Page 88 - MOST RECENT

Bands and Baseball, Follies, the Folly and the

glorious Fourth.

"TALK OF MANY THINGS"

Life was good in the little village of Kernersville
many years ago. Accounts of the simple joys and pleas-
ures are still retold. Yes, life was good despite the
struggle of day to day living and hard physical work,
despite the all too frequent early deaths and tragic epi-
demics of typhoid fever and influenza.
Social life centered around the churches, and revival
meetings, baptisms and funerals were regularly attended
by the youngsters of the town regardless of denomina-
tion. Sunday night services and prayer meetings af-
forded a suitable recreation for the courting couples as
well as picnics at the old Rock Quarry and Dunlap
Springs (now the site of Kernersville Wesleyan College).
There were also church lawn parties with homemade ice
cream and the annual Sunday School picnic, sometimes
to Nissen Park in Winston, with a wonderful streetcar
ride to complete the journey. Going on a hayride - 1912 style
A favorite buggy ride, particularly by the young
ladies of the community, was to Oak Ridge. The tradi-
tional enmity between the Kernersville boys and the
Oak Ridge cadets over the affections of the Kernersville
girls had not entirely died down even in recent years!
Other special activities in the community included com
shuckings, sewing circles and watermelon feasts.
Kernersville was always a red hot bed of politics,
and political rallies were enthusiastically attended. Wil-
liam Jennings Bryan made a whistle-stop speech in Ker-
nersville in 1906. The famous "Democratic cannon of
Kernersville" was blasted off by young partisans on those
occasions of a Democratic victory. The cannon myster-
iously disappeared in the early part of the century and
may have been destroyed at the time Mr. Israel Ker-
ner' s home burned in 1912.

The spring from which mineral water was sold in the 1920's. Adjoining
the Spring was the Dunlap Springs Hotel, a popular summer resort at this
time.
A picnic at the old Rock Quarry in July, 1905. James
F. Kerner, the Rev. C. H. \Venhold, Maud Kerner, Gaiselle
Kerner, Mrs. James F . Kerner, Mrs. C. H. Wenhold .

• The Lobby, Dunlap Mineral Springs Hotel

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