The publishers of The Eagle Democrat have chosen to publish articles from the past Oldtimer’s Notebook in memory of Robert L. Newton. This article was first published June 13, 2001.
Back to Robert W. (Bill) Glasgow, perhaps the most distinguished journalist who ever came out of Southeast Arkansas: Bill Glasgow died several days ago in his retirement home in Italy.
He was a contemporary of the late Dr. Hugh Moseley, Jr., of Warren and was the elder son of Wilbur Glasgow and his wife, Florence Kyle Glasgow.
Bill Smith was also a contemporary.
There was newspapering in his background: didn’t his aunt, Edwardine, replace her brother, John Crawford Jolly, as publisher of THE EAGLE DEMOCRAT when Mr. Jolly died at the shady age of 35, of cancer in Walter Reed Hospital, Washington, D.C.?
At any rate, Bill’s parents “slept late” because Mr. Glasgow didn’t close the confectionary until midnight or so.
Consequently, Bill Glasgow’d come across the street to the Moseleys for breakfast; then the two boys would repair to the Warren schools.
Bill Glasgow was with The Eagle Democrat and also one of the two big newspapers in Little Rock ere going on to spots like TIME Magazine, where he did a cover story on the greatest American who ever ran for president but who didn’t get elected, Illinois Governor Adlai E. Stevenson.
Bill later worked for PSYCHOLOGY TODAY in California.
Along the way, he was said to have developed a Terrific Thirst.
The late Kenneth Croswell, friend in California, used to report in amazement the number of those pre-luncheon cocktails Bill Glasgow would absorb. No effect, said Ken.
But the soda waters didn’t get him: advancing age did.
That’s what he would have wanted…
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Wilburn Thornton, Jr., retired Air Force officer in a third career at Warren Bank and Trust, says Charles Ramon Greenwood’s book advising kids about how to get good jobs is looked upon as a textbook both by himself and by Glenda Cross, working now with SEACBEC in teaching kids how to become gainfully-employed: making a good impression, in other words on prospective employers.
Greenwood was the only son of the Carl Greenwoods.
He had a great career in journalism and even served in a cabinet level position in Washington for a season.
Greenwood and his wife, the former Miss Martha Holmes of Rison, have been residing in Pine Bluff since he took early retirement as a vice-president of American Express: we hear, however, they are going back to the Chicago area to be near their kids.
As for Wilburn Thornton, he was in the Air Force, then worked for the State in its employment security division ere joining Warren Bank and Trust.
Wilburn was in the WHS class of 1950, one that included such luminaries as Dale Reaves, Sam Derby, Jack Lain, the late Ted Hurley.
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Rachel Mitchell Nicholson, a minister’s daughter, probably holds the record as a church accompanist in the American Central South.
Mrs. Nicholson has been providing musical accompaniment for church groups for the better part of 70 years.
“Well, I started as a child”, she smiles.
Mrs. Nicholson was in the WHS Class of 1938.
She married before she left high school, however, and a couple of years later gave birth to her only child, a son the Nicholsons named Dale.
That only son has been the longtime president and general manager of Channel 7 TV in Little Rock.
As a tribute to his mother, and to her church, First Assembly, Nicholson has had a number of compact discs and tapes made of his mother’s artistry: these are being sold to help defray the cost of the church building at its new location, Smith Road and the Pine Bluff Road, where the project is well-afoot with the dynamic leadership of Pastor Jim Bales, our neighbor.
Rachel Nicholson’s brother, A. H. Mitchell (known to all friends as “Frisky”) is a neighbor; old timers will remember their wonderful mother, Miss Leona, who married Rev. W. W. Wagnon after the death of her first husband.
Mrs. Wagnon worked at Imogene’s Fashion Center on South Main for many a year.
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Speaking of South Main, do you notice the continued improvements in the neighborhood, particularly those being done by Bryant’s Furniture?
The old West Brothers crowd, which occupied the building for years, would hardly know the place.
Now, if somebody’d just do something with the old post office…
We hear, however, the 1930’s building is cramful of asbestos…that’d all have to go before somebody could use the structure.
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In case you didn’t realize it, the medical center here is both a big and valuable (indeed valued) operation, as attested to the excellent hospital edition of The Eagle Democrat published on May 9.
Stewardship of an excellent board plus the return to duty of Acting Administrator Harry Stevens have spurred the med center onward…as has a doubling of the medical staff since the days of yore when Doctors Marsh, Crow, Whaley, and Wynne trucked along here all by themselves providing medical care.
But then Dr. Pennington “came home” as did Dr. Wharton; Dr. Foscue came to town and Dr. Claycomb “came home” too as did Dr. Marsh’s elegant daughter, Dichelle George, MD; thus it goes.
To the advantage of every person in the Bradley County trade area.
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Changing scene: Maxine Parrott Adams died recently.
There would be those who would say Maxine “had a sad life”.
Daughter of the Jim Parrotts, he died, leaving her all alone.
Seems like life’s just not fair to some awfully-good people, like Maxine Parrott Adams.
But who are we to judge?
