Yesterday: Loyal employees at Cheerwine

Published 12:00 am Monday, May 27, 2013

This photograph is hanging in the Price of Freedom military museum near China Grove, and the man in the middle, Robert E. Mault, is the late father of the museum’s founder, Bobby Mault. Robert Mault worked for Cheerwine in Salisbury for 50 years. He started at age 12 in 1913 and retired in 1963. His five sons, including Bobby, all worked for Cheerwine at one time or another. Bobby says he thinks this photograph must have been taken at the Cheerwine plant off East Council Street in the 1920s. Robert Mault played a role in expanding Cheerwine’s reach into neighboring counties, Bobby says. He knows the man on the left was a Mr. Snyder, but he’s not sure of the man on the right.