Yesterday in Newton: Remembering Mayor J.L. Summer - Part 1

Mae Helen Clark
The Newton Record

NEWTON October 15, 2008 05:04 pm

— Who was the first mayor of Newton that you remember? Mayor John Leslie Summer is the first one that I remember. He was the mayor for four terms having been elected in 1933. According to Nancy Williams History of Newton, John Leslie Summer was born January 26, 1879 at China Grove in Walthall County and died Monday, February 19, 1957 at Newton. He and Mrs. Mary Hall Summer were married April 26, 1906.
Mr. and Mrs. Summer came to Newton in 1907 after he had purchased The Walton Brother’s Bottling Company and became the founder of the Newton Coca-Cola Bottling Company. In 1957 he celebrated 50 years in business.
It was during the depression of the 1930’s that I first became acquainted with Mr. Summers. He was the mayor during some trying years.
Fra-nklin D. Roosevelt had been elected president and the WPA programs were active. My mother, Mrs. Lency Weir Clark worked with the system in some capacity. People need help and families traveling through town trying to find jobs or returning to live with relatives were forced to stop because they ran out of gas and sometimes needed lodging. Mr. Summer would come to our house in the middle of the night sometime and my mother would get up and help him with the transit by buying gas and food and sometimes they were given overnight lodging in the town jail.
He was mayor when the first official library was established by the ladies of the Twentieth Century Club of Newton in 1933. Our “City Fathers” were very generous, they gave the use of two rooms and balcony, in the City Hall, had all wood work painted, the walls calcimized, lights put in, allowed money for the bookcases, which Mr. R.A. Hilburn had made in the Manual Training Department at Newton High School.
As a mayor and member of the board of Aldermen for 12 years he supported the local library. We find him as mayor in 1944 when the city made appropriation of 1/2 mill to operate the library for the year 1945. On January 1, 1945, managership of the Newton Public Library was transferred from the twentieth Century Club to the City.

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