“My Dear Father, Richmond is sad to day,” begins the letter that Major David Rankin wrote to his father, William Dinwiddle Rankin, on May 11, 1863. “The news of the death of that great and good man Stonewall Jackson was received at a late hour last night and spread universal gloom over the whole city. The
The story goes like this: The North Carolina Room’s very own Friends of the North Carolina Room board member, Jon Elliston, published an article Thursday January 15th on Carolina Public Press about a 1904 photograph album that was sent to the NC Room by a woman in Albany, New York. She had found the album in a box of Albany
Asheville’s First Motor Mile was downtown’s Coxe Avenue. A new motor mile has emerged in recent years along Brevard Road in West Asheville, but in the 1950’s and 1960’s, the peak years of the American automobile industry and the years remembered for the hype of the annual model change, Coxe Avenue was the place for checking
. . . Continuing with the life of Irma Henderson Smathers . . . After Dr. Irma Henderson settled into her own office, she needed, like all physicians, some medical malpractice insurance. William E. Smathers of Autry-Smathers Insurance Agency sold her the coverage. They married the following year. She liked to say of her malpractice policy and her insurance
Irma Henderson Smathers was born in Madison County in 1910 to Carlene “Jenny”and Logan Henderson. Growing up in Marshall, “Irma painted her dolls with Mercurochrome and did surgery and suturing on their sawdust bodies. She told everyone she was going to be a doctor. They said, “No, dear, you mean you are going to be a
The Friends of the North Carolina Room sponsored a presentation, “Let’s Talk About Anthony Lord” on Thursday, August 28, 2014. Seventy-five people attended the event and got to know more about Lord’s life, profession, his many avocations and the effect his life had on Asheville. It is a hard task to recount what five close
A couple of weeks ago we were fortunate to receive a donation of Bernard Elias material. Bernard was a photographer, filmmaker, world traveler, avid hiker, and a fierce advocate for nature conservation in the Southern Appalachian Mountains. Bernard was born in 1918 and grew up in Biltmore Forest. His family home provided a great vantage point for him
Perhaps you read our story a couple of weeks ago about Asheville Mayor Gallatin Roberts, who committed suicide in February 1931 rather than face trial for banking law violations. You may have wondered about the fate of the other defendants in the case. When a Buncombe County grand jury indicted Roberts, along with other public and
One of the most fulfilling kickbacks of being an archivist, for me, is knowing that there is something new to be uncovered as I pick up the next piece of paper, or the next photograph. The Rankin-Bearden Collection is no disappointer. When Asheville resident Walter Diehl found himself the last keeper of the family’s records, he donated them to Pack Memorial Library’s