By SUELLEN E. DEAN
Staff Writer

UNION, S.C. (10/30/94) -- In this historic, small town, strangers usually leave as friends and are always welcomed back.

And it doesn't take newcomers long to figure out why Union's long-time motto, the city of hospitality, is more than just a slogan painted on the welcome sign on the outskirts of the town.

"You won't find a friendlier place than Union County. People around here would rather help you than harm you," said Preston Knox, a native of Union who stopped in the parking lot outside a Bi-Lo grocery store to watch police search the nearby woods for clues to Union's two missing children.

But this city of hospitality is quickly becoming the city of lots of hostility. The community is outraged by the disappearance of 14-month-old Alex Smith and his 3-year-old brother, Michael.

The boys' mother, 23-year-old Susan Smith, said her children were taken at gunpoint during a carjacking in Monarch Tuesday night.

"This whole thing has made me very angry because of those children," said Linda Treadway, who works with the children's mother at Conso Products, a manufacturer of tassels, cording and braid.

Since the incident, Treadway, a woman with grandchildren about the age of the two missing children, has been riding the roads every day looking for signs of Michael and Alex and the car.

"I was riding around yesterday saying `let me find those babies. Let me find those babies.' It was almost like I was chanting," Treadway said.

"I had my grandbabies in the car with me and the oldest asked me, `Where we going grandma. Are we going to find those babies?"'

Everyone is looking for the babies.

But despite local national media attention and more law enforcement help than the town's ever experienced, the children and the car have not been found.

In the past, most of this town's worries have been over the loss of textile jobs, not hard-core crime and missing children.

The only other time the town has made the national news was in the early 1970s when the unemployment rate rose to more than 68 percent because of temporary layoffs.

Bad things just don't seem to happen in Union, a town that got its name when several denominations united for worship in the same church in the mid-1700s.

It's the kind of place where families come to find peace and friends.

"Union's a friendly little old town," said Tim Sherbert, sitting in a Main Street barbershop with his young son.

"People come to your aid when you're in need."

Many times Union's children will leave the county to go to college or to find jobs.

But when it comes time to settle down, it seems they often come back home, living and working in Union or driving to Spartanburg and other nearby cities.

Three years ago, Sherbert came home to Union and took a job as a sheriff's deputy.

"I came back here to raise my three children and let them have the same values I got when I was growing up here," said Sherbert, who lived in Oklahoma City for eight years.

"In big cities, you get treated like a number. In Union, you get treated like a person," he said.

It was only a few years ago that third-shift deputies wouldn't even get a call in Union.

"Now we get about six or seven, mostly wives and husbands feuding," Sherbert said.

Union County has only had two homicides in two years and they were both family-related, Sheriff Howard Wells said.

"We are like a family here. We all know each other. And we can all gossip and talk about each other.

"But someone on the outside better not talk about Union people," Wells said.

"Most of the cases are public drunks and a few fights," Sherbert said.

"We've got marijuana. And we've just recently started getting some crack cases. But drugs are everywhere these days."

Turn the dial to Union's hometown radio station, WBCU, which broadcasts from Main Street, and you may hear the town's jingle -- a local children's choir singing about their "little piece of heaven on Earth."

The Downtown Union Revitalization Association has been trying to put its piece of heaven on the map for years. The town has spent thousands of dollars restoring old buildings, including the classic Fairforest Hotel, which offers low-income apartments.

"So far, Union has not looked like a bad place, and I can't blame the media for being interested," said Fred Delk, project manager of the Downtown Union Revitalizaton Association.

"I just hate the thought of it hitting the tabloids and this thing going on forever. So far, this has been getting on the news before O.J. Simpson. It's pretty unbelievable that something like this would happen and get higher billing than O.J."

People in Union are proud and protective of their heritage. Union has the state's first Carnegie library, historic districts and old public buildings. The town has kept its 1823 jail, which was designed by Robert Mills, a South Carolina native known for designing the Washington Monument.

Union was one of the first towns settled in the area and escaped Sherman's wrath because the Broad River flooded and turned the troops away, leaving intact the more than two dozen antebellum homes that make the area a historical dream.

Outsiders are slowly beginning to move in and recognize the qualities of this sleepy little community, surrounded by forests, where hunting historically has been big business.

The one quality which seems to have remained with Union for more than 200 years is unity. When tragedy strikes, the people come together, residents agree.

The world's spotlight on Union has shown just how close a small town can be.

Most everybody knows the parents of the two children or have a connection with their families somewhere down the line.

Schoolchildren are praying and passing out yellow ribbons and fliers with the missing children's photographs. Churches are holding prayer vigils and forming prayer chains.

Used car lots and furniture stores are changing their flashing signs to send messages of support to the Smith family.

At the bank and on Main Street, volunteers are selling laminated photographs of the two boys for a dollar and plan to give the money to the Smith family.

"I just hope they get their kids back. I'm real sad they got taken away," said 12-year-old Keith Ivy, after his mother picked him up from Union Day School Friday.

His mother arrived to find all the doors locked and the school officials taking extra precautions because of a report that a suspect was in a wooded area nearby.

No one wants to think about the unthinkable, that the children may never return. The whole town is still looking for a happy ending.

Some residents say the missing children shows them that their tranquil community is not immune from the world.

"This just shows you the day and age we are living in," said Mrs. Treadway., a co-worker of Susan Smith's.

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