Newspaper clippings: Mahaffey-Waterfall wedding (Spartanburg) and unidentified cotton-industry eulogy

Scanned page 596 of Book 1 — Scan of original. Open full size →

Lower-left clipping (partial wedding article, with Wheat’s bakery ad on back):

…and Miss Gaye Desry at the home of the former’s mother, Mrs. Joseph Whitlock; luncheon by Miss Coleen Moore and Miss Mary Kitt Bethea at the Little Pee Dee Lodge in Nichols; dinner party by Mr. and Mrs. David Hopkins in Hartsville; dinner …

Old Petrie Road, Spartanburg. For traveling the bride wore a brown knit suit with full-length coat trimmed in suede; brown leopard hat; brown accessories, and the orchid from her wedding bouquet.

[Advertising panel along the lower edge of the clipping, partial (the back side of the wedding clipping):]

Taste Pleasin’ PIES [truncated lines, possibly featuring “FEA[…]” “HOL[…]” “PLU[…]” “18 O[…]”] Wheat’s Shan[dor] 2763 Rosewood Drive WHEAT’S CATERING SERVICE Hostesses’ Best Friend

& GAS CO.

Upper-right clipping (torn fragment of an obituary/eulogy for an unidentified cotton-industry pioneer):

… [some period.] With infinite tenderness he cherished the old, and treasured with them rose-leaf memories of “a day that is dead,” for none was more loyal to the traditions of a storied past.

His mind was keen and strong — constructive mind, which saw clear the way to community prosperity — an[d] through the great industry for w[hich] development he was so largely respon[sible], the cotton growers of the South were taught the value and the intelligent use of a by-product long held as of little economic importance, but …

[Pencil annotation along the left edge of the clipping, written vertically; partly legible. Best reading: “Aunt E. [illegible] / for W.H. FitzSimons [Sr.?]” — possibly an attribution note in the compiler’s hand. The subject’s identity is not given on the surviving fragment but the cotton-oil context is consistent with Christopher FitzSimons Jr. (d. 1925), longtime Southern Cotton Oil/Virginia-Carolina Chemical district manager.]

Middle-right clipping (‘MAHAFFEY-WATERFALL…’ continuation top):

MAHAFFEY-WATERFALL… (Continued from page 1B)

highlighted at the high-rise waistlines with tiny banding of moss green velvet in gold insertion interspersed with American Beauty velvet rosebuds. Matching bows at the low neckline in back formed the gowns’ trim, and the deeply rounded neckline and short sleeves enhanced the effect. They wore American Beauty chiffon over

Bottom-right clipping (‘MAHAFFEY-WATERFALL…’ continuation bottom):

[…] [F/Cr]est Lake Apartments. Her mother is the former Esther DeLoache. Mr. Waterfall received his Bachelor of Arts degree in English at the University of South Carolina and his Master’s degree in Graduate School there. He is now a professor of English at Newberry College. His mother is the former Katherine Gaillard FitzSimons of Spartanburg.

AI Notes

Four newspaper scraps arranged loosely on a mostly blank album page. The upper-right torn fragment is an obituary or eulogy excerpt for a cotton-industry pioneer (‘through the great industry for w[hich] development he was so largely respon[sible], the cotton growers of the South were taught the value and the intelligent use of a by-product long held as of little economic importance’). The subject is unidentified but the cotton-oil-pioneer framing is consistent with the obituary for Christopher ‘Kit’ FitzSimons (Christopher FitzSimons Jr., d. 1925), who joined Southern Cotton Oil in 1887 and became district manager when Virginia-Carolina Chemical absorbed it in 1906. A faint pencil annotation along the left edge of the clipping (vertical) appears to read ‘Aunt E. [illegible]/ for W. H. FitzSimons [Sr.?]’ — i.e., possibly identifying Aunt Ellen Milliken FitzSimons as the source, kept for William Huger FitzSimons Sr. — but the cursive is too faint to be certain. Wedding-clipping details: ‘Mary Kitt Bethea’; ‘Old Petrie Road, Spartanburg’; ‘brown leopard hat’; the bride’s mother was ‘the former Esther DeLoache’; the lower-left clipping is headed ‘and Miss Gaye Desry.’ The Mahaffey-Waterfall wedding clipping is a Spartanburg society piece — Waterfall, the groom, is a Newberry College professor of English whose mother is Katherine Gaillard FitzSimons of Spartanburg (linking this clipping to the Frank L. FitzSimons Sr. Hendersonville/Spartanburg branch of the family — see pp584-590).