ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, February 27, 1996 TAG: 9602270103
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: MONTVALE
SOURCE: RICHARD FOSTER STAFF WRITER
WHEN MONTVALE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL'S cornerstone was laid in 1930, a bar of Ivory soap was 4 cents, coffee was 38 cents a pound, and ladies' summer dresses could be had for as little as 88 cents, as a recently retrieved time capsule attests.
Sixty-six years ago, Montvale High School senior Virginia Boyd Noell went around her school, collecting the names of all the students and teachers on a list that was to be sealed in a time capsule in the new school's cornerstone.
Now in her 80s, Noell got another look at her penmanship recently.
Last month, masonry workers removed the cornerstone from the school, now Montvale Elementary, so it can be laid into the brickwork of a new elementary school under construction on U.S. 460.
The masons found a sealed copper box, green with age, inside the hollowed-out marble cornerstone.
"It was a real find," said Montvale Elementary Principal Ron Mason. He had heard rumors of a time capsule from a parent who recalled her grandfather talking about it, but wasn't sure what would be found when the cornerstone was removed.
Inside the box, Mason discovered various documents, including Noell's list and individual wallet-size photographs of the 70 students who attended the all-ages school when its cornerstone was laid in 1930.
Most of the items had been damaged by moisture. Only about 40 of the photos were still recognizable. Two May 1, 1930, editions of the Bedford Bulletin and the Bedford Democrat carrying front-page stories about the cornerstone were yellowed, brittle and covered with mold.
Ads inside the papers offer one-pound jars of peanut butter for 22 cents and show off new inventions such as odorless dry-cleaning. A public notice makes parents aware of upcoming summer school sessions for "backwards grade scholars."
"I don't think we call them that anymore," Mason said, amused.
Also inside the capsule was a one-page autobiography of the school's builder, whose name was obliterated by decay. It says he was born in Bedford County in 1865, was a mayor of Appomattox, was appointed to the World War Board in 1918 by Virginia Gov. E. Lee Trinkle, and earlier "spent 15 years of my life in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where I saw the first automobile and airplane that was shown in the United States."
Other pieces in the capsule, such as an industrial survey of Montvale and what is believed to be the plans for the school, couldn't be examined fully, for fear of destroying them.
Because of their extremely fragile state, all the items have been sent to the Virginia Museum of History in Richmond for restoration.
School officials hope to have them back in time for a one-time-only homecoming reunion May 4 at Montvale Elementary for Montvale High School graduating classes from 1923 to 1964.
Recently, some students from those classes - two of whose names were on Noell's list - gathered at Montvale Elementary to look at copies of what was recovered. Many on the list have long since died.
"This was my teacher, Gladys E. Parker," said Montvale resident Harold Obenchain, pointing to the list. Obenchain, now 73 and retired from C&P Telephone Co., was in the second grade at the time the list was made.
"I remember Miss Parker saying it was a very important time, a very historic happening. She said your pictures will be put in the capsule along with your names and other important papers, that's what she called them."
Obenchain and Allen Pollard, a 73-year-old retired service station owner from Roanoke, were born two months apart on adjacent farms in Montvale. Their names are one after the other on Noell's list.
"We was raised up together, played together, and went to school together," Pollard said. "His aunt came over to my house when I was a little bitty thing and would pick me up in a horse and buggy to take me to church."
Jesse Richards, a past president of Montvale Volunteer Rescue Squad, found her husband's and brother's names on the list, among others she knew. She was only three when the time capsule was put in, but still remembers it.
"I was there when they put it in," she said. "I remember sitting in an old two-seat touring car on my mother's lap, and I remember seeing my brother on top of the building with [long-time principal Hugh McKee]. What they were doing up there, I couldn't tell you."
For many, the time capsule brought back memories of McKee and his wife Eula, both of whom taught at the school. McKee was said to be a firm, but friendly, man who had lost his left arm when he was thrown from a horse. "But I tell you," Noell recalled, "That right arm had enough strength in it for two arms."
When Noell made her list, the students were attending an earlier version of Montvale High School, a six-room wooden building with horse stable, about a mile away from the new brick school. Noell's class was the first to graduate inside the new building.
"We marched all the way from the old building and carried a flag, wearing our caps and gowns. We marched down the road, just like soldiers," she said. The stage had been finished in the new school's auditorium, but the floor was still dirt. Guests sat on planks.
At the time, the brick school was state-of-the-art, featuring furnace heat and running water at a cost of $45,500. That's a sharp contrast to the $5 million price tag for the new Montvale Elementary scheduled to open this fall.
Pollard and Obenchain spent most of their academic careers at the brick school built in 1930, graduating from it in 1941.
For Pollard, thinking about his days at the school brings back memories of a fund-raising drive so the school could buy a gadget that was still new at the time, a radio. For Obenchain, it is memories of the school's Boy Scout troop and camping.
Talking in the present-day elementary school's library amid all the reminders of the past, Pollard and Obenchain took notice of children working on computers in the background.
"I wonder what it'll be like 20 years from now," Pollard mused.
"Time changes everything," Obenchain replied.
For reservations for the May 4 homecoming reunion, call Bobby or Annie Pollard at (540) 890-7820. The reunion is open only to members of Montvale High School's graduating classes from 1923 to 1964.
LENGTH: Long : 116 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: DON PETERSON/Staff. Harold G. Obenchain (from left),by CNBVirginia Boyd Noell and Allen Thomas Pollard, all graduates of the
old Montvale High School, revisited the past after examining a time
capsule buried in the building's cornerstone when it was constructed
in 1930. color.