
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, January 29, 1995                   TAG: 9501310084
SECTION: STREET BY STREET                    PAGE: 6   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: MARY BISHOP STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

THE LOSS STILL STINGS

The 1950 city directory shows 900 homes and 165 small businesses in Gainsboro. The Off Beat Pool Parlor, the Day & Night Taxicab and the Dumas Ice Cream Bar & Fountainette were just a few. There was a savings and loan, an insurance company, a cleaners, a drugstore and more hairdressers than you could shake a hot-comb at on Gainsboro's densely populated streets.

"No, ma'am, they were not slums," William Hackley, a retired Roanoke public schools administrator, said as if he had been asked that about Gainsboro many times before.

His father, Brennie E. Hackley Sr., was Gainsboro's letter-carrier for 44 years. Every kid in Gainsboro knew "Mr. Hackley."

Brennie Hackley grew up on Gainsboro's Wells Avenue and raised his 10 children at 206 Wells N.W. Every one of them graduated from college.

The Hackley children didn't learn the lessons of life just from their parents. They learned from people like a neighbor who had a dirty, sweaty railroad job.

"Mr. Harvey, he lived down the street. Every morning, he went to work in a shirt and a tie, and he went to work at the freight station. What we learned was, `No matter what you did for a living, you don't have to be dirty or dress shabby.'''

by CNB