| Sources |
- [S104] Cocke County, Tennessee, and its People, Cocke County Heritage Book Committee, (Walsworth Publishing, 1992), 106.
- [S24] The Newport Plain Talk, (http://www.newportplaintalk.com), 24 Aug 2004.
Jackson Stokely Freeman obituary
- [S24] The Newport Plain Talk, (http://www.newportplaintalk.com), 29 Oct 2006.
Shades of Halloween, he's back from the dead
(c)2006 NPT PHOTO BY DAVID POPIEL Waldo Freeman is very much alive and enjoys traveling and retirement.
By: DAVID POPIEL
Source: The Newport Plain Talk
10-29-2006
Fall continues to evaporate as cold wind swept across our county early Saturday morning, threatening the last garlands of red, yellow, and orange leaves in our hometown.
During the warm growing season that we all miss, Vella Calfee brought in a large light orange fruit, which she called a pomegranate. "When I was a kid we grew them all through the county," she recalled. But these were only a third of the size of the grapefruit-sized one she gave to me. Where did the seeds come from that Vella grows as a vine every year at her front porch? Vella said she believed that Nancy O'Neil, late Plain Talk lifestyles editor, got some of the fruit and her mother, the late Irene Lampson, saved the seeds in the early 1990s. These stripped small melons now have all but disappeared from the county and offer no challenge to the hefty pumpkins that haunt the fields this Halloween. I never ate the fruit but sat it near my desk where it gave off an incense odor that finally drew fruit flies. The name is a combination of "popum"-Indian apple and mangoes, but what Vella grows is not what is a true pomegranate. I picked one up at Wal-Mart on Friday for a $1.88 and show it here for those unfamiliar with this tropical fruit.
A deadman walked into the Plain Talk last week. Well, actually, he wasn't very dead. In my haste at presenting my last column and talking with Jennifer Freeman, I accidentally said that her uncles were the late Jack Freeman and Waldo Freeman. So, you see, when Waldo walked into the office he was very much alive. He is the middle son, at age 75, Gary, who is recovering from a stroke, is the youngest. Waldo tells me that Gary is able to walk about and chat with folks on his porch. Most of you knew Jack and appreciate Beth Ogle Freeman, who is also still among us, and a great contributor to education as former superintendent of schools. Her husband died about two years ago, said Waldo. The family has had a lot of emotional hardships, but they have more friends and blessings too.
I really did not get to know Waldo as well as some of you know him. He worked in Cleveland, Ohio, from about 1954 to 1974 and before that was in the Army during the Korean War. Fortunately, he was stationed in Germany and you may have bumped into him there. He was one of the famous Circle C Cowboys whose job it was to monitor the Russian/Czechoslovakian border during the Cold War. If you are a Baby Boomer or older you certainly knew about this and the Communists. In Ohio, Waldo worked for Cleveland Pneumatic Tool to help build airplane landing gears. It was here that he built a friendship with Bob Noe, of Morristown. Noe returned and started a machine tool business in Cocke County on what was the old Dewey Strange slaughterhouse property. Later, Waldo, came home and bought an interest in the business. They added motorcycle sales and service to the machine shop over the years and were partners for about 15 years. I must say that as we talked some old bad news nudged the back of my mind concerning the Freemans. When I asked about the family, he said his wife , Evelyn, was from Cleveland-that's where they met. Their children are Elaine Miles, of Culpepper, Virginia, Bryan, who works at Sonoco, and the late Gary Freeman-a promising senior at Cocke County High School who was killed in a trailbike accident. That's what I remembered reporting on many years ago.
Waldo and Evelyn are young at heart and love to travel to see what is over the hillside. Their most recent trip was to the northeast and New England states. They have also visited Panama, Costa Rica, and Alaska. Waldo believes he's put at least 90,000 miles on his car driving around the US. He's had plenty of time having retired from the store business four years ago. The brothers opened their store at Wilton Springs and operated it for about 15 years. The family still owns it but leases the store. Waldo said that Bob Noe is still alive living in Morristown but has had five bypass heart surgery. As for Waldo, he's been through gallbladder surgery but does fine now.
A most delightful person walked into my office on Thursday afternoon, as I was hunkered down fearfully watching the clouding sky for the rain front to arrive. Some of you have already met this pleasant, modest woman or visited her Website. Kathy Hemsworth told me about Dorcas Walker some days ago when we had been looking for a way to bring a local touch to recipe presentations in the Plain Talk. I'm sure you long-time readers will recall the splendid work Shirley Elliott did every Wednesday with her Focus on Foods column. Nancy O'Neil continued this but as years past not many people were keen on getting their photos made or taking time to let us into their kitchen and recipe books. So we were fortunate to find Dorcas, who loves to write and will be presenting recipes and talking to some of you to share your favorite recipes. She and husband, Dana Walker, who is pastor of the First Church of the Nazarene have been in Newport for about 18 months. They still maintain a farm in Jamestown and have two grown children: Dwight and Dawn, who lives in Nashville. I noticed that Dorcas had a mild impediment as she walked and she told me that she suffers from a rare form of arthritis. During our conversation, I learned that her family, which are Pennsylvania Dutch, has had to deal with hemophilia-the rarest of blood disorders whereby males are born with blood that does not clot. Rarer still is to find out that her daughter has the disease and has lived with it for about 27 years. She and her family are obviously strong people because of their faith. Dana, she said, had spent a considerable part of his life as an evangelist and is more settled now thanks to his pastorate in Newport. We look forward to her column and for you to get to know more about the Walkers.
In plain talk the good folks in Cocke County are by no means as rare as the seldom sighted pomegranate.
- [S24] The Newport Plain Talk, (http://www.newportplaintalk.com), 22 Oct 2006.
Just Plain Talk
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