On Nov. 16, well-known blacksmith George Basinger Sr. died at the age of 84. He worked as a blacksmith for 39 years after serving with the Air Force in Korean War. He could trace the blacksmiths in his family to a great-great-great-great grandfather, Johann Basinger, in the 1700s. Dan Caldwell provided the Post with this photograph of George  as a boy with his mother, Ella. The Basinger lived across from the J.B. Caldwell & Son store on Mooresville Highway until moving close to China Grove when George was 10.