By Valerie Macon
Fuquay Springs was incorporated in 1909 with its first census in 1910 recording just 127 residents. By 1920, the town saw its most dramatic growth, a 337% increase that brought the population to 555. Though growth continued in the decades that followed, it did so at a slower pace.
Among the original residents is 95-year-old Phillip Proctor who has spent his entire life immersed in the small-town rhythm of Fuquay Springs — now Fuquay-Varina. He carries within him a living chronicle of the town’s evolution. His sister, Jennie Schwoebel, age 88, briefly moved away, but eventually returned to the place her family has called home for generations. I sat down with Phillip and Jennie to explore the history of the town — not through census records, but through memory, story, and the eyes of those who lived there.
Phillip and Jennie recall:
Their mother, Pearl Byrd, arrived in Fuquay Springs in 1901 as a one-year-old. Her father, who was a farmer in the Holland community, gave each of his three girls acreage, mainly tobacco and cotton, so they could earn money for college. Back then, it was uncommon for women to go to college. Pearl and her two sisters attended Meredith College. In their last year, the three sisters ran out of money, so they wrote a letter to Buck Duke (founder of Duke University). In response, he loaned them enough money to complete their senior year and graduate. Later, when they returned the money, he wrote back that he would not accept it, that he was glad to help them.
Pearl was the only one of the sisters who became a schoolteacher. In farming communities, it was customary to call a teacher to serve locally, with the teacher often boarding in a nearby home. Serving in the Holland community, Pearl managed multiple grade levels in a one-room schoolhouse. Her classroom included all ages, from young children to grown men who had never learned to read. At that time, there was a rule that a married woman was not permitted to teach. Determined to continue her work, Pearl delayed marriage until the age of 25, an uncommon decision for a woman in the 1920s and 30s.
Pearl was raised on a farm. Girls back then were given a choice: either they could work in the house or outside. She chose outside. Her job on the farm was to tend to the livestock — pigs, cows, horses, mules, and goats. When she married Tom Proctor and moved into the house at 205 E. Spring Street, she could not let the farm influence go. So, she bought a cow. Phillip’s job growing up was to tend to the cow, milk it twice a day, and put it out to pasture across the street in Wiley Hicks Walter’s pasture where he allowed the cow graze.
In those days, nearly everyone in town knew each other. Jennie recalls that you couldn’t get away with much — word always found its way back to your parents. It was truly “a village raises the child” kind of place. Other kids’ mothers and grandmothers wouldn’t hesitate to correct you, and you grew up knowing you had a lot of people to answer to and to please. Jennie remembers that she was never bored growing up — there was a bowling alley, a roller-skating rink, and a movie theater for entertainment.
Fuquay Springs was a safe community where people rarely locked their doors. Although the town had a jail, it was seldom used; when it was, it was usually just to let someone “sleep it off” after drinking too much. But in 1952, Dr. Wiley Cozart was tragically shot by one of his own patients. It was the town’s first known murder, and it was quite unsettling for the community.
From the 1920s through the 1940s, Fuquay Spring’s economy was mostly driven by tobacco and agriculture. With few children living in town, Phillip recalls that most of his grade school classmates came in from surrounding farms. The same held true in high school, where rural students attended Fuquay Springs High and jokingly referred to their town-based peers as “the townies.” Jennie remembers a separate home economics building where girls learned to cook and sew, while boys studied tractor repair in shop class. Meanwhile, the adjoining Varina community saw some growth: Standard Homes Plan Service established a plant there in the 1920s, and the Varina Knitting Mill opened in 1931. Varina would eventually merge with Fuquay Springs.
During the Great Depression era (1929–1941), money was scarce, and times were tough. Then, with World War II (1939–1945), the government feared food shortages because men, who traditionally managed the heavy labor of raising crops, had been pulled into military service and industry to build tanks. As a result, there was a shortage of able-bodied men to bring in the harvest. In fact, with nearly everyone 18 years and older serving in the military, the minimum age for a driver’s license was lowered. Phillip got his license at age 16 simply because they needed more people who could drive.
During World War II, as part of a nationwide effort to address food shortages, citizens were encouraged to start Victory Gardens. These were gardens planted at homes, schools and other public spaces, where citizens grew their own food to offset food shortages and support the war effort. The U.S. Department of Agriculture came into town and established a community canning center (a cannery) in the basement of the Fuquay Springs High School gym to help families preserve food from their gardens. Each week had a schedule — “Tuesday is corn day,” they’d announce, “so ladies, bring your corn.” Vegetables were weighed when you brought them in, and this determined how many cans you got to take home. Jennie recalls her mother had a huge garden behind the garage, and she always had plenty of produce to contribute. The yield was shared — some went home with the families, and some went to support the government’s efforts.
Phillip remembers his dad did a lot of bartering during this time. A farmer would come by and say, “Mr. Tom, I’ll need some plow points for the spring plowing, and we’re gonna kill hogs when the weather turns cold. What can I put you down for?” Phillip remembers eating a lot of pork chops. One of his mother’s sisters had a farm, and she shared chicken and ham with the family.
In 1948, Phillip was attending UNC-Chapel Hill getting ready to go into his senior year when he was drafted. He counts his time in the military as good for him. He had led a sheltered life in the small town of Fuquay Springs, and the military allowed him to meet people from other parts of the US and from different cultures, and it also helped him to learn responsibility. After his service, he returned to Fuquay Springs and married. He went to work in his father-in-law’s business: Standard Homes Plan Service.
In the early 1950s, Phillip and Jennie’s father, Tom Proctor, having recently returned from the war, was a member of the Fuquay Chamber of Commerce. A friend of his, an executive at Carolina Power & Light, told him about a New York-based electronics company, Cornell Dubilier, that was looking to relocate to the South due to lower labor costs. Intrigued, a few Chamber members took a train to New York to pitch Fuquay Springs as a potential site. During the meeting, the company representatives asked, “How many machinists could you supply? How many electricians?” They listed off the various skilled trades needed to run a factory. Mr. Proctor replied, “Well, actually, all of our people are farmers.”
That honest answer sparked an idea. One of the executives responded, “Well, Mr. Proctor, I’ll tell you what you do. You go back and form a school; these skills are taught in the northern school systems.” Inspired, the Chamber members returned to Fuquay Springs and, leveraging connections, secured funding to establish a vocational training school. In 1958, the Wake County Industrial Education Center (now known as Wake Technical Community College) was founded to meet the growing demand for skilled labor, turning out mechanics, machinists, electricians, plumbers and other needed tradespeople.
Fuquay Springs and its neighboring town, Varina, shared a vision for growth. While visitors came to Fuquay Springs to drink the healing mineral spring water (some believed it was helpful for arthritis), Varina was prospering in agriculture and had good rail connections. In 1963, they joined forces to become Fuquay-Varina. Over the years, Fuquay Springs/Fuquay-Varina saw many businesses come and go: a strong tobacco industry with multiple tobacco warehouses, tobacco processing facilities, a tobacco redrying plant, the Proctor-Barbor Company, the Varina Knitting Mill, Cornell Dubilier, and The Diaper Factory, just to name a few.
By 1970, the population of Fuquay-Varina had grown to 3,576. Around 1980, Phillip, still working for Standard Homes Plan Services, noticed a surge in the housing market. Retirees were settling here, perhaps drawn by the town’s quiet small-town charm. What had once been a sleepy crossroads was becoming a destination for those seeking a slower pace and a sense of community. Today, Fuquay-Varina is home to nearly 50,000 residents. And Phillip and Jennie watched it all unfold.
