore long hose, even for everyday. The first coat that I had with any fur on it came from Heironimus in Roanoke, and it had a fur collar on it. It was brown with a brown fur collar on it and I wore brown, laced up high top shoes. When we wanted to dress us especially, mother would get the Sears and Roebuck catalog down and she would order material. She was a pretty good seamstress and she made several beautiful dresses for me. She made one of my dresses for me when I was married. It was blue satin trimmed in pink satin. It had things hanging down on each side lined with pink satin. Then, she was pretty good at needle work. She made a yellow organdy dress for me, embroidered in black. And another dress I remember, I was in a wedding march. I wore a blue georgette dress trimmed with satin ribbon. Of course, it was half length dress, short sleeves, low neck, and very attractive. Then, later on in my young school days, we didnt have any transportation very much except my father did buy at Model T Ford. Later he bought a Dodge. My husbands father had a Ford. Now we talk about gas prices today. We courted on 50 cents a gallon gas. Now Ellis had to come up with the money to pay for the gas because his daddy would measure the gas tank when he got home. They had the Model T and Jock Songer was the first one bought the Model T. He had a 1942 model. Q: What about the churches? K: This Nicewander Meeting House out here, there were several ministers ordained out here and one was a Cecil, one was a Mitchell, and one was Bruce, and one was a Newberry. And, the churches in those days - this church out here, this Nicewander Meeting House - had no way of heating it, so they built a log hearth in front of the church door in the winter time and also had a big iron kettle - no floor except dirt floor. They had this kettle filled with hot coals that sat right in the middle of the church building. They had wooden benches and the crowd - the congregation became so great they they had need for another church. So, a Mustard gave land out where Mechanicsburg Cemetery is for their church. There being no water there, David Byrnes decided hed give the church an acre of land down on Byrnes Chapel which is now called Byrnes Chapel, because he gave the acre of land for the church. There was a schoolhouse up above it which is now a beautiful residence. Mrs. Bob Chewning lives there and that is the schoolhouse where Larry Chewning was raised. We had Methodist churches, we had Cambellite churches - was in the east end of Mechanicsburg. And it was organized by Alexander Campbell, there being the name Campbellite Baptist. Well, the Baptist and the Methodist feuded over which way to get to heaven, by sprinkling or emersion. the first church was struck by lightening. Then it was repaired, then it burned down. There was still feuding going on between the Methodist and Cambelllite Baptist. But they would lay their differences aside each summer and meet and have a camp meeting, or quarterly meeting it was later called, and have dinner on the ground. It wasnt only brought in baskets, but in trunks. People would come horseback in buggies and in wagons. There would be a huge crowd with lots of food and many shouting people. (.....to be continued...) Share, Like & Enjoy
Posted on: Sun, 05 Oct 2014 20:48:51 +0000
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