By Andrea Kaplan
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| Janet and Hub Knox at their home on Washam Potts Road. They have two children, three grandchildren and three great-grandchildren. |
If you’re wondering what life in Cornelius was like before Lake Norman, Rite Aid, Walgreens, Southlake Shopping Center and Kenton Place, ask Janet Knox. Born and raised here, she remembers when shopping was a big deal at one of the local general stores. In fact, her dad, Preston Howard, owned Proctor Howard Co., which sold clothing, groceries and even hardware from a store on Catawba Avenue.
Her mother, Gladys Howard, was the town postmaster, so the family knew absolutely everyone long before the Zone Improvement Plan resulted in Cornelius’ numerical designation of 28031 in the 1960s.
Janet Knox has called Cornelius home for 86 years.
She remembers such landmarks as the “Tree of Knowledge,” a large tree on the Cashion’s downtown property where people — and Main Street and Catawba Avenue — met. Neighbors routinely gathered on the bench encircling the old shade tree. Who needed a newspaper when you could get information directly from the source?
Young Janet, who grew up on Catawba Avenue where downtown is now, has fond memories of roller-skating up and down Catawba Avenue with 10 or 12 neighborhood kids. They had Catawba all to themselves.
The Star Theater was off Main Street at Zion Avenue, near the New Method Cleaners and the old train depot. “I saw ‘Gone with the Wind in that theater,’” recalls Knox.
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| This photograph of Janet Knox was taken when she was 18 years old |
The old Southern Railway brought passengers from Charlotte or Mooresville and points beyond. (Southern’s last steam engine ran in the 1950s.)
But Knox’s favorite event each year was the Confederate Soldiers Reunion each August. In later years a carnival was held in the parking lot where Rite Aid is on Catawba, but Knox remembers when a full-fledged reunion was held on the grounds of Mt. Zion United Methodist Church. It was a huge, unforgettable event.
The Southern Railway train would make extra stops that day as literally thousands of people, young and old, converged on Cornelius. “It was the place to be,” said Knox.
The last official Confederate reunion was held here on Aug. 4, 1949, according to Miriam Whisnant, the unofficial town historian.
The speaker was Lt. Gen. John R. Hodge, the commanding officer who accepted the surrender of all Japanese forces in Korea south of the 38th parallel at the end of World War II.
Hodge stood in line to sign the Confederate Veterans guest book just as thousands of veterans had done through the years, according to Whisnant. (The last Confederate veteran to die was one Walter Williams who passed in 1959 at the age of 117. The last survivor of the Union Army was Albert Woolson. He died on August 2, 1956 at the age of 109. Source: Wikipedia.)
But the heart of Cornelius back in the day was the school. In fact, Cornelius School is where young Janet Howard became acquainted with one Herbert Knox, back when they were in the third grade. World War II intervened, but they were married in 1948, and have been ever since. |