Alabama History & Culture News: January 10 edition

 

Here's the latest batch of links to just-published Alabama history and culture articles. Most of these items are from newspapers, with others from magazines and TV and radio station websites. Some articles may be behind a paywall. Enjoy!

Selma Historic Tour of Homes date set for March 17-18 | News | selmasun.com Selma Sun ... historic homes, museums, a church, a business, and art from 9 a.m. until 4 p.m. The day ends with a walk through Old Live Oak Cemetery.

Big Creek Baptist in Adger celebrates 175th anniversary The Alabama Baptist Photo courtesy of the Alabama Baptist Historical Commission ... led the congregation in singing Christmas carols and shared some church history.

An Alabama blast from the past: original Jack's burger jingle featured in new ad campaign

Alabama NewsCenter

For decades the master tape with the original arrangement was lost to history – until an audio shop owner from Alexandria, Alabama, ...

The Incredible Story of How Alligators Got Moved to Alabama - AZ Animals

AZ Animals

Alligators in Northern Alabama: A Storied History. alligators in alabama The Wheeler National Wildlife Refuge is located along the Tennessee River, a ...

Alabama night-fishing legend reveals secrets - BassFan

BassFan

You can have that privilege by dropping $3 on a Kindle book by Alabama's Jimmy Yarbrough, who's fished the famed reservoirs of his home region in ...

Biden names Alabama Black Belt a National Heritage Area, opening up funding opportunities AL.com President Joe Biden signed the recognition into law Friday after a bipartisan effort. With the new designation, the historic but impoverished region ...

Historical Displays, Artifacts sought for upcoming Exhibit by Old Autauga Historical Society

Elmore-Autauga News

“OAHS is hosting an historic tour in April during the Alabama Historical Association conference in Prattville. The tour will include Autaugaville ...

New BPL Bookmobile to Be Revealed on Tuesday, January 10 Birmingham Public Library Blog Read this Alabama History blog for background: Alabama Yesterdays: Alabama Library History: Bookmobiles. Bookmobiles are mobile libraries designed ...

Auburn University recognizes 59th anniversary of institution's integration Office of Communications and Marketing - Auburn University Franklin registered for graduate classes that day, making history and ... of Denver and becoming a history professor at Alabama State University, ...

Alabama's Black Belt closer to becoming a National Heritage Area | The Bama Buzz

The Bama Buzz

Keep reading to learn more about the legislation that will preserve the rich history of the region while creating new funding and tourism, ...

Rolling Stone picks 200 top singers: How many from Alabama made it? - al.com AL.com Tammy Wynette is in at No. 127, George Jones is at No. 24, and Little Richard, who's buried at Oakwood University Memorial Gardens Cemetery in ...

Verne Collier Candy in Birmingham

Recently when we were in Huntsville Dianne and I made another pilgrimage to Mary's Antiques, Gifts and Beads on Pratt Avenue, which I wrote about in 2019. Dianne purchased a bunch of beads, of course, and I came away with the tin cannister seen below. Since I had never heard of the company, of course I had to investigate.

A Google search led me to a 2020 blog post by the "British Candy Connoisseur" who bought such a tin at an antique mall in Kansas in 2019. The piece includes magazine ads for the candy from the 1960's and 1970's offering the product as a means of fundraising by Boy Scouts, or similar groups. The "Connoisseur" could find little else on Verne Collier and requested any information readers might have.

I found little else myself; even the BhamWiki doesn't have an entry on the company. The Alabama business entity database maintained via the Secretary of State's office has a Verne Collier, Inc, listed in Cullman County, formed 1949, dissolved in 1981, and dealing in cosmetics.

I did locate ads such as the British Candy researcher found. Issues of Scouting and a Church of God monthly called Lighted Pathway carried ads for the company's products. As shown below, the company offered Gran-Ma's Vanilla or Lemon flavoring and Gran-Ma's Black Pepper in addition to the "Chocolettes". The black pepper ad even carried a photo of "Mrs. M. Wald, Birmingham, Alabama"--who was she? A satisfied customer? 

These ads are known to have appeared in these two magazines between 1964 and 1974. Ads appear in seven 1969 issues of Lighted Pathway published by the Pathway Press of the Church of God. The first ad promises earnings of "$60 to $600 CASH" but the other ads appearing that year reduced the potential back to "$50 to $500" as it was in the 1964 ad. Four ads appear in 1970 issues of Scouting.

What can these ads and the cannister itself tell us? The tin is 5 inches high, 4 in diameter and held 14 ounces of candy. The cannister top includes a zip code, 35203. Zip codes were introduced by the Post Office on July 1, 1963. Address in the ads is 900 No. 19th St, Birmingham. That location appears to be a parking lot today. The top of the can gives a full ingredients list for the "Chocolettes" and also a public health permit code. 

The British Candy Connoisseur speculated that the main business of Verne Collier, Inc., was to sell products to various organizations that could resell them at a profit. That may be the case, since the company left few footprints...

As seen below, Verne Collier appeared in the Birmingham Yellow Pages in 1961 and 1963. Further research may determine total years the company operated. If you have information about this Verne Collier company, please leave it in the comment section!

Source: Scouting, April 1964

Source: Lighted Pathway February1969, page 21

Source: Lighted Pathway, June 1969, page 19

A very similar ad appeared in Scouting Nov-Dec 1974, page 36

Source: Lighted Pathway July 1969, page 17

Source: Birmingham Yellow Pages May 1963

Source: Birmingham Yellow Pages June 1961

The city seems to have been well supplied with retail, wholesale and manufacturing candy businesses in 1945, but no Verne Collier

Source: Birmingham Yellow Pages 1945

Alabama History & Culture News: January 2 edition

 

Here's the latest batch of links to just-published Alabama history and culture articles. Most of these items are from newspapers, with others from magazines and TV and radio station websites. Some articles may be behind a paywall. Enjoy!

Hank Williams died 70 years ago today: 20,000 attended 1953 Alabama funeral - al.com AL.com A line of thousands filled two-and-a-half city blocks as the funeral procession carried Hank to Oakwood Cemetery. If you purchase a product or ...

Alabama museum to honor 70th anniversary of Hank Williams death on New Year's Day AL.com Hank and Audrey Williams graves. Country legend Hank Williams and his first wife, Audrey Mae Sheppard Williams, are buried in Montgomery.

See Mobile's World War II B-25 plane restored to former glory | The Bama Buzz

The Bama Buzz

Perfect for history enthusiasts, Mobile's USS Alabama Battleship Memorial Park has a great collection of military weapons and aircraft.

Bob Penny, bit actor in numerous Hollywood films, dies at 87 - Spectrum News

Spectrum News

An Alabama actor who played small roles in movies including “Forrest Gump” and “Sweet Home Alabama” has died at age 87.

Cullman, Alabama's Ave Maria Grotto is a world of wonders in miniature Alabama NewsCenter Alabama Living. December 29, 2022 ... Brother Joseph Zoettl died in 1961 at 83 and is buried in the Abbey cemetery. He was a monk of the abbey for ...

Signs, signs everywhere there's (quirky) signs in Alabama, AL.com reports | Traffic NOLA.com Covering everything from pork to religion to death, including a cemetery exclusively for coon hounds, quirky and funny roadside signs are ...

Good Hope Baptist in Eclectic celebrates 175th anniversary The Alabama Baptist Photo courtesy of the Alabama Baptist Historical Commission ... leading up to the celebration, the church highlighted the congregation's history.

Black Widows, Serial Killers, And More: Revisit Alabama's Murderous History - Oxygen Oxygen Black Widows, Serial Killers, And More: Revisit Alabama's Murderous History. In the new series "Floribama Murders," investigators recount the most ...

New Leeds mural promotes community and transportation history | Bham Now Bham Now There is a new mural in downtown Leeds, Alabama. Honoring the community's transportation history as a stagecoach hub and its association with ...

Clotilda slave ship survivors' story to be told in new Mobile museum - Alabama NewsCenter Alabama NewsCenter The History Museum of Mobile, in partnership with the Alabama Historical Commission, has been working for three years to develop, ...

Montgomery Landmarks Foundation finding new ways to preserve history - WSFA

WSFA

Landmarks has been known in the past for saving historic structures and operating Old Alabama Town, a living history museum in downtown Montgomery ...

Birmingham to commemorate 60 years since the 1963 campaign for civil and human rights Alabama NewsCenter (Alabama Department of Archives and History). Among the events planned in 2023 are a Sixteenth Street Baptist Church bombing commemoration, ...

The Literary Inspiration Behind Alabama's Official State Cake - Tasting Table Tasting Table The book references a real-life lane cake reportedly made by a woman named Emma Rylander Lane in Clayton, Alabama. However, it was the novel that ...

Alabama's education system was designed to preserve white supremacy. I should know.

AL.com

Alabama Constitution of 1901, Amendment 111. What's the danger of not minding one's history? Come with me, and I'll show you.

What's Coming to the Blog in 2023?

Who knows?

Well, here I am again, at the beginning of another year and another hopeful post describing what I plan to write for this blog. What's that laughter I hear? You know the old joke, if you want to hear God laugh, tell him your plans. 

Last year's blog post, sans illustrations, is below. As usual, I didn't do so well in completing my proposed entries. No posts about Alabama's psychedelic connections [Humphry Osmond, Timothy Leary, Charles W. Slack]; Henry Walthall, the silent film star born in Shelby County; or the various state natives who appeared on the classic Perry Mason TV series. I did manage to do a post on Harry Townes, the very prolific television actor born in Huntsville who appeared on that show several times. 

I also wrote about people with Alabama connections on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. There are so many I'll have to do a second post on that topic, hopefully this year. Another subject I've wanted to explore is my collection of family ticket stubs from concerts, movies and other events that date back to the 1970s. That topic will have to be divided into several posts.

I have specific plans for a few other posts this year. These include "Roy McCardell and Birmingham", "Some Old Alabama Car Tags", "Old Ads for Alabama Bookstores" and "Anthony M. Rud's 1923 "Weird Tales" Story 'Ooze'", which is set in the state.

We'll see how all this turns out...

Now, let's do the numbers:

2022-89
2021-90
2020-108
2019-110

2018-74

2017-80

2016-99

2015-91

2014-95

A total of 836 blog posts...I'm going to rest now...

Roy McCardell [1870-after 1940]

Source: Wikipedia 

@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@

What's Coming to the Blog in 2022?

You can find this post with illustrations here. 

For several years now I've been writing these "What's Coming" posts. You can read the 2021 post here and earlier ones here. I include a wish list of topics I hope to cover, and look at past lists to see which ones I managed to write and which I didn't. There's more wishing than achievement in these lists, but here we are for 2022. 

One of the topics mentioned last year that I'd like to finally do involves the natives or people with state connections who have stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. I've actually started this one; naturally, the list turned out to be pretty long. I'll probably have to split it into a couple of posts. And naturally I could follow that piece with ones on people from the state who have won Oscars, Emmys and Tony awards. Dream on.

I hope to complete four other posts in 2022 that I've been pondering for some time. Two of the most important figures in the history of LSD, Humphry Osmond and Timothy Leary, have Alabama connections--one early in his life and the other near the end of it. Henry Walthall was a major silent film star in the U.S., and his career extended into the talkie era until his death in 1936. He was a Shelby County native. Huntsville native Harry Townes became a very busy actor in Hollywood for several decades, especially on television. In 1974 he became an ordained Episcopal minister and returned to the Rocket City after retirement from acting in 1988. Speaking of Townes, I'd also like to do a post on the various state natives who appeared on the classic Perry Mason tv show. Townes acted in several episodes, as did R.G. Armstrong. Louise Fletcher and Cathy O'Donnell also turned up on the show. One day I'll also have to write a piece on all the Alabama connections on the Gunsmoke series. 

I did manage to complete two posts from last year's list. Back in the summer of 2016 I did five posts on "Beulah Vee's Cedar Chest." My dad's older sister died in 1939 just a few months after high school graduation; naturally I never met her. My grandmother Rosa Mae Wright kept a large cedar chest filled with her daughter's memorabilia. Most of those contents were donated to the Alabama Department of Archives and History in Montgomery; they form a sort of time capsule of one person's life in Gadsden, Alabama, in the 1920's and 1930's. I wrote a piece to describe that donation process and bring the story to a close.

Another topic I wanted to cover was Truman Capote and Marilyn Monroe. I had already done a pretty bogus post connecting MM and Alabama, but the one I wrote this past year was a bit stronger. You can read it here. 

In 2022 I'm sure I'll do new entries in ongoing series, such as films with Alabama connections, the usual crop of posts on "let's connect [fill in the blank] to Alabama!" and the usual stuff I haven't even thought of yet.

In closing, here are the number of posts I've written each year:

2021-90
2020-108
2019-110

2018-74

2017-80

2016-99

2015-91

2014-95

A total of 747 posts so far....sheesh....makes me tired just thinking about that...

Lacey's Spring Cemetery

On a recent trip to see mom in Huntsville my brother Richard pointed out this small cemetery to me; it's located on Bartee Road, a very short street that connects US 231 and Alabama 36 where those two intersect. See the maps below to understand what I mean.

I've written before about the Wavaho Company and its gas station at that intersection. I've also written a couple of posts about other landmarks in Lacey's Spring here and here. An extensive history of the town and it's historical marker is available here.

That history involves the three Lacy brothers, John, Hopkins and Theophilus, who were born in Virginia and ended up in north Alabama in the early 1820s after periods in North Carolina and Tennessee. The town was named after them; an "e" was added to its name later through a postal department error. All three and other family members are buried in this location. John Lacy is supposed to have served in the North Carolina militia during the Revolutionary War. 

The cemetery is very close to the town's United Methodist Church which faces Alabama 36. As seen in one of the photos below, the location is named Lacey's Springs Cemetery, but it's also known as Bartee Cemetery. William T. Bartee was Postmaster at Lacey's Spring from 1887 until 1904; he was also a representative to the state legislature 1892-93. He is buried here, along with his second wife and daughter. They are not included in this inventory, but the Lacy brothers and many others appear. 

On another recent trip I quickly took the photographs below. Perhaps soon I can stop again and get out of the car to wander. Google Maps also reveals locations for several other cemeteries in the area. 

Even this small cemetery has its Woodman of the World monument.

John Lacy has both an old and new monument. 

The cemetery is still in active use, so there are very old and very new monuments.

Source for both maps: Google Maps

Alabama Book Covers: Octavus Roy Cohen [2]

For the latest entry in this blog series I decided to again discuss the prolific author Octavus Roy Cohen [1891-1959]. I've done a previous post of this type on him, but I wanted to expand that one to include more covers and more about his life and work. 

Cohen had a long writing career that stretched from newspaper work in Birmingham and other cities, 1910-1912 until the last of his many novels appeared in 1956. He also published numerous short stories in such magazines as the Saturday Evening Post, Collier's, Redbook, Liberty, Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine and many others. Between 1915 and 1960 many of his novels and stories were adapted for films. 

Cohen's writing career was not only long but much of it controversial now and in his own time. The middle third was dominated by numerous stories about Florian Slappy, a black man featured in Cohen's "Negro tales", many set in Birmingham, and full of condescending dialect and "humor." These stories, published between 1919 and 1950, often appeared in major magazines of the day, and the NAACP complained about them at the time. After World War II such humor disappeared from the "slick" magazines, and Cohen returned to the detective and mystery thrillers he had written earlier. 

Cohen lived in Alabama briefly before World War I when he worked for the Birmingham Ledger around 1911. By 1914 he was back; he married Inez Lopez in Bessemer in October of that year. He had also begun to write fiction including some of the more than 250 short stories he produced and his first novel The Other Woman published in 1917 and written with John Ulrich Giesy, a physician and author.  

The Cohens and their only child remained in Birmingham until 1935, when they moved to New York and finally Los Angeles. While living in the city, Cohen was a member of The Loafers, a group of journalists and authors whose other participants included local novelists Jack Bethea and James Saxon Childers. For at least some of the time the group met at the Cohens' residence in the Diane Apartments on 21st Street South. Travis Bryant has written a useful blog post on the Loafers largely based on John W. Bloomers' article in the April 1977 issue of the Alabama Review. 

An author who often writes about mysteries and detective thrillers, Jon Breen, has explored the work of Cohen that features his three detective characters. Florian Slappy was a detective on occasion, but as mentioned his numerous stories are too offensive for modern tastes. That's too bad, since many are set in Birmingham--others in Harlem. He's considered an early black detective in fiction.

Another of Cohen's detectives was David Carroll, who appeared in four cases. The second was The Crimson Alibi [1919, cover below] and the last was Midnight [1922], which is online at the Internet Archive. Finally, Jim Hanvey was the private eye in various stories and two novels, The Backstage Mystery [1930, set in the theater world] and Star of Earth [1932, et in the Hollywood film world]. A collection of seven stories has been issued recently, as noted below.

Other than his publications and TV adaptations of his work, little is known about Cohen's time in New York and Los Angeles after he left Alabama. He died January 6, 1959, at the age of 67, and is buried in Forrest Lawn Memorial Cemetery in Glendale, California. Wife Inez had died on February 6, 1953, age 60, and was buried in the same cemetery. 

Their only child, Octavus Roy Cohen, Jr., was born January 21, 1916, in Bessemer like his mother. He died October 14, 1974, in British Columbia, Canada, age 58. The Decatur Daily for April 18, 1944, notes he took out a marriage license for April 24 to wed Katherine Van Allen Tallman at the Church of the Convent in New York City. Cohen, Jr.'s profession was listed as writer. Details about his career and the marriage will have to wait for further research. 

Macmillan hardback, 1950; this Popular Library paperback 1952. One of 14 crime thrillers Cohen published between 1940 and 1956. Between 1942 and the early 1970's Popular Library issued hundreds of titles, mostly mysteries. 

This Dodd, Mead hardback 1920; Longman, Green, 1927 edition had the subtitle  "A Negro Farce-Comedy in Three Acts". Contains seven short stories; is dedicated "To My Father", Octavus Cohen. The full text is at the Internet Archive. Birmingham is mentioned numerous times. Opelika appears on the first page of the first story. 

Dodd, Mead, 1919. This Grosset & Dunlap later edition has scene photos from the performance of the play written by George Broadhurst [1866-1952], a theater owner, producer, director and playwright. 

Macmillan hardback, 1945; this Popular Library paperback, 1948

This Macmillan hardback, 1946; Popular Library paperback, 1950

Published by Dodd, Mead, 1922; in London by Hodder & Stoughton, 1925; in Moscow in Russian in 1926

Little, Brown, 1925

Macmillan hardback, 1948; this Popular Library paperback, 1952. The cover is by Rudolph Belarski, an artist who illustrated numerous magazine and novel covers from the 1930's until 1960.

Macmillan hardback, 1948; this Popular Library paperback, 1951

Little, Brown, 1927; also an edition from Grosset & Dunlap

Macmillan, 1944; this Popular Library edition, 1946

This Popular Library paperback, 1949. "Murder in the Deep South" of all places

D. Appleton, 1927. Filmed in 1930 with Billie Dove, directed by Lloyd Bacon; a lost film

Published 2021. First published in 1923, the volume includes seven stories, all originally published in the Saturday Evening Post.