Harding High School

Married Nancy nov 22, 1959. USAF from 1969 to 1964. Three children, Tommie Lou 1960, Deborah Ann 1962, Frank III 1964. BS Accounting UNCC, Juris Doctor University of Miami, Coral Gables, FL.

Have worked as computer operator and programmer, financial administrator, financial consultant, airline attorney, airport consultant, attorney at law.

I enlisted in the USAF in January 1960 and was sent to Lackland AFB in San Antonio, TX for basic training. Was flown with other recruits on an Eastern Lockheed Constellation to San antonio with stops at Birmingham and New Orleans. For those of you that served in the Military you know what a psychological shock basic training can be to a youg person away from home for the first time. When I have more time I will describe some of those experiences for others who may be interested.

After four weeks at Lackland I was shipped out by train for Chanute AFB, Rantoul Illinois for technical training school. I was trained to operate and repair flight simulators. The most fun job I have ever had.

In September 1960 I was graduated from tech school and sent to Charleston AFB for the balance of my four years active duty. It was there that nancy and I first set up houskeeping with our first child-a 8'X35' trailer. I could not have been happier.

We loved living in charleston and still have fond connections to the "Holty City".

After the Air force we moved back to Charlotte and I enrolled in Charlotte College (now UNCC) where I received a BS in Accounting thirteen years later. Nothing like persistence, huh?

About the time I graduated from UNCC Nancy'sjob with EAL was transferred to Miami and we moved there. I resigned my job as Assistant manager of Douglas Airport and enrolled in law school at the University of Miami in Coral Gables (the "U").

I really loved living in Miami and law school. This was the first time i had ever had the luxury of applying all my energies to study and, while i didn't set any academic records, I did pretty well. Graduated and passed the NC Bar and was admitted to practice in NC in August of 1981.

We lived in a resort community with townhouses surrounding a golf course with borrow pits filled with water, large mouth bass and bream. My son Frank III and father in law, Tom Elliott, passed many happy days fishing and golfing while Nancy labored away at Eastern. Bless her heart.

(more later)

School Story:

I attended elementary school at Morris Field (1-3) and Berryhill (4-6 and 6 mos of 7th). My family moved from Morris Field Homes to 912 Greenleaf Ave in Third Ward in March of 1955 and I spent rest of 7th Grade at Zeb Vance on Westbrook Drive. It was there that I first met Steve Estep, Jan Power, Phil Hagler, Linda Mabry and many other future Harding Schoolmates. Beginning the eighth grade at harding was an awesome experience. All of those people - and the Seniors, Juniors and even Freshmen were like adults to me.

I was in Ms. Kerr's home room - I don't recall who else was in there; I was in a daze. Ms. Kerr was a very prim and proper maiden English Teacher. I could'nt identify with her and had the impression that she felt she was having to ride herd on a bunch of heathens.

Changing classess at the bell! What a feeling of freedom that was inhibited by the chaos of the crowding in the halls and the haze of cigarette smoke in the toilets.

I had never liked school during my earlier years and that was carried on to Jr. High. Classes were boring with a few exceptions. I liked math classes with Ms. Summerville and Miss Dunn because I got to sit behind a lovely young girl named Nancy Elliott. She was, alas, "going" with Scooter Witherspoon, however so any opportunity to develop more than a superficial friendship was to be postponed.

I enjoyed Chemistry with Ms. _____________ but she got pregnant during the year and in the waning months of that semester (10th grade?) the class degenerated (from my perspective) into her and the girls in the class discussing her pregnancy. She left school to have her child and did not return. That spelled the end of my carreer as a chemist. She was married to a man with whom I later had some minor business association so she and I enjoyed cordial relations later in life.

I did not participate in organized sports. As a young child I was a bookworm and didn't play baseball or basketball very much. The necessary skills were not developed in my early years so when I later might have been inclined to play I was years behind the rest of the boys. If I did get selected to play on a team I was relegated to right field where I could not do much harm.

I did join the JV football team in the summer before the ninth grade but quit shortly after school started. I was not very good, hated practice and needed to work part time to earn pocket money.

Other than classes with Nancy, the brightest light in my academic carreer at Harding was choir. I had been a member of the Charlotte Boy's Choir for a year before Harding and joined the Jr. Choir under Ms. Stinson during the eighth and ninth grades. That was good but joining the Sr. choir and singing as a part of that superb organization under Dr. Oliver Cook was a lifechanging experince that was immensely enjoyable and rewarding. Mr. Cook showed me great kindness and probably had more influence on how turned out than any other experience at school.

Although I did not invest much effort in my scholarly actvities I greatly enjoyed the social life at Harding. People I learned to know and consider fondly to this day as friends include (in no particular order) are Nancy Elliott, Gene Baker, Steve Estep, Spencer Black, Jan Power, George Mitchell, Frankie Gay, Wayne and Donnie Christenbury, Leonard Ward, Ron Pence, Clyde Biggerstaff, Jimmy Bagwell, Charlie Sewell, Donnie Williams, Beth Mayhew, Vickie and Vivian Christenbury, Phil McDaniel, Raymond Cathey, Bill Mitchell, Dennis Smith, Eddie Proctor, Willenna Drane.

As i mentioned, I had to work after school for my entire high scool carrer to earn spending money. i was the oldest of seven children and although my father was a reliable provider there was no money left to provide any kind of an "allowance" for the kids.

My first job was the summer before the eighth grade working at Tom's Grill which was exactly accross the street from our home at 912 Greenleaf Avenue. Tom's was a luncheonette that catered to office workers from the Esso Office Building and a Charlotte School Board office on First Street, and others. He opened at eight and closed at 6pm Mondays through Saturday except he closed after lunch on Wednesday. I waited tables, swept and mopped floors, washed out the garbace cans, stacked crates of drink bottles (remember the wooden crates?), washed the windows and cleaned the toilet. Tom kept me busy and paid me $7 per week plus my lunch every day. On Wednesday afternoon I would yake off, walk to the Intersection of Trade and Mint, catche the bus to Remount Road and go to municipal swimming pool at Revolution Park. There, if i was lucky, I would get to see, you guessed it - Nancy Elliot.

If I didn't go to the pool on a Wednesday I would walk uptown, shop for clothes, buy a bag of fudge at Kresses and go to the movies at the Carolina or Imperial Theaters.

In later years my jobs included two paper routes (one am and one pm), as a car hop at the S&W
Rootbeer on Morehead St., as an usher at the Imperial (with Steve Estep), selling shoes at Mary Jane and Thom McCann, and (with Nancy) at Ivey's Department Store. But my favorite job by far, and one that had a profound impact on my maturation, was as a clerk at apawn shop on East Trade Street - Uncle Sam's Loan Office.

I came by this job because of either Jan Power or Steve Estep - I forget which. One of them had gotten a job at a jewish haberdashery named "Morris Men's Shop" on the North side of the street in the second block of East Trade Street. I learned about the job and paid a visit to the store to see what it was like. I was instantly jealous. The "Morris" in "Morris Men's Shop" was the first name of the owner - Moris Roth. He was a lanky - I might say gaunt- man of little mirth with a classic semitic nose - think Clinger on MASH. But he had a clientele of a diversity of men - both white and black, jewish and gentile - and Steve (or Jan) had the job of sales clerk and it looked great to me.

East Trade Street in the 50's was the area of uptown Charlotte that catered to the less affluent members of our society. Belks, Efirds, Iveys, Montaldos, The Vogue, Tate Brown and other department stores and shops that catered to the more affluent among us were arrayed along North and South Tryon Street. West Trade was dominated by hat shops, hotels, restaurants the Post Office and U.S. Court House and First Presbyterian Church. But East Trade? - East Trade was pawn shops (there were four in one block), haberdashers, used furniture stores, a soda shop run by two beautiful black women, Army-Navy Surplus Stores and Charlotte Fish and Oyster Company. The clientele tended towards blacks, jews, confidence men and those looking for bargains. The atmosphere was, I think now, the closest to that of an middle eastern market, as could have been experienced in Charlotte at that time. The area along Central Avenue near its intersection with the Plaze is the closest thing we have in Charlotte today to what East Trade was like in the 50's. In any event, I had to be a part of that environment and, leaving Morris Men's Store on that afternoon in 1958, I walked across the street to Uncle Sam's Loan Office, walked in and introduced my self to the owner and asked for a job. And, to my astonishment, I got it.

The owner of Uncle Sam's was Manuel ("Manny") Eisenberg. He had bought the store from his wife's father and he and his wife ran the store with the help of a youngish black man named Bobby. They took items in pawn (made loans against personal property left as collateral), and sold merchandise consisting of unclaimed pawns and some new merchandise (mostly costume jewelry) they purchased ay wholesale.

My job was to work Friday night after school until closing time (9pm) and all day on Saturday. They paid me $7 per week. I was a sales clerk selling watches, rings, musical instruments, used clothing, used electronics, used tools.

Military Service:

U.S.A.F.

Nancy and Frank Newton at 20th reunion

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