Yesterday: In 1978, Rockwell Christian Church’s singing Christmas tree at Catawba College

Published 12:00 am Friday, December 21, 2018

Margaret Thompson-Shumate uncovered this photograph in a box of hundreds of recipes and newspaper clippings that were collected by her late mother. ‘She passed away in 1998,’ Thompson-Shumate says of her mom, ‘and I’m just now discovering some of the jewels she kept, beginning in the ’60s.’ This newspaper clipping photo is from the Dec. 14, 1978, edition of the Salisbury Evening Post. The caption said 80 members of Rockwell Christian Church were presenting a ‘Singing Christmas Tree’ at 7:30 that night at Omwake-Dearborn Chapel on the Catawba College campus. More than 1,000 pounds of cedar and enough lumber to frame an average house were used to construct the tree, which was built under the supervision of Arnold Lesley. Jeff Sifford was the choir director (front and center). ‘I think the reason she clipped this one was that I’m pretty sure the fellow in the front row, second from left, is my nephew and her grandson, Dusty Miller,’ Thompson-Shumate says.