James C. Self, SC Industrialist, Dies
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\oqrapv arner J »1 I a( five or six rooms, designed by for the hundreds who were em of the South anu Uiu traditions.- [ ers who gathered here last year Soli and built by his huge con ployed in his plants. A retiring, al in my more than 76 years ]i to honor nim as he was presented struction department most timid man, he never became have seen the South rise Phoenix- the Man of the South scroll. James C. Self, SC Self spent millions of dollars in too big to treat personally with like from defeat and become an His life as a college student end those whom he employed. Plain building schools, churches and oth Important segment of the nation. ed, Mr. SeU turned to his own er facilities in the villages. He in his tastes, Mr. Self drove around The South is being reborn. Many brought the carillon bells from The area for employment, and look a often in old automobiles of modest in other sections are seeing in the job paying $100 a year as clerk Netherlands© World©s Fair exhibit costs. South a great potential that can at a country store operated by Industrialist, Dies and installed them in a tower at Homes for Workers inaugurate a new era. J. M. Gaines. This store hurned. Callie Self Church, named for his He was particularly proud of (he "Today, no one who knows the however, and he began work as Urer of the company. mother. fine brick homes he provided for facts doubts that the South has a clerk in the Durst and MaUiews Was a Giant SeU was a member of the first "I learned a long time ago that the employees of his mills. These become the nation©s greatest front store at Kirksey. class at Clemson College 61 years you can©t take it with you," Self homes, set in their well-kept lawns. ier. The South has playtxi an im This store was owned by S. P.] In Economy; ago, digging ditches at eight cents said two years ago. "And I don©t were considered models for mill portant part in this nation©s his Mathews and W. L. and J. K. an hour and waiting on tables to think much of a man who makes workers. A great deal of Mr. Self©s tory. Let us ever be grateful to Durst. Two of this group have been Rites Saturday help pay his expenses. After one money In a community and then personal time was given to these our forefathers, those hardy pat honored by Mr. Self in naming car he had to drop out and go to forgets all about it." homes. Also, outside of Greenwood, riots who established this great textile plants. Grendel No. 2 was GREENWOOD, July 21 (Special! work. Clomson College awarded him there were small farms for those country", he added. changed to Mathews in honor of James C. SeU, 79, a towering "I made W a month In a general j the honorary degree of Doctor of workers who preferred to live in Mr. SeU was born at Kirkscy S. P. Mathews when Mr. Self ac figure in the economic life ol South store and had to take half of the| textile industries in 1951, compen that fashion, and Mr. Self was par in 1876 a scant dozen years be quired control of it in 1930. and Carolina, died today. year©s pay out in a horse," Self sating in a way for the degree he ticularly interested in these. yond Appomatox the son of Dr. now the new print cloth mill is The president ol Greenwood Mills once recalled. That store burned, had to forego in his youth. "Success has come to him in James Andcrson SeU and Mrs. named Durst Plant in honor ol died at SeU Memorial Hospital, snd he found a job in another Reared as a Democrat, Self vot unusual degree. He has used that Callie Holloway Sell W. L. Durst. This store continued which he gave to Greenwood, ol one. There he worked for three ed for Eisenhower in 1952. He re success to bettor the lot of his He was deprived of paternal sup in operation as one of the chiel what Ms doctors termed a "blow* years and saved $150. With that he marked at the time that the Demo associates in overalls, in white col port, however, in an accident rare mercantile cstablisnrnents .n the deformity." trailed in a business college at cratic Party "has gotten away lar jobs, and the fellow citizens to this section. Dr. Self, then only Kirksey area until it burned last! Death came at 9:50 a. m. foi Richmond, Va. from us." of his community. He has dreamed 36 years old, fractured his skull year. Self remained optimistic about skating on the frozen surface of ; lowing ill health of several months. ©I came back to Greenwood in the future of the textile industry dreams, but had the practical skill Enters Business School ^©--lier this year, Mr. Self was a 3898 with nothing in the world but and perseverance to make those a pond one cold winter day and Mr. Self stayed at Durst and! f*nt at Duke Hospital in Dur- :wo suits of clothes and 515, and nd the South. dreams come true." died from the injury in 1S86. ey to go to Richmond, Va.t and got a job as clerk and bookkeeper When he accepted the Man of Country doctors, particularly In | Ham, N. C, but responded well to the South award he declared: These words, spoken of Mr. Self enroll in a business school. With treatment and rettirned here three in a hardware store," Self said. as he received the Man of the South the struggling South of that day, a business school diploma in hand, The next year I went to -the "I have seen the South rise from received few lucrative fees, and he refused employment in Virginia weeks ago. ashes and defeat to become an scroll for 1952, told a lot about Funeral services will be con* Bank of Greenwood as a book the man. not any large part of the smaller and returned to Greenwood, a move Important part of the nation . ones due them. Dr. Self left his he has never regretted and for ducted at 3:30 p. m. Saturday at keeper and In 1903 it made me If Horace Grerley were living to Dreams, practical skill and per th* Callie SeU Memorial Baptist cashier." family chiefly a farm and a heri which this community can be pro day, he probably would say, ©Go severance were all needed in the tage of character, courage and Chun-h, a church he built to the Soon afterward he got into the young man." foundly grateful. memory of his mother. Burial textile business, in which he was climb of a fatherless lad of 10 in sense of public duty that his wife His first job in Greenwood was Self returned here from Durham impoverished post-war Edgefield shared with him. as bookkeeper in the W. G. Gam- be in Edgewood Cemetery. to become one of the South©s rich three weeks ago and had been County to the assemblage in Green Officiating ministers will be: The est men. Mrs. Self, who had attended Due brell Hardware Store. A little later hospitalized since then. wood where his fellow townsmen, ,Wcst Female College as a young he applied for and got the job as Rev. J. E. Willis, pastor f Callie The Greenwood Cotton Mill owed Survivors in addition to his son men high in public life and finance Self; the Rev. James A. Brown, the bank 540,000 and couldn©t pay girl and who had been a school bookkeeper at the Bank of Green Include his widow, the former Lau and in his own field of textiles teacher, took over the task of rear wood, where J. K. Durst, one of pastor of the First Baptist Church H. In 1908 he was made president ra Mathews of Kirkscy and four met to do him honor. and the Rev, J. F. Lupo, pastor of of the mill, with the goal of making ing three fatherless boys. his former employers at the store grandchildren, James Self, III, Vir Provides Better Life BuIldH Memorial Church at Kirksey, was president. Main Street Methodist Church. enough money to pay the debt. ginia, William Matthews and Sally A short distance in space sepa The body will be taken to the The machinery was obsolete and Callie SeU Memorial Baptist J. K. and W. L. Durst had come] Self, all of the home. They are rates the two points and very little Church, at the entrance to the to Greenwood to try their fortunes. church at 10 o©clock Saturday prospects were so poor that an the children of the younger Self of Mr. Self©s life was lived beyond morning. engineer he hired advised him to Mathews Mill village, stands today J. K. turned his interest eventually] forget about the project. Instead, and the former Virginia Turner, them. And yet, within their con as a tribute to the devotion which to formation of a bank in the ham Pallbearers will b*: J. B. Harris, daughter of Dr. and Mrs. W. P. fines, he grew to such stature that, Mrs. SeU gave to her sons. The L. V * J ns. Dan Hammett, Joe Sell went to New England mach let of Greenwood, and W4 L. Durst] inery manufacturers- and persuad Turner of Greenwood.