Newcomers to the triangle (less than 20 years, anyway) reading about WakeMed's bid to buy Rex Hospital don't remember the day in 1980 when all the patients and hospital staff moved in from the old hospital on Wade Avenue, including newborns who were born in one hospital and discharged from another.

But the hospital's history goes back much farther. It was funded by John Rex, who died in 1839. His will provided funds for a hospital in Raleigh for the city's "sick and afflicted poor," and for money to free his slaves and relocate them in Africa. The hospital actually opened in 1894 on South Street near Salisbury Street. The building, which had been the residence of former Governor Charles Manly, was later operated as a hospital by the St. John's Guild. It opened as Rex Hospital on May 1, after repairs were made and a two-story annex was built for black patients.

The Rex Hospital Nursing School was organized later that year with four students.

In 1896, another annex was built for patients who could afford to pay for medical care. In 1908, the original building was demolished to make way for a new one. The black patients were sent to St. Agnes Hospital, and white patients were temporarily transferred to the Hinsdale House on the corner of Glenwood Avenue and Peace Street. The new building opened in October 1909 and operated there until 1937.

Rex Hospital nurses, graduating class of 1918, Photo Courtesy of the North Carolina State Archives.

The second part of John Rex's bequest, to free his slaves was detailed by Memory F. Mitchell, a former state archivist, in 1978.

All except Winney, who chose not to leave her husband, agreed to go. The others soon left Raleigh by rail for Norfolk ... On August 4, the ship Saluda sailed for Liberia with the group of 17 former slaves: Ben Simmons and his wife Malinda; Hagar and her son Henry; Jenny; Martha and her daughter Eliza; Becky; Tresa; Sampson; Dick Wilson; Claxton; Ellick; Hubert; Asa Williams; Lucy; and Abraham Rex. They ranged in age from 8 to 65. Early in November they landed in their new home.

Malinda wrote at least once ... of the difficulty of living in such a poor country and bemoaning the fact that she had agreed to go to Africa. She was among the missing when funds were distributed. What became of the transplanted group is unknown.

 [Read the full article here.]

Back in Raleigh, Rex Hospital was joined by the new Wake Memorial Hospital in 1961.

Frank Daniels Jr., former publisher of The News & Observer, served on the boards of both hospitals. In a 2002 interview, he talked about how the rivalry between the hospitals existed from almost the very beginning.

And then they built the hospital, and then there was instant animosity between Rex Hospital and Wake Hospital. I think they called it Wake County. They used to call it Wake Memorial Hospital.     And they brought Bill Andrews in as the executive director. I think he came right off the bat. ...
    And Bill built the hospital. I became friends with Bill Andrews in later times, but he played everything very close to his vest. Didn't want to share anything with anybody. Saw Rex Hospital as a competitor. The guys who were running Rex Hospital saw Wake as a competitor. And doctors didn't want to go back and forth between the two hospitals, so they had trouble getting the doctors to go to Wake.

North Carolina's Senator Sam Ervin opened the Watergate Hearings on May 17, 1973, and for the rest of the summer, the hearings dominated the TV schedule.

The three commercial television networks (ABC, CBS, and NBC) all broadcast the hearings live for the first five days. After that, they took turns providing live coverage, resulting in 319 hours of televised coverage by the time the hearings closed on August 7.

N.C. Sen. Sam Ervin listens to Rufus Edmisten, deputy chief counsel of the Watergate committee, (AP file photo)

As he anticipated the beginning of the hearings, Ervin credited the press for their role exposing in the Watergate affair.

Ervin praised investigative reporting for bringing he scandal to the public's attention. "The press of America deserves the thanks of the people for what it has done." --The News & Observer, 5/17/1973

May 20 marks the 150th anniversary of North Carolina seceding from the Union to join the Confederate States of America. To mark the anniversary, the N.C. Museum of History will open a small exhibit called North Carolina and the Civil War: The Breaking Storm, 1861-1862. It will highlight events leading up to the outbreak of the Civil War and some early battles. The exhibit runs through October 29, 2012 and includes the Confederate first national flag of the 33rd Regiment N.C. Volunteers, 1861-1862; and an M1833 dragoon saber and scabbard (1861-1862) used by Zebulon B. Vance, colonel of the 26th Regiment N.C. Troops and later the state’s wartime governor.

On Saturday May 21, the State Capitol will host a re-enactment of the historic vote to join the Confederacy. According to accounts, following the unanimous vote, someone dropped a handkerchief from the Capitol’s west portico to signal to the crowd below that North Carolina had seceded and joined the Confederacy. Maj. Stephen Dodson Ramseur’s artillery unit, which was posted on the grounds for the occasion, announced the historic moment by firing its cannons. Activities at the re-enactment will include readings from Secession Convention speeches, drill and dress parade, and a field music concert. Activities at the State Capitol run from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

The same convention that passed the ordinance of secession also adopted the first state flag. The original ordinance called for a blue field with a white V and a star encircled by the words, "Surgit astrum, May 20, 1775." By the time the first design was approved, it was a red field with a white star in the centre, and the inscription, above the star in a semi-circular form, of "May 20th, 1775," and below the star, in a semi-circular form, of "May 20, 1861."  ... there shall be two bars of equal width, ... the first bar shall be blue, and the second shall be white.

This was the flag that went to war with the North Carolina troops. (It was the only flag except the national and Confederate colors used by North Carolina troops during the Civil War.)

The first date on the flag, May 20, 1775 is the date of the Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence. The second date was later changed from the state's secession date to April 12, 1776 in honor of the Halifax Resolves.

N&O staff photo by Karen Tam

It was 38 years ago today that NASA launched Skylab 1, its first manned space station.  It orbited for six years, was visited three times and was host to numerous experiments, but in the end, the space station was more famous for coming down than it was for going up.

In July 1979, the world was watching as Skylab began its descent back toward Earth. Although officials predicted that two-thirds of the 77-ton space craft would burn up on re-entry and most of the rest would fall into the ocean, there was still a 600 billion to one chance of being hit by space debris. In the Triangle, that was a good excuse to party.

N&O staff writer Susan Spence Moe reported on the precautions and preparations here for Skylab's fall:

When Skylab drops out of the sky, probably between 2 a.m. and 10:30 p.m. Wednesday, even Gov. James B. Hunt Jr. will greet the re-entry of the 78-1/2 ton beast without a helmet.

"He will be unprotected," press secretary Gary Pearce said Monday. "He will face Skylab without fear."

[...]

Hard hats will be in vogue Wednesday night when Skylab goes disco at the Holiday Inn North. The hotel, which as declared itself the official Skylab crash site (complete with painted target), is co-hosting a public poolside party.

While a huge search light spans the sky hunting falling bits of Skylab, party goers will be treated to free beer, "space snacks" and science fiction films including clips from old "Star Trek" adventures.

[...]

Another Skylab party is slated for Friday afternoon at N.C. State University's Sigma Pi fraternity. Party-goers are encouraged to bring their own umbrellas and catcher's mitts.

For the few who took the threat more seriously, Lloyd's of London was offering special Skylab insurance.

Most North Carolina homeowners' insurance policies probably would consider Skylab "peril number 12" should it smash through their roof, according to Jackie K. Darden of the state Department of Insurance.

Skylab would be considered a "falling object" under the most common types of state homeowner insurance, she said. -- The News & Observer, 7/10/1979

In the end, hundreds of pieces of Skylab fell into remote areas of southwestern Australia with no immediate injuries.

Brad Rudolph, a Denver representative for the Seat-of-the-Pants Management Company sold more than 4,000 of these poster-board helmets, complete with an "early warning spike" claiming to provide .00193 nanoseconds of warning before Skylab hits its wearer. (AP photo)

The Library of Congress and Sony Music Entertainment has launched the National Jukebox, a collection of more than 10,000 digitized recordings from the first part of the 20th century. The recordings, which include music, poetry, political speeches and other spoken word recordings, are available to stream online.

Currently, only recordings made by the Victor Talking Machine Company are available, but later this year, the project will begin digitizing recordings from additional record labels, including Columbia and Okeh, along with selected master recordings from the Library of Congress Universal Music Group Collection.

The University of California, Santa Barbara has worked to create a searchable database of the recordings.

Learn more about this project with The Making of the National Jukebox slideshow, or just sit back and enjoy this 1922 recording of Carolina in the Morning.

A baked potato in four minutes, bacon in 90 seconds, a four-pound roast in 36 minutes? This is a convenience we've become accustomed to with modern microwave ovens. In 1956, these new "electronic ranges" promised to revolutionize cooking.

Mrs. Allen Johnson of Salisbury was "the happy owner of one of the first electronic ranges in North Carolina," having purchased her oven through a distributor since they were not yet on the retail market.

The Allen Johnsons have owned it for just a few weeks, but already it is a big conversation piece, and guests always adjourn to the kitchen to see the electronic marvel demonstrated.

Because the new electronic ovens will revolutionize cooking, a special built-in cooking file is a feature of the ranges. It gives all the new-fangled, but necessary, information to pre-electronic cooks!

-- The News & Observer, 4/29/1956

To wrap up Mother's Day, here's a group portrait of Kinston High School's Little Mothers League for Better Babies from around 1920. The photograph is part of the Fred & Susan Brock Collection at East Carolina University and is used with permission of the Joyner Library Digital Collections unit.

Little Mothers League clubs were originally formed by Sara Josephine Baker, a New York public health physician and were designed to teach young girls to help care for their younger siblings. An article about the League was published in The New York Times around 1910.

Consider the case of the mother of many children, eight, nine, or ten, with the house to keep clean and the washing to be done, and maybe a bit of money to be earned on the outside. It is only natural that a large part of the care of the little ones should fall on the shoulders of the older girls. There are some fortunate mothers who will not trust their little ones to walk abroad even with a nurse, unless they go along. There are thousands and thousands of mothers whose babies lie all day long in the care of children themselves only a few years beyond babyhood.

Photo Courtesy of the North Carolina State Archives

The nation was introduced to the William David Marlow family on May 7, 1964 when President Lyndon Johnson visited their Rocky Mount home as part of his Appalachian tour to kick off America's War on Poverty.

It is unclear how an Appalachian tour brought the president to Rocky Mount. Perhaps the trip planners were confused by the mountain-sounding name of the town. The other requirements, however, were met with precision detail: a rural family with lots of children, low income, at least one high school dropout and a father who was partially disabled and, preferably, a war veteran. And since Johnson planned to visit a black family in Georgia, the North Carolina family had to be white.

The Marlow household included seven children and a mother-in-law. Mr. Marlow, a WWII veteran had suffered a back injury in 1960. Their six-room house had no toilets or running water. The family earned about $1,500 a year as tenant farmers.

The brief 15-minute visit and photo op was followed by a trip into town, the president's mile-long motorcade traveling about five miles of crowd-lined highway.

That's when things got bad for the Marlows. Being singled out by the president of the United States as an example of poverty was humiliating. Mrs. Marlow said in a 1973 interview, "How would you like to be picked out as the most poverty-stricken family in the most poverty-stricken state? All it did was degrade us."

Iconic photos from the visit now show up for sale by online poster and home decorating retailers . The original photo traveled with the family to their subsequent homes and was passed down to their daughter Bonnie.

Nearly thirty years later, then N&O staff writer Charles Salter met with Bonnie to learn what had become of North Carolina family that was the face of poverty. Click below to read his story.

Bonnie Marlow Johnson returns to the house the President made famous.

In today's N&O, staff writer Josh Shaffer introduced us to Cancetto Farmica, nicknamed "Spaghetti" by the Scotland County community where he spent more than 60 years as a mummy.

In 1972, Spaghetti was buried, but that wasn't the last we heard of him. Two years later, a Milwaukee mail-order firm offered him for sale. Lawrence K. Mooney of Fairfax County VA just happened to be in the market for a mummy when he saw one advertised.

The asking price was $6,500. Mooney said he sent the firm, "Freak Enterprises," a down-payment of $1,000.

What Mooney didn't realize was that the firm did not own the mummy. The photograph Mooney saw showed the remains of a mummified carnival worker that had been in the possession of a Laurinburg, N.C., funeral home for 65 years. The body was buried in 1972 under 10 inches of concrete.
Mooney was out both the mummy and his money.  --The Raleigh Times, 9/25/1978

People have continued to be interested in the tale of Spaghetti. His grave has been included on several lists of roadside attractions, and his story shows up in many collections of the weird and wonderful. In 2000, CBS correspondent Steve Hartman "found" the story for his Everybody's Got a Story segment.

[video]

But Spaghetti wasn't the only one to meet such a fate. The same year he was killed, a Western "desperado" named Elmer  McCurdy was gunned down by a sheriff's posse after he robbed a train in Oklahoma. The body, which was embalmed with arsenic, was sold to at least two carnivals, a wax museum, and finally to a funhouse amusement park in California. At some point it was covered with wax and was believed to be one of the wax dummies. In 1976 the amusement park was the location for a segment of the "Six-Million-Dollar Man." A technician was moving the "dummy" when it's arm fell off. He started to glue it back on and noticed a bone inside. The body was finally identified and buried at Boot Hill.

Photo Courtesy of the North Carolina State Archives

This May Day celebration featured the Flora Macdonald College May Day Scotch Dancers doing the Scottish Fling, sometime between 1910 and 1916. According to the present-day Flora Macdonald Academy, the college was founded in 1896 in Red Springs NC.

The Fayetteville Presbytery decided to establish a seminary for girls somewhere in the area. Red Springs came forward with the promise of $2500, four acres of land, and forty students, if the school should be located there. The offer was immediately accepted. Red Springs was also chosen because, in addition to the fact that it was a center of religious and social activity and abounded in the health giving mineral springs which gave the town its name, it was largely populated with the Scottish Highlanders to whom education and religion were life's most important requisites.

Flora Macdonald Academy carries on many of the traditions of the old Flora Macdonald College. One of these is the annual May Day celebration held the first Saturday in May. Stemming from Roman celebrations of the coming of spring and borrowing traditions from the English holiday, the college and now the academy celebrates May Day. English customs are combined with Scottish music and dance, acknowledging the Scottish heritage of the school. The May Queen and her court process from the beautiful gardens to the front portico where they are entertained by the day's festivities. The traditional May Pole Dance, Sword dance and bagpipes are a part of these festivities. Along with many others, this time honored tradition has become an integral part of life at Flora Macdonald Academy.