Louise Smith was ‘first lady of stock car racing’

Bless her heart. Louise Duvall Smith was a “natural” as stock car racer…but she was prone to crash a lot.

 

Born in Barnesville, Ga., Louise went on to be a barnstormer for a newly formed racing organization that became the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing (NASCAR). Louise was recruited to become a driver by Bill France Sr., who was the mastermind of the organization.

 

She got her start when the Duvalls relocated to Greenville, S.C. Louise was 7 years old when she cranked up her father’s Model T Ford and began driving it around in the backyard. 

Louise once told Sandra McKee of The Baltimore Sun: “I drove around in circles and then I ran right into the chicken house. That’s the only way I could get stopped.” 

Her confession: “The chicken house was destroyed, and the car didn’t look so good either. My father tanned me good.” 

Louise married Noah Smith, who operated an auto parts business and junkyard in Greenville. 

France had been eager to sign a “crazy female driver “who could handle the challenges of the track and hopefully bring more women out to the races.” Greenville locals suggested Louise Smith, because “she’s the craziest woman we’ve got, and she’s been outrunning lawmen for years.” 

In 1946, France entered Smith in a local race driving a modified 1939 Ford coupe as a bit of a test run. She recalled: “They told me if I saw a red flag to stop. They didn’t say anything about a checkered flag.” 

“I’m out there at the end just flyin’ around the track all alone. Finally, somebody remembered…so they gave me a red flag, and I stopped.” She finished third in that race. 

Louise was hooked. One racing storyteller said: “To observe the big Daytona Beach race in 1947, she took off for Florida in her husband’s brand-new Ford to watch the cars run on the beach, but when she got there, she popped the trunk open. Mechanics installed a ‘special engine’ that Louise had stashed away.” 

“When I got to the ‘north turn,’ seven cars were piled up. I hit the back of one of them, went up in the air, cut a flip and landed on my top. Some police officers turned the car back over, and I finished 13th.” 

She took a bus back to Greenville and told her husband the Ford broke down on the side of the road in Augusta, Ga. “What she didn’t realize was that a photo of her spectacular crash at Daytona had made its way onto the front pages of newspapers across the country, including the Greenville News.”

 

Noah Smith was Louise’s first racing sponsor. Her No. 94 car was emblazoned with the words: “Smith’s Auto Parts.” Later, she picked up Leslie Motor Co. of Greenville, S.C., the local Nash dealer and went racing in a 1950 Nash Ambassador model.

 

Although Louise Smith was dubbed the “first lady of stock car racing,” there were other females pioneers, including Ethel Flock Mobley of Fort Payne, Ala. She was named after the type of gasoline her father used to fuel up his taxi – “ethyl.” 

She was one of the “flying Flocks,” joining brothers Tim, Fonty and Bob Flock as fearsome racecar drivers.

 

 

Spirit of Occoneechee lives on through ‘Cars 3’ film

 Racecar driver Louise Smith had her photograph on the cover of the souvenir race program for the 1950 NASCAR event at Occoneechee Speedway in Hillsborough, N.C. You can barely see her, though, as she’s squished up inside the crumpled wreck that used to be her ride. 

The photograph must have been a “reenactment,” shot as a publicity picture, because a close-up view shows Louise smiling with spectators all around posing for the camera.

 

Smith had a doozy of a wreck during a practice run at the 1949 race at Occoneechee. She lost control on a turn, and her car barreled into the woods. She got banged up pretty seriously; her injuries required surgery. 

Louise Smith was quite good at crashing…and also at winning. She claimed 38 titles in four different racing divisions during a 10-year racing career.

 

“Occoneechee Speedway was perhaps the toughest track of all,” wrote racing historian Matt McLaughlin. “The length of the (one-mile) dirt track made for high speeds, while the nature of the place made for deep ruts that tore cars’ undercarriages to shreds, and when it rained, mud deep enough to swallow a Jeep CJ5 whole.” 

They raced at Occoneechee for 20 years, and McLaughlin said the last one on Sept. 15, 1968, was something special. 

“Richard Petty and David Pearson closed things out in style for the tough old track. The two winningest drivers on the circuit that year waged an epic, fender crunching, bumper banging, paint swapping war out on the track,” McLaughlin said. 

“Both cars were badly bent up, and Pearson finally lost an engine on lap 120 (of 167). That allowed Richard to take the win by a remarkable seven-lap margin over James Hylton.” 

That 1968 race was Richard Petty’s third win at Occoneechee between 1958-68, matching the record of his father, Lee Petty, who won three races on the same track between 1949-60. 

Modern-day NASCAR fans can get a feel for the flavor of Occoneechee by watching the 2017 Disney Pixar animated film “Cars 3.” The fictional Thomasville Speedway displays characteristics of Occoneechee. 

Four new characters are introduced in Cars 3. A sub-plot revolves around “Smokey,” a 1946 Hudson pick-up truck, painted reddish-orange. The character is patterned after Henry “Smokey” Yunick of Neshaminy Falls, Pa., an early NASCAR mechanic and crew chief. 

In the film, Smokey hosts three of the “legends” of racing at his favorite tavern. 

One of those guests, inspired by Louise Smith, is “Louise ‘Barnstormer’ Nash.” She’s a 1950 Nash Ambassador, beige with a pink roof. Louise has whitewall tires and No. 94 on her doors.

 

Another is “River Scott,” who is described as a 1938 Dirt Track Racer, dark gray and wearing No. 34. He’s modeled after racer Wendell Scott of Danville, Va., who was the first African-American driver to win a premier NASCAR event in 1961.

 

The last of the legends is “Junior ‘Midnight’ Moon,” who depicts Robert Glenn Johnson Jr. of Ronda, N.C. He was known as Junior Johnson around the track. In the film, Junior is shown as a black 1940 Ford coupe, old No. 11.

 

Back to reality: Both Wendell Scott and Junior Johnson raced at Occoneechee. Scott made 12 starts between 1961-68, and his best finish was fourth in 1964. 

Johnson had 14 starts between 1955-66. He won the race in 1963, and actress Jayne Mansfield presented him with the winner’s trophy…and a “big kiss” in victory lane.

 

It was reported that “farm boy Junior Johnson enjoyed the moment.”

U.S. Route 70 road trip requires a stop in Hillsborough

Driving east on U.S. Route 70 through Alamance County, N.C., is likened to experiencing a slice of Americana, weaving through what was once one of the hubs of textile manufacturing in North Carolina. 

Route 70 provides ready access to the communities of Gibsonville, Elon, Burlington, Graham, Haw River and Mebane. Crossing into Orange County, Route 70 proceeds on to Hillsborough. 

Hillsborough brags about being “a small town with big history.”

 

Founded in 1754, Hillsborough became a center of political activity during the American Revolutionary period, spewing over with historical significance. 

“Nowadays, it’s an eclectic community minutes from Chapel Hill, with great restaurants and a friendly everyone-knows-everyone vibe,” wrote local journalist Maggie Brown. “It’s a haven for writers and artists.”

 

Travel writers Carl Hedinger and Christina Riley of Durham, lean toward the outdoorsy side of Hillsborough, focusing on places like Occoneechee Mountain with an elevation of 867 feet, believed to be the highest point in the state between Hillsborough and the coast. 

There are three miles of Occoneechee Mountain hiking trails that offer scenic views overlooking Hillsborough and the Eno River, with “plenty of mountain laurels and rhododendron,” according to Hedinger and Riley.

 

For others, the main attraction is the nostalgic Occoneechee Speedway, which became stock car racing’s premier one-mile dirt track in 1948. It was the first “superspeedway.” 

The property was modified from a horse racing track by Bill France Sr. He’s the former automobile mechanic who created the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing (NASCAR).

 

The Hillsborough races drew crowds of 15,000 or more to watch legends like Edward Glenn “Fireball” Roberts Jr., Lee Petty, Everett “Cotton” Owens, Truman Fontell “Fonty” Flock and Louise Smith, speed around the oval track. 

Jeremy Markovich, formerly of Our State magazine, said: “Louise Smith was a fan favorite because she “could drink, swear and fight just as well as the men.” She was also famous for her spectacular, rolling wrecks.

 

Markovich wrote that “she once quipped that she would have been a much better driver if she’d put wheels on the roof of her car.” 

Smith’s most memorable crash came at Occoneechee in 1949. Makovich said: “Curtis Turner, a hall-of-fame driver, had just taught her how to powerslide through turns. Smith thought she’d gotten the hang of it, but during qualifying, she slid a little too far.” 

She said: “Man, when I hit that second turn that tire blew, and (the car) sailed off that bank down toward that river like a cannonball. Hit three trees. They had to get me out with a torch.” Smith required 48 stitches and four pins in her left knee. 

“Somehow, she and her car stopped before tumbling into the Eno,” Markovich noted. And she survived to race another day. Smith won 38 times during her career.

 

The final race at Occoneechee in 1968 was won by Lee Petty’s son, Richard Petty, who finished seven laps ahead of James Hylton. Drivers had started to complain about the bumpy, pothole-pocked dirt tracks. They wanted to race on asphalt.

 

Markovich said: “Old tracks don’t usually fade away. Most of them get plowed under. But Occoneechee is still there, still open to the public, saved by the woods that reclaimed it.” 

Since 2003, the property has been preserved as a 44-acre park with three miles of walking trails. The trail system connects to the Riverwalk that leads two miles downtown. North Carolina’s famous Mountains-to-Sea Trail now traverses the Occoneechee property.

This is a good time to go jigsaw puzzling

How convenient? National Game and Puzzle Week is Nov. 20-26, spanning Thanksgiving week. 

To celebrate, pop open the family toy chest and fish out a jigsaw puzzle. Have at it. Any number of puzzle builders can participate in the enjoyment.

 

Let’s propose a holiday toast to the inventor of the jigsaw puzzle. Most toy and game historians give the nod to English engraver and mapmaker John Spilsbury.

 

In 1767, he had the idea of mounting a map of the kingdoms of Europe on a thin mahogany board and cutting it into pieces along national boundaries. 

Spilsbury called it a “dissected map.” He then jumbled up the pieces and inserted them into a box and sealed it up. He sold the puzzles at his printmaker’s shop on Russell Court off Drury Lane in London. 

Children were tasked to assemble the puzzles as a way to learn their geography.

 

Sarah Murden of Lincolnshire, England, an author and self-described “history detective,” said that Spilsbury listed some 30 different dissected maps of various locales around the globe for sale. His prices were quite steep, “due to the quality of the wood used….” 

“The puzzles were limited to only those families with plenty of money to spare,” Murden said. 

Yet, the popularity of dissected map puzzles grew, and by the end of the 18th century, London was home to nearly 20 companies that were producing them. 

Early manufacturers of dissected maps cut out the pieces using a hand tool known as a fret saw. The first treadle-driven fret saw was patented in 1865. The foot-powered device (also called a scroll saw or jigsaw in that era) used the same mechanism for operation as the sewing machine, a flywheel driven by a treadle. 

Adults adopted the “hobby of puzzling” as a form of amusement. Brian and Susan Way, owners of Puzzle Warehouse in St. Louis, Mo., have traced the history of jigsaw puzzles in the United States. 

Early on, “a sneeze or a careless move could undo an evening’s work because the pieces did not interlock. And, unlike children’s puzzles, the adult puzzles had no guide picture on the box; if the title was vague or misleading, the true subject could remain a mystery until the last pieces were fitted into place.” 

Parker Brothers of Salem, Mass., produced its first jigsaw puzzle in 1887 and introduced the interlocking style that took “puzzling” to a new level.

 

Another important development was the introduction of die-cut cardboard puzzles during the Great Depression. “Mass production and inexpensive cardboard allowed the manufacturers to cut prices substantially,” the Ways commented. 

“The autumn of 1932 brought a novel concept, the weekly jigsaw puzzle. The die-cut ‘Jig of the Week’ retailed for 25 cents and appeared on the newsstands every Wednesday.” Manufactured by University Distributing Company of Cambridge, Mass., each puzzle had more than 300 pieces and was capable of being solved within three hours.

 

Eighty years later, the jigsaw puzzle was inducted into the National Toy Hall of Fame in 2002. 

Interest in puzzling spiked along with the COVID-19 pandemic. Puzzle maker Cloudberries Ltd. of London is pressing forward, stating that its nerdy “puzzle boffins” are working around the clock to continue to create challenging and beautiful jigsaw puzzles. 

Cloudberries’ customer service agents are ready to assist. “Problem with your puzzle? Missing a piece? Fancy a chat about anything jigsaw-related, like why your cat loves sitting on puzzles? We’ll answer as soon as we can!”

Thanksgiving feast appreciated by World War I doughboys

One of the largest Thanksgiving gatherings in North Carolina occurred 105 years ago – on Nov. 29, 1917.

The location was near Charlotte, within the confines of Camp Greene, a U.S. Army infantry training camp. Its mission was to prepare “tens of thousands of doughboys for overseas service” during World War I.

 

The camp had begun operation in early September of 1917, so this was the first “homesick holiday” experienced by many of the men who were in the midst of boot camp, said Jessica A. Bandel of the North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources.

Jessica Bandel

While undergoing basic training at Camp Greene, the soldiers were away from home, family and friends, she said. “To ease the inevitable feelings of homesickness and loneliness, military and civilian officials organized morale-boosting activities and attempted to restore to the men some semblance of regular life by observing national holidays with all the pomp and circumstance they would have found back home.” 

Thanksgiving in 1917 was the first opportunity do so. 

“Except for high-priority operations like guard duty, mess hall work and police details…all camp occupants were given the day off on Thanksgiving,” Bandel wrote.

 

“A bout of bad weather threatened to dampen spirits, forcing the cancellation of all outdoor sports, but the base YMCA would not be deterred.” As many events as possible were moved indoors, she said. Additionally, huts offered movie screenings, concerts and other social activities. 

“Dinner, however, was the highlight of the day, featuring all the hallmarks of the holiday meal they were missing back home,” Bandel said. “The first course consisted of oyster soup, sweet pickles, olives and celery. Sweet and Irish potatoes, turkey and dressing, cranberry sauce and corn comprised the main course.” 

“If the men weren’t stuffed to the gills by the end of the first two courses, they could help themselves to an assortment of goodies for dessert: nuts, dried fruit, peach and apple pies and three different kinds of cake (coconut, chocolate and walnut),” Bandel concluded. 

The late Dr. Edward S. Perzel, a history professor at UNC Charlotte, said that when the United States entered World War I on April 6, 1917, “the government needed places to train large numbers of troops quickly. It looked to the South because of its warm climate.” 

David Ovens of J. B. Ivey & Company, who was the president of Charlotte’s chamber of commerce in 1917, was a visionary. “A boot camp meant jobs, money and prestige,” wrote Herbert White of Our State magazine.

David Ovens

 

“Ovens and his compatriots developed a basic pitch to convince the federal government to pick Charlotte: It had the land, weather and infrastructure to accommodate a camp.” What gave Charlotte a logistical edge was a major rail line to transport soldiers and munitions to New York City for deployment. 

Charlotte was selected, as were two other North Carolina sites – near Fayetteville and Raleigh. 

Camp Greene was named after Gen. Nathanael Greene, a Revolutionary War hero. He is memorialized at Guilford Courthouse National Military Park in Greensboro; the city takes its name from Gen. Greene as well.

 

At its peak, more than 60,000 soldiers lived on base at Camp Greene, White said. “The men who deployed to France saw some of the heaviest fighting of the war before the armistice in November 1918. At the war’s end, Camp Greene was dismantled and closed officially in June 1919.” 

“Electricity, water and sewer services that once served the camp breathed new life into a rapidly expanding city. A boomtown, inspired and confident, was born,” White said.

Charlotte, N.C.

Date and locale of ‘first Thanksgiving’ is debatable

Early “thanksgiving observances” in Florida by French colonists in 1564 and by Spanish colonists in 1565 have been swept aside in most versions of American history textbooks. 

Not to mention Texas. The Texas Society of Daughters of the American Colonists asserts that the “first Thanksgiving” actually occurred on May 29, 1541, at Palo Duro Canyon, near present-day Amarillo in the Texas Panhandle region. 

It is here that Spanish explorer Francisco Vasquez de Coronado and 1,500 men celebrated a “Thanksgiving Mass” after an arduous expedition to the west coast of Mexico in search of the “Seven Cities of Gold.”

 

Instead of wealthy civilizations, Coronado found “pueblos of poor but industrious agricultural Indians,” one historian remarked. 

All of the above have been overshadowed by the English pilgrims in the colony of Plymouth (Mass.) in 1621.

 

A U.S. National Park Service (NPS) spokesperson said: “In the autumn of 1621, in celebration of their first successful corn harvest, the Plymouth pilgrims hunted wildfowl and held a feast that was attended by local members of the Wampanoag tribe who contributed five deer.” 

“Countless American schoolchildren know this communal meal as the famous ‘First Thanksgiving.’ It helps to remember that it is the victors who typically write history. British forces won out over those of Spain and France for mastery over the (North American) continent,” the NPS stated. 

“Thus, British observances, such as the annual reenactment of the Pilgrims’ harvest festival in 1621, became a national practice.”

 

When and where was the first Thanksgiving in North Carolina? Unfortunately, there’s no simple answer. Archivists at the North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources provide some clues, however. 

In 1758, colonial governor Arthur Dobbs “issued a proclamation for a public Thanksgiving on the first Wednesday in December” (Dec. 6).

 

After the colonies declared their independence, North Carolina Gov. Richard Caswell declared a day of “general thanksgiving to Almighty God.” It was celebrated in New Bern, the state capital, on Dec. 18, 1776. 

Gov. William Alexander Graham, who served from 1845-48, was the first to call on the North Carolina General Assembly to make Thanksgiving an annual occasion and state holiday, a time “for the forgiveness of injuries…and for acts of good neighborhood and especially for the charitable remembrance of the Poor.” 

The legislature agreed, ratifying a joint resolution recognizing the holiday. Gov. Charles Manly, proclaimed Nov. 15, 1849, as North Carolina’s first Thanksgiving holiday. 

U.S. President Abraham Lincoln declared Thanksgiving a national holiday in 1863. The date was set as the last Thursday of November. That tradition was continued every year until 1939. 

Faced with a November containing five Thursdays, retail merchants leaned hard on President Franklin D. Roosevelt to push Thanksgiving up a week, moving the date from Nov. 30 to Nov. 23 in 1939.

 

In that era, most people didn’t start their Christmas shopping until after Thanksgiving. Roosevelt heard “the voice of business,” and made the switch. In effect, Roosevelt “added a week to the Christmas shopping season.” 

At the time, a fellow named E.E. Scranton told The San Diego Union-Tribune: “Changing Thanksgiving to aid Christmas shoppers won’t help the men one bit. It is a well-known fact that men always do their shopping on Christmas Eve anyway.” 

Roosevelt took a lot of heat. While 32 states went along with the idea of moving Thanksgiving up a week, 16 states refused to budge, opting to celebrate on the normal “last Thursday” date.

To stabilize the situation, Congress acted in 1941, setting a fixed date for the federal holiday – the “fourth Thursday” in November.

There’s more to ‘blacksmithing’ than meets the eye

Our image of the village blacksmith comes straight off the page of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s famous poem, “The Village Blacksmith,” which was published in November of 1840. Here is some of the description: 

…The smith, a mighty man is he,

With large and sinewy hands,

And the muscles of his brawny arms

Are strong as iron bands.

 

His hair is crisp, and black, and long…

His brow is wet with honest sweat…

 

Week in, week out, from morn till night,

You can hear his bellows blow;

You can hear him swing his heavy sledge,

With measured beat and slow,

Like a sexton ringing the village bell,

When the evening sun is low. 

We’ve learned that a smith is a person who works with metal, and the term “blacksmith” is given to one who works with iron, a metal that turns black when heated.

 

A smithy is the workshop that revolves around the forge, a furnace or hearth for melting or refining metal. When the fire is hot enough for iron to become malleable, the blacksmith hammers it into the shape that is required, banging it against a properly sized anvil. 

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow lived from 1807-82. He was a charter member of the “fireside poets,” a small collection of 19th-century American poets who challenged the popularity of British poets.

Longfellow

 

Joining Longfellow in this grouping were William Cullen Bryant, John Greenleaf Whittier, James Russell Lowell, Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. and Ralph Waldo Emerson. Their writings were considered a source of entertainment in the evening by families who gathered around firesides all across the nation. 

It’s in honor of them, in my humble opinion, that the term “wordsmith” was coined in 1873 to describe “a person who has skill with using words, especially in writing.” These poetic geniuses were the certainly deserving to be tapped as the original American wordsmiths. Would you agree? 

Angela Tague of Sioux City, Iowa, a modern-day journalist who specializes in search engine optimization (SEO), questioned the association of the “smithing” part with great writers.

 

“When we think of this classic trade of smithing, the idea of forging something new from bars of metal is top of mind,” she said. 

Tague then rationalized: “Much like a blacksmith twisting and molding iron to fashion a new tool, writers do the same with words to create thoughts and ideas.” Yes, that could be a form of smithing.

 “Working with fire? Forging? Creating? Molding? Yep, sounds about like a day at my desk as a writer,” Tague said. She offered this greeting to colleagues: “Happy wordsmithing to you, fellow workers-in-words.” 

Ah yes, wordsmith is now acceptable as a verb. But the entire process of wordsmithing can be summed up in one new noun – wordsmithery. 

“Wordsmithery: Using this fancy four-syllable concoction screams ‘word nerd,’” Tague said. “Refer to your wordsmithery when showing writing samples or exclaim in an upcoming tweet (to a client) that you’re off to do some wordsmithery on a project. oLet the wordsmithery of the day commence! I must fashion new words for your consumption!”

 

Perhaps her enthusiasm to wordsmith is a bit over the top. 

Urban Dictionary, which was launched in 1999 in San Luis Obispo, Calif., says wordsmithery involves the ability to “effortlessly string words together to create smiles, laughter or admiration…and to ‘make up (stuff) on the spot.’” 

“Depending on the project, this definition is fitting, too,” Tague said with a laugh. 

Tsk, tsk.