Remembering HOLT LAKE in its heyday |
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 This colorized
postcard from the 1940s shows Holt Lake's
recreational facilities before the large bath house
of the 1950s was built. There are several diving
platforms in the middle of the lake in addition to
the dance hall and other structures in place on the
shore at the time.
Mokie Stancil recalls Ava Gardner's
visits
Here's the transcript of Gary Ridout's interview with long-time Smithfield resident M.W. (Mokie) Stancil, conducted in December 2005: My
memory of Holt Lake begins when I was three or
four years old. My mother carried me to the lake
and they let me go in the lake with my brothers.
I am the youngest of nine children. I remember
my brothers and sister surrounding me while I
was in the water to keep me safe.
In
1935 the lake froze over. We had a very cold
winter. A boy in town who was about seventeen
was ice skating on the lake when suddenly the
ice broke and he fell in the water. No one was
nearby to save him and he drowned. That was a
sad note for Smithfield and Holt Lake. His name
was Sam Honeycutt Jr. He was very popular in
Smithfield.
In
1938 I was seventeen and Ava Gardner was fifteen.
Each summer Ava would come to Smithfield to visit
her relatives. She asked me to tell her which boys
were the "wolves" and which were acceptable to
date. I had a friend, his name was Bennett Creech,
and he was consistently asking me to get him a
date with Ava. Ava consented to go out with him
but only if we double dated. We went to Holt Lake
to the dance pavilion and Bennett and Ava said
they would be in in a little while. They were
sitting in a car in the Holt Lake Pavilion parking
lot. I assumed they were getting to know each
other a little better but after an hour I went
back and they were just sitting there not talking.
They didn't go out together anymore.
The one time I got in a fight with my girlfriend was at Holt Lake. I was in a row boat with Ava Gardner and fifty years later this former girlfriend said she was still mad about me rowing with Ava! In 1940 I would go out to Holt Lake and there were quite a few soldiers on "R&R." They had heard about Holt Lake and drove up from maneuvers in Pinehurst. In the early 1950s motorboats became very popular on Holt Lake. At that time you could rent stalls near the pavilion for boats. In 1951 I had a 19-foot motorboat at a rented stall. In the 1930s cottages began to be built around Holt Lake. William Sanders, a leading citizen of Smithfield, had a seven-room cottage near the Holt Lake bath house. Other cottages were the Gillette cottage and the R.J. Reynolds cottage. In
1934 R.J. Reynolds Jr. built a home on the point
across the lake from the country club. This is
where Joe Berry Skinner lives now. My brother,
Lawrence Stancil, was good friend with R.J.
Reynolds Jr. and R.J. loved to come to
Smithfield and boat on Holt Lake. This is why he
wanted to build a house in this area. My brother
was killed in April 1935 and after that (R.J.)
told Frank Skinner he would sell (the house) to
him for a very good price. He wanted to go back
and live in Winston-Salem.
Want to see movies of Holt Lake in action in 1937? The Johnston County Heritage Center has copies of films Henry L. Waters made of people and places in Smithfield and other towns that year and shown to audiences in local movie theaters. Holt Lake scenes are included in his Smithfield footage. What's more, you can now access these films online through Duke University's archives by following this link> |
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