THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, June 27, 1996 TAG: 9606260120
SECTION: SUFFOLK SUN PAGE: 10 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Cover Story
SOURCE: BY FRANK ROBERTS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: COURTLAND LENGTH: 104 lines
WITH THE 41-year-old factory in flames and the baskets burned, Roma Wallace Newsom, millwright foreman, was out of a job.
That was in 1970, when Newsom was about 66,``so I retired.''
Newsom had spent 33 years working for the Theo K. Hann & Sons Basket Factory in the southern section of Franklin.
So far, he has spent 63 years with his wife, Oretha. They have eight children, 11 grandchildren, six great-grandchildren and a marriage that is still going strong even though he tells her, ``the older you get, the meaner you get.''
Then, he mellows: ``The secret of keeping going is a good wife.''
She is 83. He is 89 and relies on her, and a walker, to get around.
``I'm healthy,'' Newsom insists - ``except for arthritis.''
His sense of humor, mind and memory have met the challenge of the years.
Recently, Newsom's wife drove him from their home in Black Creek, near Franklin, to the Southampton Agriculture and Forestry Museum in Courtland.
He wanted to see one of the displays there, the 1953 flatbed GMC pickup truck ``with 37,200 original miles,'' that he used to drive.
``I reckon I could still drive it if I had to,'' said Newsom, who sometimes got behind the wheel to make deliveries and/or pick up items for the basket factory.
``I remember one time I went to Petersburg to get some stuff,'' he said. ``There was an old man there - old and ugly.''
For the most part, Newsom stayed at the factory for two days of sawmilling, and three days of making baskets that were shipped to wholesalers and farmers.
The factory opened in Englishtown, N.J. Later, part of the operation moved to Burdette in Southampton County, then to Franklin.
It was on a 9-acre site adjacent to the Seaboard Coastline Railroad tracks, bounded by Washington, Redwood and Roosevelt streets. After the fire, houses were built there.
The factory, which once boasted more than 30 employees, was moved to Virginia so it would be near the woods.
``We used mostly pawpaw gum, some sweet gum and some black gum,'' Newsom said. ``We made peach and tomato baskets and potato barrels.''
He said, ``We cut the material for them and shipped them to Englishtown, where they were put together. Most of the baskets were shipped to Baltimore - about two-thirds of them to a man named Stein. He and his wife were millionaires.''
A man once told Newsom that someone made better baskets than Hann. He shrugged off that foolish claim, saying ``what he knew, he knew; what he didn't know, he didn't know.''
No one knows the cause of the Dec. 14, 1970, fire that caused more than $100,000 damage, according to James M. Wagenbach, Franklin fire chief then and now.
The blaze destroyed the wood and tin-roofed factory, six basket- manufacturing machines, a veneer plane and many baskets.
Firemen, working from midnight to 3 a.m., saved a saw mill, a storage building and some baskets in an adjacent shed.
Wagenbach suggested the possibility of arson.
``We're reasonably sure it was set,'' he said. ``There was a lot of tension. The owners talked about building another factory, one that would make plastic baskets.
``But the citizens wanted the area to be residential. The people did not want a factory.''
Wagenbach said, ``Arson is a probability. We're reasonably sure, but we cannot be absolutely sure. We investigated it thoroughly, but there was not enough (of the factory) left.''
The Tidewater News reported at the time that ``a crowd estimated at 150 watched the fire.''
A few weeks before the fire, the company had been purchased by M.G. Dodds and Neil Boggs. They bought it from Lois E. Hann, who had operated the factory since the death of her husband, Austin, 24 years earlier.
Newsom speaks with great affection about her - his boss of so many years.
``I made a right good living,'' he said. ``I had sidelines, too - filing and sharpening saws, and I was a carpenter.''
Newsom's spare time was devoted to hunting, fishing and going to baseball games.
``He didn't make liquor,'' his wife joked, ``but he drank it.''
Not to be outdone, Newsom noted that Oretha was ``no good as a fisherman. She just poked her pole in the water.''
``If I had my life to live over,'' Newsom said, ``I'd do it the same way.'' ILLUSTRATION: [Cover, Color photo]
BUSHELS OF MEMORIES
Photos courtesy of ROMA WALLACE NEWSOM
The Theo K. Hann & Sons Basket Factory was located in the southern
section of Franklin on a 9-acre site adjacent to the Seaboard
Coastline Railroad tracks.
Staff photo by JOHN H. SHEALLY
Roma Wallace Newsom, a former millwright foreman, spent 33 years
working at the Theo K. Hann & Sons Basket Factory, and he's spent 63
years with his wife, Oretha.
This 1953 flatbed GMC pickup truck ``with 37,200 original miles'' is
on display at the Southampton Agriculture and Forestry Museum in
Courtland.
Lois E. Hann operated the factory for 24 years after the death of
her husband, Austin. At right, she is pictured with a parade float
shaped like, what else, a basket. A fire destroyed the factory in
1970. by CNB