Community News

County Commission honors James Homer Levi, who turns 100

By Lightning Reports, Published: July 21, 2021

James Homer Levi, who dropped out of school in the sixth grade to work at Mondamin Dairy milking cows and deliver ice and milk to Lake Summit residents, recalls that it was a 14-mile walk around the lake.

Levi went on four years later to get a job at the local cotton mill, along with his older siblings and later still spent 33 years as a supervisor at Cranston Print Works in Fletcher, retiring in 1984.

The Henderson County Board of Commissioners on Wednesday adopted a resolution honoring Levi, who turns 100 years old on Aug. 2.

A native of the Bob's Creek community, Levi is from a family that has resided in the Green River community for more than
eight generations. In September 1942, he joined the United States Army to serve in World War II. Although the Army intended to send him to the South Pacific, the ship transporting him and 500 other soldiers to Guadalcanal took a blow, disabling it off of the coast of Panama, the resolution said. The orders for the men aboard the ship were destroyed in the explosion and they waited for several months in Panama until they received new orders to stay in Panama and guard the canal against possible enemy attack.

After the war, Levi returned to Henderson County and married Ruth Freeman, also a native of Henderson County, and raised their two children, Steve and Marsha. A member of Tuxedo Baptist Church, Levi is "very dedicated to the church and to leadership in the community," his great-nephew, the late Theron Maybin, once said of him.