Roy Rogers and Bette Davis in Kingsport (not together)

 

Roy Rogers at the Strand!

Once upon a time, a simpler time, celebrities passed through Kingsport on a regular basis.

There was the Vice President of the United States, Thomas Riley Marshall, in 1917, Sgt. Alvin York in 1926, Tom Mix in 1934, (Mrs. Tom Mix in 1945!), Gene Autry in 1939.

Well, you get the picture.

I’d heard about all those. But I never knew that Roy Rogers strolled across Broad Street in 1942 and grabbed lunch in the Mayflower Restaurant at 135 Broad Street between shows at the Strand Theatre.

Or that Bette Davis, star of stage and screen – long before there was television – spent the night in the Model City in 1945 during a cross country honeymoon motor trip with her husband (number three), William Grant Sherry.

  

Roy Rogers was in Kingsport? Why didn’t someone tell me? I carried a Roy Rogers Double-R-Bar Ranch lunchbox to Johnson Elementary every day until I outgrew it.

They didn’t tell me because I wasn’t born yet.

But Roy was here (in 1942). And so were other western stars: Gene Autry (in 1939) and Hoot Gibson (in 1937) and Tom Mix (in 1934) and Lash Larue (in 1950).

Even Bette Davis, who was in several episodes of the TV western “Wagon Train,” visited Kingsport once!

I found out by randomly reading old issues of the Kingsport Times.

Here’s where I found out about Roy in Kingsport, from Herman Giles’ Over the Coffee Cup column of Feb. 23, 1946:

Roy Rogers, the singing cowboy, is one of my favorite film stars. Not because of any talent I’ve seen him display on the screen but because of something that happened right here in Kingsport.

Roy was making a personal appearance at a local theater several years ago. Fans were lined up to see him and it was quite a wait for some of them.

Apparently one little old lady didn’t have the stamina for here’s what happened:

It was between shows and Roy came out of the theater and went into a restaurant a short distance up the street.

A tall gangling lad in overalls was standing nearby. Beside him was a slight woman dressed in dark clothes with a bonnet over her hair.

“There he went, Ma,” the boy said. They started to follow and then changed their minds. But they stood outside and waited.

When the cowboy star came out again, the boy stopped him and said, “Roy, I want you to meet my mother. She’s seen you in the movies but she didn’t get to see you on the stage.”

He took off his big white hat and shook hands with the little old lady. Then he bent down to look in her face and said something and they both laughed.

For several minutes he stood there talking to her, his arm slightly across her shoulders. And when he left the little old lady kept watching his back and smiling.

 

Wonder what Roy said to that little old lady that made her laugh. We’ll never know.

 

Here’s the advance story the Kingsport Times ran on Sunday Jan. 11, 1942:

Roy Rogers Plays In Person Here At Strand Saturday

Roy Rogers, Republic's blue-eyed, blond cowboy star, and favorite of millions of horse opera enthusiasts, will appear in person on the stage of the Strand Theatre Saturday with his troupe of western stars.

Born in Cody, Wyoming, of American, Irish and Indian descent, Roy's first ambition was to be a dentist. Family fortunes being on the decline, however, Roy left school to earn a living, and worked in a shoe-making shop, carving soles. But he sang while he worked, and thereby hangs a tale.

A customer who overheard him sing suggested that he try for a radio audition. Heading for New York, his money ran out by the time he reached Cincinnati, where he applied for a radio job, and got it.

It was not until 1932 that he began to get attention from radio big-wigs. His break came when he was signed to sing on The Sons of the Pioneers' program. This group later made a tour of the west coast in personal appearances. When they hit Hollywood, Roy was found by a talent scout, and given a part in a short subject starring El Brendel. It was a comedy called "Radio Scout,” but Roy's singing wasn't comical. In fact, it was so good that he got another job immediately in pictures. A singing job! For a while he thought his voice was a curse, for he was never given an acting part - he remained always a singer. By this time Roy wanted to be an actor!

He kept trying, alternating between screen and radio, always hoping for the chance to act before the cameras. It wasn't until late in 1937 that the chance came. He was signed by Republic Pictures for a part in a Gene Autry picture. It wasn't all singing either. Following the completion of that picture, he was given another part in another Autry western. It was then that the studio signed him on a long-term contract. Roy says this contract brought him the greatest satisfaction of any event in his life. No wonder, he had waited long enough for it.

Roy's ambition is to be the best, the top-ranking-singing cowboy of the screen!

 

This story is, of course, baloney, concocted by a Hollywood press agent. But Roy Rogers wasn’t the only Hollywood star with a bogus backstory.

In reality Roy Rogers was born Leonard Slye in Cincinnati and spent his youth in Ohio. Len, as he was called, did work in a shoe factory but it was in Cincinnati. The family got to California by following Len’s older sister Mary and her husband.

When he was 20, he auditioned for an Inglewood, California radio show, the Midnight Frolic. From that show came a gig with the group the Rocky Mountaineers. That evolved into a group called the Pioneers Trio, which was redubbed the Sons of the Pioneers by a deejay who said they were too young to be Pioneers. Len did appear in a few Gene Autry pictures but he was billed as Leonard Slye. When Autry left because he wanted more money, Republic Pictures began auditions for a replacement singing cowboy. Len won and was renamed Roy Rogers, the Rogers part coming from Will Rogers.

That’s the real Roy Rogers story.

 

Vince as a cowboy circa 1952 (pulling uncovered wagon)

I was always a Roy Rogers fan as a kid; I even carried a Roy Rogers lunchbox in first grade. He wasn’t my favorite cowboy but I liked his show and I liked his horse Trigger and I especially liked his dog Bullet. I wanted a German Shepherd so badly. Never got one because we lived on Bristol Highway and my mother explained, “You’ll just get attached to it and it’ll get run over.” She just didn’t like dogs.

There was only one problem with “The Roy Rogers Show.” When was it?

Roy, the self-proclaimed King of the Cowboys, always rode Trigger. His wife Dale Evans, the Queen of the West, always rode her horse Buttermilk.

Everyone in Mineral City, where they lived, rode a horse. Every business in town had a hitching post.

But Roy’s best friend Pat Brady drove a Jeep.

What?

There were no Jeeps in the Old West.

I’d seen hundreds of old westerns on WJHL’s 5 p.m. show “Pecos Ben and the Circle F Ranch” (sponsored by Foremost Dairies) and none of them had cars of any kind.

Tom Mix rode a horse (named Tony). Ken Maynard rode a horse (Tarzan). Johnny Mack Brown rode a horse (Rebel). Even Lash Larue, the oddest of the cowboys, rode a horse (Black Diamond).

When the good guys chased the bad guys, they did it on horseback.

They rode into town on horses and back to the ranch on horses.

There were no cars!

So how in the name of Gabby Hayes did Roy Rogers get in this time warp where all the cowboys and cowgirls rode horses except Pat Brady, who drove an unreliable Jeep named Nellybelle?

Years ago I asked the late Troy Brown of Wallace News – a huge aficionado of westerns - about this seeming time confusion. “Almost all westerns are supposed to take place in 1887, right after the Civil War. That’s why I didn’t like Gene Autry. They had phones and cars. I liked Roy but I didn’t like the cars.”

After talking to Troy, I watched an episode of “The Roy Rogers Show” called “The Outlaw’s Girl” where the bad guy, Chick Dillon rode into town in what looked like a 1949 Pontiac convertible. So at least one person drove a car besides Pat.

When Roy and Pat set out to catch Chick, Roy insisted that Pat get out of his Jeep and ride a horse. And somehow the two guys on horses caught the guy in the car!

Maybe that’s what Roy was whispering to that old lady in 1942, how horses outran cars in the Old West.

 

My favorite cowboy was Bob Steele. For years I told people that my favorite cowboy movies were the Trail Blazers pix with Ken Maynard, Hoot Gibson and Bob Steele that I watched on the “Circle F Ranch” TV show on WJHL. Turns out those three only made three movies together. (I had to wait for Al Gore to invent the internet to find that out.) Ken Maynard hated Bob Steele and wanted him kicked out of the series. Instead Monogram booted Ken.

(When I wrote a column for the Louisville Courier-Journal, I would occasionally mention my love of Bob Steele and how I preferred Gene Autry's singing to Ken Maynard's. This would inevitably bring a letter to the editor from Ken Maynard's nieces, who lived across the Ohio in Clarksville, Indiana. One said: "Ken Maynard vs. Gene Autry, I don't think so!" It then launched into a fierce defense of Uncle Ken.)

 

 

(This is the best I could do on this photo - microfilm photos don't reproduce well.)

 

Bette Davis blew through Kingsport Dec. 17, 1945 with her new husband in tow.

She was corralled by one Sgt. Ed H. Snyder, whose only byline in the Kingsport Times was his hurried interview with the reluctant subject:

 

By Sgt. Ed H. Snyder

Bette Davis, newly-married star of the stage, screen and radio, spent last night in Kingsport on the second to the last hop of a cross-country honeymoon that will take her to her home in New Hampshire in time for Christmas.

The thrice-wed actress and her new husband, William Grant Sherry, 31-year-old artist recently discharged from the Navy, stayed at the Kingsport Inn, signed autographs for the goggle-eyed hotel guests during the dinner hour, posed for news photographers, and then left this morning for the North.

It was Miss Davis' first visit to Kingsport. “We wanted to stop here," she told a reporter. "We'd heard that Kingsport was a charming and progressive city-and it certainly is!"

This Christmas will be the first which Miss Davis has been able to spend in her New Hampshire hill home since the beginning of the war. For the past three Christmases she's been in California where she headed the Hollywood Canteen and was one of its most energetic workers.

“Other Christmases have been so busy," she smiled. “But now I feel that I really can have one of my own."

Miss Davis and Sherry arrived, at the Inn last night shortly before eight o'clock. After dinner, during much of which she was engaged in autographing cards for a lobby full of hotel patrons, the couple retired.

A news photographer who asked her to pose for a picture last night was graciously turned aside with: "Surely you wouldn't want my picture after a 500-mile auto trip! I’ll see you in the morning!"

After breakfasting in bed, Miss Davis, true to her promise, appeared in the lobby at 8:15 a.m. She posed for several pictures, was interviewed briefly, then left with Mr. Sherry.

For traveling the screen star was wearing a gray wool coat dress, brown alligator belt and shoes and bag to match. Their car was a sleek, cream-colored convertible. Mr. Sherry was at the wheel as it rolled away from the Inn.

The noted actress and her husband were married Nov. 31 at Riverside, Calif., in a ceremony at historic Mission Inn. The wedding previously had been scheduled in St. Mary's Episcopal Church, Laguna Beach, Calif., but because of Miss Davis' previous marriages the plans for a church ceremony had to be abandoned.

Miss Davis was divorced from Bandleader Harmon O. Nelson, in 1938. In 1940 she married Arthur Farnsworth, aircraft executive, who died of injuries incurred in a fall in 1943. It was the first marriage for Sherry, a sea and landscape painter and former Navy pharmacist's mate.

From California, the couple traveled to Mexico City where Miss Davis was honored by the Mexican government at the premiere there of her picture, "The Corn Is Green." And it was the long cross-country honeymoon from Mexico to New Hampshire that brought Misa Davis through Kingsport last evening.

The actress declined to discuss plans for her future career beyond saying that she was returning to the West after the holidays.

 

There is no record of Miss Davis or Sgt. Snyder ever being in Kingsport again after that Christmas 1945 stay.

Other celebrity sightings in Kingsport:

 

100 Years Ago

 

From September 13, 1931

Newspaper Nostalgia

 In the early 1930s, the Kingsport Times began running a regular feature entitled “10 Years Ago” that looked back at stories in the newspaper a decade earlier.

The name of the feature would change over the years – from “10 Years Ago” to “Kingsport’s Yesterdays” to “Our Yesterdays” – but the columns ran off and on for the next 20 years. The last one was published January 30, 1951.

A nostalgia column returned in 1973 with “Old Times in the News,” written first by long-time editor J.W. McAuliffe, who had joined the paper in 1926, and later by long-time staffer Bill Barnett, who started at the paper in 1939. When Barnett retired in 1976, the newspaper’s librarian Ginsey Gurney took over. The first “Old Times in the News” looked back at the case of Murderous Mary, the circus elephant who killed her handler during a 1916 stop in Kingsport and was hanged for it (in Erwin, fortunately). The last “Old Times in the News” on Aug. 14, 1977, told how Southwest Virginia was saved from becoming part of West Virginia.

Ten years later nostalgia for Kingsport and its origins returned with a vintage photo column featuring reader-submitted pictures called “Out of the Attic.” It is still running.

Kingsport loves nostalgia about itself. And always has.

It just so happens that the first year of the column “10 Years Ago,” which started in 1931, reflected back on 1921, exactly 100 years ago now.

Here is a sampling of those nostalgia columns that ran over the years:

 

10 Years Ago – published Sept 13, 1931

Sept. 13, 1921:

Andrew W. Plaster, landscape gardener in the employ of the Kingsport Improvement company, and well-known citizen of Kingsport, was killed by his riding horse near Roller's ford in Old Kingsport early this morning. A nearby boy who was a witness of the tragedy said that the horse apparently became frightened either at a road roller or at a train which was passing and, rearing, fell back upon its rider.

(Vince note: He was replaced by Lola Anderson, who later married John B. Dennis.)

Kingsport is to have a new clothing store, located in the Roller building, on Broad street, adjacent to the Kingsport Grill and the Tennessee Electrical Supply company. This store which is to be opened in the near future, will feature men's clothing and furnishings, and will be thoroughly modern and high class in every way.

(Vince note: McCready’s opened at 343 Broad on Oct. 25, 1921. It lasted barely a year. J.C. Penney took over the space in 1923.)

The sale of the plant of the Union Dye and Chemical corporation, which was scheduled to have been held at noon yesterday, was deferred until the same hour next Monday. The adjournment was made upon motion of F. M. Kelley, attorney for the Equitable Trust company, one of the trustees in the suit.

Paul Short received several rather severe knife wounds on the left side of his face Sunday afternoon as the result of a personal encounter which occurred in a house next to the railroad just outside the corporation limits here. Short said that he was himself unable to establish the identity of his assailant, but witnesses of the affair told local officers of the law that the man who wielded the knife was Dorsey Light.

(Vince note: The affair started when Light pinched Mrs. Paul Short’s cheek and said, “Hello, sweetie.” She slapped Light and retreated inside the apartment house just east of the railroad trestle and reported the pinch to Paul. A warrant was sworn out. Light and an unidentified woman were spotted boarding a train the next day. Nothing more was ever heard of them.)

Mrs. Luemma C. Brawley, the wife of J. S. Brawley, died at her home in Spring Park Heights last night. Mrs. Brawley was ill for some time and her death was momentarily expected for some days.

Highway officials, inspecting the Lee Highway from Washington through the south, passed through Kingsport yesterday. Dr. S. M. Johnson, president of the Lee Highway Association, and I. D. Price of Rogersville will make recommendations for the repair of the highway so that it will be one of the most beautiful of the national highway systems.

Fire originating from a defective flue came near destroying the home of T. W. Stitt, in West View Park, at noon today. The fire alarm was turned in and the firemen were able to extinguish the flames in a short time by the use of chemicals.

 

10 Years Ago – published on Sept. 27, 1931

September 27, 1921

Uern Quillen, charged with the murder of 11-year-old Elsie Lawson, whose half-nude and mutilated body was found under the bleachers of the baseball park here on the morning of June 7, began the legal battle for his life in circuit court at Blountville today. By 3:00 p. m. a jury had been impaneled and five of the state's witnesses had been examined.

(Vince note: Uern was convicted and sentenced to life.)

The question of a business men's club for Kingsport is now being largely discussed by various business men of the city, and a great deal of interest is being manifested in the proposed movement, although no definite action has been taken in regard to the matter, it is believed probable that a meeting will be held some time in the near future to effect the organization.

Arrangements have been completed for the local talent play, "Love or Psychology-Which?” which is to be presented in the auditorium of the Central high school here Friday night for the benefit of the baseball association. Among those taking part in the production are: Mrs. W. R. Gilmer, Mrs. L. H. Kidd, Charles Davis, Mrs. Mary Yoakley, Mrs. Smith, Mrs. T. H. Pratt, Miss B.I Pyle, Miss Elizabeth Hamlett, Frances Harris, Louise Preston, Dora Ross, Grace Clyce, Gertrude Hunter, Ruth Hare and Susie Dunn.

Bruce Hyatt is arranging a musical program for the meeting of Hammond Post No. 3 of the American Legion in the Community “Y” tomorrow evening. Commander C. P. Edwards, Jr. urges all members to attend this meeting, as the time for the production is rapidly approaching.

With what will probably be a rather heavy schedule ahead of them for their first year in interscholastic football, the candidates for the Kingsport high school eleven are being put through grueling workouts daily. About 30 boys have reported for practice, and although few of them have had any previous football experience, there are a number in the bunch who look good.

(Vince note: One of those practicing this exotic sport of football was a seventh-grader named Bobby Dodd.)

 

10 Years Ago – published Sept. 11, 1932

Sept. 11, 1922

After a day spent largely in legal wranglings, the hearing of W. W. Leedy and B. H. Hampton, Kingsport policemen charged with "assault and attempt to commit murder in the first degree" on Denver Hooven and Frank Chandler, was still in progress when The Times went to press at 4:00 p. m. today. The two officers are charged by the state with firing a number of shots at the two youths, whom they suspected of carrying illicit whisky into the city in a truck, at the city limits at Highland Park on the night of August 29.

(Vince note: both Leedy and Hampton were eventually acquitted and returned to the force. In 1925 Leedy would drive notorious outlaw Kinnie Wagner to his Blountville trial after Wagner fatally shot two officers on the banks of the Holston.)

Plans and possibilities for a proposed railroad between Bristol and Knoxville, passing through Kingsport, Greeneville, Newport and Sevierville, were presented at the regular meeting of the Kingsport Business Men's club at the Community "Y" last night by LeRoy Park, of Greeneville, who is devoting his entire time and attention to the promotion of the road. This railroad, Mr. Park pointed out, would open up all he rich agricultural and mineral wealth of Sullivan, Greene, Cocke, Sevier and Knox counties, connecting with the Norfolk & Western at Bristol and the L. & N. at Knoxville.

For the purpose of urging that work be started on the proposed Kingsport-to-Bristol highway, a delegation of Sullivan county men left this afternoon, and will confer with the state highway commission tomorrow. The delegation will consist of W. D. Lyon, chairman of the Sullivan county highway commission; J. E. Miller, secretary of the commission; J. Fred Johnson, one of the directors of the Lee Highway Association, and probably E. W. King, a good roads advocate of Bristol.

Grading work on the road from Lovedale to Gate City, a six-mile short-cut thoroughfare, which will connect Kingsport and its Virginia neighbor, will be completed within the next week if weather conditions are favorable, it was announced this morning.

The Bristol State Liners took the opening game of the last series of the Appalachian League season here yesterday by the score of 6-1. The game was slow and presented few features. Both teams failed to show the old pep and fight that characterized the pennant chase. The game was merely mechanical.

Although the football schedule of the high school is not yet complete, the squad is working out daily rain or shine. The first regular game will probably be September 23 with Washington College.

 

10 Years Ago – published Sept 30, 1934

Sept. 30, 1924

The Kingsport Times, semiweekly publication, published its last paper as a semi-weekly September 26 with the announcement that it would become a daily on the following Wednesday, October first. On that date the paper carried a streamer headline "Kingsport Times Begins Daily and Sunday Morning Publication with Industrial Edition, Forty Pages."

The Maroon and Gray, Kingsport eleven, will meet Big Stone Gap Saturday. Players will wear the new blankets presented them at a recent rally.

The first unit of an extensive housing program, sixty houses were being planned for construction in “The Oaks" section of Kingsport.

(Vince note: The Oaks were located east of Borden Mill and would later be known as Oakwood.)

The first edition of The Kingsport Times as a daily carried the exhibit list of Kingsport's Community Fair Wednesday, October first.

The power for the Borden Mills, now under construction, will be furnished by the Kingsport Utilities.

 

Kingsport's Yesterdays

(From The Times' Files)

Published Sept. 29, 1941

15 Years Ago – Sept. 29, 1926

Announcement was made that the Hotel Borden, formerly the Federal Club, which had been closed for the past two months, would be re-opened under the name of the Travelers Hotel. H. L. Spence, hotel and restaurant man of Richlands and Cedar Bluff, Va., was to operate and manage the hostelry under the American plan.

(Vince note: The Travelers Hotel didn’t make into 1927.)

Mr. and Mrs. W. D. Westmoreland reached Kingsport from Woodward, S. C., to make this city their home and were located on Compton Terrace in the Fifties.

 10 Years Ago (Sept. 29, 1931)

Carl Kirkpatrick was appointed as city judge to succeed Judge Napoleon Bond, according to an announcement made by the city offices.

Misses Maxie and Bonnie Steadman were among those from this city attending the Knox County fair in Knoxville.

 

Kingsport's Yesterdays

(From The Times' Files)

Published Sept. 14, 1941

15 Years Ago (Sept. 14, 1926)

The formal opening of Sterchi Brothers and Atkins, Kingsport's newest furniture store, was held.

Mr. and Mrs. Frank Lilley and children, F. L., and Jack of Bluff City were guests of Mr. and Mrs. C. C. White.

Clinton Minnich left for Williamsburg, Va., to enter William and Mary College.

10 Years Ago (Sept. 14, 1931)

Work on the Kingsport Utilities building, corner of Broad and Sullivan streets would get underway within the next few days according to an announcement made by Carl A. Thornburg, manager of the Kingsport division of the American Gas and Electric Company.

Prof. W.F. Rogers of East Tennessee State Teachers College, in an address to the Kiwanis Club stressed the need of a convention to revise the state's constitution. C. P. Edwards, Jr., Lynn Minter and John Sexton were named as delegates to the district convention to be held at Ashland, Ky.

Announcement was made by members of the Wednesday Club of its annual fashion show and benefit bridge to be given at the Kingsport Inn.

 

Kingsport's Yesterdays

(From The Times' Files)

Published Sept. 15, 1941

15 Years Ago (Sept. 15, 1931)

Mr. and Mrs. A. D. Brockman announced the birth of a son, Richard David, born at their home on Watauga street.

The Blue Ridge Glass Corporation of New York City announced that the old building formerly owned and operated by the Corning Glass Works would be repaired and new and modern equipment installed. The new plant planned to begin actual production by the first of the year.

10 Years Ago (Sept. 15, 1931)

The Kingsport Book Club resumed its activities after the summer's recess with a meeting at the home of Mrs. Ben Dobyns.

Miss Evelyn Hunter left for Berea College, to continue her studies after spending the summer here. She was a member of the Senior class.

Malcom Morrison, Jr. left for Sewanee to enter the University of the South.

Mrs. Arthur Allen and Mrs. John E. Black entertained at the latter's home on Center street, honoring Mrs. Charles B. Duke, a recent bride. Prizes were won by Mrs. E. W. Hogg and Mrs. J. F. Kagy.

 

Our Yesterdays – published Dec. 29, 1949

15 Years Ago (Dec. 29, 1934)

City Manager F. L. Cloud handed down a ruling that cows could not be staked on public property inside the city.

Police Chief C. G. Crawford announced plans to affiliate Kingsport with the National Safety Council.

Weymouth Palmer of Cornell University, was spending the holidays with his parents, Mr. and Mrs. E. W. Palmer, Watauga Street.

Mrs. S. P. Platt, Mrs. V. B. Freels, and Mrs. J. L. Kincheloe visited in Johnson City.

10 Years Ago (Dec. 29, 1939)

Fire destroyed a building in Highland Park which had once held one of Sullivan County's oldest post offices.

William D. Medearis, student at Vanderbilt, was visiting his parents, Mr. and Mrs. Frank Medearis, Piedmont Street.

Mr. and Mrs. J. C. Stone, Watauga Street, had as their guest Mrs. Furtick Conner, of Orange Hill, S. C.

Music pupils of Mrs. Raymond Massengill presented a recital at Blountville High School.

 

Our Yesterdays – published Sept. 11, 1951

15 Years Ago (Sept. 11, 1936)

Nettie Lee Dress Shop opened in the new Freels building with E. M. Reilly as manager.

Owens Beauty Salon opened in the new Freels building under the direction of Mrs. R. S. Owens.

Julia Maxwell announced the opening of the Marguerite Hyatt School of the Dance at the Kingsport Inn club room.

10 Years Ago (Sept. 11, 1941)

Holston Drug Store celebrated its 16th anniversary.

Lawrence (Big Boy) Mitchell, 200-pound plunger, was expected to carry much of Dobyns-Bennett's offense as regular fullback.

R. D. Liggan was new owner-manager of Piggly-Wiggly Store.

Mrs. Kenneth Kiesau of 522 Broad street, with her infant son, Kyle Frank, planned to join Dr. Kiesau who was stationed at Fort Leonard Wood, Mo.

(Vince note: Dr. Kiesau was my pediatrician.)

 

Lawrence "Big Boy" Mitchell, 200-lb. plunger in 1941.

Our Yesterdays – published Sept. 14, 1951

15 Years Ago (Sept. 14, 1936)

Dobyns-Bennett Indians defeated Jonesboro, 74-0, in the opening grid game. M. T. Smith was high scorer with five touchdowns. James Blessing scored first with a safety in the first minute of the game.

10 Years Ago (Sept. 14, 1941)

Billy Ring, Ed Preston, Jimmy Edwards, Bill Glenn and Brenda Goerdel were among the six-year-olds just starting to school.

Nancy Penn, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. George E. Penn, left for Baltimore to take nurse's training at Union Memorial Hospital.

Herman Giles, Boy Wonder of the Kingsport Times News

Herman Giles, Big Stone Gap High, Class of 1942

Herman Giles hadn’t even started his senior year in high school when his byline first appeared in the Kingsport Times. It was over an August 1941 story about football coaching changes at the seven Wise County, Virginia high schools:

“For a while it looked as if the leading teams of the county were to have a strong Milligan influence due to the fact that five men from that school were scheduled to handle Wise county teams….”

Giles – perhaps I should refer to him as Herman since he was so young – had begun his writing career as a sophomore in high school, contributing a regular column to the Big Stone Gap Post. It wasn’t yet spring break of his sophomore year when he sold his first story to a national magazine, “The Legend of the Gila,” which appeared in the March 1941 issue of Street & Smith’s Wild West Weekly. As a high school senior he continued sending stories to the Kingsport Times, most of them about high school football in southwest Virginia.

He often covered himself, writing about games he played in for Big Stone Gap High, even listing, without comment, the members of the all-conference football team that included one Herman Giles at guard.

He still hadn’t graduated from high school when the Times named him “Kingsport Times State Writer.” Big Stone Gap and Wise County were his beat. After school.

And his graduation present from the newspaper was a full-time job and a new title: Kingsport Times Sports Writer.

But Herman Giles was only getting started.

Three years out of high school he was named managing editor of the Kingsport News.

Another year later in 1946 he added front-page columnist to his workload.

And before he was 30, he was executive editor of the Kingsport News.

Meanwhile on the side he was writing stories for national magazines and publishing novels.

Prodigy may not even cover it.

The reason you probably haven’t heard of Herman was because he left the Kingsport Times, and Kingsport, in 1949 to found the Bristol Virginia-Tennessean, a daily to compete with the established Bristol Herald-Courier.

But you should hear about him because he was a heckuva writer with an eye for subjects that would delight and entertain.

I confess I had not heard of him until I was researching Bill Freehoff’s career.

Herman had started the “Over the Coffee Cup” column in 1946 that Freehoff revived in 1952.

The first Herman Giles “Over the Coffee Cup” column I read hooked me.

From March 26, 1946:

There is a woman in Rogersville whose telephone number is 5101.

There is a woman in Kingsport whose telephone number is 5101.

And both women are named Miss Ann Amis.

Think about that a moment and you can see what might happen. And it does; ask either one of them.

Miss Ann Amis of Kingsport is secretary to a Tennessee Eastman executive and it's not unusual for her to answer the telephone and find there some friend of her aunt, Miss Ann Amis of Rogersville.

And Miss Ann Amis of Rogersville, who lives on a farm, says she has a path worn from the barn to her home by answering telephone calls which, she says, are invariably intended for her niece, Miss Ann Amis of Kingsport.

But when one tries to call the other it's a major operation.

To prove it, Miss Ann Amis of Rogersville tells of the result of a call to her niece in Kingsport the other day.

Calling from Rogersville, she told the operator something like this: "This is 5101, I want to call 5101 in Kingsport."

The operator said: "Your name, please?"

"Miss Ann Amis," "Your number again?" "5101."

“What number in Kingsport, please?"

"5101." "And whom are you calling?” "Miss Ann Amis."

There was a confused sputter on the line as the operator let the information soak in. "Well, where are you anyway?" she demanded.

"This is Ann Amis at 5101 and I want to call Ann Anis at 5101 in Kingsport," Miss Ann Amis of Rogersville said.

The operator's confusion was evident. “This is ridiculous!" she said.

 

After this introduction, I started actively looking for Herman Giles’ columns.

 

From Feb. 25, 1946:

James Taylor Adams, of Big Laurel, Va, writes that the last of the "Look-Alike" Gilliam brothers died last week. He was Abe Gilliam who died at the home of a daughter at Esserville Thursday.

Abe had two brothers, Steve and Hamp, and though they were not triplets, they usually dressed alike and their resemblance was such that many of their friends could hardly tell one from the other. Their favorite story was about the time Hamp met a girl at a social gathering in Letcher County, Ky. Hamp talked with the girl for a while, decided he was stuck, and excused himself by saying he wanted a drink. He found Steve and asked him to pinch-hit for him.

But Hamp didn't return and Steve got restless, looked up Abe and asked him to take his place. So the girl friend had the company of the three “Look Alike" Gilliam brothers that day and never suspected she'd met more than one.

 

That same column also told the story of Woodrow Counts, Eastman employee who used to be a mail carrier on a rural route in Virginia. Herman wrote:

His route was sort of back in the hills and some of the older people didn’t have much formal education. Some couldn't read or write and that's what made the job hard.

They'd come down to their mailbox, Woody says, and buy a penny postcard. They'd bring a pencil with them, and while they stood by the car and dictated, Woody would accommodate them by writing to their friends for them. This took a lot of time as more and more people found more and more people to write and the end of Woody's workday grew later and later.

Then came catalogue season, when all the mail-order houses sent out their new books.

"Writing postcards is one thing," Woody says, "but turning pages, copying order numbers, figuring out postage or freight, and then writing a money order was too much!"

 

On March 21, 1946 he introduced his readers to a Kingsport old-timer from Atlanta:

All the publicity which the City of Kingsport has received in the past year or two from radio broadcasts, magazine articles, etc., has apparently made a lot of people who lived here in the old days wonder about the appearance today. One of those is Fred Bender of Atlanta. Fred is a brick mason, and though he isn't around here anymore, some of the things he built with his own two hands are still standing. But Fred's a little behind on the progress since he left and he'd like to know what's happened since he went away. He left in 1918.

Here, in his own word, is what Fred had to say in a letter which arrived yesterday:

"Dear Sir: It's been a real long time since I have been in that growing city. I worked in your place when there were no lights, no water, no streets, no sidewalks. One small hotel – about a dozen rooms in it. The road in front of it was very rough. Not concrete. That was about 1916.

"I worked about one year or more. I went there to lay brick for the Kingsport Brick Co. Then, Mr. Ed Neehan was the Big Boss, better known as Gen. Supt.

"Mr. J. Fred Johnson was president, also was president for the C.C.&O. R. R. He was a fine man.

"I did a lot of work for those people, built 4 kilns and two big smokestacks. They had, when I left there, 26 bee hive kilns. I also helped finished the brick dryer which was a big job. I want you to send me some of your city literature of everything they got. Factories, business and all of Sullivan County.

"When I was there we drank water out of a mud hole. That was a pain. There was no way less they haul it from a creek by wagons and barrels. But it wasn't long they got water from some mountain top spring. I was there when they were getting that line of pipe in.

"How is the brick work in your city? Plenty full, I suppose. Are they making any brick and are they

selling any at what kind of a price? Old concrete block is the go here but not for me. I got no love for them, the same with cement brick. No good for me. I am a clay brick layer also tile.

"Well I close for this time. I will write you some more.

"Yours very truly.

"Fred Bender"

 

Fred did write again a year later. But by then Herman Giles had moved on from column writing to editing. Still this unbylined front page story sounds like Herman:

Bender writes, “I helped build four big down-draft kilns that required four hundred thousand red bricks and two hundred fire bricks. I worked on one school house, a big one, and several apartment houses - all two-story structures. While I was there, I helped build three big churches, Presbyterian, Episcopal, and a large Baptist Church. All three were of clean red brick. One of the nicest homes I worked on was about two miles from the railroad station. It was for Mr. J. Fred Johnson, who was connected with the Kingsport Brick Co., and a very fine fellow."

Bender plans to visit Kingsport next year some time, if possible. Before he returns for a visit, Bender wants a map of the city of 1947 so he won't “get lost."

 

Fred Bender apparently never made it back to Kingsport to use that map. He never made it back in the Kingsport Times anyway.

He died in Atlanta in 1955 at age 83.

 

Herman had more than just an eye for a good story he also had the proverbial nose for news.

Two days after Christmas in 1945, he spotted a famous face on Broad Street and managed to get a story on the front page the next morning:

Kingsport's Broad Street had few strolling couples and window shoppers to boast of last night with a damp haze and a trickle of rain hanging over the town, but there undoubtedly would have been more people abroad had some of the city's movie fans known that olive-skinned Merle Oberon, one of Hollywood's brightest stars, and her husband, Cameraman Lucien Ballard, were making their first tour of the town.

Though they walked the length of Broad Street and back, not a single person recognized the famous star, for, desiring rest and relaxation after a day of travel, she had taken every precaution against such an occurrence. Miss Oberon was dressed rather conservatively and appropriately for the soggy evening.

She does not talk quickly for publication, nor does she volunteer information. But she answers questions frankly and with a warmth that indicates she wants to help you more than she wants publicity. Miss Oberon and her husband had dinner at the Kingsport Inn and planned to spend the night here and then continue their journey to the West Coast. They are en route to Los Angeles after spending some time in New York City, where they went for the holidays, she said,

They are traveling by automobile. "I had heard that Kingsport was an attractive and interesting city," she said, "and since it was on our route, we decided to make it an overnight stop." She had heard little else of the town, she said, although she is a friend of two other world figures, NBC War Correspondent Robert St, John and film star Bette Davis, who have visited Kingsport recently.

Her most recent picture, released last week in New York, is "This Love of Ours," in which she is co-starred with Hollywood newcomer, Charles Korvin. The picture was made by Universal Studios and Mr. Ballard did the camera work.

The film couple planned to leave Kingsport early this morning for Los Angeles and then for Hollywood where Miss Oberon will resume work soon. She said last night that she did not know what her next picture would be, but two or three had been discussed. 

Merle Oberon and husband Lucien Ballard

I have two reactions to that story:

Merle Oberon had heard good things about Kingsport?

And Bette Davis visited Kingsport?

 

But Herman wasn’t just a newspaperman.

Writing under the name Hascal Giles – Hascal was his middle name - Herman published five novels and more than 80 magazine articles, almost all of them westerns.

His novels were “Kansas Trail,” “Texas Tough,” “Son Of A Fast Gun,” “Texas Blood” and “Texas Maverick,” all available on Amazon.

While he was working at the Kingsport newspapers, his stories appeared in Ace High magazine, Exciting Western magazine, Lariat Story magazine, Masked Rider Western, Range Riders magazine, Thrilling Ranch magazine and Texas Rangers magazine. Three days after his 20^th birthday his story “The Silver Saddle” was syndicated in newspapers all over the country including the Arizona Republic and the Minneapolis Tribune & Star Journal.

 For a taste of his style here is an excerpt from his novel “Son of a Fast Gun:”

For a moment, Ed Jessup said nothing. He raised his eyes to the blazing Texas sun like a man looking for storm warnings. The glance he gave the two men flanking him was akin to pity, but the hard, unrelenting sheen of defiance still smoldered in the pale blue eyes.

"All right," he said at last. "I reckon we'll just keep on acting like scared rabbits, even on our own land. What do you want me to do?"

 

Herman Hascal Giles died in 2010 in Bristol, where he had lived since 1952. He is survived by those five novels and hundreds of newspaper and magazine stories. 

Think About It - Bill Freehoff

 

The Many Faces of Bill Freehoff

It’s a long, complicated story so I’ll just cut to the chase: at lunch Monday talk turned to, of all people, Bill Freehoff.

Do you remember Bill Freehoff?

Here’s a hint: “We ask not that you agree with us. Only that you think about it.”

That was Bill Freehoff’s signature closing line on each editorial that he delivered on WKPT radio (and later TV).

Bill Freehoff was the long-time editorial director and news director at WKPT-AM.

But Bill Freehoff was so much more than a conservative editorial writer. In fact that was a late career gig for him.

Freehoff was editor of the University of Missouri's humor magazine.

He came to Kingsport in 1946, fresh out of the service, to work for the Kingsport News, the morning paper back when the morning News and the afternoon Times had separate staffs. And that’s where he worked for the next 16 years, serving as general assignment reporter, city editor, managing editor, editorial page editor, executive editor, political editor, book page editor and columnist.

It was as columnist that he became best known in those years.

From 1952 till 1962, he wrote the News’ front-page column “Over the Coffee Cup,” a smorgasbord of the little stories floating around town – and around Bill’s head.

He was good at it and I’m sure many people couldn’t start their day without a cup of coffee and Bill’s column. (I don’t remember reading it but then again I was four when he started it.)

Then in 1962 he mysteriously – and without warning – disappeared from the pages of the Kingsport News. What happened?

I figured it out after digging around. His column disappeared the same time that C.P. Edwards sold the newspaper to Sandusky Newspaper group. New owner, new agenda.

He took a job in Jimmy Quillen’s first campaign for Congress in 1962 but after Quillen won, he turned down a staff position. He didn’t want to move to Washington.

That’s when he landed at WKPT where he became famous for telling folks they didn’t have to agree with him, just to think about it.

It was while digging up all this bio material that I discovered a couple of amazing facts about Bill Freehoff that you probably didn’t know.

In 1951 he left the Kingsport News for a year after he was awarded a Nieman Fellowship. That is one of the most prestigious honors in journalism and includes a paid year of study at Harvard University. No Times News journalist had won one before or since. (Kingsport native Carol Bradley won a Nieman in 2004 when she was working at the Great Falls, Montana newspaper.)

But my favorite Freehoff fact came from his book page column of July 1, 1951. Here it is from the column he called “Let’s Talk Books:”

For its July selection, the Book of the Month Club has chosen a first novel by a talented young writer from one of the Connecticut commuting towns. Jerome D. Salinger's “The Catcher in the Rye,” is the story of a 16-year-old boy who has been kicked out of one of those fashionable Eastern preparatory schools. Salinger is no stranger to the literary world. He has published, in all, about 30 stories. Many of his short stories have appeared in the “New Yorker” magazine. The biographical sketch on Salinger which appears in the BOM Club "News" says he "was sent to military school, which he not very surprisingly detested.”

It happens that Salinger and I were cadets at this school at the same time. [Italics mine] It is true, he did not fit into the rigid pattern of discipline which that kind of school demands. Like most writers, “Jerry” Salinger rebelled at regimentation. (But he went through five campaigns in Europe during the war.)

Salinger was a sort of school "character." He was cynical for one so young, was given to using rather flowery language, and was one of the mainstays of the school's dramatic club.

I haven't read his new novel but it promises to be a powerful piece of writing. My personal reaction to his short stories, however, is that they are good examples of fine writing, but the point often escapes me.

 

J.D. Salinger's yearbook photo from Valley Forge Military Academy

Bill Freehoff and J.D. Salinger went to military school together!

That military school was Valley Forge Military Academy, located in Wayne, Pennsylvania, just outside of Philadelphia. Freehoff and Salinger were both in the class of 1936.

 

Ten years after that mention of his classmate J.D. Salinger, Freehoff returned to his Valley Forge Military Academy days for an Over the Coffee Cup column:

Have you ever expressed a desire to turn the tables on one of your teachers?

As book review editor, I'll get that rare chance next Sunday when I review a novel written by a former teacher of mine.

The teacher - Norman Ford – taught me English at Valley Forge Military Academy more years ago than I care to admit. His first published novel - "The Black, The Gold and The Gray" - has been published by Doubleday.

It is a fictionalized version of the cheating scandal that rocked West Point a few years ago. Ford is a graduate of the Academy (Class of ‘32.)

I have almost finished the novel but I haven't decided what grade to give my old teacher. Actually, Foral was good to me.

I got good grades in his English class and he gave me choice roles in the drama club, "The Mask and Spur."

There is another student of Ford's who did very well in his class and in the dramatic club.

He is a novelist also – Jerry Salinger, who wrote the best-seller about teenage life, "Catcher In The Rye."

Valley Forge left its mark on both Ford and Salinger. I could catch a glimpse of the place in their novels. A character in Ford's book had been a student in a boy's military school ("tin school'' as West Pointers call them). The main character in Salinger's book goes to a private boy's school.

VFMA made an impression on me. But I'm well adjusted, I keep telling myself!

 

When Freehoff got around to critiquing his old professor’s novel a week later, he gave it a mixed review. “The points he makes through his hero are well-taken and deserving of serious consideration. But as a novel it is unbalanced. There is authentic feeling of barrack life but his constant use of the flash-back technique gets to be annoying.”

Sounds like a B minus.

 

I didn’t know Bill Freehoff but I remember him from the radio. He died in 2003, shortly after I moved back to Kingsport and started writing a column for the Times News. I wish I had gotten a chance to talk to him for my column. I would have had lots of questions about Jerry Salinger.