Golden Glow’s banker turned author

In front-line trenches in France during World War I, Frank FitzSimons entertained fellow soldiers with stories of what he would do back in Hendersonville when the war was over.

He’d marry a red-headed woman, raise red-headed children, cows, horses, and chickens and call the 40 acres “Golden Glow Farm” since it was a youth’s golden dream.

Frank went home to Hendersonville after the war, married brunette Maggie Kershaw and tried his hand at several different jobs — teacher, principal, registrar of deeds — so he could afford to farm, he says. Up until 1948, the only part of his dream that came true was his naming the farm ‘Golden Glow.’

That year, State Trust Company in Hendersonville, which later merged with Northwestern, offered to make him a vice president although he knew nothing about banking. He was to be their “up-front howdy man” and would he mind doing radio editorials for the bank as well? Uncomfortable with editorializing, Frank soon changed his program to tales about Henderson County people and places. Before long, names like Trottin’ Sally, Sunshine Lady and the Moon-eyed People became as well known as his own. And stories of crime, hangings, giant hogs and record snowfalls took on new life out of the past.

At home, the farm was taking an interesting turn, too. Frank pored over Maggie’s seed and flower catalogues when she suggested they begin a rose garden, then got excited and entered a big order.

Soon the FitzSimons’ rose garden had over 300 bushes in all colors and varieties. At Christmas, friends would give them rose bushes to set out, and all summer long the FitzSimonses would supply their friends with roses for parties and weddings.

The roses brought so many party invitations their way that Frank finally quit going.

Now retired after 25 years in banking, Frank is preparing to publish his third collection of excerpts from more than 5,000 broadcasts he did over Station WHKP. Like the first two volumes, it will be published by the FitzSimonses’ own Golden Glow Publishing Company.

While he’s writing, he’s turned the rose garden over to Frank, Jr. after explicit instructions that flowers be taken to the bank daily during the peak blooming season, every other day now, and that there be large bunches there for managers’ meetings each Thursday for the officers to take back to their branches.

One might think Frank would run out of material to write, but so far that hasn’t happened. He may be crowding 80, but he’s not done with entertaining and bringing more glow into the lives of others than a war-time dream could ever hold.

Photograph caption (upper right):

Frank FitzSimons and son, Frank, Jr.

Sidebar (lower left):

Winston branch announces art competition

Northwestern’s Winston-Salem branch will again give area artists an opportunity to win up to $150 in prizes in the Northwestern Bank Open Juried Carolina Art Competition.

The exhibit, which coincides with the fourth annual Carolina Street Scene, opens Sept. 8. Open to all artists 18 and older, the competition will be judged by James Tucker, curator of the Weatherspoon Gallery at the UNC-G. Work submitted must be original and have been completed without instructor supervision within the last two years.

Entries must be hand-delivered between 10 a.m. and 5 p.m. Sept. 6–7 to Northwestern’s downtown Winston-Salem office at 235 Cherry Street. Complete show prospectus and entry forms are available from Becky Enslen or Kathy Marion.

Sidebar (center page):

Warren named Madison branch head

Don Warren has been named executive vice president and head of The Northwestern Bank in Madison.

He attended East Carolina University and graduated from the Louisiana State University School of Banking. An Eden, N.C. native, he joined the bank as a vice president in the Greensboro office in 1972 and became vice president of the Madison branch in 1978.

Warren is a member of the Madison Rotary Club and is co-chairman of the 1979 Madison-Mayodan Heart Fund Drive. He is a member of the JCI Senate and was named one of the “Five Outstanding Young Men of North Carolina” in 1971 by the North Carolina Jaycees.

Don Warren [photo caption]

Right column — Beyond 1980:

Beyond 1980

Continued from page 1

characters, image-lift technology would enable the printer to reproduce an electronic “photograph” of an actual check.

In an environment of check truncation, innovations such as optical character recognition (OCR), which would literally read the numbers off a check, would become essential. Although current OCR’s have only 60% readability, efforts by the American Bankers Association to standardize the check format (such as the addition of a vertical line to prevent the written amount of the check from running over onto the numeric amount) could boost the scanner’s effectiveness.

George McNeil also predicts the introduction of a completely new computer generation which will surpass the computer equipment we know now. “We’re already hearing rumors of a new computer with four to five times the capability of our new IBM 3031 but costing the same due to space-age technology and mass production,” he says.

Even satellite communication may one day be a reality at Northwestern due to mass production. The same satellite technology which beams trans-Atlantic broadcasts to our continent is already in use by some banks to move large amounts of data. Dish-like “earth stations” a little over five feet in diameter receive and transmit demand deposit account information and savings files daily through microwave signals via satellite.

In the face of high initial costs and rapidly changing technology which can quickly outdate systems, more and more banks will consider cost-sharing components of the EFT system. Several banks and savings and loans are already pooling resources and expertise to jointly develop automated teller machine networks or point-of-sale systems. Such sharing agreements would permit a customer of one financial institution to use the ATM or POS of another participating financial institution.

“Will such innovation depersonalize banking? ‘Absolutely not,’ according to Ron Staley. ‘Basically, all these technological advances boil down to putting a multitude of services on less specialized and more general systems which will enable a banker to serve his customers more effectively,’ Ron points out. ‘The whole process of storing and retrieving information will become so efficient that a banker will be able to devote more time and attention to his customer’s needs.’”

Banking will never get to the place that the only way to transact business is through computers, George contends. “I think we’ll find that automation will be an accepted change, and that, in many instances, it will be welcomed.”

Bottom masthead:

The Northwestern COMPASS

Published monthly for Northwestern Bank Corporation employees and their families by the NORTHWESTERN FINANCIAL CORPORATION, P.O. Box 310, North Wilkesboro, N.C. 28674 — Claudia Forester, Editor.