Remembering the Old Courthouse Part XIII

Remembering the Old Courthouse

Part XIII

Memories of Hayesville, Today, Yesterday & Always

By: Betty Benedict Thompson

I was born on May 6, 1933 in Hayesville, NC. Dad was thrilled; he had a baby girl born on the first Saturday in May, Kentucky Derby Day. I was delivered by Dr. May in the portent back of Dad’s store on Main Street. Don Meade riding Brokers won the 57th Kentucky Derby. Postage stamps were three cents, bread- seven cents a loaf, gas- eighteen cents a gallon, cars- five hundred-fifty dollars, and the DOW Index was one hundred.

Dr. May came to deliver me, he gave me a whack on the butt, I started crying, and he said, ” My God, she looks like old man Amos.” Mr. Amos owned a shoe shop in town and was not a handsome man.

Grannie White came across from her house on Tusquittee Street to give me my first bath. Grannie’s house was recently torn down by the Library. The building where I was born stood on a hill where Main Street dead ends into Tusquittee Street. Dad operated a department store during the Depression selling goods from bankrupts stores.

Soon after my birth my teenage brother Ray and a group of friends gathered at our store. They asked permission to name me. Each teenage boy could pick a name of his choosing but my brother made the rule that his name Ray had to be included in whatever name they chose. Mother provided a cigar box and they drew out the name Betty Ray. That is how I became Betty Ray Benedict. The boys who named me , as best as I can remember were, Hoover Anderson, Harrison Martin, Jack May, Chestnut Cherry, Sam J. Bristol and Worth Matheson. Most of these boys who graduated in 1937, including my brother, joined the Navy, not realizing WWII would soon disrupt our peaceful country. These young boys went though many terrible experiences in the war. My brother had three Aircraft carries shot out from under him in the Pacific, including the Yorktown in the Battle of Midway. They all left home as carefree high school graduates but each returned with knowledge of war and killing. Worth Matheson was never the same again and became almost a recluse in his parents home. Sam J. Bristol was the only one of this group killed during WWII.

My Mother, Dad and brother moved to Hayesville like so many other families who live here today. I had no relatives in Hayesville except our little family. Today I have no relatives living in Clay County. There is something about this special place in the mountains here in Western North Carolina that claimed my heart at an early age. Many of my friends and classmates dreamed of finding more glamourous lives somewhere else. Because of the economy I knew I would have to leave after graduation from High School. It was always in my plans to never stay away from Hayesville very long. I have always returned. Until the age of 45 I never missed a Christmas in Hayesville. I have often thought if a storm destroyed everything here I would still love the land and want to rebuild the town. As long as the mountains surround us, we have beauty beyond compare. If this were not true, why do we have so many wonderful people from other places come to live here and love this place called Hayesville?