In the late 50’s I joined the Alderson Lions Club, (I still am a Member), We met at the old Alderson Hotel. My previous times in the hotel were when the Reese family ran it. They tried valiantly to keep it up but the income and outgo had too much between them. When I joined the Lions I think a family of Grimmets ran it and I have no idea who the owner was, it was probably the Bank trying to salvage some $!..

I can remember the squeaky uneven floors in the Dining Room and the shabby and long since outdated furnishing in the front lounge. I was never in the back of the hotel and it’s probably best I was not.

The Annex next to the hotel was owned by a lady, I think from Charleston who sometimes came up in the summer. It also was suffering the pangs of death, I recall the lady, (or some lady) showing me through the house. There were several architectural features that should have been saved but were not. The staircase to 2nd. Floor comes to mind’

At that time the town fathers were permitting about anything to be done to property with little or no consideration for any thing historic.

My mother and my dad were divorced in the early 40s, and he moved to Princeton to live with his mom. He did come to see me every now and then and one of the places he stayed was the Alderson Hotel. I went up to his room to visit him. As for the room in the hotel, I don't remember anything about. It was just a room.

The next memory was a few years later and the hotel was selling ice cream. You could get it free if you  had a ticket and my mother gave me the ticket to go get it. It wasn't ice cream from  a machine, it was from a big cardboard container that you scoop it out and put on top of a cone. Must have been a promotion the hotel was having.

My last memory of the hotel was a photographer was there taking portraits of folks and I had one taken. That was in '56 or '57. I still have that photo somewhere.

In all my time in Alderson I only remember those 3 times going in there, but there must have been more. It was there when I came to Alderson and it was there when I left. I didn't know until recently the fame that it had and the amount of people who use to come there. That was the main reason that it was built.