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Forgive me using a story I wrote back in 2012 for our magazine (Front Porch Living) as the subject of my column this week. Holly Taylor and I just wrapped up another edition of that magazine – which is now in its 15^th year – last week and my brain couldn’t come up with a column topic for this week.

What follows a story about the community of Eure in Gates County. The information for the article came from the now late Linda “Sugar” Eure, who lived there until the age of 95, passing away on May 6, 2020.

Imagine boarding a train and riding the rails to most anywhere your heart desired.

Imagine leaving your doors unlocked and windows open without fear, trusting that your worldly belongings will remain intact.

Imagine the taste of parched peanuts, fresh from the field; or bartering for groceries by trading with a live chicken or fresh eggs.

For some, it may prove hard to imagine a place like that, but not for those born and raised in Eure.

Originally known as “Scratch Hall” (early settlers were of a robust, not to say rough, nature), the community traces its modern name to Nathaniel “Nat” Eure. He owned a general merchandise store and ran a sawmill in the late 1800’s when the railroad first came through the area.

Thanks to the railroad, Eure became a boom town – complete with a boarding house, cotton gin, bank, livery stable, numerous general merchandise stores and even an ice cream parlor. The train, this particular line operating between Norfolk, VA and Rocky Mount, not only provided transportation, but served as means to deliver goods to the local merchants and residents…the latter placing orders through catalog sales.

During our interview 12 years ago, Linda Eure noted she was born five years before the Great Depression. Her mother died when she was only three weeks old. With her father unable to care for a growing family, Linda was sent to live with her uncle and aunt – Charlie and Carrie Sawyer. It was her aunt that gave Linda the nickname of “Sugar.”

There were five or six stores in Eure at that time. Other than the one owned and operated by her father, local residents could patronize C.R. Felton Dry Goods, Block Furniture Store, Joe Landing’s Butcher Shop, P.D. & Carey Merchandise Store, and John and Charlie Sawyer’s General Merchandise and Hardware Store. Leslie Umphlett operated the ice cream parlor; John Williams was the local barber; Mrs. A.M. Johnson had a boarding house; and Paul Hale ran the blacksmith shop and livery stable.

There was also the Bank of Eure, organized in 1912 and closed during the Great Depression of 1929. The legendary Thad A. Eure served as the bank’s vice president and attorney. He later became North Carolina’s Secretary of State and in the process established a still unequaled record by serving 53 continuous years.

She recalled the old-fashioned quilting bees where women would go from home to home to help make quilts in advance of the cold winter months. The men would assist each other in farming chores and killing hogs.

The passenger train the popular mode of travel. Four would rumble through Eure in a daily basis, the first around 5:45 a.m.

“You could catch the train to Norfolk and come back that night around 9:30 or catch the one to Ahoskie at 10 in the morning and come back that afternoon by 4 o’clock,” Eure said.

One of her most vivid memories of riding the rails was an annual shopping excursion to Norfolk on the Saturday before Christmas.

Eure High School was also a centerpiece of the community. It sprang to life in the summer of 1920 and closed in 1948. The school auditorium was used by the public, even for movies.

“We’d have fairs and festivals on the schoolhouse grounds,” Eure said. “I remember seeing Sunshine Sue, Minnie Pearl, Grandpa Jones and others from Nashville performing at the school.”

There was no electrical service in Eure until 1938. The first road was paved in 1947. If you wanted water you used a well with a bucket.

After graduating from high school in 1941, Eure attended Chowan College, but the war cut her education short as the college closed during World War II. Eure moved to Norfolk, working as a payroll clerk at Vyrene Construction. That job lasted until the end of the war (1945) and paid her $28 a week. She lived in a boarding house ($6 a week) and rode the train home on weekends for a 65-cent fee.

There were only two telephones in town at that time…one in her father’s general store and the mailman owned the other.

While most of the attention was on the war at that time, “Sugar” also focused on the love of her life….her high school sweetheart, Henry Eure. He served in the Pacific during the war and upon returning home they married in 1944 and raised four children – three daughters, Linda, Brenda, and Nancy, and a son, Henry Curtis (aka, “Bud”).

After the war, her father experienced health problems and she and Henry purchased the store he operated. Eure said customers would bring in their home-cured side meat, eggs and even live chickens to trade for groceries and other supplies. The store was also the place to buy (or trade) for a precious item back in that time – ice. Eure said the store had a big, wooden ice box and they purchased block ice (each weighing 300 pounds) from Gatesville.

Among the many “characters” to call Eure as home was Kenny Hare. He made his money (pennies) by dancing in front of the store.

“Back then everybody knew their neighbors, you could leave the door unlocked and the windows open; no one would mess with what was yours. If you needed help, all you had to do was holler. I cherish those memories,” Eure recalled as the interview ended.

“Sugar” Eure may have left us….and so did the train, but the community’s charm remains intact today.

Cal Bryant is the Editor of Roanoke-Chowan Publications. Contact him at cal.bryant@r-cnews.com or 252-332-7207.