Winning Shady Grove Basketball Team of 1936

March 13, 1936 – All District Team

Shady Grove swept to the championship of District Five Saturday night at Fohs Hall by defeating Tolu 35-25.

In the afternoon session the semi finals, Tolu defeated the Marion Terrors by a one point margin, 23 to 22 and thus won the right to enter the finals against the upper bracket winner, Shady Grove. 

This game was the most hotly contested and hardest fought of the meet and especially so because of the fact that both of the favorites, Marion and Tolu, were placed in the same bracket.

In the opening session Mattoon defeated Frances 16 to 12 and Shady Grove emerged victorious over Dycusburg 57 to 16.

 Friday night Marion won over Smithland 54 to 6 and Tolu swamped Salem 58 to 8. The result of these games placed Marion against Tolu in the lower semi final bracket and Shady Grove and Mattoon in the upper.

Semi Finals

Saturday afternoon, in the semi final play Tolu won over Marion and Shady Grove beating Mattoon 25 to 17. By far the largest crowds of the tourney witnessed these two games and not until the final gun sounded did anyone know the outcome of Marion and Tolu so close was the score and the play. Both fives resorted to all teaching and strategy that was at their command with the result that it was the star game of the meet.

Finals

In a game marked by speedy play and featuring Towery, the star performer of Shady Grove, and the slanting shots of Belt and Hardin, of Tolu, Shady Grove won the meet and the right to represent the district in the regional play at Earlington this week. Tolu, the runner up, is also accorded the right under the ruling of the association and will likewise enter.

March 20, 1936 – Athlete From Shady Grove is Honored Player.

Carlisle Towery, pivot man of the Shady Grove quintet, Fifth District champions was named on three all star teams and second on another. 

Towery, a junior in the school is sixteen years of age and six feet and three inches tall. He was named on the Crittenden and Caldwell counties all start five and also that of the Fifth District; finally concluding the season by being placed on the regional second group at the meeting at Earlington last week.

Nebo winner, defeated Shady Grove, in one of the opening games but only after a hard fought battle.

Crittenden County Folks - Dr. Ollie T. Lowery

Crittenden Press   Aug. 12, 1938 –

In the passing of Dr. O. T. Lowery the county has lost a good citizen, and the community in which he lived has lost a public-spirited physician whose fine services will be sorely missed in the days that are ahead. 

Ollie T. Lowery, born 1883 in Tolu, Ky., was a son of T. W. and Sallie Matlock Lowery. O. T. Lowery also attended and received his medical training at the Hospital College of Medicine at Louisville, Ky. He was first married to Effie Parker of Salem. They had two sons, Thomas Wood, and Guy Allen. Effie died in 1922 and Dr. Lowery later married Jennie Pell Houston of Carrsville.

After serving in World War I, he opened an office in Marion but later moved back to his hometown of Tolu to be near his family.

Dr. Lowery’s obituary tells of his tragic death at his home in Tolu. Crittenden Press, August 12, 1938. Dr. Ollie T. Lowery, prominent physician, was accidentally killed by his own gun early Sunday morning at his home in Tolu.

Having been absent from his home at the bedside of a son in a Memphis, Tenn., hospital, Dr. Lowery was advised that his chickens were being killed by some unknown cause. Hearing a noise in the chicken house early Sunday morning, he aroused his housekeeper and the two of them went to the structure, about 75 feet from the house. Dr. Lowery took with him a .38 caliber pistol.

Upon reaching the chicken house he instructed the housekeeper to watch the outside of the building and see if a mink should escape through several holes in the foundation and walls. The housekeeper did as told and Dr. Lowery went into the building. Shortly thereafter the report of a gun was heard and Dr. Lowery moaned. Rushing into the building the housekeeper found her employer dead.

Spreading the alarm, nearby resident’s came to her assistance and the body was removed to the house. Coroner C. T. Boucher, Co, Atty. Stone and Sheriff J. E. Perry were notified and rushed to the scene. Boucher conducted an inquest and the jury returned a verdict of accidental death.

Survivors are five sons: Tom, Detroit, Guy, John, Herman and Ollie, all of Tolu; a brother Leonard, Sturgis, and a sister Mrs. Tom George, Salem. 

Dr. Lowery was a respected and loved family Dr. of Tolu. He never had office hours or appointments; he was on call when anyone needed him. In his last years, he wrote his prescriptions, filling them from his own drug room. He made house calls when needed, day or night. His referrals to a hospital for surgery were accurate, and his diagnoses were without any modern tests. Many remember how he stayed by a bedside, or the times he put the patients in his own car, took them to the hospital and stayed there until they were better. He was a comfort to the patient and also the patient’s family.

These old time doctors of long ago deserve a lot of credit. Dark nights, mud, roads, rain, snow, sleet, hail, wind and storm are but trifles in the lives of most of them, but for the average doctor back then, they were conditions, many times repeated, which must be met and endured. Irregular hours, sleepless nights, long grinds of watchful waiting, all were but parts of the day’s work for the average doctor in the small town and rural communities of yesteryear.

Fire Truck and new City Hall Building Signaled Exciting Times In Marion in 1927.

May 4, 1920

Marion City Council Meeting

The matter of the purchase of a fire truck equipped with the necessary apparatus for extinguishing fires came before the council. It was explained that with this apparatus costing only $2,500 would save the residents of Marion about $5,000 annually in fire insurance premiums, providing the city have the necessary volunteer fire department. It was voted that the truck be purchased.

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Nov. 19, 1920

The new chemical fire engine which the city council purchased last spring arrived on Tuesday. A demonstrator from the factory came with the machine, which he assembled it immediately.
The apparatus is mounted on a Ford chassis and has a capacity sufficiently large to extinguish a fire of considerable size and will do it quickly. The engine is equipped with chemicals which when mixed produce Carbon Dioxide, the most effective gas known for fighting fires.

The new engine cost the city about $2,800, however the reduction in fire insurance premiums will be en ought to repay this in a very few years.

A volunteer fire department will be organized immediately. On their hands will be the responsibility of subduing in its early stages any conflagration, which might happen in Marion.

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Jan. 7, 1927 – A New Fire Engine

The new fire engine ordered several months ago by the city arrived this week. This engine has already been tried out and is ready for use when the occasion arises. The guaranteed capacity of this new piece of fire fighting equipment is 500 gallons per minute and under test this week pumped 420 gallons in one minute.

With the old engine the firemen had to depend on water pressure alone in fighting flames but the pumping equipment on the new adds increased force and provides for the use of a larger number of gallons per minute.

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April 8, 1927 – Council Votes to Purchase a Lot. According to plans presented to the city council, at their regular meeting Monday evening, by Councilman C. B. Hina, Marion is to have a municipal building.

Mr. Hina was the chairman of a committee named to look into the matter of securing a site for a proposed city hall and fire headquarters, and reported to the council that the lot belonging to W. E. Cox, located just north of the Masonic building on Bellville, could be purchased for $1,275.00

The proposed building would contain offices for the police judge, city clerk and mayor, with ample storage room for the fire truck and equipment, and a storeroom for other city property.

It is planned to construct this fireproof building at a cost of about $3,000.

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April 22, 1927- City Installs Fire Alarm Controls. Marion has three new remote control stations for the operation of the fire siren. The installation was completed on Monday of this week by Guy R. Lamb and his assistants.

One of the new stations is at the corner of Main and Carlisle streets, on the Marion Bank side of the street, another is at the garage of the Stephens Motor company, where the new fire truck is kept (until the new location is finished) and the other is at the residence of the fire chief, D. E. Moore, on College Street.

The fire alarm system of the town now operates more systematically than ever before. During business hours all reports of fire are to be telephoned to the Stephens Garage, and after business hours to the residence of D. E. Moore or turning in from the street station by the Marion Bank.

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 September 30, 1927 - New Modern Garage.  J. N. Boston and Sons are the builders of one of Marion's finest and most modern garage buildings in the state of Kentucky.  The building, which when completed, will be occupied by the Stephens Motor Company, and will have a front of pressed brick and side walls of glazed red tile.  It is to have a steel structure, and part of the front space will be occupied by a filling station.  Entrance to the main part of the building will be through the front and also from the side street.  A large show room with spacious windows will occupy the front part of the building.  The new Marion fire truck will also be housed in this new building.

(Pictures of the new Stephens Garage on South Main Street.  In later years it would house the Crittenden Motor Company and T. and W. Electric.  It's still a beautiful old building sitting empty.  (H & R Block uses a section during tax season each year.)  How about those gas pumps on the side walk next to the street.) 

Dec. 30, 1927 – Passing Year One of Activity. As the bells Saturday night ring out the passing of the old and herald the arrival of a new year, Marion people will perhaps be reminded by the triumphant ringing of the progress that this year, 1927 has brought to the town.

This year has seen the erection of a much-needed public building, Marion's new city hall, which occupies the Bellville Street lot adjoining the Masonic Hall. 

Council members at this time were: A. J. Baker, Albert Henry, George James, M.O. Eskew, C. B. Hina and E. F. Sullenger, Mayor – J. G. Rochester, Clerk – John G. Bellamy, City Attorney - John A. Moore, Fire Chief - D. E. Moore.