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I'd love to hear more about these old money parts of NC's smaller and sometimes dying towns. Are they intact and thriving? Are they in decline? Essentially, what's come of them in the last century?
I'd love to hear more about these old money parts of NC's smaller and sometimes dying towns. Are they intact and thriving? Are they in decline? Essentially, what's come of them in the last century?
Whether they are intact and thriving totally depends on the area. What is common is that they are in areas where wealth is unusual rather than the norm, and a common household income is maybe around $25,000 or $30,000 rather than the $90,000 or $200,000, etc. that you would have in an area where people are moving to from somewhere else for jobs and bringing a lot of new money into the area. Apex and Holly Springs in the Triangle are good examples of that.
The previous poster who mentioned Lumberton, Rocky Mount, Goldsboro, etc. gave some good examples of the type of community that you have the "old money" dynamic. They may have a small area of wealthy households whose families have been there for generations, sometimes literally just blocks. They are probably the area where the powerful people in the community (Mayor, School Board members, CEO of major employer in the area such as a manufacturer, car dealership, etc.).
In some very small rural communities in deep decline, even the wealthy pockets have stagnated, and you see it in the lack of renovation and upkeep. It really just depends on the individual community and whether it's thriving or not.
This made me think of a really interesting series that the News & Observer has done called "Journey Across the 100". It features highlights from each of NC's counties on their economies, cultural life, and future prospects. It covers many of these areas which are somewhat obscure, have "old money", and exhibit a mix of some things in decline, some things on the upswing, and mixed prospects for the future.
Henderson had a lot of weathly families living near the Henderson country club. Like the Rose family of Roses Variety Stores (they used to be everywhere). Lots of textile money, before that industry moved overseas.
The kids all went to Vance Academy until boarding school in Virginia, VES, Woodbery Forest and Episcopal High School in Alexandria. It was a who's who with extended connections to old money in Oxford, Louisburg and Raleigh.
Think lake houses at Lake Gaston, beach homes on Figure 8 island and Atlantic Beach. Ski weekends at Wintergreen in VA.
Cowper Drive in Raleigh has a lot. But the classy old money doesn't show it at all and they drive Fords rather than Mercedes. They wouldn't ever live in a pretentious neighborhood.
i contend that there is a lot of old money in every town and every county in the state. I'm from Louisburg in Franklin County which gets laughs because it looks so poor and destitute. But there are at least a dozen families that are very influential statewide and host presidential fundraisers with $25K plate dinners and they have the private numbers and are friends with the CEO of Bank of America.
They drive old Chevrolets and treat custodians with the same respect as presidents. Humility is de rigueur.
Last edited by architect77; 03-04-2021 at 05:44 AM..
Henderson had a lot of weathly families living near the Henderson country club. Like the Rose family of Roses Variety Stores (they used to be everywhere). Lots of textile money, before that industry moved overseas.
The kids all went to Vance Academy until boarding school in Virginia, VES, Woodbery Forest and Episcopal High School in Alexandria. It was a who's who with extended connections to old money in Oxford, Louisburg and Raleigh.
Think lake houses at Lake Gaston, beach homes on Figure 8 island and Atlantic Beach. Ski weekends at Wintergreen in VA.
Cowper Drive in Raleigh has a lot. But the classy old money doesn't show it at all and they drive Fords rather than Mercedes. They wouldn't ever live in a pretentious neighborhood.
i contend that there is a lot of old money in every town and every county in the state. I'm from Louisburg in Franklin County which gets laughs because it looks so poor and destitute. But there are at least a dozen families that are very influential statewide and host presidential fundraisers with $25K plate dinners and they have the private numbers and are friends with the CEO of Bank of America.
They drive old Chevrolets and treat custodians with the same respect as presidents. Humility is de rigueur.
In most rural counties, it definitely seems like the old wealth is concentrated in the county seat towns. Oxford is a good example of this, as well. It's a town that predates the Civil War and was built on tobacco money over the years, and it's also the seat of government for Granville County which helps.
In my college years I worked at an overnight summer camp in the mountains where the overwhelming majority of campers were "legacy" kids whose parents and even grandparents had attended in decades past and were generally from "old money" families throughout NC.
The standard-bearer addresses those kids were coming from were in ITB Raleigh, Myers Park Charlotte, whatever the base zone is for "Grimsley High School" is in Greensboro, and "Reynolda area" of Winston.
There was also a surprisingly well-represented group of legacy campers from Hickory & Lenoir
No joke...there was ONE session every summer in early August where Cary-kids dominated. It was everyone's least-favorite session. (I would have fallen into the Cary-kids category when I was growing up FWIW )
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