Elmond Earl Crocker
(Glendale Native - Killed in Work Accident)
Story furnished by Clarence Crocker
The following article appeared in the Spartanburg Herald on July 26, 1934.
Elmond E. Crocker the youngest of Earl and Ida Spearman Crocker’s three children, was born February 29, 1908 and was killed by accident July 25, 1934. He was the first cousin of this writer.
Natives of the Glendale community, Elmond’s father and grandfather were born in a mill house on Broadway Street while his brother Farrell and sister Venice were born in a mill house on Church street across from the Methodist Church in the village of Glendale. Elmond was born in the new home his father and mother had built on a small farm on the Glendale/Clifton road at the Cedar Crossing.
In addition to their work in Glendale Mills, they did some small scale farming. Elmond’s father died when Elmond was seven years old. His mother married Lee Ledford, a textile worker and they continued to live on the farm.
Getting up early to do the farm work they would have to go to the barn, feed the horse and wait for him to eat before going to the fields. To avoid that wait Elmond and his brother Farrell, rigged a device which automatically dropped feed from the barn loft down to the horse early in the morning so he would eat and be ready to plow when they went for him.
I was told that Elmond was a real prankster in his teens and early twenties. He was always pulling some kind of stunt or show-off act. His first car was a T model Ford coupe in which he was always “cutting-up”. When the windshield got broken he replaced it by installing a house window. In late 1930 or early 31, Elmond bought a new Nash automobile and one of the first things he did was to set up a race with his cousin, Herman Corn, who had just purchased a new Buick.
Elmond was a gifted, versatile mechanic and electrician. After first working in Glendale mills for a short while, he went with J. Frank Blakely Electrical Contractors of Spartanburg for a number of years. Leaving Blakely’s, he went with the Spartanburg city electrical department where he became a department foreman.
As the above Spartanburg Herald news states, he was killed instantly when the pole he had climbed to make repairs broke. After seeing the condition of the pole, Elmond was advised that it might be best for him to have one of his men to climb the pole to which he replied, “I don’t ask a man to do a job I am afraid to do my self,” proceeding to do the repair. When the last wire was cut, the pole broke, falling to the ground, crushing him between the pole and the ground.
Elmond had married Faye Coates some four years before his death. he was the daughter of Marion and Nettie Lominac Coates of Glendale. At the time of his death they were living in three rooms on Holy Hill (Chapel Street today) but had already made the down payment on a house on the Glendale/Clifton road into which they were planning to move and make their home.
Elmond’s funeral was held in the Glendale Baptist Church where he had been a member for a number of years. Interment followed in the Crocker Square in the Glendale Cemetery along side of his father who had died on April 13, 1915.
Following Elmond’s death, Faye married Horace W. Wood of Spartanburg. They were the parents of two sons; Barry and Marion G. Woods. Horace died at the age of 43 in February of 1962.
Faye had retired as a patient information operator with Spartanburg Regional Hospital before her death on August 18, 1992. She was survived by her two sons, two grandsons and a brother, Jack Coats of Drayton, S.C.
This web site has been started as a public service to share the story of Glendale. See more information about Mary and her Glendale connection at Mary McKinney Teaster.