Sources |
- [S24] The Newport Plain Talk, (http://www.newportplaintalk.com), 25 Oct 2004.
Myrtle Arrowood obituary
- [S24] The Newport Plain Talk, (http://www.newportplaintalk.com).
.
.
.
After a late Wednesday night storm, the air was clearer and cooler for the open house and ribbon cutting at Newport Federal Bank. I knew there would be plenty of food¡Vthanks to Ribbons & Roses¡Vand a chance to see folks. I bumped into L. C. Gregg again (I had visited him at Cocke County Bank where his older brother, Gene Gregg, dropped by.) who was treating his uncle Jimmy Gregg to the free lunch¡Vfor Jimmy¡¦s seventy-second birthday, Nov. 10. One fellow looked familiar standing beside the teller counter. Major Coggins used to drive a concrete truck for Lowry Ratcliff at Helm Lumber. Major said that Newport Federal made it possible for him and his wife, Opal, to have their first home. They still live in the house off Indian Creek Road bought in 1963 for about $8,000 at a time when no one else was in the neighborhood. Coggins, is from Hartford, and told me he was a double first cousin to my old friend, the late squire Bill Coggins. When Major said he had served during World War II, helping the US occupy Japan, I realized he was much older than he looked. ¡§I¡¦ll be 79 on Dec. 9.¡¨ He also spent 14 months in Korea and worked all his life including a stint at Wall Tube. It seems that every older man around has worked there one time or another. Major was one of 11 children of Ike Coggins and Addie Black Coggins, and you may know his sister, Geraldine Hartsell, who probably has been a cosmetologist for more than 40 years in Newport.
.
.
.
Just Plain Talk
|