100 years of history by Carol Pelosi
(After last week’s history column that mentioned his father, Grady Patterson sent along some of his memories of Wake Forest during World War II.)
I remember so well the dispute over Sunday movies.
I was also interested in the mention of my father’s request for a paper drive. In addition to other things, he was chairman of Boy Scout Troop No. 5, which met in the basement of the Baptist church.
Those of us who were members of the troop collected newspapers, cardboard boxes, and other forms of paper for quite a long while during the war. We even had a baler into which we could stuff the paper products, compress them and finally when at the right size wrap baling wire around to hold the paper in a bale for shipment.
The collecting of metal was also a big project. I recall scouring the countryside on our bikes to locate old abandoned farm machinery, which would subsequently be picked up by a truck for melting down.
Your mention of the U. S. Army Finance School evoked memories as well. It was moved here from Fort Benjamin Harrison in Ohio and was really the salvation of the college, which had fallen upon difficult financial times due to the war.
The arrival of “soldiers” was quite exciting for us teenagers, and especially for the young ladies of the community. It became commonplace to see groups of them marching around from place to place.
Not only did they occupy Simmons Dormitory, but also the entire block where the Wake Forest College Birthplace is presently located was filled with one-story Army barracks. Following the war, these survived to be occupied by returning married students.
As you mentioned, Miss Jo’s Cafeteria became the Army Mess Hall, which provided a source of summertime and holiday (Christmas season) income for some of us teenagers who served the troops breakfast, lunch and dinner.
(Editor’s note: Miss Jo’s Cafeteria was in the southwest corner of the intersection of South Main Street and South Avenue. It is now an unpaved seminary parking lot next to a small roundabout. Miss Jo also ran a boarding house that is now owned by the seminary in the brick house at the intersection of South Wingate Street and Durham Road. To provide for all the meals, she owned and operated a farm on Jenkins Road where she raised cattle, pigs, chickens and a variety of vegetables.)
My particular job was making coffee each morning and serving it as well as milk and later in the day ice cream. I can remember saving bottles of chocolate milk for guys who were particular favorites.
I recall that Christmas was a particularly poignant time for the guys, and I always associate “White Christmas” with those days, since it was so popular at the time.
I still have a photograph of some of the girls from the town who worked there, including Gerry Sims, Ruth Smith, Mary Gilmer Cocke, Gini Wilkinson, Alice Holiday, Kit Isbell, Betty Rose Holiday and Emily Olive.
* * * *
During a shuffle through some papers, we chanced on a clipping from 1971 when the Wake County Bicentennial Commission was at work. It confirmed what we remembered, that Forestville was chartered as a town twice, in 1879 and again in 1899.
Forestville was a thriving community in 1834 when Wake Forest College, a mile north on the Dr. Calvin Jones plantation, was chartered, and one of the original railroad depots for the Raleigh & Gaston Railroad was built on Front Street (now Friendship Chapel Road) in Forestville in 1840.
The railroad business was not exactly booming in those days, and one memoir recalls that trains would have to wait to unload mail and freight until the stationmaster was called back from squirrel hunting.
In 1879, Forestville had 116 inhabitants and several stores and businesses. The new mayor was David W. Allen, and W.B. Dunn, Dr. Leroy Chappell, E.A. Carver and S.S. Abernathy were the commissioners.
The charter description said the town limits lay a quarter mile in each direction from John R. Dunn’s store house. (The two-story wood building was at the intersection of Powell Road, now South Main Street, and Forestville Road, which then continued to the Falls of the Neuse.) To the east, according to an 1870 map, was Fort’s Mill, the remains of which were demolished during the construction of the N.C. 98 bypass.
Just a year after Forestville was incorporated as town, Wake Forest did likewise, styling itself the Town of Wake Forest College. James D. Purefoy was named the mayor. The town was a rectangle containing 960 acres, running one and a half miles from north to south and one mile east to west.
There was some fierce competition between the two over the post office and the railroad station. Both had originally been in Forestville.
The post office was moved to Wake Forest in 1873.
The bitter contest, however, was about the railroad station. When the college trustees agreed to pay $3,000.02 to have the station moved next to the college campus in 1874, it caused a serious rift in the membership of Forestville Baptist Church. Wake Forest Baptist Church at that time met in the college building, and the congregation was largely students and professors. Forestville was the nearest church for businessmen and farmers.
Forestville’s town charter was revoked in 1885 for unknown reasons, but the town had a new corporate life from 1899 to 1914. The mayor in 1899 was S.W. Allen and the commissioners were A.C. Dunn, J.Q. Phillips, G.S. Patterson and P.P Loyd.
The Town of Wake Forest College continued in existence until 1909 when the charter was changed and the name became simply the Town of Wake Forest.
###
