THE ET CETERA CHRONICLES - VOL. 99
GLENWOOD GLEANINGS
ONE HUNGRY COW - Mrs. N.A. Wynn, a resident of Glenwood, Georgia, had a cow that loved to eat. What cow doesn’t? This particular bovine ate any grass, green or brown. When the grass was gnawed down to the roots, Mrs. Wynn’s cow looked upward for a sweet snack. Not quite tall enough to reach the prize snack, the cow grabbed the end of a branch with her teeth and shook it until a mess of pears fell to the ground. Atlanta Journal, Nov. 4, 1945.
THE QUEEN OF QUILTERS - Mrs. Ebenezer Bridges, also of Glenwood in Wheeler County was known far and wide for her ability to make quite a quilt. In 1942, Bridges stitched a very lucky, 7,777 pieces of cloth into a single quilt. Atlanta Journal, September 13, 1942.
FAMILY HEIRLOOM - Mary J. Newkirk, a third Glenwood woman in this article first used a bar of Castile soap on Christmas Day 1937 to give her daughter, Josephine her first bath. Two and one-half years later on June 30, 1940, she carefully pulled out the same bar from its safekeeping box and bathed her son Forest. Eleven months later, Newkirk, pulled the precious cleanser to bathe her daughter June. Finally, William used the last sliver of the soap for his first bath. Atlanta Journalk, Jan. 17, 1943.
T HE MUZZLED MULE - Glenwood farmer Alfred Collins was right fond of his mule. The beast of burden was good at plowing fields, but there was one problem. When Collins plowed his tobacco patch, Collins had to muzzle the mule to keep it from snacking on the tobacco up and down the rows. Atl.Jou.11. 15. 1942.
STICK EM UP! - Nearly every kid who ever lived has pointed a harmless toy pistol at someone and ordered them to “stick ’em up!” We stuck our hands up and went back to playing. Such was not the case in Wheeler County in 1941. James White and Eulus Webster were working on REA lines near Glenwood when the duo came upon an escaped prisoner. Fearing for their own safety, one of the linemen pulled out a realistic-looking toy pistol. He ordered the prisoner to stick ‘em up and surrender, which he did. Valdosta Daily Times, May 10, 1941.
THE FROG AND THE FISH - Most ponds in our area are filled with fish and frogs. One day in 1939, Mrs. L.L. Clark was trying to catch the former for her supper. At the instant the fish bit her hook, so did a bullfrog. Mrs. Clark pulled the two bait biters to have frog legs for dessert. Atlanta Journal, April 16, 1939.
THE OLD GRAY PINE - Everyone knows that living pine trees have green needles. That rule was changed when Joseph Shelton, of Valdosta, noticed a 60-foot tall pine with silver gray needles on its head and brilliant green ones on its lower trunk. Altanta Jouranl, Sept. 16, 1938.
HELLO KITTY AND MISS PIGGY - There was once a mama cat in Glenwood that adopted a runt piglet for her own. The cat invited the baby pig to join in with her kittens at milking time. As the little pig grew into a hog, the cat broke all bonds with her adopted child. Atlant Journal. Dec. 17, 1939.
PAID IN FULL - In 1902, Buster Connell, a resident of Glenwood, loaned three dollars to a girlfriend to buy a hat to wear to a school party. In 1954, when Buster was 64 years old, his then-elderly former girlfriend gave him his money back, long after she outgrew the hat. Atlanta Journal, Feb. 21, 1954.
MIXED FLOWERS - Mrs. Roy Adams had a small garden outside her home in Glenwood. Three feet from a Scarlet Rose bush was an English Dogwood bush. One-half of the blooms on the dogwood were its own, the other half came from its close neighbor the rose bush. Atlanta Journal, Sept. 30, 1945.
PROFITABLE RIDE - John Peebles was out riding his bicycle around Glenwood as he usually did. When he got back home, John realized something unusual. Peebles, to his utter joy, spotted that he ran over a dollar bill, which stuck to his tire all the way home. Atlanta Journal, Feb. 17, 1952.
BARNYARD MOTHER - Like most farmers, Willie Young, of Alamo, had some chickens and some pigs. All of a sudden the barnyard animals began to fraternize with each other. One of Young’s mama hens felt the urge to help the piglets. The hen would scratch the ground to aid the young pigs just beginning to root. Atlanta Journal, June 1, 1958.
THE WEEPING PINE - Kelly Sears, of Glenwood, reported that near his home was a pine whose boughs bent downward as if they were a weeping willow. Macon Telegraph, Oct. 30, 1937.
THE SHOWER OF BLOOD - Residents of Glenwood were milling around a public well when all of a sudden what appeared to be blood rained down and stained the white shirts of the gentlemen in the crowd. Two nights before, a similar occurrence scared the wits out of a woman while she was drawing water from the well. Blood stains could be found throughout a 20-foot radius of the mysterious well. Savannah Morning News, May 1, 1893.
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