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Hotel Raeford was big part of life in glory days

If you were not living in Raeford during the 40’s and 50’s, you never met our Grand Old Lady at her finest, The Hotel Raeford. Here are a few memories through my rear view mirror.

One of my most vivid memories was having my portrait done in one of the rooms in the hotel. I was 10 years old, and my brother who also had his portrait done, was only five.

After school, I would pack my booksack under the watchful eye of Imogene Stevens and wait for the bell that signaled school dismissal. When my row was called to stand, I left with a feeling of importance! I was going to sit for my portrait to be done by a real artist.

That artist, Mary Laurence, had come to town, gotten a room in the hotel and started her task in Raeford, as she had probably done in many towns up and down the Greyhound Bus trail. She was a distinguished looking lady. She never discussed herself, but talked to me while she was creating with her pastel chalk. She asked all about me and my friends. She was probably feeling me out for prospective commissions.

She told me I had a difficult face to capture because each side was different. After that, I looked in the mirror for days trying to see which side looked more like ME, but I never came to a satisfactory judgment. I could see what she meant… so I guess that was my first knowledge of my “best side” which still haunts me at photo time.

She complimented me on my ability to sit still and await my break time. During break, I looked out the window of her corner room. I was sorry she had the back view of Raeford. I thought it very unglamorous for a lady of her skill and position to have a view of what my daddy called, “the back lot” just off Racket Alley. From her room, she looked upon the back side of Belk-Hensdale’s, Raeford Furniture Company, Granddaddy’s store and Ivery McNair’s Pressing Club.

She said she liked that side because it wasn’t as noisy as the other side where Central Avenue was full of cars of locals plus all the tourists heading south to Florida. You see, before interstates, this busy roadway carried the touring travelers headed through Raeford to Florida and other places I imagined as glamour sites. All just dreams for little girls from Raeford!

Mary Laurence finished her portraits and left town as quietly as she came. My portrait is still a treasure, and I had my own daughter’s portrait done when she was 10. Now the two can hang together, and we’ll add Lane’s in four more years when she reaches 10.

The hotel in its glory days

A clerk at the desk, from a postcard

Sometimes my friends and I would cut through the front entrance of the hotel on our way home from school. To the right was a tiled entry to a door that opened to Dr. O’Briant’s office and another to Rhoda’s Flower Shop and Jim Lentz’s Antiques on the corner.

On the left was the entrance to a place that fascinated me. It was a gentleman’s barbershop. There stood barbers Dan McInnis, Stanley Koonce and more who I don’t remember, clipping away, stepping back to look before cutting a few more hairs. I know Mr. McInnis was Daddy’s barber and Mr. Koonce was Harold’s.

The Barber Shop was a place where women never had cause to set foot. As you walked down the marble hallway toward the hotel, you could see everything that was going on in the shop because it was glassed in from about waist high.

Besides the barber chairs, where some faces were wrapped in white steaming towels awaiting a shave, there was the high chair with a place for men to put their feet while they were getting their shoeshine. The Shoeshine Guy would snap and wipe and shine and smile until his job was done. The dust and scuffs of the workday disappeared as he grinned and snatched for the quarter that was flipped in his direction!

Continuing down the hall, in the hotel lobby, were comfortable chairs and reading material. This was also where the business of the hotel was handled. There was the hotel desk where guests could sign for a room for the evening or call for someone who was staying there.

It was just like in the movies! I could imagine Clark Gable coming down those wide stairs with Ava Gardner on his arm. Or better yet, Dan Dailey reaching out to catch Betty Grable as she slid down the long banister into his arms to begin a duet of the old soft shoe and song. This grand old hotel was truly a place of dreams – dreams lived outside of Raeford or in the movies.

There was a big dining room, or it seemed so to me. I remember we went there some Sundays after church for dinner. My clearest memory is of the entire Gatlin Clan once going there together. My great-grandmother’s house, where all four generations of us gathered on Christmas Day to visit and share presents, was just a block from the hotel. Once, after all the gifts were opened, we went to The Hotel Raeford for a Family Christmas Dinner.

It was a beautiful day and I remembered we all walked together from Grandmother’s house. We went by the Maultsby’s and Mr. Neil McDonald’s Esso Station. We entered through the side door of the hotel, straight across from The Elk Restaurant. I had hoped we would all go around to the front and enter more regally, parading down the marble floor of the main entrance. For one who lived her moments of glamour through the movies she watched at Mr. McIntyre’s theater, this was about the closest I’d ever gotten to making a royal entrance!

My chance for grandeur was lost! Their stomachs growling, my family was just looking for the closest entrance to their Christmas dinner! The closest entrance would do fine for them!

It was a fine dinner! Steaming plates of Christmas Turkey and all that goes with it were placed on stiffly starched white tablecloths. Once again it was a movie moment. I pretended I was somewhere in Hollywood with Cornell Wilde by my side. Unknown to family surrounding me, I was in my own silver screen setting, relishing in my sense of glamour!

The busiest activity of the hotel was the bus station. It was in the rear of the hotel. I rode the bus back and forth to college in Raleigh. Lewis Upchurch was the only one I knew who went to college in Raleigh and had a car. If Lewis wasn’t going home for the weekend, it was The Greyhound or nothing.

I remember riding home from Meredith on the Greyhound for my great-grandmother’s funeral. As the bus passed her house on the corner, just before the station, I saw friends and family gathered on Grandmother’s porch and in the yard. They were waiting for the Greyhound to bring me home.

Aunt Arah met me at the door and told me they had held the casket open until I got home to see my dear grandmother. Aunt Arah told me how beautiful she looked. Grandmother Gatlin did look very proper, like she was going to church. I prefer the photo I still hold in my heart. She’s sitting on the back porch and we’re shelling butterbeans. She’s telling me stories about how hard it was after The War.

(She meant the War of Northern Aggression, or Civil War… she was born just as that war ended. The war and its aftermath took away much of what she held dear)

There was a place outback of the hotel where my next-door neighbor, Mr. Herbert McLean worked. He sold ice cream bars from a freezer box. I would stop in there to get a fudgsicle from Mr. McLean. That was the coldest ice cream bar in the world and it only cost a nickel!

Mr. McLean’s wife, Melissa, worked in Collin’s Dept. Store where I held my first real job under her watchful eye.

“Mr. Herbert” told me he could remember when there were only three graves in the Raeford Cemetery. I knew that made him VERY old; now it makes me very old to have known someone who remembered when there were only three graves in the cemetery. I remember where one of those graves is. I wish I had paid more attention.

How many times have we all said that!?

As I reread this column, I am reminded of just how influenced I was by the glamour of the Hollywood screen. After watching many of the “when I fall in love, I sing to the one I love to tell her so” movies, I worried that I would never really be able to “fall in love” because I just could not sing like Kathryn Grayson or Jane Powell.

Writing this, I clearly remember one of my early fears. I watched so many movies where the ones in love broke into song and danced away together; I worried that I would never be able to “fall in love” because I was a poor singer. Even Esther Williams climbed out of the pool to be sung to! Lucky for me, times changed the movies.

The Hotel Raeford, our grand lady of the past is no longer standing. The hero of the movies does not win fair maiden’s heart with his beautiful baritone voice.

If you want your heart to beat faster, don’t try the new dance steps of your grandchildren. Just reach for the remote and locate Turner Classic Movies. You’ll find yourself singing about the one you love before bedtime!

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Don’t forget to capture some of your memory bank to save in the Family Room at the Raeford – Hoke Museum. That is a donation that only you can make, but one day, it may be more precious to your family than you could ever imagine!

The museum would be glad to receive your donations to assist with upkeep and new projects. I recently visited one of the museums in a nearby county! Ours stands as a jewel in comparison!

Write “Mirror” on your check… If you all sent $15 or $25, it would make a huge difference.

Thanks to all of you who keep me writing by telling me how much you enjoy Mirror! I recently heard from Ben Hurley, Jr. who has just completed 40 years of ministering among the Quakers in Randolph and Guilford Counties. I remember his father who worked for Carolina Power and Light Company. Ben Sr.’s eyes twinkled as much as the CP&L lights!

Raeford – Hoke Museum

P. O. Box 1383

Raeford, NC 28376