Visiting Our Past: Remembering 1959 in WNC
"Dear Abby, we raised a Christian son who married a good Christian girl," "Old-Fashioned Parents" wrote the columnist in 1959, revealing that their son and daughter-in-law "have set up Friday night as their 'night out' away from each other."
"We think they are asking for trouble," the parents worried. "We never had a 'night out' away from each other and it worked out fine."
Abby reassured the writers that the practice of husband and wife spending time with their guy and gal friends "seems to be the accepted mode of behavior for young-marrieds."
The column appeared in the Asheville Citizen in 1959.
1959
That was the year that the Barbie doll and Fidel Castro debuted; as did "Ben-Hur," the movie; "The Twilight Zone"; the Xerox photocopier; and pantyhose.
Elvis joined the Army; U.S. steelworkers walked out (over impending automation and lost jobs); and Russian Premier Nikita Khrushchev toured America (except for Disneyland, from which he was barred, ostensibly for security reasons).
D.H. Lawrence's "Lady Chatterley's Lover" hit the bestseller list. G.D. Searle produced the birth control pill and sought a license.
Women composed 35.2% of college students, as compared with 47% in 1920.
Looking at the year 1959 in Western North Carolina, we see that it was a transitional one in the history of women.
Featured women
The Asheville Citizen published a weekly photo feature titled "Woman of the Week" in 1959.
On Oct. 7, the nominee was Mrs. Robert (Margaret Spiro) Norwood, minister of music at West Asheville Baptist Church, violinist with the N.C. Symphony and composer and arranger of both violin and choral works, "none of it published."
Her musical career, the feature noted, "works in well with a homemaking schedule, Mrs. Norwood says. She loves to cook (has a secret recipe for banana cake) and to sew, making all of her own clothes. She only hopes the next baby (she and her husband adopt) will be a girl so she can make pretty little dresses for her."
One week earlier, the newspaper published a news photo of the five finalists for the title of Lee H. Edwards High School Football Homecoming Queen. They were Misses Vivian Johnson, Martha Osborne, Merle Love, Elaine Ingle and Joyce Warren.
Racial transitions
The year 1959 was also a transitional one for race relations and agriculture (not to mention speed racing in Weaverville).
The Farmers Federation phased out that year. Southern governors met in Asheville to confer on key issues, which included farming and forestry as well as integration.
At the 25th Annual Southern Governors' Conference, held at the Grove Park Inn, the governors did not mention integration by name, but, it was reported, "it was nonetheless officially declared out of order by the conference chairman, Mississippi Gov. James B. Coleman." The 1960 Democratic presidential convention was coming up, and there was fear of a third party bolt.
Out of session, Gov. Orval Faubus of Arkansas commented on what he called the "police state" that the federal government was imposing in Little Rock high schools.
In 1957, the National Guard had escorted nine African American students into Little Rock Central High School. Faubus had responded by closing public schools with the intention of opening them as segregated private schools. The federal government stepped in again, reconstituting school boards amid a rash of racial hate crimes.
In Western North Carolina, the road to integration was being paved in Burnsville in 1959.
Yancey's County's only school for African American children was a one-room wooden building that had been condemned in 1958. Consequently, Black students were bused to Asheville.
In November 1959, Burnsville's Black parents filed a federal lawsuit asking for entry into the white schools in Yancey County. They were represented by lawyers Ruben Dailey of Asheville and Thurgood Marshall of New York.
On Sept. 12, 1960, U.S. District Court Judge Wilson Warlick of Asheville ordered Yancey County schools to be integrated within 30 days.
African Americans in history
There are the students who experienced the integration of Yancey County schools, and those who supported them. There are also other African American individuals who made the news.
On Nov. 20, 1959, Leonard Thompson of 72 Hill St. received the first certificate for housing relocation under Asheville's urban renewal program. The new crosstown expressway would be "displacing" his home, a news item stated, and he would receive an "opportunity for a 100 per cent mortgage guarantee under Section 221 of the FHA Act."
Arthur J. Wilburn, born in Asheville in 1918 and a 1935 graduate of Stephens-Lee High School, became one of many local African Americans who attained professional greatness by leaving the area.
He attended Howard University and received his master's and doctoral degrees in mathematics from Harvard University. He served as one of the Tuskegee Airmen in World War II.
By 1959, he was working as a statistical analyst for the U.S. Air Force, and established himself as the leading expert for an auditing technique called "Stop and Go Sampling."
Lt. Wilburn died in 2012 and is buried in Violet Hill Cemetery in West Asheville. He is survived by a large extended family.
Rob Neufeld wrote the weekly "Visiting Our Past" column for the Citizen Times until his death in 2019. This column originally was published April 7, 2014.
This article originally appeared on Asheville Citizen Times: Visiting Our Past: Remembering 1959 in WNC
