
{"id":17124,"date":"2011-04-07T10:03:27","date_gmt":"2011-04-07T14:03:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.carrborocitizen.com\/main\/?p=17124"},"modified":"2011-04-07T10:05:16","modified_gmt":"2011-04-07T14:05:16","slug":"always-at-home-in-carrboro","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/2011\/04\/07\/always-at-home-in-carrboro\/","title":{"rendered":"Always at home in Carrboro"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><figure id=\"attachment_17125\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-17125\" style=\"width: 500px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.carrborocitizen.com\/main\/2011\/04\/07\/always-at-home-in-carrboro\/richard-ellington\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-17125\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.carrborocitizen.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/Richard-Ellington.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"Richard-Ellington\" width=\"500\" height=\"453\" class=\"size-full wp-image-17125\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/Richard-Ellington.jpg 500w, https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/Richard-Ellington-113x102.jpg 113w, https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/Richard-Ellington-124x113.jpg 124w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-17125\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Richard Ellington draws a diagram of the railroad that ran through Carrboro and Chapel Hill in the dirt near his childhood home on West Poplar Avenue. Photo By Allison Russell <\/figcaption><\/figure><br \/>\n<strong>By Allison Russell<\/strong><br \/>\n<em>Staff Writer<\/em><\/p>\n<p>The house where Richard Ellington grew up used to be painted daffodil yellow. Over the years, it has been layered with different paints, today a pale minty-green color.<br \/>\nHis father, a building contractor, built the house in 1937. Since its construction, along with the shifting colors, the house has experienced birth, death and change.<br \/>\n\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve been uncovering Richard\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s life through the layers of paint,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d says Alfredo Balderas, who is restoring the house for its current owners, Scott and Charlotte Smith.<br \/>\nEllington was born in his parents\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 bedroom in the back of the house in February 1945. He lived at 115 Weaver Road \u00e2\u20ac\u201c which is now West Poplar Avenue \u00e2\u20ac\u201c until he left to go to college in 1963.<br \/>\nThe house was renovated several times while Ellington lived in it, primarily because his family needed more room after he was born.<br \/>\n\u00e2\u20ac\u0153You can tell that there was a woman who kept saying [to Richard\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s father], \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcHoney, could you add another room here and here?\u00e2\u20ac\u2122\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said Scott Smith.<br \/>\nEllington is the youngest of three children. His sister Priscilla, 78, and brother Boyd, 76, still live in Carrboro.<br \/>\n\u00e2\u20ac\u0153We had relatives all over here,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Ellington said as he swept his hand up and down a map of the streets surrounding his old house.<br \/>\nEllington grew up surrounded by his grandmother, aunts, uncles and cousins, thanks to the six acres of land purchased by his father and grandfather in the 1930s. His father took two acres to build his house and his grandfather gave the rest of the land to his sons, Ellington\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s uncles.<\/p>\n<p>His maternal grandmother, who lived directly behind his house, was the only grandparent he knew as a child.<br \/>\n\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I blame my lackadaisical attitude on my grandmother because she loved to fish,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Ellington joked, looking in the direction of where his grandmother used to live.<br \/>\n\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Whenever she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d laugh, her belly would shake up and down, and that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s my fondest memory of her,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he said.<br \/>\nEllington\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s grandparents moved from Durham to Carrboro to pursue millwork in 1912, a year after the town was founded. His grandfather worked as a carpenter and spooler in the Blanche Hosiery Corporation Mill No. 4, the building that is now Carr Mill Mall.<br \/>\nAlthough his parents never worked in the mill, Ellington was raised to appreciate the value of hard work. His family raised pigs and chickens in their backyard and Ellington was responsible for slopping the pigs each night after supper. He also worked with his father during the summer as a teenager.<br \/>\n\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I worked one summer with my dad, and that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s when I decided I would go to college,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Ellington said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Schlepping lumber as a 14-year-old \u00e2\u20ac\u201c that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s hard work!\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<br \/>\nThe following summer, Ellington worked part-time at UNC in the registrar\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s office. He didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know it at the time, but his job of assisting with summer school registration would lead him to a 43-year career of data processing at UNC.<br \/>\n\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I became interested in data processing because of that job,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said Ellington, who retired in January. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The university was beginning to use data systems [to automate student records], and when they offered me a [full-time] job it only made sense for me to accept it and stay in Carrboro.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<br \/>\nAlthough Ellington says he has \u00e2\u20ac\u0153always been a Tar Heel\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and he \u00e2\u20ac\u0153bleeds Carolina blue,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he never had the desire to go to college at UNC.<br \/>\n\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t want to get lost in the number [of students],\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Ellington said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153And at the time, I was intending to be a Baptist minister.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<br \/>\nEllington chose to go to Campbell because it offered a pre-ministerial program. He eventually changed majors at the end of his sophomore year and decided to study history.<br \/>\n\u00e2\u20ac\u0153My wife tells me I was born 200 years too late. I should have grown up with trains and stuff like that because I love history,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Ellington said.<br \/>\nEllington has satisfied his love of history by co-authoring the book Carrboro: Images of America with David Otto. The book contains pictures of Carrboro throughout the century, many of which Ellington was given by his neighbor Mack Watts, an amateur photographer.<br \/>\nBonded by community<br \/>\nEllington attended school at Chapel Hill Senior High, which was located on West Franklin Street, during a time of social change in Carrboro\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s history. When he was a junior, his school was integrated with Lincoln High School, Chapel Hill\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s black high school.<br \/>\n\u00e2\u20ac\u0153It was a non-event from the white community\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s perspective,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Ellington said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I was raised to respect a black man and a white man the same.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<br \/>\nEllington recalls segregation in Carrboro, but said the town was progressive for its time, allowing black people to buy food from local restaurants, even though they weren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t allowed to eat in the establishment.<br \/>\nEllington said he still sees room for the improvement of racial relations today.<br \/>\n\u00e2\u20ac\u0153It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s still not what it should be for a town that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s as progressive as Carrboro,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he said.<br \/>\nWhen reflecting on the general sense of change that Carrboro has experienced, Ellington sees the town as \u00e2\u20ac\u0153more transient\u00e2\u20ac\u009d than it once was. However, he still believes Carrboro is bonded by its community.<br \/>\n\u00e2\u20ac\u0153A lot of people look at little towns and [disparage the fact that] everyone knows everyone else\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s business \u00e2\u20ac\u201c but that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not such a bad thing, is it? Social morals were enforced that way,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he said.<br \/>\nA value Ellington learned as a child is to support his community. One of the ways he does this is by participating as a member of the Carrboro Centennial Committee.<br \/>\n\u00e2\u20ac\u0153The centennial celebration [on March 3] was pretty neat,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Ellington said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153When you live in one place all your life, everything has significance to you.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<br \/>\nKim Andrews of the Carrboro Recreation &#038; Parks Department rediscovered the old bell that tolled during the celebration. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a remnant of the Carrboro Baptist Church that used to occupy the Century Center.<br \/>\n\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I hadn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t heard that bell ring in 50 years,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said Ellington, who was among the dozens of people who rang the bell during the celebration.<br \/>\nEllington said he has seen a great amount of change in Carrboro during his nearly seven decades as a resident of the town. To him, the change is most obviously manifested during the celebration of Carrboro Day, which falls on May 1 this year.<br \/>\n\u00e2\u20ac\u0153There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s always a bulletin board in the Town Commons that allows people to show where they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re from. When I was a kid, everyone was from Carrboro, but today there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a much more global population,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Ellington said.<br \/>\nDespite the changes, Ellington says he will always consider Carrboro his home.<br \/>\n\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Carrboro is my town,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a town with a conscience.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p><em>Allison Russell is co-editor of the Carrboro Commons, a bi-weekly online lab newspaper for Jock Lauterer\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Community Journalism class at the School of Journalism and Mass Communication, and an intern with The Carrboro Citizen. This story first appeared in the Carrboro Commons.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By Allison Russell<\/strong><br \/>\n<em>Staff Writer<\/em><br \/>\n<br \/>\nThe house where Richard Ellington grew up used to be painted daffodil yellow. Over the years, it has been layered with different paints, today a pale minty-green color.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":17125,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17124","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-features","category-top-story"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17124","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17124"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17124\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17133,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17124\/revisions\/17133"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17125"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17124"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17124"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17124"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}