Betty Whitaker Butler

I was going through some old notes that I made about Cliffside, and was thinking about the times we had practice black-out drills during the war. The mill whistle would sound as a signal to turn off all lights. After a while the whistle would blow again to let us know we could turn the lights back on. The neighbors would all gather in somebody’s yard and talk over the war situation while the children played. These black-out drills were to prepare us in case we ever had an air attack. Thank goodness we never had the real thing.

I also remember we had a group called the Junior Commanders, and we collected scrap iron and people’s used cooking grease and turned it in to be used for war ammunition. I don’t remember who sponsored it, but we really did work and turned in tons of scrap iron (or at least it seemed like tons).

I read in Remember Cliffside about the roller mill. Nearby was one of our old swimming holes. The roller mill burned on July 3, 1953. We had a really bad storm that day, and lightning struck the roller mill and burned it, and it knocked the power out all the way to our house, #50 N. Main. How do I remember that date so well? It was the day I was married.

Sometimes when I start talking Cliffside, I don’t know when to stop. We sure did have a good little town didn’t we? Good folks too!!