DELIVER TO: Postal Patron Mechanicsville, VA 23111
PRSRT. STANDARD U.S. POSTAGE PAID Mechanicsville, VA Permit No.141
Vol. 28, No. 15 | Richmond Suburban Newspapers | August 10, 2011
STOPS AT EVERY HOME IN TOWN
Registrar gears up for Nov. 8 Smithson and staff focus efforts on precinct redistricting changes By JimFields jfields@mechlocal.com As the Nov. 8 election approaches, Hanover County General Registrar Teresa Smithson said one of her biggest concerns is making sure voters know where to cast their ballots. This stems from the federally mandated redistricting plan. Smithson and her staff are busy preparing for the election, especially with the redistricting, which is reviewed and revised every 10 years. The new plan here brings five new voting locations, changes to three and three being deleted.
check it as soon as they receive it to make sure their personal information is correct and to find out where their voter location now is.” The three precincts that have been deleted are Goddin’s Hill No. 204 at the old Hanover Trades building, Stoney Run No. 207 at Elmont Elementary School and Old Church No. 402 at Bethlehem Presbyterian TERESA SMITHSON Church. General Registrar Of the seven voting districts in Jim Fields/The Local “New voter ID (identification) cards Hanover County, Cold Harbor, Henry Deputy Registrar Shirley Morris, left, and Hanover County will be mailed to every registered voter and Mechanicsville precincts remain General Registrar Teresa Smithson are preparing for the Nov. 8 election. They are focusing their efforts on ensuring voters are in Hanover County before the November unchanged. aware of polling place changes due to the federally mandated see REGISTRAR, pg. 4 redistricting plan. election,” Smithson said. “People need to
“New voter ID (identification) cards will be mailed to every registered voter in Hanover County before the November election.”
Number-cruncher adds up to 100 Local businesswoman looks forward to celebrating major birthday with family By Melody Kinser mkinser@mechlocal.com ouise Smith has spent most of her life crunching numbers as a bookkeeper for automobilerelated businesses. On Saturday, she will celebrate a number of great significance: her 100th birthday. She is well-known in the Mechanicsville community as the matriarch of Smith Auto Service Inc., an auto body repair shop she and her late husband William C. Smith opened 64 years ago. Louise also is a familiar face at the
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Shady Grove United Methodist Church, of which she has been a member for many years. She arrived on Aug. 13, 1911, in Colliersville, which is located about 10 miles from Lexington. “It was at my grandmother’s home and my mother went there – she was 43 at the time.” Her parents, Charles Archer and Rebecca Louise Entsminger Nicholson were 40 years old when they married. “Neither one had ever been married before,” she said. Her mother had been a schoolteacher “somewhere between Lexington and Clifton Forge” and her father was a “gen-
tleman farmer.” After marrying, she never taught again, devoting herself to running the farm. The Nicholsons lived in Wilmington in Fluvanna County “and they had a big farm.” Louise said she and her parents made their home there the first eight years of her life. Then they moved to another Fluvanna community, Columbia. Louise completed her public education at the tender age of 15 and then headed to State Teachers College at Farmville, now Longwood University. In the spring of her first year in college, see 100, pg. 5