Sugar and Spice

Sweet, spicy ginger cookies. One of the joys of living here in Winston-Salem is that ginger cookies aren't just for holidays. They are a celebration no matter when you eat them. So thin and crispy, just the right "spicy", it's no problem to eat the entire package yourself. Where did these delectable little tidbits come…

Native American Heritage Month

November is Native American Heritage Month. A time to celebrate and acknowledge the traditions, languages, contributions and stories of native cultures. For the month of November, the North Carolina Collection will be hosting the exhibit, "Saura Native Americans" highlighting the lives of the Saura, also known as the Cheraw. They were one of a number…

America 250 Celebration

People have been asking why we have a Christmas Tree in our research room. It is not in fact, a Christmas Tree. It is a Patriot Tree 🇺🇸! Colonel Joseph Winston Chapter of the NSDAR America 250 Patriot Tree The Colonel Joseph Winston Chapter of the National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution…

The S.S. Winston-Salem goes to war…

Winston-Salem Journal, December 28, 1919 On December 27, 1919, Dewitt Chatham, a twenty year old resident of Fourth Street in downtown Winston-Salem raised her arm and said “I dub thee ’The City of Winston-Salem’ and broke a bottle over the bow of a 400 foot, 10,000 ton ship, which then slid down the way into…

Madge Roberts: The true story…

Darda, the yearbook of Trevecca Nazarene College, 1949 Madge Lee Belk was a good girl. When she was just a toddler, her Bible quoting great uncle Allison Belk took her under his wing because her mother, Geneva, had better things to do than rear a child. When Madge asked Geneva who her father was, her…

It all began at the Central Library, 660 West Fifth Street…

  At 6:30 PM, Monday, February 26, 1979 a new exhibit opened at the Central Library on West Fifth Street in Winston-Salem. It was created by Vernon Logan, the local leader of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, headed nationally by David Duke. It consisted of documents and artifacts, including hoods and robes, relating…

Why is it called Bethania Station Road?

Click on images to see full size where available   We love questions. Here is one: “Why is it called Bethania Station Road?” Answer: Because once upon a time in the late 19th / early 20th century, there was a railroad station that served the community of Bethania there. Today, Bethania is a sleepy little…

1918 pandemic was the worst ever…

1918 was not anyone’s favorite year. The “Great War”, later known as World War I, was grinding into its fifth year. The United States had only entered the war the year before, but already American citizens were feeling the strain through reduction in government services, rationing and shortages of many items of everyday life. Locally,…

“Friday Calls”…ignored by local media…

E. Vernon F. Glenn at an autograph party in Jacksonville, FL for his first novel, "Friday Calls". He is a member of the local Glenn family, of Quality Oil Company fame, but the "E. Vernon F." part makes him the namesake of E. Vernon Ferrell, for many years the head of Ferrell Realty and certainly…

Cruising Stratford, the early years…1940s – 1960s

For larger images, on Mac, control-click-view image; on Windows, right click-view image. Most of the pictures in this post are original monochromes. Since I have been experimenting with colorization, I decided to colorize most of them using various algorithms. The monochrome originals are safely stored in their original format. Myrtle Beach, Ninth Avenue at Ocean…