Main Street Rocky Mount

Meeting on Main Street, as we do, you know I have written about the outstanding men of the community. They have left an ever-lasting mark, rising to the top of their professions through hard work, intelligence, good business practices, and are known for their philanthropical endeavors. They were church-going and patriotic souls. Far less has been written about the women of the same day. We rely on the stories family and friends tell about the significant women in their lives. It is important to me to write about Martha Battle Mebane, a woman, who has left behind a successful and endearing family.  

Compared to the lives of women today, I suppose some might judge Martha’s life as small, having never worked, a stay at home wife and mother. But it would be a grave mistake to discount the value of women of Martha’s generation that way. My own mother, Madeline, never learned to drive a car, and she too focused her life upon her only daughter and husband. I celebrate the lives of women today, of course. I’m intensely proud of my own eight adult granddaughters who have spread their wings academically, traveled aboard,  have entered into interesting and demanding professions. In the light of today’s political correctness, however, I am uneasy that in trying to change our history, we will try to diminish the Martha’s of the world. In honoring Martha Battle Mebane, it is also about the women in those days who made their families their life’s work; this remembrance is of their steadfastness and sacrifice.

I am opposed to erasing our history, removing statues, changing the words of a song, looking at the world through a politically correct lens. In the end, our own life/histories are the totality of both success and failure. I don’t want anyone to edit my life which includes mistakes that helped me become who I am. And, I don’t want anyone to diminish the lives of women like Martha Battle Mebane because they stayed home and raised a family. That family has grown over time and flourished. How proud and amazed she would be. She is remembered with love and affection and has left behind the best of who she was for her family to be going on with. It’s quite marvelous really. It is forever!

WHY NOT FOLLOW MAIN STREET ROCKY MOUNT AND NEVER MISS THE FUN

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 My mother used to call it…living to the other side of things. Here in this charming photograph, still at the beach are Martha Battle Mebane and John Marvin Mebane. They have made it to the other side of things! When I first went to U. of Ky. and joined  a sorority, I didn’t understand the question that was asked during rush chapter meetings.”Who is her father?” The answer is a southern ‘thing’ that places a person in a family and a setting. (My mother may have dated your father during college, our families might have spent summers at the same beach.) I came to embrace the question rather than thinking it was the height of …what difference does it make.

Who was Martha Battle’s father? He was Thomas Hall Battle. Lawyer, Banker, Treasuer of Rocky Mount Mills, Mayor of Rocky Mount, and was    head of the school board when he met his third wife, Mary Weddell who had come to interview for a job. (His first two wives died in child birth.) They had two daughters, Martha and Mary Thomas, who is still alive and cherished. Every summer the family headed to Mile Post 13-Nags Head.

Martha and her future husband, John Marvin, known as Marvin or Spike. met while Martha was at St Mary’s and Spike at Davidson. In 1942-43 Martha transferred to Converse College near Davidson. Martha was outstanding in every way and it makes us smile to know she was even a member of the May Court.  The couple married in June of 1944. Spike left in July for France and joined Patton’s army. He was a Lieutenant promoted to Captain at the end of the war. In the 1950’s the family lived on Taylor Street. In 1961 they moved to 1404 West Haven Blvd. Sunday evenings in West Haven Martha and Spike, with close friends, always gathered. This was typical for the social times of that period. Spike owned a shoe store downtown on Main Street, a kind and generous man who was known to give away a pair of shoes when someone couldn’t pay.

Martha & Spike with their growing family continued the trek to the beach each summer where they took the ferry to reach Nags Head. Martha packed pimento cheese sandwiches and brought along Cokes for the journey. At sixty-five years of age, Spike retired and closed the shoe store. We don’t want to forget Lizzie….considered family, she looked out after the Mebane’s; cooking, caring for the house, the children. Lizzie’s place in the Mebane family is guaranteed with love and gratitude.

Martha’s mother, Mary Weddell, was a loving and generous woman. She was the official babysitter for Martha’s five children. Called ‘Gran’ she died in 1978 at age 87. She lived in the beautiful home at 132 N. Church with a large wrap around porch. Like her daughter Martha, she was active at Good Shepherd Episcopal Church. Mary moved to Lafayette Ave close to her grandchildren, who would ride their bikes to visit, to play cards,  bake cookies, and read stories. She taught Mary Kemp how to ride her bike. We find ‘Gran” and her oldest daughter, Martha, in these old black and white photos.

This picture on the right was taken at Nags Head about 1953 at the Kemp Battle Cottage, called the “B Hive.”  ‘Gran,’- Mary Weddell, sits on the left and is holding Mary Kemp. Martha and Spike Mebane are on the right side.  Mary Tom is sitting in front of her mother and baby Mary Kemp. That’s young John with his boots on!  Some members of the Billy Harrison family are also in this picture.  Click on the photo and zoom in.

The second photo is taken on the front side porch at ‘Gran’s’ house on Church Street. Martha is holding Mary Kemp, Mary Tom is in the middle and ‘Gran’ is on the far right. That’s sister Marty and brother John at the front. Am I foolish to think you will strain to see these faces, to put the story together with them? I call it honoring the past, a past we must not forget because it is my family, your family, on whose shoulders we stand. Let’s join Martha Battle Mebane and her family over a glass of sweet tea and pimento cheese sandwiches on the porch. See you tomorrow for the final Day 3 at the beach. 

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MILE POST 13 – NAGS HEAD – 1950’s – NO PHONES – NO TV

The family of Martha Battle Mebane and John Marvin Mebane (Spike) spend time every summer in Nags Head. A summer tradition Martha’s adult children have continued throughout their lifetime. Using our imaginations, it is a perfect opportunity to revisit a time and place when Martha Mebane was still alive, her precious family gathered around. Pick a summer in the 1950’s when Martha would have been in her mid-thirties. I highly recommend you read David Halberstam seminal book, The Fifties, which is the setting for our story. Are you ready? From the radio in the kitchen, there are love songs of the 1950’s playing quietly while Martha prepares for a few guests and family to arrive for the evening porch party – gin and tonic time.  We don’t want to intrude so I will speak softly.

You see the beautiful woman just there….that’s Martha. Even here at the beach, she is dressed smartly. Thrifty as she is, a habit of her generation, she loves clothes and has a style about her we appreciate. Like other Rocky Mount ladies, she shops at Rosenbloom’s and Daniel’s and of course, her shoes come from her husband’s shoe store. But it is her family and their history that she loves best.

She is a wonderful mother and role model to her five children: Marty, John, Mary Kemp, Bill, and Thomas. I am privileged to know John and Mary Kemp, and it is through them that I am able to glimpse Martha. John Mebane is a presence when he walks into a room, full of energy with a positive attitude, good humor, and generosity, a certain shine that surely mirrors his mother. I know how sweet Martha was because I see it in her daughter, Mary Kemp, whose caring and loyalty today make her the best kind of friend, family member, mother. She is loving and sees after others.  Amazed by all the friends who came to her mother’s side near the end of her life in January 1996, Mary Kemp’s life is rich with friendships too.  Mary Kemp took me to visit Carolyn Weeks, still beautiful; she and Martha were best-best friends. I loved watching Mary Kemp with this lovely woman, her love, and respect for Carolyn allowing me to see Martha Battle Mebane as she surely was, like this daughter.

JOIN ME TOMORROW ON THE PORCH AT NAGS HEAD FOR MORE OF THE STORY

The Children of Martha Battle Mebane

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