Month: March 2016

Did You Know?

DYK: Is your house spic and span clean?

DYK: Did you know? The saying ‘spic and span’ meant new. A span was a wood shaving. If something was newly built it would have tell-tale wood chips so it was ‘span new’ spick is an old word for a nail. New spicks or nails would be shiny. However words and phrases often change their […]

Did You Know?

DYK: To close ranks – what is the real meaning?

DYK: Did you know To close ranks means to join with someone in a cause, or agreement. In the old-time European armies, the soldiers were aligned side by side, in neat rows, or ranks, on the battlefield. When the enemy attacked, officers would order the troops to close ranks; that is, to move the rows close together, so that the enemy faced a […]

Uncategorized

Julia Tutwiler died one-hundred years ago

March 31, 1916 On March 31, 1916, Julia Strudwick Tutwiler’s death was reported in the Florence Times. Julia Strudwick Tutwiler died in Birmingham, Alabama. She was a woman with progressive ideas who contributed much to the education and penal system in Alabama. Julia Tutwiler was born in Havana, Alabama to Henry and Julia Ashe Tutwiler […]