1 50 5 https://omeka-test.library.appstate.edu/files/original/aefcf05212751d63c9dd7d9c4240bb00.pdf 3c72af0d030e5c3168d2da90a5b48754 PDF Text Text �The Gratis Williams Chronicles: I Come to Boone by Gratis D. Williams David Gratis Williams, Editor Patricia D. Beaver, Editor Published by: Appalachian Consortium Press ©1999 �The Appalachian Consortium was a non-profit educational organization composed of institutions and agencies located in Southern Appalachia. From 1973 to 2004^ its members published pioneering works in Appalachian studies documenting the history and cultural heritage of the region. The Appalachian Consortium Press was the first publisher devoted solely to the region and many of the works it published remain seminal in the field to this day. With funding from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities through the Humanities Open Book Program^ Appalachian State University has published new paperback and open access digital editions of works from the Appalachian Consortium Press. www.collections.library.appstate.edu/appconsortiumbooks This work is licensed under a Creative Commons BY-NC-ND license. To view a copy of the license^ visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses. Original copyright © 1999 by the Appalachian Consortium Press. ISBN (pbk.: alk. Paper): 978-1-4696-4195-9 ISBN (ebook): 978-1-4696-4197-3 Distributed by the University of North Carolina Press www.uncpress.org �c Acknowledgements Introduction i 1. A Call from Boone 1 2. Arriving in Boone: A New Beginning 3. Settling into Boone 4. Visit to Sylvia 5. Glad to be Living and Working in Boone ....57 6. Winters Nightmare 75 7. Christmas 97 8. Longing to Call Boone Home.. 113 Index of Names 129 Gratis Williams Chronology 137 Cratis Williams Bibliography 139 List of Photographs... 11 ....29 47 .....143 �This page intentionally left blank �A Appalachian State University's Centennial celebration in 1999 seemed a fitting occasion for preparation by the Center for Appalachian Studies of a volume of Gratis Williams's memoirs for publication. In 1997 I approached David Williams for family approval and guidance through his father's papers. David directed my attention to / Come to Boone, which represents a pivotal year (1942-43) in Cratis's adult life, beginning his long-term association with what was then Appalachian State Teachers College, with Boone, and with the North Carolina mountains. Gratis Williams's memoir is a most appropriate contribution to the university's Centennial, as his experiences intersect with the lives of many educators who shaped the college from its inception in 1899 into the university of the late 20th century. David Williams and I have worked together to bring Cratis's text to the community which grew with Gratis, which nurtured his professionalism, and which loved and admired him. David Williams and I are responsible for alterations from the original manuscript, which include minor editorial changes and the addition of chapter breaks, chapter titles, and footnotes which do not appear in the original text. While I worked from locales in North Carolina, David traversed the eastern seaboard from Canada to Puerto Rico, enduring the fury of Hurricane Georges as he proofed the final manuscript copy. We are grateful for the careful reading and the editorial suggestions provided by John Keener of LeesMcRae College. Graduate students in the Appalachian Studies master's program were critical to this production, including Stephanie Roark Keener and Kathryn Staley, who scanned, formatted, and edited Cratis's original manuscript. In preparation of the final text, we are grateful for the good work of Jessica Blackburn, Melanie Rice, Brett Melchior, Robert Barham, and David Cozzo. Art Rex and Andrew Paul of ASU's �Department of Geography and Planning generated the maps. Kinney Baughman provided technical support and wisdom at every critical juncture in the production of this manuscript. Elizabeth Bordeaux kept all of us organized and all the versions of the text in order, and proofread the entire manuscript. Fred Hay and Jerry Williamson provided editorial commentary on the introduction in a timely fashion at a critical time in the production, and Fred Hay fine-tuned the bibliography. Cratis's brother O.C.Williams and his niece Bobbi Lynn provided immeasurable assistance with family photographs, as did Cratis's sister Ruth Lester and her sons Jim and Jack Lester. Elizabeth Williams and Cratis's and Libby's daughter Sophie Williams provided valuable assistance, advice, and support for this project, for which we are deeply appreciative. Ruby Daniel's generosity with information about Gratis from the day of their meeting at the beginning of the school term in 1942, and with her personal correspondence with Gratis and that of her husband, Hugh, is tribute to their affection for Gratis. It is affection shared by all of us who had the very great pleasure of knowing him, of laughing with him, of learning from him, of following in his path. This manuscript is presented to honor Gratis, his pivotal role in our university, particularly the Graduate School, and his role in directing the humanistic embrace of regional culture in creating Appalachian Studies as a serious program of meaningful scholarship. No one has stepped into the large space which Gratis left, and we laugh a little less often. Patricia D. Beaver, 1999 Boone, North Carolina �I Following his retirement in 1976 from a distinguished career as a teacher and administrator at Appalachian State University in Boone, North Carolina, Gratis Williams began to write memoirs of his life odyssey from a log cabin in eastern Kentucky to the upper echelons of American education. Destined to become a nationally recognized spokesperson for Appalachian culture-a preserver of its ballads, a teller of its tales, and a sympathetic interpreter of its customs and traditions-Cratis struggled during his formative years to find his direction in life. Most of Gratis s memoirs concern these years of personal and professional growth, focusing either on his recollections from childhood or on his educational and early professional experiences. Two previously published memoirs, / Become A Teacher (Williams 1995) and William H. Vaughan: A Better Man Than I Ever Wanted To Be (Williams 1983), describe, respectively, his entry into the teaching profession in a one-room school in his native Lawrence County, Kentucky, and his high school principal and mentor. / Come to Boone describes his move in 1942 from Huntington, West Virginia, where he taught night classes at the Apprentice School of International Nickel Company, to Boone, North Carolina. Watching helplessly as his wife Sylvia slowly succumbed to tuberculosis, he took a temporary position as "critic teacher" at Appalachian Demonstration High School. Among his many assignments that year, Gratis taught methods of teaching English in high school to aspiring educators at Appalachian State Teachers College, the institution with which he was to be associated for the remainder of his life. Early Years Gratis Dearl Williams was born at 7:23 a.m. on April 5, 1911, in the telephone room of his grandfa- �The Cratis Williams Chronicles: I Come to Boone ther's log house on Caines Creek, in Lawrence County, Kentucky. He was the first child of Curtis and Mona (Whitt) Williams, and the first grandson for both David O. Williams, in whose house he was born, and Jefferson Davis Whitt. A small, presumably premature baby, Cratis was not expected to survive his infancy. u[I]n the language of the community" he later recalled, "/ was.,, a 'puny and pindlin child, plagued with tonsillitis, colds and infections, and hives" A short time after his birth, his young parents, each but twenty years old at the time of his birth, moved a short distance "up the creek" to the "Blythe cabin" a small log house dating from the 1880s, which David Williams had purchased. "/« this house" Cratis Williams later wrote, "which was altered later and added to, I grew to maturity "^ The alterations and additions were required, in part, by the growth of the family: Cratis was eventually joined by four siblings, Mabel, Ralph, Ruth, and Ottie Curtis. Figure 1. A new generation of Williams: (l-r) Mabel, age 5; Cratis, age 6; Ralph, age 4; and Elva, their youngest aunt, age 3, July 1917. Cratis's interest in mountain speech was practically stamped on him from the very beginning. Although, as he was to note wryly in later years, the name "Cratis" resonates nicely with those of the Greek gods, it was in fact an invention of his mother, who had not been trained in Greek mythology during her years in the local one-room country school. She liked the sound of the name. Names-and perhaps words generally-were differentiated and endowed with meaning, magic, and pleasure by sound; spelling was at best a secondary concern. Her own name, spelled "Mona," was pronounced "Mony." His middle name-"Dearl"-is a variant of "Darryl" (or "Darrell," as Wolfford [circa 1972,170] mistakenly lists it), but the spelling in this case is reflective of the pronunciation, which rhymes with "Earl." Trying to capture that sound through spelling proved to be an inexact science. In July, 1917, when he started school in the one-room school "on the hillside across the 'All quotations from Cratis Williams are in quotes and italicized. Unless otherwise indicated, all quotations are from unpublished memoirs, essays, speeches, and short notes by Cratis Williams, which are in the possession of his family. �Introduction valley" from the house in which he grew up, his mother prepared him with a "primer" in which she had written, "Gratis Dearl Williams, His Book." The teacher enrolled him in the official record book accordingly. "I did not know for 20 years" he later recalled, "that she had misspelled my middle name, which was written 'Darl' on my birth certificate" Afterwards he remained, by choice as well as habit, Gratis Dearl. "Mostly of Scotch Irish origin" Gratis was a descendent on both sides of the early settlers along the Appalachian frontier during the period of the founding of this country. Among his "forebears were Indian fighters, long hunters, veterans of the American Revolution, Tories escaped to the backwoods, refugees from the Whiskey Rebellion, Kentucky mountain feudi$ts> and religious dissenters" (Big Sandy News March 6, 1969, n.p.). As the "oldest grandson of each of my grandfathers" Gratis "enjoyed a special place in my early years in the favor of each" Each grandfather, albeit in widely different ways, was enormously influential on him. Gratis later recalled, "My Grandfather Williams led me by the hand through the mysterious arrangements of his distillery, said to have been the last legal distillery in Eastern Kentucky. He gave me my own little bottle of whiskey so I could drink along with the workers" His other grandfather, "Pa Jeff," offered education of a different sort, "Grandfather Whitt, a keen 'hardshell' scholar of the Bible, began talking Calvinistic theology with me before I was nine years old. By the time I was twelve we could 'argy the 'scriptors' together with quiet skill" Of course, as Gratis concluded his recollection, "more warmth was generated in our discussions when I shared with him my little bottle of whiskey" As a young child, Gratis would go with his mother to the United Baptist Church "which is located just across the valley from where we grew up. That was the only church in the valley at the time" There he would listen for hours to the preachers (for generally four or five preachers would go in succession on Sundays), and church would last from nine o'clock in the morning until perhaps two or three o'clock in the afternoon. What most impressed young Gratis, however, was not the theological content of the sermons but rather the oratorical style of the raw mountain preachers; he "was intrigued with the style and the drama of it all" When an animal on the farm died, Gratis and his siblings would have a funeral, and Gratis "would preach the funeral sermon. I would use this mans style and then that mans style" Curt Williams, concerned that his son's imitations would offend the preachers, "'bursted' the seat" of Cratis's pants "several times for mocking the preachers" But "when my father was completely out of hearing, Fd go on and do it anyway" (Ross n.d.). It was in this manner that Gratis acquired both a deep appreciation of and skill in the oratorical styles of mountain preachers: "/ learned to preach like the hard-shell preachers. I liked the rhetoric. I wasn't religious" (Big Sandy News July 3, 1979, 10). At the age of six, Gratis was sent to the one-room Hillside School, also known as Middle Caines Creek School, near his home. The school "was held in the United Baptist Church Building, which was constructed about 1885" His first teacher was Eugene Moore. Although Middle Caines Creek School was located conveniently for young Gratis and his siblings, its very remoteness no doubt contributed to an instability in its staffing. Eugene Moore moved after the term ended. Cratis's second teacher, Annie Young, eloped to California after only about three months. Harry Burton, later a prominent merchant and �The Cratis Williams Chronicles: I Come to Boone banker in Elaine, finished Annie's term and was followed briefly by Randolph N. Boggs, who also moved away. But "Ran" was an important influence on Cratis: "Ran encouraged me to read orally" Cratis recollected about the 1919 school year, "/ recall that he once invited the whole school to hear me read aloud the story about the dog and the cock that spent the night in the forest. The response of my 'audience' to my cock-crowing was so gratifying to me that I began to aspire for skill in interpretation. I have considered this experience one of the most significant in my life. It sharpened my interest in school generally" Ran taught the school again in 1920, before leaving Blaine. Beginning with the 1921-1922 term, Cratis's teacher "was Ulysses S. Williams, my father's cousin. Lyss began the 1922-1923 term, but was shot and killed in November" He was twenty-two years old. "Lyss had been one of the 'big scholars' in the school during my first two years" Cratis recalled, "but he had taken the teachers examination and been awarded a certificate. He had also attended a short winter 'institute' before he began teaching on Catt Creek in 1920. After being away from the school on Caines Creek for only one yean he returned, at the age of21, as the teacher, and he was a good one" Lyss had developed an interest in a young woman who lived nearby on Abb Creek. On Sunday, November 12, Lyss went to Abb Creek to meet Roberta Stafford, "to whom he was engaged" But at the church on Abb Creek, he was shot and killed by Elbert Caldwell. "CaldweWs motive... was never made quite clear. He was quite drunk, however, and had engaged in a quarrel with young men from Caines Creek before Lyss arrived at the church. Lyss was shot at such close range that his clothing caught fire. He died instantly, without speaking a word" When they learned of this, the Williams men (headed by Lyss s brother Jesse and his father, Cratis's uncle Jake) attempted to hunt down the murderer, but their search parties returned empty handed. Cratis recalled lying awake in the bedroom, with its window opening onto the porch, listening quietly to a conversation between his parents the "morning following my father's allnight search, along with dozens of Williams relatives, for the man who had killed Lyss. He told my mother that Lyss had been the only one of our family who was determined to 'get an education but that his murder 'just looked like it wasn't meant that a Williams would ever be allowed to have one.' With a mighty oath he swore that if one of his children wanted an education he would 'work on my hands and knees for a dime a day, if need be, to see that he had a chance to get it"' Although only eleven years old at the time, Cratis " vowed secretly that I would challenge my father to the sacrifice that he declared he was prepared to make. During the remainder of that school year I advanced from third grade to the fifth grade and began in the sixth grade the following year'" That term Cratis took the County Examination "/» determine whether I was eligible to go to high school The examination lasted for two days. I passed it at the age of twelve"' In February, 1924, Cratis rode the farm wagon with his father from Caines Creek to Louisa, where he planned to enter Louisa High School (which was completed in 1889) and board with his father's cousins, Simpson (Simps) and Nola Boggs. After meeting with the principal, however, he was assigned to the seventh grade. Cratis immediately experienced culture shock; he was ""painfully ashamed of the quaint background" he " brought directly into the glitter of the Jazz Age" which had already arrived in Louisa. Even as he struggled to adjust to his "newsurroundings" he excelled in his studies �Introduction and impressed both his classmates and his teacher who "awarded" him with a metal pencil as a special prize for the top student. She had to purchase the pencil herself; Gratis, having enrolled late in the year, was ineligible for the official prize. His "'grades for the semester were 27 As and 3 Bs" When he showed his gradecard to his father that summer, Curt Williams asked his son "to explain what the grades meant, I told him that A was the best grade a student could receive. He looked at the card intently, running his fingers up and down the columns, and handed it back to me as he asked, 'Well, what in the hell are these Bs doing on here, then?" Gratis concluded that this expectation was not unreasonable. "He had given me 50 cents a week for spending money, paid $4.00 a week for my board and room, and paid 75 cents a week for my tuition. Money was hard to come by. He had sacrificed, and he expected perfect performance in return" The following September Gratis began high school in Louisa. He would be the first person from Caines Creek to graduate Louisa High School. His high school principal and history teacher was William H. Vaughan, an influential educator who was later to become President of Morehead State University (1940-1946).2 Vaughans influence on Gratis Williams would be difficult to overstate: he was a teacher, a mentor, a trusted advisor, and, eventually, a friend and a father figure. It was Dr. Vaughan who not only encouraged Gratis to think about education beyond high school—something inconceivable to Gratis while growing up on Caines Creek—but also facilitated the possibility. Vaughan, a native of Lawrence County, helped Gratis to take pride in himself, and perhaps from that basis to look upon his heritage with pride. Even so, Cratis's initial experiences in high school filled him not with appreciation of his heritage and its traditions but rather with shame. The mountain dialect which Gratis spoke when he arrived in Lousia was the source of one of his greatest humiliations. During his first year of high school, Gratis became acutely aware of the differences between the town children and the country children, including the different attitudes that many of the teachers adopted toward the respective groups. Gratis felt that his own English teacher, Miss Roberts, was "what we called in the country 'proud,' one who thinks herself better than others. I found it difficult to like her, but I was determined to do all I could to meet her requirements and to please her" One day, during "oral assignments in which we were to deal with the 'spoken word,"" Gratis volunteered to tell "An Anecdote" He went to the front of the room, where he ''assumed the recommended posture for facing an audience, my feet planted side by side firmly on the floor, my body erect, my chest out, my chin up, my arms stiff by my sides, and my fingers pointed rigidly at my shoe tops. I was prepared to tell about Dave Prince's stuffing the overalls in the smokepipe of Granny Blyth's kitchen stove" But as he began his story, Miss Roberts interrupted and requested that he repeat the sentence he had just spoken: "Hit was a-gittin 'way up in the day," I responded. The town girls restrained giggles. "Say it again, " Miss Roberts commanded. -For a full discussion of their relationship, see Gratis D. Williams's (1983) biography of William H. Vaughan. �The Cratis Williams Chronicles: I Come to Boone "Hit was getting 'way up in the day," I repeated with more precision. The town girls, now unrestrained, laughed outright. I could feel my face flaming as Miss Roberts asked me to say it again. "Hit was getting away up in the day!" I almost shouted. The town girls, now joined by some of the country children, laughed louder and longer. "It, not hit," Miss Roberts corrected. At that, "the country children laughed uproariously while the town girls merely smiled at Miss Roberts as she looked in their direction" For Cratis, the "humiliation was so deep and painful that I resolved to learn spoken English so well that no one would be likely to laugh at me again. Many years and a Ph.D. in English were required to salve my wound completely" As a result of such experiences, Cratis felt himself confronted with the need for radical selfchange. In his later reflections upon these experiences, he concluded, "I soon saw that my job was to make myself over. It was a shame to be Appalachian" As deep and lasting as this humiliation was, Cratis received a counter-balancing impetus to begin serious examination of his own experience and culture from other teachers, none of whom, ironically, were from the region of the southern Appalachians. For instance, it was a high school teacher who first awakened Cratis's academic interest in ballads. " When I was a junior" Cratis later recounted, "we studied a unit in ballads. Suddenly I realized these were the songs I knew, the ones my people sang. My teacher made a big fuss over this and advised I start collecting them. Tve been at it ever since" (Alexander 1966). As a high school student he began to collect ballads from his relatives and neighbors. Learning the tunes and writing the lyrics, his interest began to broaden and he soon began "to study the speech, tales, and oral rhetoric of the mountain folk" Recognizing the uniqueness and value of aspects of his "home" culture in the county, yet suffering as well its stigma and social humiliations, Cratis found himself in a cultural quandary. Even as he acculturated to mainstream middle-class norms, he retained his country identity. "/ was living in two cultures" he later told the Big Sandy News (July 3, 1979, 10). "/ couldn't let the people back on the creek know or they'd think I was puttin on the dog" Meanwhile, he entered the jazz age, slicked back his hair, shined his shoes to a two-toned gleam, and learned the popular songs of the day.3 As he put it years later, KI was as middle class in my behavior and appearance as it was possible for me to be and so careful with my personal grooming that a fly could not have rested on my slicked back hair without sliding off I even shined the insides of my shoe heels. That was the Jazz Age. I wore bell-bottom trousers, loud socks, and bow ties, sang 'Yes, Sir, She's My Baby and 'Blue Skies,' and danced the Charleston and the fox-trot, though not very well" Yet, despite his appearance of being in the middle class, the middle class was not in him. He was still, in a very fundamental sense, an Appalachian mountaineer-albeit now one clad in bell-bottoms, loud socks, and bow ties. "I felt dreadfully unreal I was a kind of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. That Appalachian boy who 3 This theme of cultural division is the unifying metaphor of the documentary film, Cratis Williams: Living the Divided Life (1998). �Introduction stood to one side and watched, reproved, chastised, and corrected the Jazz Age character I was playing in the charade, was the real me. It was he who would ask from time to time, 'How am I doing?" Despite, or perhaps because of, his early embarrassments at Louisa High School, Gratis endeavored to become both a successful and, by all evidence, popular stu-1 dent. He was president of his freshman class, secretary of the Athenian Literary Society during his sophomore year, and became centrally involved in school activities during his junior and senior years, serving at various times as pres- j ident of both the Science and English Clubs, member of the out-of-state debating team, and school representative in the district declamation contest. During his senior year he was editor of the Louisian^ ""the five-column four-page school newspaper published twice a month and printed by the Figure 2, As a high school graduate, 1928. Big Sandy News." The editorial direction of the paper soon reflected a strong Appalachian bent, although Gratis later did not recall having emphasized Appalachian themes in the paper. "/ had forgotten " he wrote in 1979, " until last year, fifty years later, when someone sent me a copy of one issue of the school paper I had edited, that on the back page of that paper I had written an essay on what it meant to be an Appalachian person. I was amazed that I hadnt changed my mind much. Also, I had included in the paper several mountain ballads, but I had forgotten that I had done that, too" At his high school commencement in 1928, Gratis was recipient of the Honor Student Trophy, "an 18-inch silver loving cup given by the faculty to the graduate who best exemplified scholarship and leadership" As salutatorian of his graduating class of forty, Gratis delivered the salutatorian address on May 25, 1928. According to the Big Sandy News, he painted "with beautiful diction a picture of happy, restful high school life," but recognized that graduates "have to give up these pleasures" and pursue their chosen courses in life. One day during Gratis s senior year of high school, Dr. Vaughan showed him a letter from James L. Creech, President of Cumberland College, a small junior college in Williamsburg, Kentucky. "The letter promised a tuition scholarship, a workship with a value equivalent to the cost of room and board" (Williams 1983,22). With the help of Dr. Vaughan, Gratis received both the scholarship and workship. On September 1, 1928, he left Lawrence County to attend Cumberland College. He always credited Cumberland College with providing him an opportunity to continue his education, an opportunity which would not have been available to him otherwise.4 After one year at Cumberland, Gratis became a one-room school teacher on Caines Creek.5 The year was 1929; he was eighteen years old. 4 Aiways a supporter of Cumberland College, one of Cratis's last requests was that certain investments from his estate, investments which had originated in an inheritance from his father a quarter of a century earlier, be used to endow a scholarship fund for mountain youth to attend Cumberland College, now a four-year institution. The "Curt and Mona Williams Scholarship" is awarded annually. �The Gratis Williams Chronicles: I Come to Boone Although he had begun a career as a teacher, a career which would not span seamless- Figure 3, Cratis stands tall behind his one-room school class on Caines Creek about 1929. He was probably standing on a wash tub, ly through the next fifty years of his life, he would continue on as a student. Cumberland College had whetted his appetite and he now had a dream: to work his way from oneroom school teacher to high school teacher to college teacher. He thought that to be a college teacher was to have climbed the mountaintop. He could work as a one-room school teacher based on his certificate and his year at Cumberland, but to pursue his dream he needed a college degree, or perhaps two or three of them. After teaching in the one-room school through the fall and winter, Cratis then attended the second semester and one summer term at the University of Kentucky. He did this each year (with the exception of a summer term spent at Morehead in 1932) until he received his Bachelor of Arts degree in June, 1933. High School Teacher and Principal (1933-1941) As his graduation from the University of Kentucky approached in the spring of 1933, Cratis began to face significant career choices. Already determined to extend his formal education beyond the B.A. degree in English which he was earning from Kentucky that June, Cratis had assumed that he would continue to teach in the Upper Caines Creek school during the year and pursue his masters degree during the summers. But as the Depression deepened, teachers' salaries fell faster than Cratis's pay scale; indeed, his salary had declined each of the preceding four years he taught in the one-room school. At that time, County Board of Education members in Lawrence County were elected by geographic districts and Curt Williams was well acquainted with Proctor Fyffe, Blaine's representative on the Lawrence County Board. With his father's assistance, through Proctor Fyffe, Cratis arranged to move to Blaine's high school beginning in the fall of 1933. Even 5 Cratis wrote extensively about his experiences during his first year as a one-room school teacher. See Williams (1995). �Introduction Figure 4. Ralph J. Williams with his grade school students, Caines Creek, 1938. Figure 5. Gratis with his two brothers: Ralph J. Williams (on the right) and Ottie Curtis, standing on the table, Caines Creek, circa 1930. Photo courtesy ofO. C. Williams. �The Gratis Williams Chronicles: I Come to Boone so, his salary would again be lower than it had been the previous year. He would be not the English teacher but the science teacher and club sponsor. He was to teach five classes: general science, biology, geography, physics, and agriculture. During the summer of 1933, Gratis remained in Lexington and took classes toward his master s degree in English, but he also audited lectures in beginning physics. He returned to Elaine just before the fall school term opened and had dinner the night before classes started at the home of David Morris, the principal of the high school, where he met the rest of the faculty. The next day he began his new career as a high school teacher. Elaine High School was a relatively new institution opened in 1929, one year after Gratis had completed his own high school degree in Louisa. In 1934 Dock Jordan, county superintendent since 1922, retired. David Morris was Figure 6. Curt Williams arriving at an understanding with his oldest son Gratis, late 1920s, selected as the new superintendent, and with only one year of high school teaching experience, twenty-three year old Gratis (who was a college graduate and had taken coursework at Morehead during the summer of 1932 in preparation for certification for principalship) became the principal at Elaine. As a young principal, Gratis was energetic, innovative, and brimming with confidence. His enthusiasm may have been less infectious than alarming, however, for his predecessor and boss, David Morris, rebuked him sharply following completion of his first year: "In your work this year, you put too much stress on intelligence tests. I believe I mentioned this to you several times before. There are several other things I want to discuss with you before school begins." As a consequence of such innovations as the testing program, Morris emphasized that Gratis was in a precarious situation, lacking both his own confidence and, he felt, that of his teachers. Gratis s second year as principal—and his first as English teacher—saw improved relations among the faculty, and Gratis became recognized as a capable administrator and teacher by both his own faculty and, through county-wide teachers' meetings, faculty at other schools as well. At these meetings he furthered a friendship with Sylvia Graham, a young English teacher at Louisa High School and recent graduate of Morehead, whom he had first met at similar meetings while teaching at the Upper Caines Creek School. At the time Gratis was principal, Elaine High �Introduction School was a school of about 85 students (Williams 1983, 30). Working as English teacher and principal, Gratis had to curtail his course of study at the University of Kentucky. However, he continued to attend at least one summer term each year. During this period, Gratis studied primarily with L.L. Dantzler, from whom he had taken an undergraduate survey of English literature. That class had included "a unit on the ballad, and when Professor Dantzler interpreted 'The Twa Corbies, * 'Edward,' and 'The Wife of Usher's Well,' I saw for the first time that the ballad is really great literature, that it lends itself to all sorts of humanistic approaches and interpretations" Throughout his undergraduate and graduate coursework, Gratis studied under Professor Dantzler's supervision, and when the time came for Gratis to think seriously about '7. While principal of Elaine his thesis, he turned naturally and easily to Professor High School. Dantzler: "/ said that I would like to get a master's degree in English and that I wanted to prepare a thesis on ballads.... He was so excited that he began puffing rapidly on his pipe and almost danced around the desk with it" Thus began the several year project in which Gratis interspersed teaching and administrating during the academic terms, studying and taking coursework during the summers, and riding his mule out into the countryside tracking down ballads at every opportunity which arose. "In the summertime when I would hear of some old man or old woman living far down in the head of a hollow, down the ridge ten to fifteen miles from where I grew up, I would get on the mule, ride over there, hear that person sing, and write down what I could. Sometimes that was difficult because the old person who started a song would sing faster than I could write" As Gratis collected more seriously, both his attitude toward and his appreciation of the ballad began to evolve. He reported in 1978, "Igathered songs from all of my relatives, including my father and mother, my grandmothers, my aunts, and my father's cousins, the Boggses, for my people were in the musical tradition. Please understand now that while all of this was going on I was deeply ashamed of mountain music. The only thing respectable about studying the ballad had to do with the textual matter of the ballad itself. But my parents were musical. In fact, my relatives were all musical" Over time, and with deepening resonance, the music slowly swayed Cratis's orientation, but his thesis remained focused on text. After being as thorough as possible in his collection of ballads and his comparison of them with other published sources, he hunt-and-pecked his way through a submissable copy of the 450-page manuscript, for he was too poor to afford a typist. He submitted two copies—the original and a carbon—but, not being able to afford paper for a second carbon, he wasn't �The Gratis Williams Chronicles: I Come to Boone able to keep a copy for himself.6 He was awarded his master's degree in June 1937, but stayed in Lexington that summer to begin earning credits toward a Ph.D. On August 7, 1937, shortly after returning to Lawrence County from the second summer session at the University of Kentucky, Gratis Williams married Sylvia Graham, "an English teacher, poet, and amateur actress. A native of Cherokee in Lawrence County, Kentucky, Sylvia was a graduate of the academy at Berea College and ofMorehead State Teachers College (University)" (Williams 1975a, 67-68). She was one of three children born to Lemual Wakeman Graham and Berta Francis Cooper Graham, both of Lawrence County (Gratis Williams's letter to Theodore B. Walker, Feb. 11, 1980). Sylvia was well known locally for her literary accomplishments, having published stories and poems in the literary magazines of both Morehead I State and the University of Kentucky, as well as in local papers. She had suffered health problems earlier, contracting tuberculosis of the lung and spending a period of time taking "the cure" in Southern Pines, North Carolina. Her sister Georgia died of the disease, but it was believed that Sylvia had recovered fully. As late as 1938, she received a clean bill of health from her physician in his report to the Lawrence County Board of Education. Gratis first "called on" Sylvia at her parents' home in Cherokee in 1931, and they probably Figure 8, Christmas 1933. Horsing around were at Morehead at the same time during the with Ethel Gambill and two dolls, Elaine, summer of 1932. Six years and many teachers' Kentucky. During this period, Gratis would meetings after first courting) they were married often ride his mule far into the hollows of , r , . ^ , , , T^ , . , rj it t i - i before the magistrate in Catlettsbure, Kentucky. T, eastern Kentucky in search of ballads, which \ \\ \ \ he collected tn his master's thai,. Following the wedding, Gratis remained at Blaine High School while Sylvia continued to teach at Louisa, setting the tone for a marriage that simultaneously suffered and was strengthened from frequent and extended periods of separation, including most summers when Gratis continued to return to Lexington to work on his Ph.D. In 1936, William A. Cheek, a graduate of Louisa High School (where he and Gratis had been in the same class, although Cheek was exactly six years older having been born April 5, 1905) had become principal of Louisa High School (Wolfford ©1972, 161). In 1938 Cheek challenged and supplanted David Morris as superintendent, and the three men rotated positions; Morris returned as principal at Blaine, and Gratis replaced Cheek as prin"Twenty years afer he completed his master's thesis (and twenty years since he had last seen a copy), he agreed to a request to put the thesis on microcard because there was scholarly value in the texts of the ballads. Malcolm Laws subsequently "used it extensively in revising his handbook, Native American Balladry." �Introduction cipal of Louisa High School which was now consolidated with the county system and had twice the enrollment of when he had been a student there some ten years earlier. It had become "one of the larger high schools in eastern Kentucky" with roughly 500 students and a faculty of twenty-two, three of whom had been there when Gratis was a student. Gratis was twenty-seven years old and he was now the only one there with a masters degree. Those teachers who had most impressed him as a student-'people with a master's degree and from outside the region"-had been victims of the Depression: "Local pressures to replace them with home grown talent with only a bachelor's degree had driven them away" In his first year as principal Gratis directed the development of both a "school-wide counseling program and a testing program" (Williams 1983, 32-33). Sylvia Graham Williams remained on the faculty as an English teacher and, at times, school librarian. As a high school principal in Louisa, Gratis was increasingly active in professional associations. In the fall of 1938, he attended the annual meeting of the Eastern Kentucky Education Association and served on its board of directors until 1941 (Big Sandy News Nov. 4, 1938, 1; Nov. 18, 1938, 1). Louisa High School made great strides in those years. In addition to the innovative testing and counseling programs, Gratis worked to enlarge and improve the library (Big Sandy News Feb. 24, 1939, 1) and encouraged the "organization of a student government to aid the faculty in promoting school morale" (Big Sandy News Mar. 24, 1939, 1). He also initiated a vocational training program, and on September 1, 1939, the Big Sandy News (1) reported, "The new vocational-agriculture department, inaugurated this year, is already proving popular and a number of rural students as well as a few Louisa students are enrolled for the course." He also laid the groundwork for a complementary college-prep track. To combine vocational education and college preparation in the same school was innovative at the time, and it marked an important ambition in Cratiss agenda for the high school. In addition to its innovative programs, the high school was simply booming as never before. The graduating class of 1940, numbering 61 students, was "the largest in the history of the school" (Big Sandy News May 10, 1940, 1). The following fall the Big Sandy News proudly reported that 23 Louisa High School graduates were set to enter college (Sept. 13, 1940, 1). Yet all was not well in Cratis's professional life. His agenda for Louisa High School was not shared by the county's central administration, and without any control over pivotal matters such as personnel decisions, Gratis feared that his innovations could not be fully implemented. Faculty morale was low and Gratis became concerned about his own viability as principal. He began to entertain seriously the idea of looking for a new position, perhaps at a college or a junior college. When Gratis left for Lexington in the summer of 1940, he took these worries with him. He wrote Sylvia, "It would not surprise me to find open rebellion in the school this year. I really dread the year" (July 30, 1940). He turned for advice to his friend, Richard M. Weaver,7 who urged him to leave Lawrence County. 'Gratis became friends with Weaver during their summer sessions together at the University of Kentucky; their friendship lasted until Weaver's death in 1963. Weaver authored Ideas Have Consequences (1948) and The Ethics of Rhetoric (1953). �The Gratis Williams Chronicles: I Come to Boone Weaver himself was in the process of leaving Texas A&M for doctoral work at Louisiana State, "where he plans to do a dissertation in American lit." Weaver "tells me that he hopes I'm on my way out of Lawrence County, that Til never do any good until I cut loose. 'Sudden Salvation is what I need, I think there's a whole lot to what he says' (to Sylvia, June 30, 1940). Gratis began to look more seriously for other jobs, and he applied for several positions. Playfully echoing Weaver's comment from earlier in the summer, he wrote Sylvia on July 30, "If there could be some 'call' to another place where I might persevere more favorably in the cause of the Lord!' As the summer of 1940 edged toward fall, it became clear that Gratis would return to Louisa, and he began to plan accordingly. However, Sylvias position remained unsettled; she and several other teachers simply did not know whether or not they were to be retained. The uncertainty of Sylvias employment added to an already precarious financial situation for the couple. Financial stresses had remained a constant throughout Cratis's life, and he and Sylvia had gotten into the habit of "selling" their checks in advance for less than facevalue, easing pressures momentarily (particularly during the summer months when Gratis was at school in Lexington) but accentuating them down the road. Financial pressure made Sylvias employment of paramount importance, and the situation became increasingly acute as Sylvia began to experience medical difficulties, including dental problems, chronic sore throats, coughs, and fatigue. Both she and Gratis attributed her fatigue to tonsillitis aggravated by persistent worry about jobs, money, and increasingly, politics. In the end, Sylvia was not retained for the 1940-1941 school year. Board of Education elections were scheduled for the fall. Three of the five seats were up for election and the possibility of another route to "salvation" began to open in front of Gratis. If the majority on the Board could be reconstituted, the appointment of a new superintendent and changes in the county's agenda might be possible. Gratis was encouraged by other opponents of Superintendent William Cheek, including David Morris, to run his own slate of candidates for the Board. In mid-August, Gratis agreed to "stand-for" superintendent, at least after a fashion: "If Bill is not to be superintendent next time, I shall accept the office. But Im making no fight of any kind to get it. If I fought for it, I'd be compromising myself to become an ass just as Bill has done. If Board members are elected to vote for me, very well and good' (to Sylvia, August 13, 1940). It promised to be an up-hill non-fight as the two members of the Board of Education not standing for election that fall were already committed to Cheek. To be successful, the challenger would have to win all three of the remaining seats. The campaign was less about educational policy than personalities and, ultimately, power. The advertisements of Cheeks candidates attacked both Gratis and David Morris. Gratis would later tell the story that his opposition in that election campaigned by declaring Gratis to be the favored grandson of David O. Williams, a man of considerable (ill-reputed) reputation in Lawrence County, and then challenging the voters: "Do you want David Williams's grandson to educate your children?" Evidently they did not. The effort to wrest control of the Board of Education from those pledged to Cheek fell short, and Gratis, who in his own terms "led a rebellion against my superintendent in Lawrence County" (Williams �Introduction Figure 9. "The Louisa High School Building, distinguished by its bell tower, was the home for about twenty years of the Kentucky Normal College, which closed its doors in 1922 and sold its plant to the Louisa Public Schools. I attended high school in this building, 1924-1928. While I was a student there, the school had a maximum enrollment (9-12) of 225 and a teaching staff of 11, Ten years after graduation from the school I returned as principal. By then, this building was being used for junior high classes (grades 7-9). Senior high school students used a newer building, occupied first about 1933 and still standing, next door to this one. My office (1938-1941) was in the newer building," Gratis Williams, May 3, 1983. �The Gratis Williams Chronicles: I Come to Boone Figure 10. Cratis Williams, center, principal of Louisa High School, surrounded by photos of his faculty in this arrangement from the 1940 annual of Louisa High School, The Scarlack. �Introduction 1983, 35), now found it necessary to seek employment outside of Lawrence County. His career as a high school principal ended unceremoniously following the 1940-1941 academic year. Cheeks successful defense of his position as superintendent in the fall of 1940, following his first two year term, cemented his hold on the position. He remained as superintendent until his retirement in the 1970s (Big Sandy News Sept. 20, 1978, 3). The Search for a Suitable Position Unwelcome in the Lawrence County school system, Gratis began what was to become an arduous, year-and-a-half quest for a suitable position in public education. Initially dismayed upon discovering that his reputation as a malcontent did not end at the county line, he was "shocked to learn that superintendents of other systems who were looking for principals viewed me as a troublemaker and one who might not be depended upon for loyalty" (Williams 1983, 35). He came to feel that as "one who had rebelled against his school administration and lost" he could expect no quarter from school administrators in the area, perhaps in all of eastern Kentucky. He found it necessary to cast his net widely, and in the spring of 1941 he made applications for graduate fellowships, teaching positions in colleges and junior colleges, and principalships and superintendencies (see Gratis Williams to E.F. Farquhar, Jan. 2, 1941). As the spring term at Louisa High School neared its conclusion, he had received no offers of any sort; following the graduation of the class of 1941, Gratis joined Sylvia among the ranks of the unemployed. Although still beleaguered by debt, worried about Sylvia's continued frail health, and increasingly frustrated by his inability to find employment, in June, Gratis took time out to participate in Jean Thomas's American Folk Song Festival, earning her praise. "The Traipsin' Woman" wrote to Gratis on June 15, 1941, "Your voice and your selections were genuine and most charming. I have not only received telegrams and letters about your fine appearance but many persons have come personally to me to express their appreciation of your part in making our Festival one of the greatest successes ever witnessed." She invited him to appear at the next festival, scheduled for June, 1942, as well as to attend a private reception at her "Wee House in the Wood" (Thomas to Williams, May 26, 1942), although it is not clear whether he accepted these invitations. Desperately in need of income, Gratis did not return to the University of Kentucky that summer but instead traveled to Ohio in search of work of any sort. Sylvia remained at their rented home in Louisa, although she increasingly stayed with her parents in Cherokee. In mid-June, Gratis began work on the night-shift at a farm implement company, New Idea, Inc., in Coldwater, Ohio, a job he had gotten by telephone. Gratis continued to search for a teaching job, including registering with the Kentucky branch of the U.S. Employment Office's Teacher Placement Program; soon he discovered that he could obtain teaching certification in Ohio, and he began seeking positions teaching school there as well (Sylvia to Gratis, Aug. 19, 1941). But his efforts remained futile, and in August he joined the College Placement Bureau in Nashville and a public school placement agency in Columbus. He had no immediate inquiries, failed in applications made as far away as �The Gratis Williams Chronicles: I Come to Boone Mississippi and as close to home as his "desperate effort to get an instructor's position at the new junior college in Ashland" and continued to work at New Idea, Inc. As he later recalled, New Idea offered him a small wage increase that did little to dampen his feeling of being "caught in a job that I detested and that could have been performed better by an ambitious high school graduate, like my immediate supervisor, but I had to continue in it" After his raise, he earned $47.15 every ten days, and on occasional weekends he was able to supplement that by working for as many hours as he was physically capable at a local canning factory for $0.35 an hour. With another raise possible if he stayed through Christmas, he wrote Sylvia, they might soon be able to "really begin paying debts, if nothing serious happens to either of us. But I'd much rather be in a teaching job that I could afford to accept" (Sept. 8, 1941). These were dark days indeed for Gratis. He counted implicitly on Sylvia to help him through his anguish. His letter of August 26, 1941, is poignant, "When I worry about the future, when there is naked terror in my soul, and blind fear in my eyes, it's you who can give jull solacement to my soul, and quiet soothing to my fears" But worry there was. Sylvias health was not improving (they had already decided that she was too weak to follow him to Ohio); he was not yet able to earn enough to make much debt-reduction; his efforts at finding a teaching position were proving futile; and now there were rumblings at the farm implements company, which, despite a spate of layoffs, had kept Gratis and another Lawrence County man, to the evident dismay of the majority of local employees. Gratis tried to approach the situation philosophically, telling Sylvia, "Its the same old thing we contend with in teaching. It's like I've always said: People are the same wherever you find them. There is the same gossip, the same jealousy, the same lack of understanding everywhere you go. We shall never escape it. We can only learn how to abide it best. We must do that if we are to be successful" (Sept. 8, 1941). Gratis tried to stave off his own despondency and depression, oddly seeking the rhetorical salve of Depression-laden Republican-ism: "But 'prosperity is just around the corner. * That helped to keep a whole country sustained, even after there wasn't any corner, after it had become stretched-out into a concave, downward-trending plane of misery and want and pain and anguish, but the slogan still did them good. It gave them a hope that didn't exist and a faith that never was. Perhaps I can suck a few bitter drops of surcease from its withered udders too" (Aug. 26, 1941). Nonetheless, his anxieties were building to a fevered pitch as he wrote to Sylvia on Aug. 27, 1941, " Nothing about jobs. Nothing whatever. Fm so filled with waiting for the letter that will change my future! I can hardly sleep. I want it to come so bad" The only teaching offer he received was from Paintsville, Kentucky, which was able to offer him only about $100 a month, or about a third less than he was making in Ohio. Still hoping to "find a principalship or a college instructorship available somewhere" and fearful that he simply could not afford to accept the position, Gratis "advised one of my supporters, an English teacher who left the Lawrence County school system when I did to apply for the position" (Williams 1983, 37). Her name, ironically, was Miss Roberts. After she was hired, he must have taken some heart from a December 1, 1941 letter from R. G. Huey, Superintendent of Paintsville Public Schools: "It was with real regret that I was unable to �Introduction offer you the salary sufficient to interest you at the time we hired. We did appreciate greatly your recommendation of Miss Roberts.... With regard to your own work in Lawrence County, every school man in the valley recognizes the excellent piece of work you did in developing the Louisa High School and we have all known the political circumstances which were connected with your giving up the work. You will find that the school teachers in this section are in accord in feeling that the matter is to your credit." Nonetheless, as his rejection letters piled up and his hopes for a teaching position for the fall faded, Gratis began to fear that his career in education was finished: " There is really small possibility of my getting a school job now. Next year my chances wont be as good as they have been this year. So I suppose I am through with teaching. It looks as if there is no possibility of my returning. I mean returning with credit to myself Idont want to return any other way" (to Sylvia, Sept. 13, 1941). Later in the month, however, a glimmer of hope dawned when Gratis "received a telephone call from Professor Chapell Wilson at Appalachian State Teachers College in Boone, North Carolina. He had received a set of my credentials from the College Placement Bureau and would like to meet me at Muncie, Indiana, near the end of the following week. I agreed to meet him" Chapell Wilson was to call the next Monday to make the final arrangements. Gratis went to the Coldwater Public Library in search of information on the College and the town, "[hjaving never heard of Appalachian State Teachers College ... I found that Boone, population 1,200, is located in the remote mountain region of northwestern North Carolina and was then the southern terminus of the Eastern Tennessee and Western North Carolina Railroad, but I could find nothing about the college" Wilson never called. Even so, Gratis took time off from his job to attend the same professional meeting in Indiana which Wilson was scheduled to attend. They still did not meet. However, taking time off from New Idea, Inc. to attend the meeting may have contributed to Gratiss losing the job in Coldwater on December 5, 1941. Earlier in the fall, Sylvia had released the house they were renting in Louisa, put their belongings into storage, and gone to Cherokee to live with her parents "while we waited for better times' (Williams 1983, 39). After losing his job in Ohio, Gratis joined her there for Christmas, one so dominated by their ominous sense of debt (Gratis ''owed nearly $2,000, much of it to restless, uneasy creditors") and despair at the job situation that they did not even exchange Christmas gifts in 1941—a Christmas which would prove to be their last one together. Borrowing $20 from his mother-in-law, Gratis left shortly after New Years to plumb for work in the Ashland, Ironton, Huntington, Charleston area. February found him back in Cherokee, waiting anxiously for responses to the job applications which he had left "everywhere I could in the four cities" (Williams 1983, 40). Finally, he received a letter from International Nickel Company in Huntington inviting him to interview for the position of "assistant to the director of the Apprentice School there" Both Sylvia and he "were so excited that we wept. We were both amazed that the invitation to come for an interview was in response to an application I had filed in early June of 1941" He was offered the position, beginning at $160 a month, the highest salary he had ever received. He began immediately as an instructor of shop mathematics. Sylvia joined �The Gratis Williams Chronicles: I Come to Boone him on April 1, and they moved into a second floor apartment at 408 Fifth Avenue (Williams 1983, 40, 42). Buoyed both financially and emotionally, but recognizing that Gratis s new position was at best a temporary salve, or perhaps a stepping stone, they decided that Gratis should explore the prospects of a doctoral program in English which might offer an assistantship sufficient for them to live on while he worked on the degree. He sent out applications and within a few weeks "received a letter from Dr. Noyes at the University of Illinois. I had been accepted for doctoral work and was offered an $1,800 assistantship beginning in September. I accepted the offer of the assistantship immediately" (Williams 1983, 46). Their elation, however, was short-lived. After joining him in Huntington, Sylvia again developed a recurring and painful sore throat. In May she was examined and told she had "secondary tuberculosis" of the throat. Her physician, Dr. Proctor Sparks, who had grown up in Elaine, advised Gratis to relocate to a more therapeutically hospitable climate, suggesting that he "apply for a position with the college at Boone, North Carolina, a quaint little town located in the high mountains where the air was pure. There was an outside chance that Sylvia might recover if she lived there or in a place like Arizona" Failing that, he advised immediate application to the Pinecrest Sanitarium at Beckley, West Virginia. Having never heard again from Chapell Wilson, Gratis and Sylvia worked to secure her admission at Pinecrest. There were no immediate openings available; she was finally admitted on July 7, 1942, by which time she had worsened considerably. Even so, following her examination upon admission to Pinecrest, the doctors felt that "with a good diet, rest, an optimistic outlook, and a new medication for reducing soreness in her throat she might recover, since the disease had not advanced very far, but she would be a patient for a long time, perhaps a year or two or longer' (Williams 1983, 47-48). Gratis informed Dr. Noyes at the University of Illinois that he would be unable to accept the offered assistantship. He also released their apartment in Huntington and located less expensive quarters in a rooming house. And he tried to focus his attention on performing his job at International Nickel. "Sudden Salvation": Coming to Boone "About9 oclock Friday morning" late August of 1942, Gratis finally received the longawaited telephone call from Professor Chapell Wilson in Boone, North Carolina, who offered him a one-year teaching position at the Appalachian Demonstration High School. With this telephone call Gratis begins the memoir to follow, and thus begins a saga which shaped both the rest of his life and the small college which grew into Appalachian State University. Through their daily correspondence that fall, Sylvia was both sounding board and intimate advisor for Gratis, as she had been for the five years of their marriage. In part it was through that correspondence that Gratis was able to recapture, between 1978 and 1983, many of the intimate details of his daily activities during that critical, pivotal period �Introduction in his life. With a new, long-awaited job and a country going to war, Cratis's immediate concern was Sylvia's declining health. He wrote H. Mayo Williams (Sept. 12, 1942), "Confidentially, Mayo, Sylvia is having a hard time of it. Im very much worried about her,.. Blast it all, we just didn't get in position to do anything for her in time, I believe. Sometimes Im afraid it's too late now. Im really afraid Til lose her... And something will go out of me when she's gone. You know I love that woman an awful lot. She is about the most courageous person in the face of adversity I've ever seen" Sylvia's death on December 11,1942 left Gratis devastated. Yet the new colleagues who surrounded him helped him through the remainder of the year and helped him to reestablish his life. As he reflected in a letter (July 19, 1973) to Hugh and Ruby (Donald) Daniel, fellow teachers at the high school, "What good friends the three of you [including Herbert Wey] have been to me! And how fortunate I was to have such supportive intimates as you three in my first and hardest year in Bo one when I was filled with bitterness, regret, grief, and self-doubt. (Hugh and I had dinner together at Dr. Whitener's the night Sylvia died.) Your support and durable friendship restored me and have helped me through the years" The day after his arrival in Boone, Gratis found himself in the classroom, teaching drama ranging from Aristophanes to Shakespeare, while establishing his reputation as a scholar of regional verbal arts, and for many young people, firmly establishing the legitimacy of regional culture. As Mrs. Essie Hayes, a former student, recalls, "In those days at Appalachian High School we didn't hear terms like 'economically deprived,' yet we were vaguely aware that people outside the mountains had material things beyond our dreams. We never talked of being 'culturally deprived,' but we had acquired just enough sophistication to feel apologetic about our lack of prosperity, to be a little chagrined at the quaint dialect of some of our neighbors and kin, and to be downright embarrassed at their twangy, nasal rendition of mountain music. Then, Gratis Williams, in assembly one day and after being introduced by the high school principal, Herbert Wey, talked about his own mountain heritage with a pride that was contagious. Later, he delighted us by actually singing, unaccompanied, those songs we had thought backwoodsy. We knew that they were all right because by this time we knew that this inspiring scholar wouldn't be up there singing them in assembly if they weren't" (Hayes 1976, 9-10). On Cratis's part, he was adjusting well to Boone, writing to H. Mayo Williams (Sept. 12, 1942) regarding his class, Methods of Teaching English in High School, "it has twenty-eight of the prettiest southern belles in it you mi' nigh ever saw—and one boy, a Yankee from New York City, They are all seniors and English majors. I am having a good time. I am not lonely like I was in Huntington. There is plenty to do" In the summer of 1943 Gratis offered his first course focused on Appalachian subject matter, a course in traditional ballads and songs, using recordings from the Abrams collections. Herb Wey recalls that "Williams and his class regularly arranged songfests at the homes of native singers in Watauga County and recorded for the collection the singing that took place there" (Wey 1976, 1). Gratis also gave programs and lectures for students, faculty, and townspeople, while his reputation as a public speaker and entertainer well versed in the narrative and musical traditions of the Appalachians spread. �The Gratis Williams Chronicles: I Come to Boone For four years, from 1942 until the fall of 1946, when he moved over to Appalachian State Teachers College, Gratis was a "critic teacher" at the Demonstration High School, as well as director of dramatics and eventually assistant principal. In 1946 Gratis planned to finally continue his doctoral study. Clearly inspired by the innovative, experimental leadership of his principal, Herb Wey, and by his own success both in the classroom and as director of the first school-wide counseling program established in North Carolina, he chose the program in counseling and guidance at Indiana University, and was awarded a teaching assistantship in English at the Indiana University High School. Having been feted the previous evening by his friends, he was packing his bags in anticipation of departing the next day when Chapell Wilson called upon him at the behest of President Dougherty. Mr. Wilson literally sat on his trunk in order to get Cratis's undivided attention for the persuasion that he needed to exercise. Mr. Wilson and President Dougherty were faced with a "spate of faculty resignations on the eve of the beginning of the fall quarter' (Williams n.d., 1), that left the College short-handed and in desperate need of experienced faculty. Among the faculty leaving the College was Dr. Amos Abrarns, Cratis's friend and collaborator in the collection of mountain ballads and stories, who had resigned to become the editor of North Carolina Education. Gratis was persuaded to come into the English department to replace Dr. Abrams in teaching speech and as adviser to the cheerleaders. Within the English department, "Only the new chairman, young Gray don P. Eggers, was there from the year before' (Williams n.d., 3). Gratis moved from Newland Hall, where he had lived as resident counselor for the 1945-1946 year, back into Faculty Apartments. He shared an apartment with Walter Hawkinson, new to the mathematics department, and embarked upon the next phase of his professional life. Recalling the demanding schedule of his work load as a full-time college teacher, Gratis lists the following courses: "two sections throughout the year of freshman English, each meeting five hours a week for three hours of credit a quarter, the year-long survey of American literature, a three-quarter sequence of Southern poets, modern drama, and the short story, a three-quarter sequence of contemporary literature, the American novel, and play production, and speech as a sixth course one quarter.'" He had other responsibilities as well: "I directed Play crafters, which produced three full-length plays during the year, served as the faculty adviser for the cheerleaders and went with them to out-of-town games, and supervised the remedial English laboratory in the afternoon ten hours a week. I also had one section of freshmen for orientation that met once a week, and I was responsible for assisting these freshmen with their schedules at registration time" A few other tasks were added to a schedule that left little time for reflection, including "administering the freshman English placement tests at the beginning of each quarter and helping to score the papers, assisting with registration each quarter, and being present to call off grades to be entered on student records after the close of each quarter. We attended faculty meetings at least one hour each Monday afternoon and chapel exercises in the auditorium each morning. Except for the lunch hour we were expected to be in our offices for student conferences, when not scheduled for class or other commitments, from 8 to 5 o'clock Monday through Friday and from 8 to 12 Saturday morning" (n.d., 4-5). Lest one think that Gratis took this burden lightly, he comments that "/ had never �Introduction worked so hard in my life before that quarter" His teaching, service, and meeting demands were complicated by the additional personal responsibility for his own technical support: "/ bought my own stencils and mimeograph paper, duplicator carbons and paper, duplicator spirits, and mimeograph ink and pads. I typed my own tests and handouts, cut my own stencils, and operated the mimeograph machine and the duplicator myself, carrying with me the supplies I would need when I made trips to the office of the registrar, where the machines were kept. No funds for instructional supplies and equipment were available" (n.d., 6). Working from a "shabby" little office under the men's restroom in the basement of the Administration Building, Gratis sought relief from his insurmountable work load in a strategy which also served his students well. Recruiting advanced students to help him with the remedial laboratory, Playcrafters, and the cheerleaders, he found more time to spend with his students and with their work. He was rewarded with enthusiasm, skillful attention to their tasks, and loyalty by his advanced students for the responsibility bestowed upon them. His pedagogical innovations led to heightened relations with his students: "/ was relating to my students, especially the English majors and the Playcrafters, in both a personal and a masterapprentice relationship. The relationship was informal, playful, mutually respectful. I enjoyed them as competent students and interesting persons and felt that they enjoyed me as a qualified teacher and a person of integrity with a dash of teasing mischief in my personality" (n.d., 8-9). Following World War II, the large number of GFs entering college found support in the remedial laboratory which Gratis supervised. Equally important was Cratis's sensitivity to first generation college students and to older students. As H.G. Jones recalled, "From the moment I entered his public speaking class that fall of 1946, I felt at ease with 'Mr. Williams,' as we deferentially called him. He was older than I, but my fellow veterans and I were older than many of our classmates. The teacher seemed to be a little awed by our experiences in the war, and he encouraged us to discuss them. He never drenched us with his knowledge—indeed, his technique was to make us think that he was only a step or so ahead of us. Undoubtedly remembering his mortification when a citified high school teacher at Louisa, Kentucky, ridiculed his backwoods pronunciation, Williams was careful not to embarrass a student." As example of this sensitivity Jones recalls, "A native of Wilkes County clearly sought to camouflage his natural speech when he made his first appearance before the class. Williams listened intently, but his analysis contained not a word of criticism. Indeed, he picked out the remnants of Wilkesiana that had slipped through, and he praised them as genuine Appalachian speech that carried generations of meaning and beauty. The lesson was not lost on the student, who soon lapsed back into his natural speech" (Jones 1985, 2). From 1946 to 1958 Gratis was a teacher of English, speech, and dramatics at Appalachian. During those years he directed the productions of Playcrafters, was the faculty adviser for the student newspaper, the first faculty director of the artists and lecture series, and a member of several faculty committees. "After two or three years as a college teacher in a small institution in which the faculty members are assigned extra tasks done by personnel employed specifically for doing them in larger and more affluent colleges, I accepted what seemed a foregone conclusion to me. I would always be spending much time and energy doing jobs unre- �The Gratis Williams Chronicles: I Come to Boone iated to my teaching assignments' (n.d., 21). Gratis contemplated his acceptance of the role of overworked educator: "At no time during my 12 years of experience as a fall-time college teacher did I ever reach the place that I would be the reflective professor meandering about, while puffing leisurely a meerschaum packed with rare imported tobaccos, among books and publications in a book-lined study or office...As late as 19571found, after logging my time for a few weeks, that I was working over 60 hours a week. By then, though, I had accepted what seemed inevitable to me: In successful college teaching there is no exit from long hours and hard work, which are tolerable only because the joy of teaching is great" (n.d., 22). Subject to the English department tradition of unloading the least desirable courses—American Literature—on the junior staff members, Gratis discovered a new "worth," which his students shared, in a field that had also been disdained at the University of Kentucky during his M.A. study. Developing a reading plan for his doctoral research to catch up on "great American fiction and criticism and some of the more important twentieth century poets and playwrights, "he spent the summers of 1948 and 1949 in New York City "and lived in a cheap hotel where I read in the New York Public Library. The reading kept firing me up" (Big Sandy News July 3, 1979, 10). Beginning coursework in pursuit of the Ph.D. in English from New York University, he took a leave of absence during the 1949-1950 year to complete his coursework while supporting himself with a teaching assistantship at Washington Square College of New York University. Returning to Boone, Gratis began to weigh various topics for his Ph.D. dissertation, writing to friends (Dec. 18, 1951), "I have toyed with three possible subjects: the folklore of western North Carolina, the use of folklore in southern fiction since 1930, and the southern mountaineer in fiction" He concluded that "At the moment the third appeals to me most," and he pursued that topic. Gratis optimistically informed his friends that having passed his oral exam he would use his spare time to improve his German to fulfill his foreign language requirement, after which "I judge that I shall be getting my degree in August of 1955." Having failed his oral exam in English once, he considered it fortunate that "there will be no more exams in English and American literature for me." Writing a congratulatory letter upon H.G.Joness appointment as State Archivist in 1956, Gratis confided: "*/ recall having a dancing stomach, hives, and paining muscles during the two years from the time I completed my graduate courses to the time I passed the oral examinations. ' Now, he said, 7am devoting full-time work to writing the dissertation... . So far I have written about 150 pages this summer and am hoping to do about 100 more this month. I already had about 200 pages written. The dss will perhaps run to 700 pages" Qones 1985, 9). Gratis finished his dissertation, The Southern Mountaineer in Fact and Fiction, in 1959 and it ran to 1600 pages. After two years, which his committee required for reading it, he received his Ph.D. in 1961. In 1962 he was awarded the Founders Day Certificate for Excellence from NYU for his dissertation. Cratiss dissertation is a comprehensive study of the cultural and literary history of Appalachian people and the enormous body of literature, both fiction and non-fiction, written about mountain people to 1959. It remains the most �Introduction Figure 11. Gratis Williams and friend, circa 1949. II CAIiuLlNA. OF Figure 12, . ( C T O B E K 1 5 Im ^ �The Gratis Williams Chronicles: I Come to Boone important and comprehensive work on the subject, and "established Gratis as the foremost spokesman for the region on its cultural history and fiction." Dr. W.D.Weatherford, President of Berea College and a significant force behind publication of The Southern Appalachian Region: A Survey (Ford 1967) "encouraged Gratis to edit his dissertation for publication. For whatever reason, probably because he was busy with other tasks, he never complied" (Jones 1986, 292). However, The Appalachian Journal published an abridged version completed by Martha H. Pipes in four installments in 1975-1976 (Williams 1975, 1976a, 1976b, 1976c). While in New York City in 1949, Gratis kindled a new relationship with Elizabeth Lingerfelt, whom he had met briefly in 1947 in Boone. Born on August 22, 1927, Libby was the daughter of the city manager in Elizabethton, Tennessee. The family's fortunes turned with the Depression, and they retreated to Libby's father's family home in the small community of Clearwater, near Athens, Tennessee. Like her father before her, Libby grew up on the family farm, leaving to attend East Tennessee State College from which she graduated in 1947. Her college roommate, Beverly Townsend (Southerland), transferred to Appalachian State Teachers College, where she became active in Playcrafters and, like many others, a devoted fan of Gratis Williams (Elizabeth Williams 1998). After graduation from college, Libby responded to her sisters invitation to come to New York City. Fresh from small-town college life, Libby was eager to embrace and experience the wonders of New York, and moved in with her sister's family on Long Island. She soon began working as a receptionist for Brooke Cadwallader, an exclusive Fifth Avenue designer. At this time, according to Libby, "you could buy a bus ticket and pick your route" so she decided to route a trip home to Tennessee through Boone and visit her old roommate Beverly. Active in Playcrafters, Beverly "admired Gratis and wanted me to meet him. He was working on a set in the old Administration Building. She introduced us, and that was the end of that" (Elizabeth Williams 1998). Libby returned to New York, moving into a furnished room on Long Island. During the summer of 1949 her friend Beverly came to New York and organized a gathering of friends which included Libby and Gratis. However, after Beverly returned home, Libby continued her life in New York, and Gratis returned to Boone, having completed his first summer's course work. The next summer, Gratis returned to New York and the social events of the previous summer were repeated, "Beverly came, Gratis said he'd tried to call me but hadn't connected, we parti ed, and then when they all left, we got married... the end of July, 1949" (Elizabeth Williams 1998). H.G. Jones, former student and fellow Ph.D. student at NYU, reported that Gratis and Libby were "the first couple to be married in Levittown, Long Island, and the developers of the brand-new model city treated them to a ceremony of almost royal proportions. The news media gave the affair wide coverage and my former English teacher and his bride were instant celebrities in Gotham" (1985, 4). Gratis and Libby returned to Boone just after the school year began in 1950, and moved into a three room apartment in Faculty Apartments. Libby's careful attention to Cratis's continuing health needs are clear in his correspondence. The following year Gratis �Introduction wrote to friends (Dec. 18, 1951) that "Libby and I are very happy that we now have an opportunity to relax. I have been a hard-working student and teacher ever since she has known me, and now she's going to see another side of me. She has been very helpful in conducting with me reviews over stacks of notes, piles of reviews, and loads of handbooks. Also, since she has gone in strongly for the new scientific diets and cooking, I have thrived beneath her care. I've been dutiful and faithful in taking my vegetable juice cocktails, vitamins, raw salads, fruits, liver, heart, brains and eggs, her own enriched home-baked breads, yogurt, etc. No doubt I am the most prophalactic (sic) man in Boone and certainly the most virile in our faculty." Gratis s health needs had been of concern throughout the forties. His Registration Certificate with the Selective Service dated October, 1940 lists him as five feet, four-andone-half inches tall, 146 pounds, with "brown" hair, and a "ruddy" complexion. Even as his first wife, Sylvia, lay dying of tuberculosis, Gratis fought to overcome a small spot which was discovered in his own lungs. One theme of the memoir which follows is his own struggle to maintain and improve his health against the specter of tuberculosis. Although classified 4-F by the Selective Service in May, 1943, Gratis never bore the full brunt of the disease and was able to regain his health. Libby was soon busy as a homemaker and began to know the many friends that Gratis had cultivated as an eligible bachelor. Walter Hawkinson had married Martha Grey, who taught at the Demonstration High School from 1944 until 1951, and they too lived in Faculty Apartments. Over the years the Williamses and Hawkinsons spent Christmas eves together, and alternated in the birth of their children; Murray and John Hawkinson were born in 1952 and 1954, while Sophie Williams was born February 18, 1953 and David Gratis Williams was born April 25, 1955. The summer of 1954 saw the Williams family settling into their new, yet unfinished home, where Gratis spent "long hours each day on staining, steel-wooling, and finishing... " while remaining was 'much to be done in decorating the grounds" (Jones 1985, 4). That summer Gratis was an Angier Duke Research Scholar and spent six weeks in the Duke University Library studying the history, social customs, and literary treatment of the southern mountain people as part of his dissertation research. Gratis shared his pleasure in his young children, writing to H.G.Jones in August, 1955 that "Sophie is growing along beautifully. She is a sweet little girl and has the most impeccable taste when it comes to choosing boy-friends. Papa is her sweetheart, you know" Of baby David, "(named for the infamous grandpa, not for Crockett)" he writes in October "The boy growls and gurgles most of his waking hours. He is especially fond of the man he regards as his papa. And the fondness is mutual. He is just now able to sit up safely. Soon he will be crawling. And the little monkey has already cut six teeth, an achievement that normally belongs to the year-old child' (Jones 1985, 8-9). Having enjoyed the "excitement and freedom to get on a subway and travel anywhere without fear" (Elizabeth Williams 1998) in New York City in the middle of the century, Libby experienced profound culture shock upon moving to tiny, provincial, teetotaling Boone and Appalachian State Teachers College. Libby later pursued teacher certification in �The Gratis Williams Chronicles: I Come to Boone Figure 13. Elizabeth Lingerfelt, New York City, 1949, about the time she and Gratis began dating. 0YDear Doe. 1 wa.-> mamcd Saturday, J u l y 31, to Eli/a belli Linger left. Athens, Te 11 {lessee, m a home inarnage \\\ Li-vUtown, Long Island. New York. The wedding was u u i l e an a f f a i r . You will approve ul EhzabellL I met her tirsl iti Bnone l w i « yeai-> agt) I fee! I a rti the hiekit'ht rascal aiive, ! have been enjoying my class in medeni poetry since the professor is a lint- c:n::aUve thinker, i am i i i t t i n g in a class in spcareun irageiiy 1 1 is t'un. < K A T I h IV WI1J.IAMS Figure 14. Gratis Williams married Elizabeth Lingerfelt Figure 15. �Introduction English and practice taught at the elementary school, then formally entered the labor force on December 1, 1971 at Belk Library on the Appalachian State University campus. She worked there until her retirement October 31, 1988. Gratis saw progress in the changes unfolding since his arrival in 1942: "Boone is a booming little city now. The population has doubled since I came here in the fall of 1942, The community seethes with civic enterprise and activity. Recently the Southern Appalachian Historical Association was chartered here. Over $30,000.00 has been contributed to the organization and Samuel Seldon and Kermit Hunter are planning an outdoor drama based on the Daniel Boone legend for the enjoyment of our summer visitors... Appalachian has three new buildings nearing completion. The college is growing too. We have 187 in our graduate school this year" (letter to friends Dec. 18, 1951). Following the launching of the outdoor drama, "Horn in the West," the Southern Appalachian Historical Association hosted a program of Saturday afternoon folk festivals on the grounds of the Daniel Boone Theater during the summer. Conducted for several years by Gratis and Richard Chase, "known nationally for his work with Appalachian folk tales and traditional dances," the festivals represented "authentic Appalachian traditions" through presentations by "mountain singers, musicians, dancers, and craftsmen" (Wey 1976, 2). The year 1951 was a time of family transitions, as Gratis recounts in his Christmas letter (Dec. 18): "My fabulous grandfather died last month. I was not able to get away for his burial. He was 85 and didnt die drunk after all. Fortunately he had joined the Free Will Baptist Church three years ago and the pious members of the family rejoiced that his chances in eternity look bright. He is now sealed in his tomb, a rough structure which he prepared for himself five years ago. (I have a picture of him sitting stewed as a boiled owl on the stone in front of the yawning tomb just after it was completed. He is enjoying the drama of his situation immensely.) For all of his rough ways he was one of the most admirable men I have ever known. His sober tongueclucking cousins scattered up and down the valley preceded him in death from ten to twenty-five Figure 16. Walking the plank in front of his new house, years, but he dared to live just 1954. Lee Reynolds contracted and built the new home about as he wanted to, enjoyed a according to Cratiss and Libbys design. The house was the first long life of epicurean delight in one on what for many years was called Reynolds Road, which he drank enough whiskey to �The Gratis Williams Chronicles: I Come to Boone swim a horse five miles, and now awaits the promise of his faith." As an English faculty member in 1951 Gratis noted that his work was "even more pleasant than usual this year" despite another heavy teaching load, comprised of "six classes: the survey of American literature, contemporary literature, the development of the short story, play production, oral expression, and one graduate course called the American Romantic Period. My largest class has only thirty-two students in it and my smallest seven" Still struggling with the Ph.D., he contemplates the difficulty of finding the time to finish the degree while "entering middle age" While questioning the wisdom of the quest, he concludes that there are certain financial advantages to the Ph.D.: "since my salary has increased $700 a year since I started it in the summer of 1948, I've decided that it perhaps does pay for itself after all. And there is the added pleasure of knowing a great deal more than the anthology selections of the great writers" (Dec. 18, 1951). Gratis was promoted to Professor in 1952. In December of 1956, Gratis wrote a prophetic note to H.G. Jones that "North Carolina almost lost one of its great English teachers last week. I had an offer of a chairmanship in Michigan at a salary of $8,000 but after a Gethsemane succeeded in letting the cup pass" (Jones 1985, 9-10). Gratis was developing new curricular materials on Appalachia and encouraging others to collaborate on Appalachian courses. In 1956 he worked with Beulah Campbell, whose specialty was children's literature, in offering a six semester hour workshop on the Living Folk Arts of the Southern Mountain People. In what may have been the first such interdisciplinary curriculum in Appalachian Studies, the program offered students the opportunity to participate in the Saturday folk festivals and home visits through which students documented local "speech, songs, tales, folk remedies, and lore, and... traditional crafts. Accomplished craftsmen, musicians, singers, dancers, and tellers of tales came to the campus to demonstrate their skills to students registered in the workshop. Students studied the literature of Appalachia, history and sociological writing about the region, dances and games, and ballads and songs still living in the oral tradition and developed curricular materials for use in their own classrooms the following year." In addition to the summer program, Gratis continued to offer his course on Ballads and Songs, and "to record hundreds of folk songs from singers in Appalachia, the great bulk of which recordings was lost in the fire that destroyed Appalachian's Administration Building in December 1966" (Wey 1976, 2). Graduate School Dean Chapell Wilson was in charge of graduate courses until his death in 1957, and was succeeded by Herbert Wey who held the position until returning to the University of Miami in 1958. Appalachian was then organized as a single unit without separate colleges and offered a single graduate degree, for teachers. President William Plemmons recalls that he looked into the faculty and picked the one person whose breadth of experience, energy, and creativity he considered assets for the leadership position, and named Gratis Williams Dean of the Graduate School in 1958, a position which he held for sixteen and a half years, until 1975. Taking the lead in the innovation of a small program, Cratis's "midnight �Introduction thoughts brought forth suggestions for expansion of offerings in the graduate program and new as well as different graduate degrees. Established offerings were strengthened, selection of faculty was made with the graduate program in mind. His proposal that those who taught graduate programs be organized into a graduate faculty was approved and it was that act that actually established the graduate school as such" (Plemmons 1976, 32). Three years after Gratis assumed the deanship, the graduate school became a member of the Council of Graduate Schools in the United States and with the establishment of the university in 1967, it could boast "one organized internal school, the Graduate School." After ten years of Cratis's leadership, "Appalachian was offering more master's degrees in education and was delivering more graduate degrees in education than any other institution in North Carolina except the university in Chapel Hill." Plemmons recounted that "time proved that a wise and good selection had been made." As the College enrollment increased, the graduate enrollment increased faster; by 1974 ASU had awarded over 6,000 master's degrees. By 1974, the graduate faculty of 273 was "more than two and one-half times as many as the entire faculty totaled in 1958," while the graduate enrollment of 2,000 per year accounted for 25 percent of the total institutional enrollment. President Plemmons attributed the growth of the graduate school to Gratis Williams s leadership (Plemmons 1976, 33). Figure 17. As dean of the graduate school, Gratis facilitated study for many international and minority students. In 1963, shortly after housing temporarily a dark skinned international student in his home while trying to secure more permanent housing for him in Boone, Gratis discovered this sign, placed in the yard during the night by parties unknown. "Preacher Gratis" couldn't resist the opportunity to seize the moment.., Gratis Williams's administrative leadership was felt far beyond Boone, foremost through the teachers who earned graduate degrees. In addition, with the development of the region's community colleges, he anticipated "a shortage in qualified teachers in higher education and authored the first proposal for preparing teachers for these new institutions. He was a nationally recognized authority on graduate programs in education" (Jones 1986, 295). Gratis was later chosen to chair a new committee on graduate programs and degrees of the Association of Figure 18. Gratis poses in his dean of the grad- State Colleges and Universities. In addition to uate school office in the new administration his responsibilities at Appalachian State building, spring 1968. �The Gratis Williams Chronicles: I Come to Boone University, he served on the Planning and Policies Committee of the Council of Graduate Schools in the United States, was for ten years "a member of a three person consulting team which evaluated graduate study for the American Association of State Colleges and Universities," (Jones 1986, 295) and was a member of the Executive Committee of the Council of Southern Graduate Schools. He was a member of the committee that developed the nationally accepted guidelines for the Education Specialist (6th-year) degree and for the Doctor of Arts degree. He was also a member of the Academic Policies Committee for the North Carolina Board of Higher Education (replaced in 1971 by the Board of Governors of the University of North Carolina which includes the sixteen state institutions), as well as a member of the Teacher Certification Committee of the North Carolina Board of Public Instruction. After his retirement the Board of Trustees named the Graduate School for Gratis Williams. His restrained exuberance in response to this honor is captured in a letter (March 4, 1980) to Ruby Daniel: "/ hear tell that I am being 'framed' and will be 'hung some time between 1:30 and3:00p.m. in the Graduate School office here March 20 and that among those engaged in the plot are the members of our Board of Trustees. I shall be especially pleased to see you and Hugh among those present. In a way, your presence will symbolize continuity at Appalachian for me. I began here with you, and it will be a kind of 'Our Town experience for me to have you present at what is likely to be the last public notice of my having been here. " In response to a playful letter from H,G. Jones he confesses, "Your comments about the frightening aspects of having the Graduate School here bear my name lead me to wonder whether it might have been more comfortable for me had the Board named the Duck Pond for me,.., They could have called it the Gratis D, Williams Drake Pond. There is also an old horse barn on the university farm that has never been named" (Jones 1985, 12-13). The Complete Mountaineer Fires on the campus had a major impact on the College and on the professional career of Gratis Williams. In late fall of 1946, campus buildings neglected during the war were overcrowded by increased enrollment following the war. Gratis recalls, " To add to our woes, Watauga Academy Building, which then housed the Department of Music, and the old science building, then occupied by the Department of Art, burned down one cold night... I walked out of Faculty Apartments in pajamas and robe to watch firemen from the town of Boone fight the flames... Dr. Dougherty stood and wept as he watched the buildings burn" (n.d. 18). In December of 1966, the nighttime scene of destruction was repeated, but with more ominous consequences for Gratis. The old Administration Building burned, and with it, all of his field notes, collections, and records. David Williams recalls, "we watched pages catch fire and drift out the window, one by one; nothing was saved." Perhaps this provided a tragic turning point in his professional career as he now relied on his excellent memory and keen sense of analysis. Gratis knew and remembered things no one else would or could recall with such delight and such detail, and he shared his knowledge willingly. Cratis's abiding interest in mountain speech led to publication of a series of articles �Introduction between 1961 and 1967 in Mountain Life and Work (1961 b, 1961c, 196Id, 1961e, 1962a, 1962b, 1962c, 1963a, 1963b, 1964, 1967). His attention to rhythm and melody, the use of the "r," vowels and diphthongs, verbs, vocabulary and folk expression, manners, metaphors, prepositions and subtlety were elaborated with lively examples from everyday speech. His approach to linguistics was based in his lived experience, native ear, and keen memory. His skill in describing, for example, the angry mother's eloquent "clustering of prepositions" forged an indelible lesson on mountain rhetoric and on those who recall his telling: "You git up out from down in under that thar table, er I'll whup ever' bit a hide offen... yer back" (1964, 54). Gratis was generous with his knowledge, "a sharer, a presenter of gems from his collection" (Jones 1986, 294). Cratis's devotion to the nuances and rich subtlety of mountain speech was matched by his meticulous knowledge of ballads and his artful capacity for telling tales learned in childhood. He joined the ranks of those who became "hooked on ballads and who treasured them as literature and as a key to the aesthetic of a people who have been accused of being without a literature." While Gratis didn't play the handmade banjo which adorned the wall of his study, he was often photographed with this treasured family heirloom, "leading Ray Lawless to list him as a banjo picker in his Folksingers and Folksongs in America" (Jones 1986, 294). Dr. W.D. Weatherford read Cratis's doctoral dissertation and soon cultivated a relationship with him, both through private weekends at the Weatherford's Black Mountain, North Carolina retreat and in public forums. Herb Wey recalls that President Plemmons, Gratis Williams, and Dr. Weatherford were participants "in the planning meeting at the Nu-Wray Inn in Burnsville which resulted in the formation of the Appalachian Regional Commission" (Wey 1976, 2). In 1968 Gratis played a role in the decision to create the Appalachian Collection of Belk Library, named the W.L. Eury Appalachian Collection in 1971, which was composed initially of materials the library had purchased to support his dissertation research. The 1970s saw many of Cratis's interests bear fruit in the formation of new curricula, outreach, and collaboration. In 1970-1971 the U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare (HEW) funded a $130,000 grant "to support a project for the preparation of teachers and supervisors for supervision of experimentation in individualized instruction in the schools of rural Appalachia and the ghetto...." While still serving as graduate school Dean, Gratis was project director and taught in the program, focused in part on the Appalachian child (Wey 1976, 3). Growing interest in the region brought attention to the limited library holdings, and representatives of Appalachian colleges and universities developed the idea of a consortium that would share resources and mount programs related closely to their respective strengths. "Williams was one of the first to conceive the idea of an Appalachian Consortium and among the first to help bring it to reality" ("ASU Dean..." 1973). Drs. Plemmons and Williams worked with representatives of East Tennessee State University, Mars Hill College, Lees-McRae College, the Blue Ridge Parkway, and the National Forest Service in creating the Appalachian Consortium, and one of its first activities was "a workshop for faculty members from constituent institutions interested in developing Appalachia- �The Gratis Williams Chronicles: I Come to Boone related learning experiences for their students" (Wey 1976, 4). Gratis was consultant for this workshop at Mars Hill College, which resulted in the integration of regional themes into existing courses and the creation of new courses. In 1972 The Appalachian Journal was launched on the ASU campus, with Jerry Williamson as editor and Gratis Williams as advising editor, and the Appalachian Consortium Press was also established that year with Gratis Williams as a member of the editorial board (Wey 1976). In 1972 Gratis was the recipient of the annual award of the Western North Carolina Historical Association in recognition of his contributions to scholarship on the history and folk traditions of Appalachia. In 1973 he was awarded the prestigious O. Max Gardner Award given annually by the Board of Governors of the University of North Carolina for "distinguished contributions to the welfare of the human race." The UNC Board of Governors recognized Gratis as a "master teacher, imaginative and confidence-inspiring administrator, creative and stimulating writer and conversationalist, singer of ballads, reteller of folktales, provocative speaker and lecturer... [who, by] precept and example [has] cajoled and dared" his fellow mountaineers to increased pride in their homeland (Daniel 1986). This award was probably the most cherished of his many accolades in affirming the value of his overall work in attempting "to impress upon mountain people the value of self esteem and pride in what lies behind them and the value of feeling that they are rooted to something that is permanent" ("ASU Dean..." 1973). Writing to Hugh and Ruby Daniel, he commented " The award has come to me at a good time in my life, and I believe it also has special significance for Appalachian, the Consortium, and Appalachia itself... I am pleased and happy, although I am not a naturally enthusiastic person (perhaps a part of my 'heritage'), and I find it difficult to simulate enthusiasm and rarely attempt to do so" (July 19, 1973). In 1975 Gratis received the Outstanding Alumnus Award of Cumberland College. He was also recipient of the Brown-Hudson Award of the North Carolina Folklore Society which recognized him as "Master Folklorist of Appalachia," who has "poured out his own noble spirit, in teaching and writing and lecturing and singing the songs and ballads of his close neighbors in the hills and mountains. His great respect and love for the highlanders come through with splendor" (Clark 1975). He was the Raleigh News and Observers Tar Heel of the Week in June, 1976, and commented to H.G. Jones, "'Having been immortalized' in the columns of the eternal News and Observer, / might never aspire to die and go to Chapel Hill, but perhaps Boone is at least the sixth heaven and I can content myself with an immortality here' (Jones 1985, 10-11). He received the Appalachian Consortium's Laurel Leaves Award for Distinguished Service in July, 1976. In May, 1980, he received Berea College's special WD. Weatherford Award for published work that furthers understanding of Appalachian people in a significant way. Gratis was Acting Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs at Appalachian State University in 1974 and Acting Chancellor in 1975. On the eve of his retirement Appalachian State University held in his honor a three-day symposium, during which scholars from across the nation gathered to share knowledge on Appalachia. Selected papers were published in An Appalachian Symposium: Essays Written in Honor of Gratis D. Williams (Williamson 1977). Inspired by the great potential for interdisciplinary exchange among �The Gratis Williams Chronicles: I Come to Boone Figure 19. Gratis Williams and Loyal Jones, 1984, Figure 20. After Gratis received the O. Max Gardner Award from the Board of Governors ofUNC in 1973, he and Herb Wey clowned for the camera in Greenville, N, C. �The Cratis Williams Chronicles: I Come to Boone scholars, activists, and practitioners in the region revealed in the Boone gathering, leaders in the field met in Berea the next year to create from the energy of the Cratis Williams Symposium an annual gathering, now, in its twenty-third year, known as the Appalachian Studies Association. In 1992 the highest award of the Association, given annually to the outstanding regional scholar, was designated the Cratis Williams Award. Cratis retired on July 1, 1976, after 46 years as teacher and administrator, but continued at Appalachian on a part-time basis as Special Assistant to the Chancellor. Cratis s public speaking engagements and writing likewise kept him fully engaged, burning the midnight oil just as he had always done. Writing to Ruby Daniel (March 4, 1980), he advises " You would enjoy the Elderhostel program. I taught one of those groups here for a week last summer. It was a marvelous experience and the only class I ever had that stood and gave me a resounding round of applause at the end of the course. They were bright, eager, studious, searching, challenging. Since I did not have to assign papers, read examinations, award grades, I concluded it was the most nearly ideal teaching experience I had ever had!" Other bits of news attest to his busy schedule; "/ have been quite busy this winter with out-of-town things. In January I went to Washington, where I was one of the three 'plenary session speakers at an ARC conference for personnel of local district development groups.... Later in January I spent a week at Alice Lloyd College in Kentucky, where I delivered fifteen lectures, many of them in high schools in Knott, Letcher, and Floyd counties there in Central Appalachian "Last week I passed by Waynesville in a hurry to get to Cohutta Lodge on the top of Fort Mountain in Murry County, Georgia, where I gave a banquet speech and was entertained royally (cocktails before dinner and nightcaps afterwards). Then I hurried back to Boone and on to Salem, Virginia, where I gave two lectures at the symposium on 'Beyond the Blue Ridge' held by the Roanoke Valley Historical Society and Roanoke College. (I became snowbound and had to stay an extra day.) Friday I shall give a lecture at the annual meeting of the East Tennessee Historical Association in Knoxville.... I stay tolerably busy for a retired man, but I am enjoying myself and still finding time to write a great deal too" Cratis took pleasure in the scholarly mission which he was able to pursue full time in his retirement, both in the text and in the circumstances of the telling, as the following commentary to Hugh Daniel reveals: "Interesting things came together for my presentation. The banquet was in the Integon Room [of ASUs Broyhill Inn]. / was positioned with my back to the window. Just as I was announcing my topic lightning began to flash, thunder crashed and rumbled, and rain streamed down the glass. All of these marvelous effects continued while I presented my paper. When I sat down, the storm ceased. I am not a good enough Presbyterian to feel confident with my interpretation of these phenomena' (April 17, 1984). In 1982, diagnosed with lymphoma, Cratis set about to inform friends of his condition on a regular basis (Aug. 2, 1982). Writing to Ruby, he is optimistic, yet notes, "But even if things have gone too far and there is to be no recovery, I think I shall not feel that I have been cheated. I have lived a rich, full life and enjoyed more than most are privileged to enjoy, and I do not have many regrets" (Aug. 4-6, 1982). In remission by January 1983 (letters to friends, Jan. 17; July 28, 1983), he continued to write his memoirs, to engage in as many �Introduction public appearances as his health would permit, and to enjoy his family. Writing to Ruby Daniel he continued to take pleasure in the mission which drove his professional life, the education of young people to the strengths of their culture: "Thank you, Ruby, for coming out to hear me do my presentation at the high school. Upon reflection, I concluded that I had never enjoyed a more attentive, interested, and responsive high school audience. I hope the young people found in what I had to say reason to be proud of who they are and an increased understanding of the rich history of mountain folk. The young people were beautiful, like my Kentucky cousins. I enjoyed them." He also chose a moment to reflect on the shared past with his old friends and fellow high school teachers: "Ruby, I had not known that you are now the vice chairman of our Board of Trustees. Isn't it fantastic that Dr. Wey, Hugh, you, and I should have found our separate ways to Boone at a time when our own lives should have become intertwined and tied to the history and development of the quaint little college hidden in the mountains that brought us together. It was not only significant but as it should have been that Hugh and you both served on our Board of Trustees" (Dec. 7, 1983). In 1984, Gratis mourned the death of his mother, Mona Williams, who "died quietly last month. She would have been 93 on St. Patrick's Day. We buried her beside my father in the Williams Graveyard near Blame, Kentucky. She took much ofAppalachia with her" (letter, March 19, 1984). In his final years Gratis received five honorary degrees: Doctor of Pedagogy from Cumberland College in Kentucky, Doctor of Humane Letters from Morehead State University in Kentucky, Doctor of Humanities from the College of Idaho, Doctor of Literature from Marshall University in West Virginia, of which he wrote Al Perrin, "Saturday I attended the graduation exercises at Marshall University and received a literarum doctoris degree. At that very time Morehead State University was conferring upon me in absentia a doctor of humane letters degree, which will be presented to me at a special ceremony during the Appalachian Celebration Week there in June. I am becoming a much doctored Appalachian, the kind who might be qualified to represent us to His Holiness Pope John Paul, should we ever think he would be more interested in a reality than in an illusion" (May 14, 1984). Cratis's last honorary degree, from Appalachian State University, was to be awarded on May 12, 1985. Gratis died on Saturday, May 11, 1985. Gratis always had the impression that if Mr. Wey—or perhaps even Dean Rankin or Dr. Dougherty—had interviewed him personally before he was offered the position at Appalachian Demonstration High School, with its openings into Appalachian State, he would never have been offered the job. He may well have been right, as he frequently was. And how that would have changed history. Gratis endowed three separate scholarship funds at Appalachian which bear his name, which he supported through earnings from his numerous speeches, lectures, and workshops. A fourth scholarship fund, in Appalachian Studies, was created to honor him after his death. His commitment to the education of young people in the finest humanistic tradition and with pride in locale was constant through his years in education. In a speech in 1984 at the College of Idaho, where he received an honorary Doctor of Humanities, he �The Gratis Williams Chronicles: I Come to Boone captured the essence of much of what he worked for and believed: " The regional liberal arts college, which I perceive as one which draws most of its students from a defined O O f geographical region and returns them to that region Jfor lives of service to the comJ J Q O J mon good, has a responsibility for making available to its students learning experiences in understanding the ethnic composition of the people who live in the region, their social and cultural traditions, and their history, both as to their origins and the adaptations they have made, and are making to the requirements of life within the region, A liberal education must supply us with that vision that comes from learning about ourselves and our kith and kin as participants in a regional or ethnic society, for being born into and living in that region or ethnic group influences the course of our lives, whether we reject it or embrace it. Those who do not value what they have do not keep it for long. Those who reject their own culture, and in so doing, much of themselves, run the serious risk of losing their own identities, of becoming flone and lost souls,' to paraphrase our great Appalachian writer, Thomas Wolfe, of becoming wailing isolates who have stepped aside and lost their place. Central to what it means for each of us to be a good citizen in a free society, to be a self-accepting Appalachian, Creole, or Indian, without being less of an American at the same time, is our ability to reflect critically upon the meaning of our culture and history.... I began my professional career as a one-room school teacher in Appalachia and completed it as an English professor and administrator in an Appalachian university. I found it possible to remain an Appalachian person as I attempted to measure out to myself and increasing numbers of other Appalachians and scholars doing research and writing about Appalachia the humanistic dimensions of what must be one of Americas most significant subcultures. I am convinced that my rich fulfillment and my enormous pride in who I found myself to be and in the culture from whence I came and which shaped me is owing to my decision early in life to keep my Appalachian self in spite of the efforts of my early teachers to destroy it. By remaining Appalachian, I was best able to integrate my experiences as I grew in understanding and developed those values that informed my actions as a teacher and administrator working for the common good in what purports to be a just society. " As has been often written, Gratis Williams was the complete mountaineer. �References References Abrams, Amos. 1976. "A Salute to Gratis Williams." Gratis Williams Symposium. Boone, NC, April 7. Alexander, Nancy. 1966. "Dean of Folk Songs Likes 'Small Sinful Ditties.'" The Charlotte Observer, 2 June: 19B. "ASU Dean Recipient O. Max Gardner Award." 1973. Watauga Democrat. Boone, NC, July 16. Clark, Joseph D. 1975. "Gratis Williams: Master Folklorist of Appalachia." Brown-Hudson Award Speech, November 7. Daniel, Ruby. 1986. "Comments." Ceremony in Honor and Memory of Gratis D. Williams, Appalachian State University Board of Trustees Meeting. Boone, NC, March 21. Ford, Thomas. 1967. The Southern Appalachian Region: A Survey. Lexington: University of Kentucky Press. Hayes, Mrs. Essie. 1976. "A Salute to Gratis Williams." Gratis Williams Symposium. Boone, NC, April 7. Jones, H.G. 1985. "Gratis D. Williams: A Personal Reminiscence." Delivered for the North Carolina Folklore Society. Raleigh, NC, November 9. Jones, Loyal. 1986. "A Complete Mountaineer." Appalachian Journal 13(3): 288-296. Laws, George Malcolm. 1964. Native American Balladry. Philadelphia: American Folklore Society. Plemmons, William. 1976. "A Salute to Gratis Williams." Gratis Williams Symposium. Boone, NC, April 7. Ross, Tyler, n.d. "Interview with Gratis Williams." Unpublished manuscript, Gratis Williams papers, W.L. Eury Appalachian Collection Archives, Belk Library, ASU, Boone, NC. Weaver, Richard M. 1948. Ideas Have Consequences. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. . 1953. The Ethics of Rhetoric. H. Regenery Co. Wey, Herbert. 1976. "Gratis Williams and Appalachian Studies at ASU." Gratis Williams Symposium. Boone, NC, April 7. Williams, Gratis D. 196la. "The Southern Mountaineer in Fact and Fiction." Ph.D. dissertation, New York University. f 196lb. "The 'R' in Mountain Speech." Mountain Life and Work 37(1): 5-8. . 196lc. "A.E.I.O.U." Mountain Life and Work 37(2): 8-11. . 196ld. "Rhythm and Melody in Mountain Speech." Mountain Life and Work �The Gratis Williams Chronicles: I Come to Boone 37(3): 7-10. . 1961e. "The Content of Mountain Speech (Part IV)." Mountain Life and Work 37(4): 13-17. . 1962a. "Verbs in Mountaineer Speech (Part V)." Mountain Life and Work 38(1): 15-19. . 1962b. "Mountaineers Mind their Manners (Part VI)." Mountain Life and Work 38(2): 19-25. . 1962c. "Metaphor in Mountain Speech (Part VII)." Mountain Life and Work 38(4): 9-12. . 1963a. "Metaphor in Mountain Speech (Part VIII)." Mountain Life and Work 39(1): 50-53. . 1963b. "Metaphor in Mountain Speech (Part IX)." Mountain Life and Work 39(2): 50-53. . 1964. "Prepositions in Mountain Speech (Part X)." Mountain Life and Work 40(1): 53-54. . 1967. "Subtlety in Mountain Speech (Part XI)." Mountain Life and Work 43(1): 14. 1975. "The Southern Mountaineer in Fact and Fiction (Part 1)." Martha Pipes, ed. Appalachian Journal 3(1): 8-61. . 1976a. "The Southern Mountaineer in Fact and Fiction (Part II)." Martha Pipes, ed. Appalachian Journal'3(2): 100-162. . 1976b. "The Southern Mountaineer in Fact and Fiction (Part III)." Martha Pipes, ed. Appalachian Journal 3(3): 186-261. . 1976c. "The Southern Mountaineer in Fact and Fiction (Part IV)." Martha Pipes, ed. Appalachian Journal'3(4): 334-392. . 1983. William H. Vaughan: A Better Man Than I Ever Wanted to Be. Morehead, KY: Morehead State University. . 1984. "Eulogy to David R. Hodgin." April 21, Boone, NC Gratis Williams papers, W. L. Eury Appalachian Collection Archives, Belk Library, ASU, Boone, NC. . 1995.1 Become a Teacher. A Memoir of One-Room School Life in Eastern Kentucky. James M. Gifford, ed. Ashland, KY: The Jesse Stuart Foundation. . 1998. "Gratis Williams: Living the Divided Life." Produced by Fred Johnson and Jean Donohue. Covington, KY: Media Working Group. . n.d. "I Become a College Teacher." Gratis Williams papers, W.L.Eury Appalachian Collection Archives, Belk Library, ASU, Boone, NC. �References Williams, Elizabeth. 1998. Personal Communication. Wolfford, George. ©1972. Lawrence County: A Pictorial History. Ashland, KY: WWW Co. Williamson, J. W, ed. 1977. An Appalachian Symposium. Boone, NC: Appalachian State University Press. �This page intentionally left blank �c A Call From Boone About nine o'clock Friday morning before school was to open at the Appalachian Demonstration High School in 1942 my landlady called me to respond to a long distance telephone call from Boone, North Carolina. For me, that call was in the middle of the night, for my working hours at International Nickel Company in Huntington, West Virginia, were from 8:30 p.m. to 3:30 a.m., and I spent a half hour commuting by taxicab from the plant to the rooming house. Rubbing the sleep from my eyes, I threw on a bathrobe and slipped into house shoes and hurried to the telephone. Professor Chapell Wilson8 was calling. Mrs. Rivers, a critic teacher at Appalachian High School, had resigned that week, and he, in his role as Director of the Demonstration Schools, was trying at that late date to find a replacement for her. He had found in his file my credentials folder sent to him by a teacher placement service in Tennessee. He believed I was essentially qualified for the job, but that one of my duties would be directing high school dramatic activities. I would also teach a college class in methods of teaching English in high school and supervise practice teachers in English. My own teaching load at the high school would include two sections of eighth grade English, a class in speech, and a combined class of first and second year high school dramatics. Watauga County would pay me $150 a month and Appalachian State Teachers College would supplement that by providing me with a furnished apartment with utilities free valued at $40 a month. The appointment would be for one year but might be continued if I were not 8 Chapell Wilson (1891-1957), professor of education and psychology at Appalachian State Teachers College, developed the two demonstration schools, Appalachian High School and Appalachian Elementary School. He later served as dean of the graduate school from 1948 to 1957. 1 �The Gratis Williams Chronicles: I Come to Boone drafted into military service. It was customary to interview applicants for positions, but because my credentials looked good and a teacher was needed immediately the interview would be waived if I were interested in the position. The salary was exactly what I was receiving at International Nickel and more than I had received per month my last year as the principal of the high school at Louisa. I would be both a college instructor and a high school teacher. I would be living on a college campus and in the very town Dr. Sparks had recommended as a good place to take Sylvia.9 I would be going to the mountains of North Carolina, made so appealing by Thomas Wolfe, especially in Look Homeward Angel, which I had read with deep yearning for glorious mountains fading away, range after range, into the blue horizon. Sylvia was in Pinecrest Sanitarium at Beckley, West Virginia. There was no long distance telephone service available to her parents or mine in Kentucky. The decision I made would have to be wholly my own without benefit of counseling, or considering the offer with others. I agreed to accept the position but pointed out the difficulties I might encounter in trying to arrange to be in Boone the following Monday. Mr. Wilson obligingly agreed to let me skip the teachers meetings on Monday if I thought I could be ready to go to work Tuesday when the students were to begin classes. I told him I would arrive in Boone Monday evening. Fortunately, I had stored our furniture at Louisa and returned to Sylvias parents those things we had brought with us to Huntington for use in the apartment in which we had lived before Sylvia went to Pinecrest in July. I had only my personal belongings to be concerned with, but I would need at least one additional traveling bag. I did not go back to bed following the telephone conversation. I dressed hurriedly and called the personnel office at International Nickel to discuss the termination of my work there. There were regrets expressed, but both my supervisors, Mr. Scott and Mr. Kaiser, were willing to release me. I could pick up my check the following morning. Charged with excitement and anxiety, and working against time, I went to the bus station to work out a travel schedule. I could leave Huntington in the early morning and be in Boone late in the afternoon the same day. I then went to the railroad station to work out a travel schedule. I could go by train to Roanoke, then to Johnson City, Tennessee, then to Boone by the East Tennessee and Western North Carolina Railroad, a narrow gauge. Upon checking the schedules, though, the agent discovered that ET&WNC railroad passenger service to Boone had been discontinued, but I might like to consider riding a bus from Johnson City or Abington, Virginia, to Boone. Two days would be required for the trip. I then hurried to the bank and cashed my two shares of International Nickel common stock and went by the loan office and paid four weekly payments in advance, for one of the stipulations of the loan agreement had been that I would not be leaving Huntington during the life of the loan. I feared that if the sharks there learned that I was planning to leave town y Sylvia Graham Williams married Gratis Williams on August 2, 1937. Diagnosed with tuberculosis in 1941, she entered Pinecrest Sanitarium in Beckley, West Virginia in July 1942. Dr. Proctor Sparks, Blaine native, was Sylvias physician in Huntington. �A Call From Boom they would garnishee my check at International Nickel and I would not have the money needed to get to Boone and to buy food for my- first month there. After making the payment to the loan office I went down to Huntington Dry Goods Company and bought a heavy canvas bag into which I could stuff clothing. Back at Mosely's I began to sort out and arrange and discovered that I had some books from the Huntington Public Library which I needed to return, some laundry I needed to pick up at the home of the pleasant black woman who lived in an alley five or six blocks away, and some dry cleaning at the shop on the way. When I returned to work at International Nickel Friday night, I said nothing to my classes about my plan to leave. Yet I was filled with a special kind of excitement and in the 12:01 to 3:00 a.m. class encouraged more buffoonery than usual from one of those naturally comic characters who always keeps a class lively but who serves best under restraint, Jack Legg, whose very name invited comment. At the change of classes at midnight, one of the new arrivals offered me a White Owl cigar, which I accepted and lit up. After the class was under way, the telephone rang. It was unusual for the telephone to ring at any time after midnight. I stopped in the middle of a sentence, laid my cigar in the ashtray, and rushed to my desk to answer it. The man calling was the operator of the plant cafeteria. He wanted to know whether my students were permitted to smoke in the classroom. I told him we all smoked, I believed. Were any of the students smoking cigars? Yes, perhaps a third of the class was smoking cigars at that time. Well, his box of White Owls, which he kept by the cash register, had been raided. Would I be willing to determine whether any of the students were smoking White Owls? I told him I would ask. With the mouthpiece of the telephone below my chin, I asked whether anybody were smoking a White Owl. Only Jack Legg admitted that he was. I responded only one, Jack Legg, admitted that he was. Well, he remembered that the only cigars he had sold during the break had been to Jack Legg, but he wanted me to announce that he would be reporting the raid to Mr. Kaiser on Monday. I gladly agreed to make the announcement. A moment of intense quiet ensued, and I proceeded with my presentation. On the bus to Boone Monday I wondered whether the student who had given me the White Owl felt as relieved on Monday when he learned that I was no longer working there as I did to know that my job future was not likely to be threatened by a possible charge that I had received stolen goods. Saturday morning I returned to the plant, tidied my desk, said good-bye to John Kaiser, went by Mr. Scott's office to tell him that he might continue to send questions about grammar and syntax to me at Boone if he cared to do so, picked up my check, and caught a bus back to Huntington, regretting that the bus driver could not give me cash in exchange for fifteen cents worth of bus tokens that I would no longer need. Back in the city I went by the bank, cashed my check, and closed out my account. I then went to the bus station and bought a ticket to Boone. That afternoon I wrote brief letters to friends and relatives reporting my decision to return to teaching and carried them to the post office. Captain Mosely, back from his horseback riding, was impressed by the �The Gratis Williams Chronicles: I Come to Boone report that I was to become a college teacher. He invited me to his cocktail hour, attended also by Miss Westail, and was more expansive than he had ever been, and Miss Westall, who had normally passed me in the hall and on the stairs without so much as recognizing that I existed, exhibited a charm that I had not realized she possessed. Sunday morning I got up before daylight, finished packing my bags, ordered a taxicab, and was at the bus station in time to have breakfast there before the bus departed for Charleston. I was surprised to see so many people up and around before daylight. About 7:30 we were on a crowded bus, with people standing in the aisles, for Charleston. It was a foggy morning. (We did not know the word smog then.) All the way to Charleston only buildings and trees close by the roadside were visible. Streets we crossed in little towns and in Charleston disappeared into the fog only a few yards from the crossing. There was a long wait in Charleston before the departure of the bus to Beckley. While waiting I had my shoes shined by a black man who sang or whistled as he popped his shining cloth in rhythm with his tune. He volunteered that he had been to a party the night before and that the drinks he had there had not worn off yet. He exuded good will, and when I commented upon his cheerful disposition he observed that white folks don't seem to be able to have a good time because they take life too seriously. Almost as if he knew that I was going to a new job, he said, "You'll be a much happier man and get a lot more fun out of life when you are just simply yourself and don't take things too seriously." As the bus to Beckley was climbing the mountain out of Gauley Bridge, we came into bright sunshine. From the road we could see plainly the New River Gorge, and mountains were bright and seemed close at hand. The cough I had developed while living in Huntington and the heavy odor of chemicals in the morning air led me to feel that the clean air I would be breathing at Appalachian on the Blue Ridge would be good for me. In Beckley I deposited in a bus station locker all of my baggage except one suitcase and hurried with it down to Mrs. Mann's rooming house, where I had stayed before. Mrs. Mann had one room left, a small room over a porch, with a sloping ceiling and next door to a bathroom. I accepted the room for one night and hurried down to have Sunday dinner at the second seating of her guests, among whom were older residents of the town who had come directly from church services. After lunch I walked up to the corner to take a bus out to Pinecrest. The first bus had already gone and the next one would not leave for nearly two hours. I started on foot, for I thought I could probably walk the three or four miles out to the sanitarium in thirty or forty minutes. An older couple, also on their way to Pinecrest, picked me up at the city limits. Sylvia, bright-eyed and feeling that her condition was improving, was pleased that I had accepted the position in Boone. She hoped she might be sufficiently improved to join me later in the year. X-rays continued to show no activity in her lungs, the frost-like crystals that she fed into her throat through a glass tube brought relief from pain, and the throat pain that developed prior to the menstrual period and receded afterwards had not �A Call From Boone become extended. Her voice was clean and clear, but the doctors advised that she continue to speak in whispers in order not to irritate her larynx. She remained strictly a bed patient, but many ambulatory patients came to see her during visiting hours, including the sister-inlaw of a person we had known in Lawrence County, Kentucky. She had taken a lively interest in a love affair that had developed between one of the doctors, himself formerly a patient there, and an ambulatory patient who hoped to be released in a few weeks. Both the doctor and the pretty young woman discussed their affair with Sylvia, who wrote about it in poems, many of them clever pieces of doggerel. While I was there the doctor came by. His warmth, congeniality, informality, and spirit of trusting friendship suggested that he considered Sylvia to be a special person, and she responded with smiles and clever remarks, teasing and pleasant. Soon after he left, the young woman came by, too. I was pleased that she and her secret lover, who was violating regulations of the hospital, found in Sylvia a trustworthy and stimulating counselor and friend. Prior to my leaving at 4:30 we talked about what living and working in Boone might be like. She liked North Carolina and had also been thrilled by Thomas Wolfe's presentation of mountain scenery. She, too, longed to live there. Somewhat uneasy about the hiring by telephone and remembering that Professor Wilson's failure the preceding year to meet me as scheduled in Ohio and that the day away from work I Figure A: Sylvia Graham Williams circa 1937. had requested for the meeting had contributed to my release on December 5» 10 she feared that I might not be paid the salary I was promised, or that the apartment might be a rat-and-roach den in which I was to live, or that the principal would be some egomaniac who would feel intimidated by an older and more experienced teacher in his staff and set about to discredit me before I could get myself adjusted to classroom teaching again. Concerned about our financial status, she wanted to know whether I had money 10 In the fall of 1941, Gratis had received a telephone call from Chapell Wilson asking that Gratis interview with him at a professional meeting to be held at Ball State in Indiana. Gratis was working in Coldwater, Ohio, at the time, and made arrangements to attend the meeting. But he never heard from Chapell Wilson to arrange the time, and the meeting never occurred. Gratis subsequently lost his job at New idea, Inc., and moved from Coldwater to Huntington, W.Va. �The Gratis Williams Chronicles: I Come to Boone enough to buy food for my first month in the new job, what arrangements I had made about the loan from the company in Huntington, and whether I was prepared to pay her bills at the sanitarium. Distressed that I would have only twenty dollars between myself and starvation after I arrived in Boone, she offered suggestions for buying groceries that would be inexpensive but nutritious and urged that I be sure to eat eggs and drink milk and take my iron supplement and cod liver oil. I reassured her by telling her that I would attempt to draw an advance on my salary or sell my first month's check at a discount if I found it necessary. I then told her that I had two resolutions for the new job. As a high school principal, I had responded to overtures for friendship from desperate people who needed friends and often found them incompetent dullards and insufferable bores. My first resolve was not to be lured too quickly into time-consuming friendships with over-eager people who seem to want to capture newcomers. Having worked in public education only in my home county, I had found it necessary to be political and to support publicly causes and efforts to which I did not subscribe privately. In the new job, I would follow the advice of the cheerful black man who had shined my shoes in Charleston and dare to be as nearly myself as possible and to abstain whenever possible from giving public support to causes to which I could not subscribe privately. Thus, I would not be manipulated by political persons and could refrain from being one myself. If I should find that this new philosophy would not work at Appalachian, I would leave teaching at the end of the year and find something else to do. I had come up from Huntington to see Sylvia twice a month. It would be a month before I could return from Boone. I had checked bus schedules and found that I could take a bus late Friday afternoon from Boone to Sparta, make connections there with a bus from Winston-Salem to Bluefield and then from Bluefield to Beckley, and arrive in Beckley late Friday night. I would be able to visit with her on Saturdays and Sunday mornings and get back to Boone Sunday night. I felt that perhaps once a month would be as often as I could visit, but I assured her that I would write to her every night. Concerned about my loss of weight, my morning cough, and my generally peaked appearance, Sylvia would make arrangements for me to have a chest X-ray when I came again. The question of whether she was eligible to remain in a West Virginia state health facility at the same rate I had been paying had not been resolved, for I had not notified the sanitarium that I was leaving the state. She would ask her doctor to check that out and felt sure that if policy permitted he would see that the rates would remain the same. We held hands in warmth and hope, and I kissed her forehead and departed, feeling that she would get well and that a new life was beginning for us. At Mrs. Mann's rooming house I sat on the porch with guests and enjoyed the late August afternoon before the evening meal, a simple affair built around the delicious green beans that had been left from lunch and topped with apple cobbler and cream dip. Following the dinner, I tried to read by the light from the bulb screwed into a socket in the ceiling, but soon became tired and sleepy. On the morning of September 1 there was heavy dew on the grass and weeds, already �A Call From Boone rigid for autumn. The bus to Bluefield descended the mountain south of Beckley and went along a road beside a river for a time. The sycamores were heavy with dew, and meadows and fields were fresh and cleansed. Only wisps of mist floated lazily above them where the bright sun flooded through gaps in the ridges and mountains. Later, as we gained elevation again on Flat Top Mountain, the world was flooded with golden sunlight. Oak Hill and Princeton gleamed. Homes, neatly kept yards, gardens displaying tomatoes ripening on the vine, sunflowers sentineling the sun, and wine red dogticks marshaled along the fences all promised a plenty in neat comfort against the coming winter in a war-time economy. There was only a short time for changing buses in Bluefield, not enough time for me to see whether my luggage, which I had checked to Boone, was transferred. Soon we were moving swiftly along a highway down a long Virginia valley between rolling mountains covered with pasture to their tops. Pigs, sheep, and cattle grazed in the pastures, and the corn growing in lowland fields was tall and tawny and heavy with ears. From behind groves of locusts, elms, and spreading oaks substantial and beautiful houses, many of them with green lattices by the windows and white pillars flashing in the sun, commanded from their sites on smooth-sided hillocks or alluvial plateaus at the mouths of little valleys vast holdings of fertile land. I wondered whether the owners of these lands considered themselves farmers or Virginia planters. Signs along the highway reminded us that we were traveling on the Trail of the Lonesome Pine. Tazewell, Lebanon, Abingdon were old dignified towns strung along the highway; towns that were quiet, clean, and charming with their wide streets, substantial public buildings—grey in the sunshine—and ancient homes with dark roofs, peeling woodwork, rusting iron fences or crumbling stone walls. Yet manicured yards, noble trees, and profusions of shrubbery and ivy suggested that even though the owners had not been financially able during the Depression years to lay out money to repair and paint their proud houses and mend their forbidding fences and walls, they had been able to preserve their self-respect in the care they had lavished on their trees, shrubs, vines, and brick and stone walks, a care that required little money, only some of the leisure time and energy which people had in abundance during those hard years. We arrived in Bristol about 1 p.m., I believe, and circled a spacious new bus station fitted out with the most modern equipment and designed to accommodate traffic expeditiously. The station was crowded with people and all seats in the shining restaurant on a level above the waiting room were filled. The bus to Elizabethton would not leave for two or three hours. I took a stroll down the street by the station, taking note of its diagonal approach to Stateline Street, down the middle of which runs the Virginia-Tennessee dividing line. On the corner was a wedge-shaped building in which a restaurant was located. I went in, sat at a stool, and ordered a sandwich and milk, for which I paid twenty cents. I then walked as far east as Virginia Intermont College, of which I had never heard, stopped in at the railroad station, walked north down a street lined with ancient buildings, and turned west toward a modern hotel, a tall structure with a spacious lawn and a comfortable patio equipped with rocking chairs. Aged men with white hair, straw hats, clean shirts, subdued ties, carefully brushed suits, and well worn but good shoes, brightly polished and �The Gratis Williams Chronicles: I Come to Boone with soles edged in black, were lounging in the rocking chairs swapping yarns and exchanging views on the times and the progress of the United States in World War II. I sat nearby for a time, interested in the speech and idiom of the old men and wondering whether they were widowed Virginia gentlemen managing with frugality and care to live in the hotel or whether they were retired men of the town who came together for lunch in the hotel dining room and lounged the afternoon away in conversation on the comfortable patio. As I walked back to the bus station I began to perspire, for the afternoon was warm. I was sensitive, too, about my shabby suit, an old summer suit, baggy and rumpled, that I had chosen because I wanted my better clothes to be fresh for wear in Boone. The bus to Elizabethton was loading. A long line had already formed. I was fortunate to get a seat. Again, people were standing in the aisle. The character of the landscape changed as we moved into Tennessee. The mountains became bolder, steeper, more rugged, and forested. Valleys were rich and pasture fields covered low-lying hills, but forests began at the bottoms of sharp rises from which jagged and massive rock formations jutted out of the trees. The trip from Bristol to Elizabethton was a short one. Even though the driver stopped the bus at farmhouses and crossroads to let people off or pick up new riders, we were in Elizabethton in less than an hour. The station was at the edge of town near a river lined with huge trees. The bus to Boone would not be leaving for another hour. The little waiting room of the station was filled with people, many of them women and children. It was warm. The sunshine was clear and bright and one perspired when he walked in it. My seatmate on the bus from Bristol was waiting for a bus in another direction. He was a salesman but in Elizabethton for the first time. We toured together a part of the little town and then ate standing up at a hamburger stall close to the station. It seemed that most of the people getting on the bus to Boone knew one another. Conversations were lively and the speech and idiom of the people were essentially what I had heard while I was growing up near Blaine. Country women with weathered faces carried packages in their arms, and small children with bright and eager faces, scrubbed clean and tanned in the sunshine, swarmed around grandmothers and tired looking mothers with infants in their arms and shopping bags hanging from their wrists. I found a seat, but when all seats were taken and an old lady leaning on a cane took a position in the aisle beside me and propped herself against the side of my seat, I offered it to her. "W'y, no," she protested. She would be getting off "just a little ways up the road thair a piece." But I insisted and she sank into the seat. I moved toward the back of the bus to give her room to hold her cane propped upright so it would not slide onto the floor. When she got off a few miles up the road, a young woman with an infant in one arm and a child clinging to her skirt sank into the seat. Unlucky about being near seats as people vacated them and new riders got on the bus, I stood up all the way to Boone. The road was narrow and the asphalt surface was uneven. Spread-eagled and planted firmly in the aisle, I clung to the baggage racks and looked out at the increasingly rugged scenery. Much of the time the highway ran parallel to or within sight of the narrow-gauge �A Call From Boone tracks of the ET&WNC railroad. People got off and others got on at the little towns of weathered and old-fashioned wooden buildings along the way-Valley Forge, Hampton, Roan Mountain, Heaton, Elk Park, Banner Elk-but the bus continued to be crowded with passengers standing in the aisle. What I saw along the highway fascinated me. By the time we had reached Hampton, I was seeing dense clumps of rhododendron and laurel. Tall spruce and hemlock trees grew from among the rocks on the steep mountainsides. High mountain ridges, purple in the late afternoon, rose above and far beyond closer mountains. Sparkling water churned along rock-strewn stream beds and dashed forcefully through gorges, the bottoms of which I could see almost straight down from the side of the bus. This rugged scenery had more daring, more energy, more resistance and wild beauty than any I had seen in Kentucky or West Virginia. Once, the bus stopped in front of a store and filling station built against the mountainside. Beside it was a cage in which a huge bear was being teased by children. At Elk Park the little train on the narrow tracks had stopped at the quaint station, its smokestack puffing lazily as if it were resting after the steep climb up the mountain. Beside a weathered house of upright boards and with a roof of dark and curling shakes an old mountain man was making a drag sled like those my father made. At Banner Elk a beautiful little college campus11 with buildings of native stone strung along a ridge behind the bus station was dressed in carefully arranged banks of rhododendron and evergreen trees. From the top of the mountain before descending to Valle Crucis a sweep of blue and purple mountains, some outlined like cutouts against the sky, came almost suddenly into view, and I had the feeling that it was the glory of these mountains that I had longed for, that the beauty of this landscape was surely unsurpassed. The valley, resting peacefully in the late afternoon sun and crossed by purple shadows of mountains, seemed to be a mile down below, almost straight down from my standing position in the bus. As the bus driver started down the steep incline, he lowered the gear, and applying the brake frequently, continued to lower the gear. I clung desperately to the baggage racks and leaned heavily against the side of the seat to keep from being plunged headlong into the aisle. Although I was frightened by the roughness of the descent and the depth into the valleys below the road, I consoled myself with the thought that the bus made this trip every day and that I might reasonably expect it to make it that day, too. Near the foot of the mountain the road had been built in a double hairpin curve so sharp that one could look straight up and see where he had been and straight down and see where he was going at the same time. A year or two after I had been in Boone, one bus driver coming down the mountain following an ice storm slid off the road but managed so skillfully to land below that he was headed in the right direction, and nobody was injured. One of the tall tales about that curve repeated by yarn spinners gathered around the stove in Mast s Store at the foot of the mountain is about the farmer who covered his basket of eggs when he rode horseback down the mountain after Mr. Mast accused him of trying "Lees-McRae College �The Gratis Williams Chronicles: I Come to Boone to sell horse biscuits as eggs. The bus stopped at Mast's Store, but again, seats left vacant by those who got off were taken by people who stood closer than I. The Watauga River Valley was in shadows. One could not see the sun from that depth. I saw young people and children playing on the porches and in the yards of the sturdy farmhouses along the river. Blue wood smoke rose from chimneys and spread out above, a sign in Kentucky of approaching rain. Fat cattle stood in the yards of huge barns. Corn in the bottom lands was still green. Grass on the hillsides looked fresh and tender and green as if it were springtime instead of late summer. As we came up a long gently sloping hill toward a gap in the mountains, I saw on the side of a barn an advertisement for Stalling s Jewelry Store in Boone. Soon we had passed through the gap and there fanned out below us was Boone, quiet and mystical in that half hour of deepening shadow that precedes the turning on of street lights. 10 �Arriving in Boone: A New Beginning The bus came down into the town, turned to the right at the first paved street we came to, and at the end of the second block pulled along-side a quaint little building that looked more like a country-stop railroad depot than a bus station. We got out and waited for the luggage to be unloaded. Only one piece of my luggage had arrived. After waiting for the station master to take care of details relating to packages and parcels that had been delivered by bus, I reported that only one of my bags had arrived. He filled out a form and said a tracer would be sent and that the missing pieces would probably arrive within a day or two. I should check at the station each afternoon. With my one bag, into which I had put a box of stationery, shoes, a bathrobe, dirty sox, underwear, and shirts, I walked across the street to a taxicab stand and engaged a cab driver to deliver me to Faculty Apartments. He was there in about five minutes. He charged me a quarter. With my bag of dirty laundry in my hand, unshaven, and in my shabbiest suit, wrinkled, threadbare, and smelling of perspiration, I entered Faculty Apartments. No one was in sight, but a little sign over a door announced "Office." I knocked on the door. An older woman with a kind smile opened the door. I told her who I was and that Professor Chapell Wilson had instructed me to report there, where I was to have an apartment. She was Mrs. Coffey, the hostess for the building. Professor Wilson had told her that I would be arriving. Unfortunately, though, the apartment I was to have was not yet available and would not be for another two weeks. Professor and Mrs. Antonakos12 were still in it and would not be leaving for Chapel Hill for several days. The principal of the high school, Mr. Wey13, had requested that she call him as soon as I 11 �The Gratis Williams Chronicles: I Come to Boone arrived and he would come and meet me there and take me to a men's dormitory where I would stay until the apartment was available. She turned to the telephone on the wall opposite her door and called. She then invited me to have a seat in the parlor and make myself comfortable. Mr. Wey had said he would be there in a few minutes. She went back into the little office and closed the door. I sat down in an easy chair facing the door through which I had entered the building. As I waited, I remembered Sylvia's fears that I might not receive all Mr. Wilson had promised. I began to check off rapidly the things I needed that were in the bags that had not arrived: razor, toothbrush, clean underwear and sox, clean shirts and ties, suits, hats, raincoat, overcoat. Soon the door at the end of the hall opened and an extremely tall, thin man with a slender face and a high nose came striding toward me, his long feet clicking heel and toe on the waxed floor. I had expected Mr. Wey to enter through the front door, so I did not rise as lor. Figure B. Herbert W Wey, principal of Appalachian Demonstration School, early 1940s. Photo courtesy of Ruby Daniel the tall man came on into the par- "Is your name Williams?" he asked. I then stood up and told him that I was Gratis Williams, in order to sound for him my first name, which, I had learned, people want to pronounce "Crattis." "Fm Herb Wey, the principal of the high school. Come with me and I'll show you the school building, take you to your classroom and office, give you your keys, and go over the schedule with you. Then I will take you to Newland Hall, where you will have a room vacated by a young English teacher who married one of his students and is on his honeymoon." I picked up my light bag, and Mr. Wey relieved me of it. "Is this all the baggage you have?" I told him that most of my baggage had not arrived with me but that the station !2 Antonios Antonakos taught physics and chemistry at ASTC, organized the first drama club at Appalachian, and formalized Playcrafters in 1933. He took a year's leave of absence to study for his doctorate in physics at UNCChapel Hill during 1942-43, and returned to teach both physics and play production and to be an active force in the success of Playcrafters. !3 Herb Wey was math and physics teacher and coach at Appalachian Demonstration High School from 1938 to 1942 before becoming principal in 1942, a position which he held until 1953. He earned his doctorate in education in 1950 from Indiana State University. He became dean of Appalachian's graduate school in 1957, and president of the college (1969) and later chancellor, leading the transition into Appalachian State University, before his retirement in 1979. 12 �A Call From Bo one master was sending a tracer and thought it would be here in a day or two. "You'll be lucky to get it in a week," he said. Mr. Wey had parked his car at the high school building and walked over to the apartments. As we walked back, he a foot taller than I and taking one long step to my two, I could tell from the questions he asked that he had not seen my application materials. Although he was courteous, genuine, sincere, I felt that he disapproved of me in some way, perhaps because I was a small man, I was so pleased to be in such a delightful place and teaching on a college campus that I was glad I had been hired "sight unseen," for I would not have got past an interview with this man. Perhaps, if I were careful, followed his instructions, and kept silent about my own experiences as a high school principal for seven years, he would accept me while I was testing my skills anew as a high school teacher. It would be very important that I refrain from prefacing any suggestion I might have to offer with "When I was a ..................................................................... high school principal...," but I 111 felt that in time he would accept " The high school building, 14 a WPA structure with native stone veneer, was not up in quality to the building in which I had worked in Kentucky. Wooden floors creaked. Rooms were rough plastered and many had not yet been painted. Instead of standard teachers' desks and chairs for the classrooms, there were roughly made little tables with canebottom chairs. The offices were little more than large closets equipped with more of the canebottom chairs and little tables, which had Figure C. Main entrance of Appalachian Demonstration High School, early 1940s. Photo courtesy of Ruby Daniel. been made in the carpentry shop on campus originally for study tables in dormitory rooms. There were no filing cabinets, nor were there typewriters, but each office and each classroom had a small portable bookshelf. The bookshelves, without backs, had also been made locally for dormitory rooms. On one of the tables in my office was an orange crate with a divider in it that my predecessor had used for filing. It conI4 Now Chapell Wilson Hall. 13 �The Gratis Williams Chronicles: I Come to Boone tained materials she had left, among which were things labeled English 310, the number, I understood, of the course in methods that I would begin teaching after the college students arrived about two weeks later. In the course of our conversation Mr. Wey told me that the high school, though located on the campus and serving as a college demonstration school, was also a county school that served the town children and those brought in by bus from back in the mountains. The mountain children, he said, were rough and difficult to handle. They had run off some teachers in the past. Such a school, he said, was a better one for practice teachers to work in than the model schools found on most campuses, which only children of the professors and well-to-do parents in the community attended. Our school, he said, comes closer to being like the mountain high schools in which most of our college graduates will find jobs. Our practice teachers, then, are better prepared to deal with the teaching situations they will enter after they graduate than most college graduates are. In the keen competition for teaching jobs in public schools Appalachian graduates did well and very few failed to find appointments, and that had been true all through the Depression. We try to teach them both what they need to know and what they need to do to be good teachers. He then took me to the library, which was located in a large cage at the side of the study hall. The librarian in past years had been responsible for the study hall but beginning this year a teacher would be responsible for the study hall every hour except one. The librarian needed to have time to build up the library, and Dr. Dougherty,15 the president of the College, had promised some money for the purchase of new books. I would be called on to help select books for use in English classes. We looked at the pitiful collection of ratty books, all arranged and waiting for the students to descend upon them Wednesday, when they could begin checking them out. The library in the high school at Louisa was much larger and the collection much better, but I thought it inappropriate to refer to it. The school had vocational agriculture and vocational home economics. A full fouryear program in business was being developed, too. Mountain kids who did not plan or were not able to go to college needed the vocational programs. Girls who did not want to go to college could prepare to become secretaries. I asked whether the school was required to qualify for accreditation by the Southern Association separately from the College. The College, he said, was not accredited and was not seeking accreditation at that time, but he had already discussed with Mr. Wilson the possibility of seeking accreditation for the high school and had been encouraged to begin working toward that goal. That was one reason why the librarian was being relieved of her responsibility for keeping the study hall. I observed that the last school in which I had worked was a member of the Southern Association and that I thought membership was important for the principal because the guidelines could support his request for budget increases for improving and keeping up to date the library, science laboratories, and busi15 Blanford Barnard Dougherty (1872-1957) served as superintendent of Watauga County schools from 1899 to 1916. In 1899 he was co-founder and co-president, with his brother Dauphin Disco Dougherty, of Watauga Academy, which eventually became Appalachian State Teachers College. He served as president until 1955. 14 �Arriving in Boone: A New Beginning ness department. He said if Mr. Wilson should come through with what he had promised, maybe I could be a member of the planning committee. We left the building and got into Mr. Weys car, an older model that he considered himself fortunate to own in those days of gasoline rationing and moratoria on the manufacture of new cars. He delivered me to Newland Hall, directly across the valley from the high school building, and reminded me that there would be a faculty meeting in the Teachers Lounge at eight o'clock the following morning. With my bag in hand, I went to the keeper's room. He was an older college student who had the responsibility of acting as a host. I told him who I was. Yes, he was expecting me. He turned to a key board, found a key to a front room on the second floor, and handed it to me. He did not know in what shape I might find the room. Mr. Dukes, then on his honeymoon, had left some things in it and the man who had shared the room with him would not be coming back to live there, for he had been given a room in Faculty Apartments. He gave me a roll of toilet paper to carry with me, just in case it was needed. With my bag in one hand, my key in the other, and the roll of toilet paper clamped under my arm, I made my way up to the second floor of Newland Hall. The key would not unlock the door. Since there seemed to be no one else living on that floor at that time, I left my bag and the roll of toilet paper beside the door and went back to see whether I had been given the right key. The keeper took the key and examined it carefully. Then he turned to the key board and selected another, which he examined carefully. "Try this one," he said. "Mr. Dukes had the lock changed and we forgot to throw the old key away." I went back, unlocked the door, and flipped the light switch. Two beds with bare cotton mattresses and no pillows were pulled together against the back wall. Two study tables similar to those I had seen in the high school building and each with a canebottom chair in front of it were placed on either side of the window, which had no blind or drape. A double dresser with a mirror stood against the wall between two doors, one to a bathroom shared by occupants of the next room and the other to a clothes closet. One of the tables had on it a dilapidated lamp, a paperweight, a ruler, some pencils, a bottle of ink, some notebook paper, and a ball of string. Scattered about was refuse, old newspapers and magazines, an abandoned pair of disreputable looking sneakers without strings, sox eaten out at the toes, and empty cartons of one kind or another. In the closet was a stack of boxes tied with stout cord from the roll on the table. Mr. Dukes's "things," no doubt. The bathroom light had no bulb in it. I went to the window and looked out. It was a clear night. The sky was deep and dark, almost indigo, and the stars floated in sharp brilliance as if each had its own space both behind and around itself. This was different night sky from any I had seen either in the hills along the Ohio River or in the flatlands of the Mid-West, where even clear night skies looked as if they had been sprayed with skim milk and the stars looked flat as if they had been spattered on the canopy of heaven and could twinkle only in linear fashion along 15 �The Gratis Williams Chronicles: I Come to Boone a flat surface. I opened the window a few inches for ventilation and noted that the night air had a chill in it that was unusual for September 1. I then opened my bag, took the dirty clothes out and laid them on one of the beds, and brought out the box of stationery to write Sylvia a letter. It was a long one in which I went into detail about the bus trip, the people traveling in such throngs and on a Monday, too, the lovely scenery along the way, Boone at twilight, my lost baggage, Mr. Wey, the poverty-stricken aspect of the high school, and my winding up in a dormitory room with no pillow, no bed linens, no towels and soap, and no light in the bathroom, instead of the apartment I had expected. But I liked the town, Mr. Wey's openness and candor, the mountains, and was sure I was going to like living and working on the campus. But, I could see, by the time I had purchased bed linens, a pillow, blankets, and sundries, I would have little money left for paying for meals at restaurants for two weeks before I would be able to move into the apartment. When my money ran low, I would seek Mr. Wey's advice about getting some kind of a loan to help me through the first month. It was ten o'clock. My routine had been upset. I was much more tired than I had realized. I had spent myself completely in writing the letter. The chill that was in the air reminded me that the pajamas that would come in handy that night, but that I had not needed in Huntington and Beckley, were in one of my lost bags. I spread the bathrobe over the mattress for a sheet, pulled on a soiled undershirt over the one I had on, put on two of the soiled shirts, two pairs of shorts, two pairs of sox, placed my watch on a chair by my bed, turned out the light, lay down, and spread my thin summer coat over my bare legs. I might have slept for two hours when I woke up shivering. I got up, turned on the light, and closed the window completely. It then occurred to me that, with the soiled clothing I was wearing, it was not so important that I have the mattress covered with my bathrobe. I spread one of the shirts across the head of the mattress, spread out newspapers beside me, and turned the light off. Then I spread my coat across my legs, pulled newspapers across myself and spread the bathrobe across the newspapers. I felt warm in a few minutes, but when I moved the newspapers slid off, carrying the robe with them. I then slipped newspapers between my shirts and my shorts, put my pants on, wrapped my robe around my legs, pulled the thin summer coat up under my chin and went back to sleep. When I woke up at six o'clock I was lying in the same position in which I had gone to sleep. I got up stiffly and went into the bathroom where I washed my face in cold water, for the hot water heater was not operating during the break between the close of summer school and the beginning of the fall quarter. I dried my face with one of the soiled undershirts, used the undershirt as a washcloth for a sponge bath and for washing my feet, and dried myself with another undershirt, shivering from the chill as I did so. I then hung the wet undershirts across the backs of the canebottom chairs to dry during the day. I used the corner of a soiled handkerchief to clean my teeth. Dressed in the clothing I had worn the day before and feeling despondent, I locked my door and made my way along a narrow gravel road across the valley toward town, the backside of which was visible from the win16 �Arriving in Boone: A New Beginning dow of the dormitory room. The Gateway Restaurant was open and many people were having breakfast. I ate an egg with toast, butter and jelly, and coffee, for which, as I recall, I paid twenty-five cents. Next door to the restaurant was the Sanitary Barber Shop. It was open for business by the time I had finished breakfast, and I went in for a shave. Only two barbers were on duty, though, and there were four or five ahead of me. About 7:45 I was called. By the time the barber had finished with me, I knew that I could not arrive at the school on time for the faculty meeting. On my way uptown I had crossed an alley beyond the movie theatre which I had remembered as a street but did not notice at all on the way back to the school. So, instead of turning right down the street I had come, I crossed that street and came along the block to the corner at the church. Confused by this, I hurried back to the street I had crossed, but it did not seem familiar, so I returned to the corner at the church and turned right. Soon I could see the stone building in which the high school was housed, so I hurried diagonally across the playground on which children of all ages were chasing one another and entered the high school building from the east end. Mr. Wey met me at the door. "For crying out loud! Late the first day!" I explained that I felt I had to have a shave before coming to school, for I had not shaved the preceding morning, my razor was in one of the bags that had not arrived with me, and I had felt it necessary to go to the barber shop, at which several customers had arrived ahead of me. "Well, why didn't you tell me last night? You could have used my razor! The faculty meeting is over. The kids are already gathering in the auditorium. Here is the list of the boys who will be in your homeroom. When I introduce you, read off these names and go to your classroom. You remember where your room is, don't you?" "Yes, 210." "Well, here are the schedules for your boys. Give each his schedule. At the end of the homeroom period we will go through the class schedule for the day. Yours is in your office, you remember. Have you got your key?" I reached in my pocket and flashed my key. "Well, let's go!" We hurried along down the hall, Mr. Wey in dactylic rhythm and I in double-time trochaic, our heels striking the floor together at about every third step for me. When we reached the door, he said, "Find you a seat down there somewhere," swinging his long arm in the general direction of the left front side of the auditorium. He hurried on down the center aisle to the front of the room and I along the outer wall about two-thirds of the way down, where I sank into the last seat in a row that had only three or four students seated in 17 �The Cratis Williams Chronicles: I Come to Boone it. By then, Mr. Wey had taken his position before the student body. His "greetings" were brief. Students were to be introduced to their homeroom teachers, who would read off the room number and call the roll of the students assigned to them. After that was finished, we would all go to our homerooms and teachers would hand out schedules and answer questions. When the buzzer sounded, we would then go through the schedule for the day. He began with eighth grade. Mine was eleventh grade. I would apparently be among the last to be introduced. Several of the teachers were new. Mr. Wey made brief comments about them. Students applauded. Occasionally, a few groans were sounded when students heard their names read by teachers returning from the previous year. At last, the senior homeroom teachers were presented. The girls were pleased with their assignments. Then the teacher for one of the homerooms for senior boys was presented, a new math teacher, especially charming, whom Mr. Wey was sure the boys would like, Miss Poole. Miss Poole stood up, a pretty young woman just out of college. Her hair was arranged beautifully and her clothes were bright and stylish. All of the senior boys, it seemed, whistled in chorus, some stomped their feet, others beat their chair arms with flat hands. Mr. Wey said he knew how they felt. He felt that way, too, but he had a wife at home. The boys became quiet. Miss Poole read with a soft voice, perhaps Georgia but possibly South Carolina, the names of the boys in her homeroom. When she had finished, there was a resounding round of applause from the boys whose names she had called. Mr. Wey waited patiently for a few moments and then flung out his long arm for quiet. "The other homeroom teacher for senior boys is our new English teacher, who is taking Mrs. Rivers s place. He will have charge of dramatics this year. Girls, he is married. Mr. Williams, stand up!" I stood up at the end of the row of seats and turned to face the student body. The boys left for my homeroom sent up a chorus of groans. As the student body looked me over, others joined in the chorus. Then a chant to a rhythmical stamping of feet began, "No!" Stamp, stamp. "No!" Stamp, stamp. "No!" Stamp, stamp. It was like a cheering squad attempting to frustrate the player on the visiting team who was about to make a basket in a basketball game. I stood quietly, waiting for the protest to subside. Mr. Wey flung out his arm again and chided the students for the bad manners they were using in responding to a stranger in their midst. I smiled, bowed slightly, announced that I was pleased to be there and regretted intensely that I did not have Miss Poole's beauty and charm, but that I was sure the senior girls who liked cute short men would have loved to have me for their homeroom teacher. I paused, and some of the girls began to applaud. I bowed toward them and smiled. Then the applause increased. After a moment or two, I held out my hand for quiet, announced my room number, and read off the names of the boys in a chant similar to that used by the old time railroad porters in announcing the cities at which the train now on the tracks would stop. When I sat down, the students gave me a round of "good sport" applause. I felt that perhaps I had saved myself. We were dismissed. I followed the students out of the auditorium and made my way 18 �Arriving in Boom: A New Beginning to Room 210. Most of the boys were there ahead of me and seated. I laid my materials on the little table and stood behind it. The boys were talking among themselves and teasing one another. Little attention was paid to me, and no one said anything to me. After the buzzer sounded, the boys stopped talking and became attentive. I began by telling them that I wanted to learn as quickly as possible the name of each young man present so well that I could address him by name if I should meet him in the school building or up the street and that I wanted to learn how to pronounce correctly any names with which I was not familiar. I would therefore begin by calling the roll slowly. Would each person please hold up his hand long enough for me to get a good look at him and correct me if I mispronounced his name? With that ritual completed, I then gave out the schedules. There was considerable exchange among them in their effort to determine whether their buddies and cronies would be in the same sections with them. Teachers' names had not been listed on the schedules, only the period and the class in which each section would meet. Then there was speculation as to who of the teachers might be teaching this or that section. I did not know. Would I be teaching anything that the seniors might be taking? Yes, drama and speech were available to seniors. Three or four indicated that they would be in one or the other and one would be in both. We were finished with what we had been scheduled to do, but the buzzer for the first period to begin did not sound. I asked whether they were planning to go on to college next year. Many planned to do so. I commented that they were fortunate to have in their town a college to attend. My comment stimulated the expression of many points of view. Only people who planned to teach attended Appalachian. Many planned to go to professional schools and would be going to colleges that had degree programs that would prepare them. Some would go to Davidson College, some to Wake Forest, one or two to Lenoir Rhyne, some to North Carolina State College at Raleigh. One, who did not plan to go to college, said, "They couldn't hire me to go down here to this college." Others added, "Me, either." I refrained from asking why, but while I was struggling with the temptation to do so, the one who could not be hired to attend Appalachian said, "I wouldn't teach school if it was the last thing on earth to do." This was followed by a chorus: "Boy, me neither!" Then one of them asked me to tell them something about myself. I responded that I had grown up on a farm in Kentucky, attended a high school in town, been graduated from the University of Kentucky with both an A.B. and an M.A. in English, that I had done some additional graduate work toward a Ph.D. degree at Kentucky, and that I had taught for twelve years in Kentucky and had just come from a teaching assignment in the Apprentice School of International Nickel Company in Huntington, West Virginia, where I had taught shop mathematics. The one who could not be hired to go to Appalachian said, "You must be old." Everybody laughed. I responded that I was 31. A young man with a sensitive face who had indicated that he would be taking speech said, "You don't look that old." Others shouted, "Apple-polisher! Apple-polisher!" at him, and he smiled shyly. I said to the group, "Then, most of you think I do look that old?" There was some self-conscious squirming during a long moment of silence, broken by the one who wouldn't teach school 19 �The Gratis Williams Chronicles: I Come to Boone if it was the last thing on earth to do, obviously the joker in the group: "After teaching school twelve years, I'm surprised that you look as young as you do." The buzzer sounded, but the boys waited for me to dismiss them. I followed them to the classroom door with a warm feeling toward them and was pleased both with myself that I had not told them that I had been a high school principal for seven years and with them because they had made no reference to Miss Poole, to whom the other half of the senior boys had reported. By the time I had taken my position in the hallway, little girls began to arrive, then four or five little boys, all smiling tentatively as they passed me. I followed them into the room. There were 28 eighth grade English students, most of them thirteen and fourteen years old. I announced the section number and room number, wrote on the blackboard my name and pronounced it for them, and asked them to sign a roll that I passed around. I then asked each to hold up a hand as I called the roll and to correct me if I mispronounced a name. There were Cooks, Greens, Greers, Hodges, Millers, Moretzes, Norrises, and Winebargers among them. They were mostly "bus" students, quiet country children many of whom were coming to town to school for the first time. I remembered what Mr. Wey had said about the rough children from back in the mountains who had in the past driven off teachers they did not like. These children, so young and small, it seemed to me, to be in high school, did not appear to be ferocious. After taking and calling the roll, I asked if there were any questions. Nobody had a question so I began to tell them about myself, that I had taught seventh and eighth grade English classes eight of the twelve years I had been a public school teacher. The buzzer sounded for the second period after we had been in the room only fifteen or twenty minutes, it seemed. They got up from their seats and rushed out of the room, except one wide-eyed little boy who had smiled broadly every time my eyes had rested on him. He hung back long enough to ask me whether I had any children of my own. Later, I learned that he was retarded. Little children, dogs, lackwits, and old people had always liked me. Probably there were some things about me that were all right. The next group was the drama class of 25, which included students from the ninth, tenth, and eleventh grades, among them three or four from my homeroom group. After required routines were completed, they wanted to know what plays we would be presenting. I did not know yet, but invited them to tell me about the plays that had been presented the preceding year. Four or five starry-eyed girls who were taking the class for the second year talked about plays in which they had had parts, how excited they had been, mistakes they had made, and what a fine director Mrs. Rivers had been. I smiled vacuously when one enthusiastic supporter declared that "she couldn't be beat." When the buzzer sounded for the third period, they waited to be dismissed. One boy remained in the room, a boy also in my homeroom. Then came twelve students for the speech class, most of them boys from the tenth and eleventh grades. Many of them were planning to go to law school. One thought he might want to become a minister. Some hoped to hold public offices. Girls were interested in declamation, oratory, interpretative reading. The fourth period was my "free hour." In the normal schedule, it would come 20 �Arriving in Boom: A New Beginning immediately after lunch. I sat in my little office and looked at names on the four rolls to see with how many of them I could associate faces. I had not learned many faces the first day, certainly, but perhaps more from the homeroom group than from the classes. I had become interested in what I was finding in the files Mrs. Rivers had left in the orange crate when the buzzer sounded for the fifth period. This was another section of eighth grade English. Nineteen girls and a thin little boy with frightened eyes took their seats. These were "town" children, those who had gone through the campus elementary school and actually lived in town or had ridden buses from less than three or four miles outside the town. They were not as shy as the first-period section. Different family names were represented, too: Austin, Carroll, Clawson, Smith, Wilson; but there were Greens, Greers, Hodges, and Moretzes among them, too, polished a little brighter, a bit better dressed, somewhat more sophisticated, and with less uneasiness in their eyes than those with the same family names who had been in the morning class. There was a group spirit among them. No doubt most of them had been in the same classes together since first grade. They buzzed and hummed among themselves as they followed the routines and procedures others had followed silently. There were two sets of identical twins among them, twins dressed alike and looking so much alike that I was never able to distinguish Mary from Martha or Mary Sue from Betty Lou, and the twins sat next to each other. (I decided later in the year that they either swapped seats occasionally or the one who was better prepared responded to my question without regard for the name that I had called. Other members of the class always laughed when I called on Martha while looking at Mary, or responded to Betty Lou when Mary Sue had asked the question.) Of my four classes, I was most apprehensive about this one, which had not as a group opened up to make room for me during this first meeting. The sixth period was for the English methods class, which I would meet in the same classroom after the college students had completed registration in about two weeks. I went back into the little office and amused myself with Mrs. Rivers's files and a stack of one-act plays suitable for high school students. When the buzzer sounded, there was a roaring rumble as students rushed along the hollow-sounding wooden floors in the hallways. I went downstairs and to the office. Everybody was gone except the secretary, who gave me copies of the texts and teachers' guides I would use, a roll book, copies of attendance forms, excuse permits, and other forms that would have been given to me that morning, had I made it to the faculty meeting. There would be another faculty meeting at eight o'clock the following morning. In fact, Mr. Wey means to have the faculty meet every morning at eight o'clock this year. No, it would not be necessary that I come back that afternoon. The door to the inner office opened and Mr. Wey appeared. He wanted to know how I had gotten along with my homeroom boys. I reported. He apologized for their behavior in the assembly. I reported that no reference had been made to it at all and that it did not bother me. I was sure we were off to a good start. Remembering my fifth-period eighth grade class, I added that I hoped I was not too far away from my experience as a 21 �The Gratis Williams Chronicles; I Come to Boone teacher of eighth graders to have forgotten how to work with youngsters of that age. If I ran into difficulty, would he be willing to sit in my class for a period or two and offer suggestions for improvement? He was for a moment stunned by my question. Had I taught children of that age before? Yes, I had taught all grades in one-room schools for four years and seventh, eighth, and ninth grade English in a six-year high school for four years. He did not think I would have any difficulty, but if I should want him to visit my classes he would be pleased to do so and would help in any way he could. He then asked how I had liked my room in Newland Hall. I reported my problems, told him that I had almost frozen, and explained what I had done to keep warm. He laughed, snorted, and shook his head. I added that I would buy myself a blanket that afternoon. He thought I might find a bargain at Belk's. I took my textbooks and forms back to my office and walked up the street to the Gateway Restaurant, where I had eaten breakfast, and took a seat at the counter, for the booths and tables were occupied. Before I had had time to give my order, a young woman whom I recognized as one of the teachers at the high school but whose name I did not remember, got up from a booth, came over to me, and said, "I am Ruby Donald, the new teacher of physical education for girls at the high school. Would you join us?" I looked at her for a moment, and then glanced hurriedly at the booth from which she had come, at which three young women, one of whom I recognized as Miss Poole, were sitting. The young women, in rigid postures, were looking at us and smiling welcomes. I looked at Miss Donald, whose warm and friendly smile was reassuring and whose reddish auburn hair flowed to her shoulders, and felt that the invitation was a genuine gesture of welcome. I climbed down from the counter stool and followed her to the booth. She introduced me to Miss Poole, a new teacher of mathematics, to Miss Penix, a new teacher of science, and to Miss Tucker, the new home economics teacher. Miss Donald slid into the seat and I sat beside her. We were all new teachers at the high school. Their orders had not yet been taken. The four young women were first-year teachers. Miss Tucker and Miss Donald had graduated in the spring from Georgia State College for Women. I do not remember Miss Poole's college, but believe it might have been Newberry in South Carolina. Miss Penix was a graduate of Morehead State Teachers College in Kentucky. They were all living in the Faculty Apartments. Miss Tucker, who spoke a Georgia dialect, was talkative. Miss Poole had little to say but said it beautifully. Miss Penix, from Rowan County, Kentucky, affecting the "r" of the Deep South, spoke in carefully measured and deliberately chosen phrases. Miss Donald, who appeared to be most natural and thoroughly at ease, spoke rapidly and made a diphthong of "oo" in school, obviously coastal Middle Atlantic. I spoke somewhat refined hillbilly but made no effort to appear "Southern." The waitress came and we gave our orders. As we did so, the young women asked many questions about what was on the menu and then settled for sandwiches and iced tea. Without asking any questions, I ordered a hamburger without the onion and a glass of milk, which totaled only 20 cents, I was pleased to note. 22 �Arriving in Boone: A New Beginning Someone ventured to ask where I was living. I explained that I was temporarily housed in Newland Hall but would be living in an apartment after the present occupants had vacated it about two weeks from then. Did I have hot water at Newland? I answered there was none and that I had had to come to the barber shop for my shave that morning, and had missed the faculty meeting because there were several persons ahead of me. Would my wife be coming down later? Was she also a teacher? Yes, she hoped to join me later in the year. She was a teacher, but was not currently teaching. A quizzical look followed this, and there was an exchange of glances accompanied by an almost imperceptible nodding of heads as if all had arrived at "Uh-hunh!" simultaneously. Did I have children? "Well, no. Not any to speak of, that is." Only Miss Donald laughed, but the others, faces slightly downcast, peeped upward at me in a kind of "Ah! You naughty man!" attitude. Conversation then turned to what had taken place at the school that morning. There was resentment against having a faculty meeting at eight o'clock every morning. Wouldn't a faculty meeting once a week, and in the afternoon, for Heaven's sake!, be enough? Someone then asked me how I pronounced "sophomore." I responded. "Mr. Wey says 'sowphomore,'" Miss Tucker said. I had never heard that pronunciation. Perhaps it reflected a German influence on his speech, as in "sauerkraut." Miss Donald laughed. Miss Penix smiled. The other two were puzzled, not certain whether I had said something downright stupid or too brilliant for them to comprehend. What do you think of the students at the high school? Miss Poole was, for the first time in our conversation, effusive. Her homeroom boys were the cutest things! Miss Tucker had been disappointed in the students she had met. They seemed to be so dumb! Miss Penix thought they were nice kids, especially those from town, and the country kids were shy, but they would come along in time. I thought she spoke from a wealth of experience. Miss Donald made no comment. Miss Tucker asked me what I thought. I responded that I was a mountaineer myself and that the students were in general not any different, so far as I had been able to tell, from students I had taught for twelve years in Eastern Kentucky. The town students might be a little more serious than town students I had known in Kentucky, but it is difficult to distinguish stupidity from self consciousness and shyness in students "from back in the mountains" until you have had a chance to see them perform. Sometimes some of them turn out to be your best students. Except for Miss Penix, there was a feeling of disappointment in what these eager firstyear teachers in a demonstration high school had found here. The town seemed so dull, too, and it was so far from everything! Perhaps it would be more interesting when the college faculty members returned from vacation and the college students arrived. What did I think of Boone and the school? The town was quaint and charming. The high mountains were beautiful. Even the sky at night had an awesome depth, a mystery, a something that made a difference. I liked it. The school had not yet come out of the Depression, and there were makeshifts, but the new principal was a fair, sincere, and capable man. Following lunch, I took leave of the young women and walked up the street as far as the courthouse, a square structure with almost white mortar framing each dull red brick 23 �The Gratis Williams Chronicles: I Come to Boone and a round window in the top that looked like the eye of a Cyclops staring boldly across the little valley. People I met along the street spoke to me as if they knew me, including older women. I then crossed the street at the courthouse and came back to the post office, a beautiful little building on a hillock near the corner of Depot Street and King Street. It was built of native stone, slabs of which varied in color from one stone to another. Across an inside wall was a mural depicting Daniel Boone on his way to Kentucky. Daniel was wearing a hat rather than the usual coonskin cap. As I slipped my letter to Sylvia into the out-oftown slot, I noticed on a placard on one of the bulletin boards a determined Uncle Sam proclaiming that he "needs you." I presented myself at the window and requested that any mail I might receive be held for me for the next two weeks until I would know where on campus I would be living. The lady who talked with me asked how I spelled "Gratis" as she wrote my name on a pad, offering no comment about the unusualness of my name. She was a small woman with a faint smile playing around very blue but sad eyes and a pleasant, soft voice. Behind her at work at a table stood a large man with hair that stood up across the top of his Prussian head. He paused, a bundle of letters in "hold" position in his hand, and looked at me for a moment. I then crossed the street on the corner by the bank and made my way to Belk's to purchase a blanket. A friendly man came toward me as I entered and asked whether he could help me. I explained that I was interested in a fullsize cotton blanket, a double one if he had it. He advised that I might find something in the bargain basement and led me to the broad stairway beside the entrance. In the long basement room there were only two or three women standing at tables and turning items of merchandise over as they squinted at price tags in the dim light. A small woman came toward me and asked whether she could help me. I told her what I wanted. She led me to the far back of the room, pulled on a light over a table, and invited me to study the bargains. Soon I found a lightweight blanket of flannel-like material, white with large pale blue checks on it, and made of 100 percent cotton. It was full size and was washable. The bargain price was only $2.50. I took it to the clerk, who slipped it into a bag made of thin slick paper. When I peeped into my pocketbook and drew out a five dollar bill, I noticed that I had only a ten dollar bill left in it. That, the change I would receive from the clerk, and the loose change in my pocket would have to be spent carefully if it were to meet my needs for the remaining twenty-eight days of September, I thought rapidly as I handed the clerk the five dollar bill. She smiled with curiosity in her eyes as she handed me the change, but she did not ask who I was. From Belks I went to the ten-cent store on the corner and bought a water glass and a cake of soap, which I slipped into the paper bag. Then I went by the bus station to see whether my bags might have arrived. They had not, but the station master, who was not the same small older man I had talked with the preceding evening but a middle-aged man with a large and completely bald head, said they might be on the bus from Elizabethton that would arrive about the "edge of dark." He was an extremely friendly, helpful man, whose voice, when he turned and answered the telephone once or twice while we were talking, slid upward as if he were asking a question even when he made simple statements. He 24 �Arriving in Boone: A New Beginning pronounced "Elizabethton" as if it were a question even though he placed heavy stress on "beth." He told me that my bags might have gone from Bluefield to Winston-Salem. If so, they would be sent up directly from Winston-Salem but they might not arrive for two or three days. He would be glad to call me when they arrived if I cared to leave my telephone number. I explained that I was housed temporarily in Newland Hall and could be reached at the high school during school hours, but that I did not know the telephone number for either. He would look that up. He then looked at my name on the copy of the slip the older man had filled out, held it rather far in front of him, moved his glasses forward on his nose, and said "C-R-A-T-I-S? Crattis Williams?" I pronounced the name for him. He made no comment about the unusual first name, but asked, "Where are you from, Dr. Williams?" Noting the complimentary title, never before uttered, but unwilling at the moment to go into my credentialing, I responded that I had come to Boone from Huntington, West Virginia, but that I had grown up in Kentucky. "Oh, old Kaintuck? What town in Kaintuck?" When I answered that I was from a little place called Elaine about twenty miles west of Louisa in Lawrence County, he asked, "Is that anywhere near Pikeville?" Louisa, I explained, is located at the forks of the Big Sandy River and is about 90 miles down the river from Pikeville. He had relatives who had been in the drug business at Pikeville along with some of the Greers, who had gone up there to Kaintuck from " Wattogga" County. Had I ever heard of the Greer Drug Company? It dealt in roots and herbs. I had not. He then welcomed me to Boone and offered to help me any way he could. If I wanted to, I could call a little past six o'clock, since the bus from Elizabethton "ordinarily" made it on time, and ask whether my bags had come, unless I just wanted to walk back then. "My name is Herman Wilcox,"16 he said, as he reached to shake hands with me while I shifted my paper bag from my right hand to my left. I could see the top of Newland Hall peeping over the profile of a long green hill to the right front of the bus station. A narrow gravel road that did not seem to be used very much led in that direction, but I preferred to walk back across the bridge over the little creek and down a street with broken pavement and many potholes in it that was located behind the buildings that faced Main Street. There were no sidewalks along this street. Near the lower end of it was a complex of shabby structures that I took at first to be a sawmill and lumber company. I was finally able to see a sign painted on a long white board above one of the buildings: "Levites Pipe Company." It occurred to me that the sign painter had left out the apostrophe between "Levite" and "s," and then I wondered what people used wooden pipes for. Back in the dormitory room I removed the tags from the blanket and dressed one of the beds with it, arranging it so I would be sleeping between the double. Then I removed '"Herman Wilcox served as Linville River Railroad agent and manager of Western Union before acquiring franchises for the Greyhound, Queen City, and Trailway buses through Boone. He also served two motor truck lines and Railway Express. Tweetsie railroad made its last trip from Boone to Johnson City, Tenn. in 1940 (see note 18). Wilcox later acquired the depot property on 211 Depot St. and built the rock business building which served for many years as the transportation center for Boone, where he also established Wilcox Travel Agency. 25 �The Gratis Williams Chronicles: I Come to Boone the undershirts from the backs of the canebottom chairs and sat down and wrote Sylvia's mother a letter telling her about my experiences in getting off to a new start in Boone and asked her to go through the things we had brought to her home, select four good sheets, two pillow cases, a quilt, and a small pillow and send them to me "general delivery." Possibly she could use one of the boxes in which we had packed things. I was pleased that, since she was the postmistress at Cherokee, Kentucky, she would not have to carry the package to a post office. I wrote Sylvia a letter, too, and told her about my first night in Boone, missing the faculty meeting, running through the schedule, lunch with the new young teachers, one a graduate of Morehead State Teachers College, also Sylvia's alma mater, but Sylvia had graduated in 1937. I picked up trash from the room, stacked in the closet things that I thought might be useful to Mr. Dukes, including magazines, piled the newspapers on the other bed, and went down to the keeper's room to borrow a broom and a dustpan. He was not in, but I found what appeared to be a janitor's room unlocked. I borrowed a broom but could find no dustpan. There were light bulbs on a shelf. I took one for the bathroom light. There were boxes of toilet paper, too, but I had been given a roll of toilet paper. I went back and swept the room, using a sheet from a newspaper for a dustpan, returned the broom, put in the light bulb, cleaned the wash basin and the commode, cleaned the mirrors with some of the toilet paper, and dusted the tables and the dresser top. About three o'clock I decided to walk back to the school and work out lesson plans for the following day. I spent two or three hours looking through the texts and the teacher's guides and wrote down on a pad my plans for each class. I could hear occasionally sounds from other offices and people walking up and down the hall. High school boys were practicing football in a field below a splendid oak tree that stood on the lower side of the street across from the high school building. I could hear the voice of the coach rising and falling, but could not understand what he was saying. Having finished my lesson plans, I stood at the window of the office and looked up and down the valley and at the high tree-covered ridge that rose behind Newland Hall. The sun was swimming along above an evergreen forest that grew on the crest of the long green hill along which I had looked when I had seen the top of Newland Hall from the bus station. From a ravine behind the little restaurant that stood across from the bus station a cloud of smoke was rising from the town dump and drifting along the top of the pine trees. Long fingers of dark shadow were feeling their way softly across the little valley. To the southeast was a dark looking brick building among pine trees on the hill across the ravine to the left of Newland. Peeping over the line of young maple trees growing along the driveway up to Newland was the top of a white frame building, much in need of a new coat of paint. It was in the Victorian style and had fire escapes from its upper windows. A flat, green building that looked much like a country store stood behind a little structure of round logs chinked with mud that I thought might have been a grist mill. A wooden stadium was backed against the creek that flowed by the college football field, at the lower end of which was an ugly brick gymnasium with small windows. The gymnasi26 �Arriving in Boone: A New Beginning um and the football field looked as if they had been built with no thought given to the fact that they were on a flood plain. Although it was only September 2nd, some of the trees among the hardwood forest on the high ridge were beginning to show touches of red and yellow. The air was clear and quiet. Details in the sunlight were sharp. Shadows were black patches on the landscape. The sky was blue and deep and far away. I closed my door, walked back to the post office and posted my letters, and then made my way to the little restaurant across from the bus station. People were there, some at tables and some at the counter. Music from the jukebox was loud, "Rosie O'Day" and "Blues in the Night" still being chosen from time to time. As I sat at a small table alone and listened to the music, I thought of Huntington, the plant, and the apprentices, who came charging across the courtyard echoing "Rosie O'Day" and strolling into the classroom singing "Blues in the Night." I remembered with a sense of release the incident of the White Owl cigars, the stench in the early morning air in Huntington, the heat in the upstairs room in which I tried to sleep from four a.m. to noon each day, the noise from the traffic on Fifth Avenue, the exhausting six hours each night of teaching ten sections of apprentices, each section coming once a week, the dull monotony of repeating the same thing in three-hour stretches ten times a week, from nine p.m. to three a.m. each night. I was glad to be in Boone, and breathed deeply in appreciation. The hostess came and left a menu. Soon the waitress came, dressed in a green and blue uniform that picked up the color motif of the little restaurant, both inside and out. I ordered a breaded pork chop, green beans, and mashed potatoes with a glass of milk, painfully noting that, although the dessert that came with the dinner was Ma Angell's famous apple cobbler, the price was 35 cents. I would have spent 80 cents that day for food! If my $ 13 plus a little change were to support me for the rest of the month, I would have to eat for about 50 cents a day. Perhaps I could buy some bread and cheese, a bottle of buttermilk, and a few apples at a grocery store, things that would not have to be refrigerated, and bring costs down by eating a sandwich and an apple in my room occasionally. I could handle the food budget better when I got into the little apartment, which had a refrigerator and an electric stove in it, but I would have to buy pots and pans, cutlery, plates and glasses, and a dish or two. The food was good. That was the first full "dinner" I had eaten since Sunday evening. I was hungry and found Ma Angell's delicious cobbler justly famous. I did not leave a tip, one rarely did in Boone in those days. I paid my bill and walked over to the bus station. The bus arrived "about the edge of dark," as Mr. Wilcox had predicted. It was packed. Many of those who got off grabbed their bags as soon as they were set on the sidewalk and raced for Ma Angell's Restaurant. Others embraced people who had come to meet them, some in cars and some on foot, and went away with them. Others picked up luggage and walked toward town as if they might have been going to the Daniel Boone Hotel and were eager to get there in time for dinner. My bags did not come. Perhaps they would come up from Winston-Salem tomorrow. 27 �The Cratis Williams Chronicles: I Come to Boone I had not really expected the bags to arrive. I went back to the dormitory to see what I might do to improve my appearance for the following day. I had worn my shirt, underwear, and sox for two days. I could hardly afford to risk a third day, considering that the trip down from Beckley had been a rumpling one and that I had perspired a great deal. After examining my soiled clothes carefully, I decided that the shirt I was wearing was the best candidate for the next day, so I pulled it off, wet the underarm areas, rubbed Bouquet soap on the wet spots, and washed the areas in the cold water in the basin, the wet circles getting bigger as I washed. I then rinsed them in cold water twice, discovering that the odor of the soap would not come out. But I wrung the wet places as dry as I could, pulled the wrinkles out, and hung the shirt over a chair. I washed two undershirts and two pairs of shorts, applying Bouquet soap generously, and spread them on newspapers on the floor to dry. Sox were more difficult. It seemed that the toes became stiffer as I tried to rinse the soap out of them. I had no way to iron them, but if I should wash two handkerchiefs, spread them between newspapers, and put the newspapers under my new cotton blanket, they might dry smooth from the weight and warmth of my body. I then put on one of the soiled shirts, pulled on my thin summer coat, and went through the pile of newspapers, pausing to read feature articles and human interest stories that appealed to me. Not yet adjusted completely to the change of my daily work routine, I soon became sleepy and began to nod over the newspaper stories. I prepared for bed by slipping on an extra pair of sox, an extra undershirt and pair of shorts, and two soiled shirts. I had taken two or three toothpicks at Angell's Restaurant in order to try to keep my teeth clean until my baggage arrived, for I did not want to spend money for a new toothbrush and paste. Standing before the mirror in the now well-lighted bathroom, I picked my teeth carefully and then cleaned their surfaces with the corner of a handkerchief, following which I washed my mouth out several times with the cold water from the tap. Remembering the deep sky the preceding night, I turned off the light and stood by the window again. The sky did not look as deep and the stars shimmered behind a thin mist. Lights along the streets of the town shimmered in the mist in the breeze that was moving in the little maple trees on the hill below the dormitory. Perhaps the weather was changing. I cracked the window a half inch, turned the light on again, unfolded newspapers and laid them across the blanket, put the bathrobe over the papers, spread my coat above the bathrobe, wound my watch and placed it on a chair beside the bed, turned out the light, and crawled between the new clean smelling cotton blanket. I had freedom to move with this improved sleeping arrangement. Newspapers did not slip as easily over a flannel surface as they did over the hard cloth in shirts and shorts. I slept comfortably, but was dimly aware from time to time of the wind and the sweeping of the windowpanes by light showers. 28 �c Settling into Boone When I woke up at 6:30 instead of 6:00, I sprang out of bed and began to prepare hastily for the day. I took another sponge bath, but felt cleaner because I had used soap. I would not try to go by the barber shop for a shave this time. My beard was light. Perhaps I could get through a second day without a shave. My clean sox and underwear were still damp, and the circles under the arms of my shirt had not yet dried, but I put them on anyway. I went hurriedly over the surface of my teeth again and rinsed my mouth with cold water. The handkerchiefs under my blanket were dry but needed to be touched up with an iron. I smoothed one out with the palm of my hand, folded it carefully, and slipped it into my pocket. I was ready to go, and it was only seven o'clock. I had enough time for breakfast, I thought. The morning was dark. Clouds rolled along the valley rapidly. I could not see the mountain behind town at all, and the top of the knob that stretched toward the east was hidden in a cloud. A light rain was falling and I had no raincoat or umbrella. Perhaps Mr. Cornett, the host for the dormitory, had one. I went by his room to see. He was up and the odor of the bacon he was cooking on a hotplate filled his room. No, he did not have an extra umbrella or raincoat either. There might be an umbrella in the storeroom. We looked, but there was none there. I said I would have to spread newspapers over my head and shoulders. "Wait," he said. "I believe I still have the laundry cover for the last suit I sent to the cleaners." He did. I tore a hole in it big enough for it to slip over my head, ripped it down at the corners far enough to get my arms out, put my hat on, and started at a fast clip, the paper slapping my knees. The laundry cover had come unglued by the time I had reached the street by the high school build29 �The Gratis Williams Chronicles: I Come to Boone ing, but I held it together as best I could and rushed on to the Gateway Restaurant. At the door, I took off the laundry cover, folded it carefully, tucked it under my arm, and entered. I was not very wet. The cuffs of my trousers were dark looking, I felt damp across the shoulders, and one of my shoes leaked, but otherwise I had come through pretty well protected, I concluded. I took a stool at the counter, slipped my bundle behind the foot-rail, and ordered an egg sandwich with coffee, noting with satisfaction that the price was only fifteen cents, what I had paid at the White Tower in Huntington for the same thing. The sandwich was ready in four or five minutes. A better bargain than a White Tower sandwich, it had in it thin slices of dill pickle, and one of the slabs of bread had been brushed with mayonnaise. It was served open, steaming hot and inviting a dash or two of black pepper. I normally took my coffee straight, but since cream and sugar did not cost extra, even though sugar was being rationed at the time, I took both when I remembered that I needed to get as much food for my money as possible. I ate the sandwich rapidly, gulped down the coffee, laid fifteen cents on the check by the cash register, and rushed out. The rain had stopped, but it might begin again soon. I hurried on. Just before I reached the school building another brisk shower came, but I decided to dash to the building rather than fool with trying to get the laundry cover unfolded and around me again. My toes were squishing inside the shoe that had a hole in the sole, my coat, wet across the shoulders, had dark splotches down the front, my pants, quite wet below the knees, no longer had creases. My shirt collar was turned up at the tips, and my tie was splashed. Inside the door, I looked at my watch. It was 7:40. I slipped up the end stairway to my office, took off my right shoe and sock, wrung the water from my sock and forced wadded up construction paper into my shoe to absorb as much moisture as it could while I cut out an insole from the cardboard back of a paper pad. I pulled the construction paper out and trimmed the insole to size. Then I made a second insole from a sheet of doubled construction paper and slipped them all into the shoe, put it on, and laced it up. My foot felt warm and dry. I took off my coat and slipped two sheets of construction paper under my shirt and across my shoulders and an undoubled manila folder between them and the shirt. After patting the paper into the shape of my body as best I could, I put my coat on, buttoned it, picked up a pencil and pad, and went downstairs. When I noticed that it was 7:55, I went into the washroom and combed my hair, tugged at the corners of my shirt collar and tucked them under the lapels of my coat, adjusted my wet tie, and hurried to the lounge. Mr. Wey was there, his watch in his hand, waiting. Perhaps half the faculty had assembled. Others were rushing in, some without having gone by their offices to leave their raincoats and umbrellas. I took a seat by the door and leaned back against the wall, enjoying the warmth that was glowing between the paper inside my shirt and my chilled shoulders. When I crossed my right leg over my left knee, I remembered the white spot of cardboard that showed through the sole of my right shoe and reversed the arrangement, aware of the odor of Bouquet soap that was fogging up from my steaming clothes. 30 �Settling Into Boone Mr. Wey began the meeting with the observation to newcomers that we were experiencing a sample of Boone weather and that we might find it convenient to keep an extra umbrella and a raincoat in our offices, for the weather can change in a half hour here in these mountains. He summarized briefly the registration procedures and the problems that had surfaced in the trial run of the schedule and how they were being handled. He reviewed the uses of certain forms we had been given the previous day, advised that we dismiss classes promptly but that we not permit students to get up from their seats until we had formally dismissed the class, that we take a position in the hallway by our classroom doors during the change of classes, that we prepare absence and tardy reports for our homerooms first thing and hand them to the hall monitor near our room. There had not been enough textbooks to go around in some subjects, but others were expected soon and there would be an announcement when they arrived. Sometimes announcements would be made through the intercom system. Teachers and students were to stop in the middle of a sentence if necessary to hear announcements from the office. Later, we would have fire drills, but he would go more into that at a subsequent meeting. He then asked if there were questions. An older teacher asked whether he wanted to say anything about the use of the library. Some teachers, he explained, managed their classes with a minimum of lecturing and discussion and provided for supervised study for a part of this time. This was a good time to permit students to go to the library, but no more than two or three should be sent at a time and a permit signed by the teacher and initialed by the librarian or an authorized helper must be issued to each student excused for library privileges. Students who required a great deal of help during the supervised study period should not be permitted to go to the library from the classroom. They could check out what they needed during their study hall period. When another teacher, a new man in social studies, raised a question about the fairness of this arrangement, Mr. Wey explained that most of the good students took up to six or seven subjects and had no study hall hour—some had a regular five-course load and then added music, or art, or typewriting, or an elective. The newcomer found it strange that students were permitted to undertake so much. Mr. Wey responded that it was these very students who were the highest achievers and that many of them were graduated with 24 credits. The new teacher signed off with "Jeez!" in amazement as he looked around the room to see how others were responding. I maintained a stony silence. There were no more questions. Mr. Wey then explained that the cafeteria in the basement would be open today for lunch. Not many students living in town used it. Children who qualified on the basis of poverty could eat there free. The manager of the cafeteria knew who they were. Others could eat there for a nickel a meal. The food was simple, nutritious, and unusually well prepared, and was probably the only good meal some of the children, who came to school without having had breakfast, got all day. Teachers who wished to eat there could if they wanted to do so. A teacher paid a dime. With this announcement I made some rapid calculations. Perhaps I could manage to make my money last to the end of the month. We were dismissed. I was proud of myself for not having raised any questions or offered any observations. 31 �The Gratis Williams Chronicles: I Come to Boone On his way out, Mr. Wey stopped to ask whether my luggage had come. He said, "I knew it hadn't. You'll not get it until about Saturday, and you might never get all of it. I brought one of my razors for you. I use an electric razor in my office after I get here every morning. The razor I brought for you is on the shelf in my washroom. I don't have to use shaving cream with my electric razor, but when I lived in a fraternity house at 'Turr Hut' 17 1 used to use just ordinary toilet soap when I shaved with a safety razor." I told him I had not tried to make it to the barbershop this morning and might like to come by and use his razor during my free period. "Come right on," he said. "If I'm not there the secretary will let you go on in." He then wanted to know how I was liking my room. I explained that I had bought a double blanket the day before and had been comfortable last night, but that I missed not having warm water for bathing. I had taken sponge baths in cold water two days in a row. He shook his head, laughed a light little laugh, and snorted in a manner I had observed before, perhaps one of his idiosyncrasies, and hurried on. He was taking an interest in my personal welfare and had actually taken the time to bring me one of his own razors. Possibly he was not really as negatively disposed toward me as I had thought. I hurried up to my room, noting that the water splotches on my clothes were now barely visible but that my pants were wrinkled and baggy and my coat sleeves were drawing up. I slipped into my office and pulled the manila folder and construction paper from under my shirt, which was still damp but not wet. My coat was almost dry. The uppers of my right shoe, soaked from the inside, were still wet and the sole of the shoe was beginning to curl up at the edges. I looked at my watch and decided I would have time, if I hurried, to replace the construction paper insole with another, for it had begun to roll up from the moisture it had drawn from my wet sock. I took the shoe off, drew out the construction paper, laid it down as a pattern on another sheet of folded construction paper, outlined it with a pencil, cut it out and slipped it into my shoe. The buzzer sounded while I was tying the lace. Classes that morning were routine first-time classes. I was unable to associate many faces with names, even though I called rolls and looked students in the faces again as they held up hands in response. Few questions were asked about assignments, which preceded work periods followed by questions which I asked, all as an introduction to exercises and activities assigned for completion before the next meeting. Much of the work for the eighth grade section was review of essentials learned in the seventh grade. My lunch hour began at twelve noon. Four or five of the older teachers were in line for the ten-cent lunch at the cafeteria, where we filed by a window to the kitchen, deposited our dimes on a counter, and waited for a helper to place before us a plate of food and a glass of milk. The lunch consisted of a modest but delicious serving of meat loaf, mashed potatoes with gravy, spinach, a hot biscuit, and two waffled oatmeal cookies, each about an inch by an inch and a half in size. That for a dime, an egg sandwich and coffee for breakl7 Terra Haute, Indiana 32 �Settling Into Boone fast for fifteen cents, suppers alternating between something inexpensive in my room and a 35 to 45 cent meal at a restaurant might enable me to make out to the end of the month without having to ask for an advance or sell my first months check at a discount. There was not a special table for members of the faculty, but we sat together, some on one side and some on the other, at one of the ten or twelve long, narrow tables with folding wooden chairs on either side. We were unanimous in our praise of the quality of the food and wondered whether, at prices like that, the cafeteria could keep it up. In our conversation we judiciously refrained from discussing our classes and our students. Following lunch, I walked off the school grounds and toward town a few yards to smoke a cigarette. Many of the school boys, some of whom were in my classes, were standing in little clumps as they smoked. I did not offer to join them, but when I took my position, two or three of my students from the morning section of the eighth grade came and stood with me. They rode the bus to school. We talked about what farm boys do before leaving for school in the morning, after returning from school in the afternoon, and on Saturday and Sunday. They were surprised that I knew about and understood living on a mountain farm. I teased about our being "sinners," since smoking was forbidden on school grounds and we had to slip away from the righteous to enjoy our little taste of sin in shame. They found this most delightful. As time went on that year, the number to assemble with me for a smoke on and around a flat rock across the little branch that marked the boundary line of the school grounds grew. Smoking in washrooms, under the stairs, and in the furnace room stopped almost altogether. Mr. Wey noticed. Sometimes he would refer in announcements to "Smokers' Rock," but we called it "Sinners' Rock." During my office hour Mr. Wey came by to tell me that he had called to see whether there might be a room at Faculty Apartments that I could use until the Antonakoses moved out. Faculty Apartments had no hot water either between terms, but the rooms there were nicer and I would have a better chance to become acquainted with other members of the faculty, it would be closer to the high school than Newland Hall, and I might enjoy it more, if I wished to move. Also, I could use guest towels and linens the hostess would provide, and there was maid service. I was delighted at the prospect for a change. Well, if I would come by the office after my last class, his secretary would let me know whether anything had been worked out, if he himself should not happen to be available. His visit was brief. My hopes rose high. I would not be receiving the package from Mrs. Graham for four or five days, perhaps longer. In the meantime, sleeping between sheets again and with a pillow under my head, having a washcloth and a towel (even with only cold water for washing), maid service, the comfort of hearing other people walking in the halls or talking in rooms close by would be a luxury. My afternoon class was less pleasant than the morning classes had been. The little girls seemed tired and irritable. Their response to my assignment of review exercises was a half-hearted one, and they buzzed like angry bees. When I proceeded to the question-and33 �The Gratis Williams Chronicles: I Come to Boone answer phase of my plan, though, they were more responsive, many speaking at once, but all continuing to carry along the undertone of talking back and forth, and passing things from one to the other, over which they giggled. When I led into the homework assignment one protested. The teachers all day had been piling on assignments. Besides, they had done all of this "old stuff" last year. Somewhat stunned, I responded that if I should discover next day they did not need the review, we would move right on to new things, but that I doubted seriously whether it would be possible to dispense with homework. They were in high school now, and high school students are expected to do more homework and library work than grade school students. A question then rose as to how much time a high school student should spend in preparing for each class she takes. Falling headlong into the trap, I thought an hour of preparation each day for subjects like English, social studies, mathematics, science might be about right. Classes like shop, typewriting, physical education might not require as much outside preparation. This appeared to precipitate general antagonism. How was one to find four or five hours a day to do homework? Study! Study! Study! Students need some time for fun. I recognized that I had a class of bright youngsters with some ideas of their own and that I would have to exert special effort and plan work and activities carefully to keep them motivated and achieving. It was too bad that we met each other so late in the day! We might get along better if we met the first hour in the morning. Although the sun was not shining, the afternoon was warm. Even with the windows open, odors of fatigue, anger, and clothing that had been drying all day on uncomfortable and tiring little girls commingled in the room. I noted that I was smelling stale myself. Long before the buzzer was to sound, they began to assemble their books and materials on their chair arms in anticipation of a rush from the room. I reminded them that one of the regulations of the school was that students were not to rise from their seats until the teacher had formally dismissed the class. They waited, some with blazing eyes, others with smiles of amusement. Perhaps they were not a solid wall of resentment after all, I thought, as I said, "Class dismissed." Suddenly, I was very tired. I walked to the classroom door and watched the students hurry down the hall. Then, turning off the lights, I went over and closed the windows and adjusted the Venetian blinds. Back in my office, I stood at the window and studied the landscape for a few minutes, noting that the sky was darkening again. The air was clean and details in the landscape were sharp and clear, even in cloudy weather. The smoke from the town dump hovered close to the ground. I sat down for a few minutes of meditation and self-searching questions. While allowing my mind to flow freely and my memory to hopscotch the events of the day, I remembered that I had not gone by Mr. Wey s office to use the razor he had brought. I rubbed my hand against the bristles across my chin and decided that perhaps I had not needed a shave after all, but that I would go down and get the razor and use it until my luggage came. As I rose from the canebottom chair, I noted that a light shower was pattering against the window panes. Mr. Wey was not in right then but he had left word that I would come by for the razor he had brought. Miss Teems, the very young secretary, went on to say that Mr. Wey 34 �Settling Into Boone had asked her to tell me that a room in the Faculty Apartments was available until the college faculty members returned. I would have Miss Helen Foster's room. Miss Foster had called Mr. Wilson to say that she would not be arriving until after registration. If the Antonakoses should happen to be a day or two late getting away to Chapel Hill, by being in Miss Foster's room, I would still have a room until the apartment was available. The maid had prepared the room for me and I could move into it when I was ready. I went into the principals washroom and put his razor in my pocket, noting that I had not had a private washroom, not even a basin in a closet, in either of the offices I had occupied while I had been a high school principal. On the way back to my office, I stopped at the top of the stairs and studied the mountain behind the town. I had not yet heard it referred to, so did not know whether it had a name. It rose high and green. I could see little weathered houses scattered about on its lower slopes and a trail wound to a saddle gap between it and the knob that reached toward the east. The sky was blue beyond the top of the mountain. Perhaps the clouds hanging over Boone would be moving on and I would be able to walk over and get my things in Newland Hall without getting wet again. I prepared my lesson plans for the following day, giving special attention to the afternoon class, in case I should need to adapt my plans following the discussion of the review exercises I had assigned. By 3:30 the clouds had moved on and the sun was shining again. I walked to Newland Hall along the narrow gravel road, noting that the earth was still wet and that the cardboard insole of my right shoe was soaking up moisture. The first thing I did in the room was to change my shoes and sox. I did not like to wear brown shoes with blue or grey suits, but the brown shoes had new half-soles and heels. I would have to wear them without regard for my preference until the end of the month. My brown belts were in one of the lost bags, so I would have to wear a black belt with brown shoes and a blue-grey suit until I could do better. The hat of panama straw, for which I had blue, maroon, and tan bands, but which then had a blue band on it, had become floppy and dented in the rain. I would try to shape it up and let it dry when I reached Faculty Apartments. Packing was not difficult. The bag was not very heavy, but there was not room in it for the blanket. However, I had kept the bag in which the blanket came. My bag in one hand and my bundle under my other arm, I went by the keeper's room to leave the key and report that I was vacating the room. He was not there. I tore off a piece of the bag, held it against the door, and wrote on it a note thanking him for courtesies, especially the laundry cover that morning, and telling him that I was moving to Faculty Apartments. I wrapped the paper around the key and slid it under his door. I was pleased to be leaving Newland Hall. Mrs. Coffey was expecting me. She had a key to Miss Foster s room ready for me and repeated what Miss Teems had told me about the maid having prepared the room for me. When I was ready to leave the room, I could return to her the linens, towels, and washrags. 35 �The Gratis Williams Chronicles: I Come to Boone I went up the three flights of creaking stairs and found the room, which was the middle one above the second floor reception room. A small but cheerful room with a large curtained window that overlooked the main part of the campus, it was furnished with bright surfaced maple furniture, a bed, a desk and chair, a bedside stand with a lamp on it, a bedroom chair, and a chest of drawers with a framed mirror on the wall above it. I could be comfortable here, I thought, as I unpacked things and put my cake of Bouquet soap, waterglass, and the borrowed razor in the little chest with a mirror in the door above the wash basin. I spread my blue-checked blanket over the bed and folded it back in readiness for a good night's rest, * ,. z ir =e Figure D. Faculty Apartments at Appalachian State Teachers College, circa 1942, Photo courtesy of Ruby Daniel. I would have to have clean clothes, so I put shirts, underwear, and sox in the bag in which the blanket had come and walked uptown to a laundry I had seen up the street above the post office. My laundry would be ready for me the following afternoon, I was told. I decided also that having my suit pressed while I waited was a necessity, although it really needed cleaning, too. I went into a booth with a curtain before it and handed out my suit to be pressed. It was ready in a few minutes, the cloth stiffer than usual and the odor of perspiration rising warmly from it. Although creased and smoothed, the pressing had emphasized its shabbiness, it seemed to me. I paid a quarter and left. Walking back to the bus station along the street the bus had come two days before, I looked in the windows of shops along the way. There was a theatre at which western movies were shown. Near it was a little restaurant called Ruth's Place, in which beer was served. Walker's Jewelry Store had displays of bargains in the window. Boone Tire and Furniture was exhibiting new styles in house furnishings. Another restaurant near Farmer's Hardware had a shelf of wine behind the counter where the cash register was. People were already waiting for dinner in it. I turned at the bank down Depot Street, passed the ancient town hall, and made my way again toward Angell's Restaurant, thinking as I walked along that I might enjoy eating 36 �Settling Into Boone next month in the restaurant in which wine was sold unless it was considered improper in Boone for a teacher to dine in a place in which alcoholic beverages were available. I stopped at the bus station and asked whether my bags had come. They had not, but they might be on the bus that would arrive from Elizabethton. It was barely five o'clock, too early to eat. Only two or three persons were in Angell's Restaurant. Since I was wearing my brown shoes with new heels and soles, I could risk a walk on an unpaved road that led toward the town dump. If I were careful, perhaps I would not get my feet wet. I walked past a weathered log cabin of ancient vintage and with a vine-covered porch on which stood canebottom chairs, the same kind of a cabin and porch that I had seen many times over in the hollows and coves near Elaine. Old-fashioned flowers grew in the yard and against the chimney of stone and mud. I was surprised to see an authentic old cabin in town, and so close to the bus station. I thought it might well be the oldest residence in Boone and was probably being preserved by some family that had lived in it for generations, possibly since before the time the town was founded. Beyond the cabin the road became little more than a muddy trail. Deciding not to pursue it farther, I turned back and walked along the little-used gravel road toward Newland Hall. The road ran parallel to the creek a part of the way. Behind a swampy area, in which was an ancient spring with a tree growing beside it, was a dark green cottage made of boards and battens and with a tarpaper-covered roof. A rich garden with green things growing in it stretched along the lower side of the hillside behind it. Later, I learned that the spring beside the tree had been the one from which Daniel Boone had carried water to his hunting cabin at the foot of the hill on which Newland Hall stood. I could see that the narrow road had been a railroad bed until recently. A few halfrotted ties were strung along beside it and there were indentations where ties had been half buried along the edges of the road. At one point the creek bank had broken off almost to the edge of the road. The creek bed was littered with refuse from the town, and pieces of lumber, limbs of trees, parts of furniture, and evidences of the 1940 flood18 that had washed the little railroad out, lay along the creek. Having walked as far as the row of black cherry trees that stood beside an abandoned fence at the southern end of the green hill, I turned back toward the restaurant. A few people had arrived for dinner. A black-haired waitress, in her fresh green and blue dress, was taking orders. The ground beef steak and French fried potatoes I ordered were overcooked, prepared no doubt ahead of time in readiness for a rush when the bus arrived from Elizabethton, but the pickle was good, the coleslaw fresh, the milk rich and cold, and the price reasonable. It was pleasant also to hear again familiar tunes on the jukebox. The bus, on time, was crowded, as it had been on Monday and Tuesday. Some of those who got off were persons who had gotten off the preceding day also, possibly salesI8 ln 1940 flooding in the southern Appalachians devastated local residents, local communities, and local and regional transportation, disrupting rail connections for the ET&WNC Railroad as well, incuding the famous "Tweetsie" line into Boone. 37 �The Gratis Williams Chronicles: I Come to Boone men who worked the little towns between Elizabethton and Boone or teachers who commuted to their schools by bus because they could not get enough gasoline to drive their cars. I stood against the wall of the little bus station and watched a friendly and efficient black man unload the baggage, piece by piece, but my bags had not come. Without bothering the station master for other opinions about when I might expect my bags to arrive, I struck out for Faculty Apartments, taking Depot Street back to the corner of the main street, where the ten-cent store stood, and along the street toward the corner at the Baptist Church. People lounged against iron railings to basement steps, leaned against the front ends of the few cars parked before the two drug stores and the restaurants, and stood in little groups near fireplugs. High school teachers occupied tables and booths near the windows of the restaurants. High school students sat on stools at the soda fountains in the drug stores. Teenage girls with shoulder-length hair and dressed in pastel-colored sweaters and skirts that came far below their knees, bobby sox, and dirty saddle oxfords hurried along by twos and threes, animated and laughing as they tossed their heads to keep their hair rippling toward their shoulders, perhaps on their way to the Pastime Theatre, for the Appalachian Theatre was being renovated following a recent fire. People sat on the porches of the funeral home and the boarding house near the intersection of College Street and King Street. Conversations stopped altogether or were lowered as I passed, aware that I was being studied and imagining that someone on each porch was asking, "Who is that?" Children were playing on the grounds around the elementary school, and the clumps of flowers were fresh and bright in the yard of a pretty little native stone house set on a bank retained by a stone wall behind the college bookstore. Locust Street was only a gravel road then, but there was a concrete sidewalk that led past Faculty Apartments. Little girls were zipping up and down the walk on tricycles, some daring to ride no-handed. Everybody was enjoying the quiet and fresh afternoon following the rain. Boone was a lively little town. I could smell pork chops and the onion in casseroles being prepared in apartments as I climbed the two flights of stairs to my room. No one was visible and the only audible sounds came indistinctly from radios in the apartments. Those who occupied rooms were out to dinner. My room, put in good order by the maid, was neat and clean and smelled fresh. There was, I thought, a faint odor of perfume hovering over the chest of drawers, perhaps a droplet of Miss Foster's caught in the tidy white cover that lay across the top. The wash basin shone white and clean, the light odor of my cake of Bouquet soap rising from it. From the window I could see the roofs of the dormitories and the administration building with ventilators like those I had seen on barn roofs in Ohio. Rows of little chimneys stuck up along the lower edge of the black tarpaper roof of the oldest dormitory, a rambling two-story building of light-colored locally baked brick. Trees growing along the low ridge across the valley from the campus were sharply defined in the clear air and a dark little house in an upland field was silhouetted against the pale green of a mountain that lay across the valley on the other side of the ridge. A lazy column of blue smoke rose straight 38 �Settling Into Boone from the chimney of the little house into a streak that lay parallel to the top of the ridge and across the face of the mountain beyond. We would probably have more rain by tomorrow, I thought. I sat down at the little desk and wrote Sylvia a long letter in which I related the details of my second day on my new job, my impression of the town, and my new room and its pleasant appointments. I was becoming more comfortable in my relationships with the principal who was certainly a sincere, capable, and unusually well organized person and beginning to look as if he planned his work more carefully than I had ever done while I was a principal. His English needed improving, for young teachers made comments about it, but he was a mathematics teacher, and sometimes mathematics teachers do not see a need for improving their English. The comfortable bed in Miss Fosters room, with sweet-smelling linens, a soft pillow, and my new cotton blanket, invited me to sleep readily. I woke up once in response to the wind whispering at the eaves just above my window and discovered that a soft rain was falling. Next morning the rain was still falling and wisps of cloud trailed along the top of the low ridge across the valley. While I was shaving with Mr. Wey's razor and using cold lather from Bouquet soap, I could smell bacon frying and coffee making in the apartments. I dressed in the same sox, underwear, and shirt I had worn the day before, but was pleased to think that my brown shoes would keep my feet dry and that my suit looked better for having been pressed. The rain continued in little soft gusts. I decided that since I could not risk a trip up the street for breakfast I would pick my teeth, clean them with the corner of a handkerchief, drink water for breakfast, and watch for a lull between showers to make a dash to the high school building. There was never a time when the rain stopped completely, but I was able to rush to school through what was mostly a mist shaken down by low clouds without getting wet enough for my trousers to lose their crease. At the school ahead of the other teachers, I stopped by the principal's office to thank Mr. Wey for his razor and for making arrangements for me to move into Miss Foster's room. He did not invite me into his office, but when I responded to his question about breakfast that I did not have a raincoat, for my baggage had not yet arrived, and that without one I could not take a chance on getting wet by going to the restaurant for breakfast, he let me borrow his umbrella and gave me a big apple. I took them to my little office and ate the apple while watching from my window waves of steaming rain pass down the valley. At the faculty meeting that morning we were told that most of the schedule problems had been worked out and that orders had been placed for needed textbooks. Teachers, many of them wet and steaming from their rush through the rain, had few questions. Mr. Wey explained again how absences and tardies were to be reported and emphasized the importance of knowing at all times where students were. Then he expressed the hope that new teachers would write out lesson plans for a while in order to avoid falling into the habit of lecturing all hour. Classroom procedures, he said, ought to be varied within the hour, perhaps four or five times, to hold the attention of the students and to challenge their inter39 �The Gratis Williams Chronicles: I Come to Boone ests. He called on a soft-voiced English teacher to tell how she varied her presentations in order to hold the attention of her students. She emphasized the value of speaking in a pleasantly modulated tone of voice, making the assignment at a logical time, even if in the middle of a class period, and of giving students up to fifteen or twenty minutes for supervised study in the classroom. Questions followed. Other teachers volunteered information about how they worked for variety. Two of the men teachers defended the lecture approach. Again, I listened attentively but offered no comments. That was my third day to meet my students. By then I was able to call most of the boys in my homeroom by name but was still confusing Greens and Morrises, Greers and Moretzes in my classes. My sixth period class was bothering me. It seemed to have my most intelligent students, but many of them were irritable and quarrelsome. That day I discovered that most of them certainly did not need the review exercise that I had planned and was glad that I had prepared an alternate plan for them. But they were noisy, talked with one another out of the sides of their mouths while looking at me, and were ruthless and sometimes vicious in their comments to one another, which they blurted out without regard for the direction of the discussion. Eating lunch in the cafeteria was not only economical for me but convenient also. The fall rainy season in Boone, more clearly defined than I had remembered it in Kentucky, continued for nearly two weeks. I was pleased to have Mr. Wey's umbrella for protection until my baggage finally arrived on Saturday, but my shoes became so sodden that mold had grown on the edges of the soles by the end of my first week in Boone. Showers were unpredictable. Weather could appear stable but a cloud moving along the side of Rich Mountain could bring a deluge within ten or fifteen minutes. Between showers that afternoon I walked uptown for my laundry but having already learned the unpredictability of the weather, I carried Mr. Wey's huge umbrella with me. On the way back I stopped at the post office where I picked up a letter from Sylvia and instructed the gracious little clerk, whose name I learned later was Nell Coffey Linney, to send my mail in the future to Faculty Apartments. For the first four or five evenings I walked alone to a restaurant for dinner, for which I usually paid 35 to 45 cents. Then Miss Donald, the pleasant sandy-haired physical education teacher, asked me one day at lunch whether I would care to go along with her and two or three others to dinner. I gladly accepted. Only two of the other teachers were male, Dr. Orby Southard, who taught vocational agriculture, and John Nelson, who taught social studies. Both of them were married and lived in apartments with cooking facilities. I was the only male who was free to socialize at dinner time with the young ladies. We usually went as a group about 5:30 to the Gateway Restaurant. The other young ladies were pleasant and I enjoyed them but Ruby Donald and Doris Penix, who knew people at Morehead, including Dean William H. Vaughan,19 who had been my high school principal at Louisa and my friend ever since, gradually became my friends, with whom I could discuss matters that I did not care to discuss with cute Miss Poole, whose homeroom boys soon became 19 See Gratis Wiiliams's (1983) biography, William H. Vaughan: A Better Man Than I Ever Wanted to Be. Morehead, KY.: Morehead State University. 40 �Settling Into Boone troublesome for her, and vivacious and talkative Miss Tucker, the new home economics teacher, who was disappointed in her job, critical of her students and Mr. Wey, and unhappy in a small town like Boone, where nothing exciting ever happened. With my meals costing me only 60 to 75 cents a day I began to feel comfortable about whether I had money enough in my pocket to meet my expenses to the end of the month. But Sylvia took a turn for the worse. Her throat had become so sore again that she was finding it difficult to eat. She had developed a low-level fever and was suffering from nightmares, from which she awoke streaming with perspiration. Doctors were less confident about her situation than they had been at the time I stopped to see her at the end of August. She wanted me to come to see her that weekend, my second in Boone, if I could possibly do it. Also, while I was there, I could have my lungs X-rayed. She had spoken to Dr. Edwards about it, and he had said he would make an appointment for me if I could come to Pinecrest. After my first four or five days in Boone, I had begun to suffer from insomnia and often woke from fitful sleep and distressing nightmares, wringing wet with perspiration. I was tired much of the time despite my good diet, including two glasses of milk a day and adequate proteins, cod-liver oil, and iron supplements. In addition to walking, I also did pushups and stretching and bending exercises each morning. But I had not gained any weight. The cough I had developed in Huntington had cleared up, but I had an early morning cough and continued to clear my throat a great deal all day long. I, too, thought I ought to have my lungs X-rayed. But I could not afford expenses for a trip to Beckley from the nine or ten dollars I had in my pocket, all that stood between me and starvation. I wrote Sylvia that I would see whether it was possible for me to sell my check for the first month at a discount, as we had sometimes done in Kentucky, or borrow against it. I would write again the next night and let her know what arrangements I had been able to make. The following morning I asked Mr. Wey at the end of the faculty meeting whether I might speak to him privately about a personal matter. He invited me into his office, where I explained to him that my wife had become quite ill and wanted me to come to see her that weekend. He made veiled references to whether a child might be arriving. I made no attempt to clarify the situation, thinking it to my advantage that no one suspect she had tuberculosis of the throat. I needed some money, I explained, for I did not have enough to go see her and meet my own essential needs for the remainder of the month. He explained that the selling of checks at a discount was not permitted and that there was no fund from which one could borrow. I explained that I thought I could make out with ten dollars. Mr. Wey told me to go see Mr. Chapell Wilson, who had plenty of money. He might be able to help me. Mr. Wilson's office was in the Elementary School Building. Mr. Wey would call him and make an appointment for me. I told him I would be glad to see Mr. Wilson, either during the lunch hour or my free period. He called. Mr. Wilson would see me as soon as I could get over there that morning. I had about ten minutes before my homeroom met. 41 �The Gratis Williams Chronicles: I Come to Boone I rushed to Mr. Wilsons office, my first visit there. Mr. Wilson, who was seated at his desk, invited me to sit down. I started to relate to him what I had told Mr. Wey, but before I could get into my request, Mr. Wilson took his pocketbook from his hip pocket, extracted a twenty-dollar bill, and handed it to me. I was about to say that I had wanted to borrow only ten dollars. "You may hand it back to me after you get your first check," he said. I assured him of my gratitude and left. Having thirty dollars in my pocket removed a nagging fear that had possessed me from the time of my arrival in Boone. Suddenly, I enjoyed a freedom that I had not known before. I could afford now to use toothpaste every time I washed my teeth, to take things out to the laundry every week, and to have a juice with a full breakfast occasionally instead of restricting myself to an egg sandwich and coffee every morning. I might have enough money to buy a magazine or two to take to Sylvia, to give her a supply of envelopes and writing paper, to leave two or three dollars with her so she could send out for notions she might need. Financial independence gave me a new charge of energy. My classes seemed more alert and responsive that day. That night I told Sylvia in my letter of the generous help Mr. Wilson had provided and that she could expect me to be at Pinecrest Saturday morning. I slept well that night. The college students would arrive the following week. Registration would be Monday and Tuesday. I would meet for the first time my college class in methods of teaching English in the high school on Wednesday. I had gone through the materials in the file Mrs. Rivers had left and examined the textbook she had used in the course. Mr. Wey was not prepared to tell me much about how I should teach the class, the number of students I might expect to register for it, or the objectives I should expect to hold in mind for the course. I asked whether he thought it out of order for me to seek a conference with the chairman of the department to discuss the course with him. Mr. Wey thought that would be a very good thing to do. I could probably find Dr. Abrams, the chairman, in his office any afternoon, for the college faculty members had returned from vacations and most of them were on campus and getting ready for registration. That afternoon I walked to the post office to post letters I had written the evening before. On my way back to campus I came to the corner at the Baptist Church and then came along College Street by the funeral home, Agle Apartments, a boarding house on the corner at Howard Street, and past the Episcopal Church. Sitting on the stone wall in front of a beautiful little stone cottage with a profusion of flowers blooming in the front yard was a well dressed old man with a wide, dark mustache, his glasses resting far down on his nose, and his blocked grey felt hat pulled so low on his forehead that a ring of baldness showed below it behind. A prominent black mole or wart was visible on the lower part of one cheek. Immediately, I thought of Abraham Lincoln, Mahatma Gandhi, and a demented old baldheaded man with a wide mustache and a wart on the lower part of his cheek in my home community in Kentucky who thought he was the president of the United States. Standing in front of the man seated on the wall was another old man, quite grey, tall, and 42 �Settling Into Boone wearing a dark, carefully brushed suit. His mouth hung open much of the time and he seemed slightly palsied. He was listening to what the man on the wall was saying. Standing between the clump of flowers in the yard and the stoop of the cottage was an animated and fine looking older woman but considerably younger than the men, I thought. She was listening intently to the old man sitting on the wall. As I approached them, the standing man, apparently ignoring for a moment what the other one was saying, turned toward me. I spoke as I started to leave the sidewalk in order not to come between the two. Only the standing man responded to my greeting. "Are you one of the new high school teachers?" he asked. "Yes," I replied. "My name is Williams. I came down from West Virginia to teach English in the high school." "My name is Williams, too," he said, as he reached to shake hands with me. "I am the geography teacher at the College. Are you related to Williams families in North Carolina?" I assured him that I was not to my knowledge related to Williams families south of Virginia. "I would like for you to meet Dr. B.B. Dougherty, the president of the College." Dr. Dougherty and I shook hands. No effort was made to introduce me to the charming lady behind the flowers. Dr. Dougherty asked a question or two about my educational background and my teaching experience, his voice low pitched and at a very slow pace but with a reflective hum behind it. He welcomed me to Boone and the College. Thinking it unusual that the president of the College and the professor of geography should seem so aged in their appearance, I hurried on to the administration building, the one with white pillars in front and with "girls" over one ground-level entrance and "boys" the other as if they were doors to toilets. I climbed the steps and entered through the double front doors of the building. Most of the office doors were open. Unable at first to determine which of the doors was to the office of the dean of the College, I made a tour of the main floor, peeping into all of the offices that were open. A man with a shock of iron grey hair and keen eyes came from an office at the end of the hall and asked, "May I help you?" Unwilling to admit that I needed help, I replied, "No, thank you." Later I learned that the helpful man was Mr. Herman R. Eggers,20 the registrar. Twenty-five years later, he reminded me of our first meeting. He had decided, he said, that I was one of those who wants to discover things for himself. I found the dean's office and presented myself to the young secretary with piercing eyes and dark shoulder-length hair and asked whether I might see the dean. She went into his office, returned in a moment, and told me that Dean Rankin21 would see me. I went in. 20 Herman Eggers (1898-1990), was bom in Mabel, North Carolina, and received his M.A. from George Peabody College in 1927. He served as teacher, registrar, and dean of student affairs between 1929 and his retirement in 1970. 43 �The Gratis Williams Chronicles: I Come to Boone Dean Rankin rose to greet and shake hands with me. He invited me to sit down. I explained that I was a new English teacher at the high school and was scheduled to teach the course in methods of teaching English in the high school. I wanted to meet Dr. Abrams,22 the chairman of the English department, and discuss with him the contents of the course and to hear any advice he might have to give me about how I should conduct the course. He stepped to the door of the reception room and asked the secretary to invite Dr. Abrams to come to the office to meet me. He returned to his desk and engaged me in conversation about my educational preparation and previous teaching experience. I was impressed by his warmth, graciousness, and extremely fine and clean looking white hair, but noted that he had a slightly crossed eye and seemed like a very old man. Soon Dr. Abrams came bouncing into the office through the door to the hall rather than from the reception room. Dean Rankin and I both rose, and Dean Rankin introduced us. Dr. Abrams shook my hand with vigor and we sat down, Dr. Abrams sliding far down into his chair and resting one spidery leg upon the other at the ankle, his long slender foot wriggling up and down stiffly. I was shocked by the homeliness of this little man who appeared to be between forty and forty-five years old. He looked at me for a moment, his tiny blue eyes resting alternately on me and then searching for something on the ceiling, his glasses with large lenses hugging his face tightly, his nose bashed in and twisted slightly to one side, his mouth curling up gleefully under the shabbiest excuse for a mustache I had ever seen, and his chin trembling so fast that it appeared to be trying to escape from his face. Then, his foot held rigidly in position, he said, "I want to tell you, sir, that I am mighty glad to have you join us. With you here, people can no longer say I am the ugliest man in Boone." I was completely disarmed. Certainly, I had not done well at all in concealing my shock. Caught off guard, I had not a shred of savior faire and he had dressed me down with one rapier-like thrust. Dean Rankin laughed with good humor, Dr. Abrams laughed with good will, and I laughed in my abashment. I told Dr. Abrams why I had come to see him, but that if he were very busy I would be glad to come back any afternoon that week except Friday, when I planned to leave town as soon after school as I could get away. He was glad I had come to discuss my course with him. In fact, he could not remember that any other high school teacher to whom the methods class was assigned had ever come to discuss it with him before beginning the class and he regretted that some of them had not. He sprang from his seat and invited me to go to his office with him. Taking leave of Dean Rankin, who continued to smile in welcome, I hurried along beside Dr. Abrams to his office at the east end of the hall on the ground floor. Dr. Abrams 2I J.D, Rankin (1875-1966) earned his M.A. and Doctor of Theology degrees from Oskaloosa College and was professor of English before becoming dean of the college, a position which he held from 1925 until 1955. He was also president of the college for three months following B.B. Dougherty's retirement until Dr. William Plemmons assumed that position in 1955. "Amos Abrams received his M.A. from Duke University and his Ph.D. from Cornell and taught English at Appalachian from 1932 to 1946. He served as the first head of the English department, a position which he held until leaving Appalachian to become editor of North Carolina Education. 44 �Settling Into Boone took his seat in front of a desk crowded into a corner and invited me to have a seat near him. He, too, asked about my academic preparation and my experience as a teacher of English. I explained to him that I had taken an excellent course, team taught by two splendid teachers, in methods of teaching in the high school and had done my project work in the teaching of English and history but that I had never had a course in the teaching of English in high school. He thought that I had taught high school English long enough for my experience to fully compensate for my not having had a specific course in the teaching of English. He had not himself had such a course either, but he had taught English in high school before coming to the College and had taught the English methods courses regularly for several years at Appalachian. We discussed at length what should be included in an English methods class. He rose from his desk and found three texts for the course that he had found helpful when he taught it and gave them to me. They would give alternate points of view on teaching English that I might sometimes want to consider, he thought. When I asked about the quality of students I might expect to register for the course, Dr. Abrams discussed proudly the academic preparation of the students and went into detail in describing the courses in English all were required to take. He thought I might expect as many as 30 or 35 to show up for the course, about 25 young ladies, and he could not with confidence say how many young men, for men were being drafted into the armed services rapidly. I might have only a handful of men, though, those who had been classified 4F or were deferred for some reason, and it was possible there would be no young men in the class at all. Not wanting to impose on so affable and generous a man, I arose to go after we had talked about the methods course. I paused in front of a curious manuscript in old-fashioned handwriting in a frame on the wall. It was a "ballet" of an old song one of his students had brought him, Dr. Abrams said. He collected folk ballads as a hobby, he explained. I told him that I, too, had collected ballads and songs in the hills of eastern Kentucky and had written my M.A. thesis on them. Standing in his office, we became animated in our discussion of the Appalachian variants of the English and Scottish popular ballads. We exchanged accounts of our experience as collectors and soon Dr. Abrams had me singing fragments of both traditional ballads and indigenous ballads and songs I had collected. He took me to a closet in the corner of his classroom and showed me his Wilcox-Gay disc recorder and a stack of field recordings he had made. Dr. Abrams kept walking along beside me, all excited about ballads, as I moved toward the ground level exit from that end of the building, the one that had "girls" above it. But it had begun to rain. The shower was too brisk for me to venture out into it with the books under my arm. We stood in the door and talked about ballads. The shower had stopped and the sun was shining again when I finally made my departure at the end of a visit that must have lasted an hour and a half. That night I wrote Sylvia a long letter in which I told about having met the aged president of the College, who sat, like Humpty-Dumpty, on a stone wall while I talked with 45 �The Crafts Williams Chronicles: I Come to Boons him; the dean of the College, who seemed as old as the president; and homely but charming and friendly Dr. Abrams, the chairman of the English department and an avid collector of ballads and folk songs. I had liked all three of them and was looking forward to meeting the English methods class for the first time the following week. 46 �c A Visit to Sylvia Friday afternoon at four o'clock I boarded a bus in Boone for Sparta, where I would catch a bus for Bluefield, West Virginia, about seven o'clock. The bus was not crowded. I had a seat alone by a window. It was a cloudy afternoon, but we did not go through any rainstorm, though a light shower greeted us just as we arrived in Sparta. The rolling mountains, many of them covered with lush pastures to the top, were peaceful and lovely. The mountains one saw traveling eastward from Boone were less rugged than those between Boone and Elizabethton, Tennessee, but many of them were high, perhaps as high as those along the Tennessee border, I thought. West Jefferson, the terminus of a railroad that crossed the mountains from Abingdon, Virginia, was about the size of Boone, but seemed to be more of a business town than Boone did. Jefferson, the county-seat town, was a small and quaint little village dominated by a neglected courthouse with two or three white "inns" or boarding houses close by. Many of the somewhat pretentious farmhouses along the road needed paint and some of the barns were dilapidated, but the region had withstood the agonies of the Great Depression more gracefully, it seemed to me, than had the farming sections of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois. The people living in Ashe County and Alleghany County, though they had little money with which to keep their homes and barns in repair, appeared to be living comfortably, for gardens were producing, corn was vigorous and still green, even in the middle of September, and livestock grazed contentedly in the mountainside pastures. In Sparta I ate a hamburger at a little restaurant near the bus stop and then stood with two or three others against a building to wait for the bus from Winston-Salem. It grew dark while we waited, and a light patter of rain fell. One of those waiting was a gregarious country man, dressed in his best and wear47 �The Gratis Williams Chronicles: I Come to Boone ing a felt hat of good quality, the one article of clothing that proclaimed the self-esteem of the mountaineer who took a trip away from home. He let us know that he was Joe Clark and engaged our attention while we waited for the bus, which arrived on time. Only two or three got off the bus at Sparta. I carried my light bag aboard and placed it on the luggage rack above the seats in which Joe Clark and I sat. The bus was crowded, but no one had to stand up. Most of the passengers were black people who sat quietly together from the rear forward. We moved on after only a brief stop and were crossing into Virginia within just a few minutes, it seemed. It was too dark to see any of the Virginia countryside. I remember only two things between Sparta and Bluefield that impressed me. The bridge across the New River, on the headwaters of which Boone is located, was longer than I had expected it to be and the river, which I could see only vaguely, seemed wide and shallow. The road across the high mountain at the edge of Bluefield twisted along a course of sharp curves to the top, from which we could see the lights of Bluefield far below us and then darted along hairpin loops into the city, the gears of the bus grinding and growling as the driver struggled with them. Garrulous Mr. Clark kept me entertained. He was going to Beckley to visit a daughter who lived there. He was, he said, one of a line of many Joe Clarks, the best known of whom had been the subject of a well known song called "Old Joe Clark" that nearly everybody must have heard some time. He recited for me some verses of the song that I had not heard. In Bluefield many of the black passengers left the bus. Others, mostly black, boarded the bus there. I was impressed by the finery of the young black men who were waiting to get on the bus. Attired in homburg hats, long dark jackets, loose gray trousers gathered in narrow cuffs at the bottom, and with long silvery chains dangling from their waistbands, they looked as if they were in a style parade. The zoot suit had arrived. Young people, by then able to earn money in war industries, were responding to the spirit of the times by becoming "sharp" dressers. Mr. Clark ran down soon after we left Bluefield. He and I both dozed in our seats as the bus hurried along through the darkness toward Beckley, where it arrived at eleven o'clock. Beckley was a rest stop for the bus. Nearly everybody got off. Some of those who were leaving the bus at Beckley had relatives waiting for them, but many took off on foot to their destinations. In days of gasoline rationing only a few cars were parked at the station, which was crowded with people milling about. Zoot-suited blacks, gathered into groups of three or four, talked quietly, some with homburgs pulled low on their foreheads. Most of them, apparently going on to Charleston, were stretching their legs while the driver enjoyed a sandwich and a cup of coffee, Joe Clark chose a seat and waited for someone to meet him. I stood about to watch the bus load for the trip on to Charleston. After the bus left, only a few people remained in the station. I sat on the end of a bench and considered whether I should try to find a hotel room or sit in the station all 48 �A Visit to Sylvia night and engage a room at Mrs. Mann's boarding house for Saturday night. It was too late to go to her house that night, I thought. Although I had money to pay for a hotel room, it would be expensive, perhaps as much as $3.50. A year earlier I was working eight hours a day for little more than $3.50. I was reluctant to spend that much for a hotel room. Sitting up all night to save $3.50 was certainly easier than working all day to make $3.50, I concluded. Becoming very tired after an hour or two, I crawled through the arms of two seats, rested my feet on my bag, and went to sleep. But I did not sleep long. Someone pushed against my feet suddenly and I woke up. A policeman was looking down at me. "People are not permitted to lie down in the seats," he explained. "You will have to sit up or find you a hotel room." I pulled myself from under the arms of the seats and stood up, embarrassed to note that the station attendant was smiling ambiguously at me as if he were not certain whether he should consider me a bum or a client of the bus company. Joe Clark, still sitting there, stared curiously but did not smile. Others sat rigidly and watched. It was as if the policeman and I were engaging in a dialogue before a fixed tableau. The intense quiet allowed everybody to hear what we said. I was asked to show my identification card, what I did for a living, whether I had a bus ticket, why I was in Beckley. The policeman smiled following my response to each of his questions. I explained that I usually stayed at Mrs. Mann's down the street there, pointing in the direction of her place, but that I thought it was too late when the bus arrived to report there. He volunteered helpfully, "You might find a room at the Hotel Milner up the street. If they have a room, they will probably charge you only two dollars." I picked up my bag and started out. The policeman walked with me to the curb and pointed out the hotel sign to me. I half turned to thank him and observed that the people sitting in the station were all laughing at something Joe Clark was telling them. I was glad that I had not told Joe Clark that I worked at Appalachian and that I had found it necessary to say to the policeman only that I was a teacher from North Carolina. I hoped I would never see Joe Clark again. As I walked toward the Hotel Milner I concluded that the station attendant had called the policeman, who quite possibly received payoffs from the Hotel Milner, and who had put on a show, at my expense, for the amusement of the attendant and as an advertising gimmick for the Hotel Milner. A single room was available at the Milner for two dollars. There was a wash basin in the room, the clerk said, but the bathroom was down the hall. I registered for the room and paid in advance. I asked about a restaurant in which I could have breakfast. The hotel had no dining room, the clerk said, but there were restaurants close by. He gave me a key to the room and sent me up alone, for the Milner had no bellboys. I was surprised to find a very clean but small room with a single bed in it. The sheets and pillow case, towels and wash cloths were clean, too, but the sheets had been patched and the towels were frayed. There was a small desk in a corner beside the bed and a lamp with a bulb in it that would burn. There was a cheap cotton mattress on the bed, but it seemed to be almost new. I 49 �The Gratis Williams Chronicles: I Come to Boone was so pleased with the room that I decided I would engage it for Saturday night, too. Saturday was a bright day. Visibility was clear and trees were beginning to show touches of autumn. I ate a full breakfast at a restaurant only a few doors from the entrance to the hotel. After enjoying a second cup of better coffee than I had been getting in Boone, I went back to the hotel and engaged my room for Saturday night, too. I then returned to my room and groomed myself for a visit with Sylvia. I stopped at a stationery shop and bought paper and envelopes and two magazines to take with me to the sanitarium and walked back to the bus station, where I knew I could catch a local bus to Pinecrest. When I peeped into the waiting room of the bus station, I was relieved to see that a different attendant was on duty, but Joe Clark, his head hanging to one side and his hat pulled down over his eyes, was still sitting there, mostly on his shoulders, with his feet sticking far out in the aisle. Perhaps his daughter had not known that he was coming to visit her. As I rode the local bus out to Pinecrest, I saw few cars on the road. The air was clear, crisp, and cool. The sanitarium was located in a healthy spot, I thought. Sylvia was expecting me. She was bright eyed and excited, but talked only in a whisper. I gave her the paper and envelopes and the magazines. She looked at them briefly and asked that I put them on a chest of drawers in the corner of the room. Her hands were warm and perspiring and her brow felt fevered. She had not slept well. She had not been able to eat all of her breakfast, she said, and had reached the place that she did not like the food that was brought to her. She thought there was not enough good meat in her diet. She wanted hamburgers and asked that I bring her one when I went out for my lunch. She was disappointed that I had not gained any weight after going to Boone. I was hollow eyed and pale. She inquired about my diet and asked whether I was taking my cod liver oil and mineral supplements. She advised that I eat two eggs for breakfast and drink at least a quart of whole milk each day. If I could have milk delivered every morning at my apartment, when I got into it, I could keep it cool in the refrigerator and drink a glass of milk before going to bed each night. She was worried about me. Dr. Edwards had made arrangements for me to have a chest X-ray that morning. We needed to keep me well, for if I should become sick and have to stop working, there would be no way out for us. We had no financial reserves, little of value that we could sell, no insurance to protect us in illness, and we were in debt. Her analysis of our situation was chilling. She shook with emotion and tears glistened in her eyes, larger than I had remembered them, for she had lost much weight since I had seen her only two weeks earlier. My persistent fatigue, insomnia, troubled dreams, night sweats, and low-level fever in the afternoon were certainly symptoms of illness, I thought, but I could only say in my helplessness that I would work as long as I was able and do the best I could to recover from illness while I worked. She talked about how much she enjoyed the personnel at the sanitarium and of friendships she had made with ambulatory patients who were permitted to visit her. On warm days she had been taken in a wheelchair to sit with others in the sun and had made friends. I could tell that nurses and attendants who came by the room while I was there found Sylvia delightful and clever. They enjoyed being with her and were reluctant to leave her. 50 �A Visit to Sylvia We then discussed in detail my work at Appalachian. She responded with glee when I told her again about the helpful and efficient principal of the school; Mr. Wilson's generous help when I needed extra money to come to see her; the quaint and aged President Dougherty, a bachelor who lived in a garage apartment because he did not think it appropriate that he live in the same house in which his brother s widow lived; courteous and gentle Dean Rankin, who appeared to be about as old as Dr. Dougherty; and bouncing Dr. Abrams who shared with me an interest in Appalachian ballads and songs. She asked many questions in her love for North Carolina and, with the hope that she might recover, longed for the time when she could be with me in Boone. After I had been there an hour or two, Dr. Edwards came by the room. Sylvia responded to him with admiration and trust. He enjoyed being with her, I thought. We engaged in playful conversation for a half hour or longer before he invited me to go with him to the X-ray room where I had my chest X-rayed. Dr. Edwards stayed around until the films were developed. He then went over them with me and pointed out an area of infection in the apex of my right lung. I had tuberculosis. Prepared for the bad news, I was not shocked, but I saw immediately that hardships lay ahead for me. Dr. Edwards said I should enter the sanitarium at once. In fact, he said, a space was available then. I explained that I could not possibly enter the sanitarium, that I had no financial reserves, insurance, or resources. It would be necessary for me to continue working as long as I was able. In that case, he said, the single most important thing for me to do was to accept my situation without worrying. Worry saps one's energy and causes more trouble than anything else. Neither should I worry about my work. I must learn how to turn off my troubles and relax, how to stop my work when I'm tired and take it up again after I have rested. I should eat two or three eggs a day, a plenty of good meat and a balanced vegetable diet, drink at least a quart of whole milk a day, take cod liver oil and mineral supplements before breakfast and dinner, rest for at least a half hour after lunch and dinner, and sleep at least eight hours every night. I could try this for three months and then return for another X-ray to check on my progress. It might be better, he said, if we reported to Sylvia that I was under observation and should have my chest X-rayed every three months until I had regained weight and felt more energetic. Dr. Edwards did not return with me to Sylvia's room. I tried to look as nonchalant as I could when I entered the room. Sylvia wanted to know all about what the X-ray had revealed. I told of having had the heavily scarred areas in my lungs pointed out to me and that they looked much as they had looked when I had been invited to see X-ray films of my lungs at the health center at the University of Kentucky before our marriage. Dr. Edwards had prescribed a diet for me, advised that I rest for a half hour after lunch and after dinner both and sleep eight hours at night, continue taking cod liver oil and mineral supplements, not worry about anything, and report for X-rays regularly every three months for a year or two until our period of stress was over and I had begun to feel better. Sylvia wanted to know whether my schedule would permit me to have a rest period after lunch. My free period, fortunately, was just after lunch. I was required to be in my 51 �The Gratis Williams Chronicles: I Come to Boone office, but I could lie on my back on a table in the office and rest and doze. Anyone coming to see me would enter through the door to my classroom. Since the only door from the hall to my classroom was at the rear of the room and since there were wooden floors in the building, I could hear footsteps in time to get off the table and into a chair beside my work table before the caller reached my office. I would not always be able to rest after lunch, but I could most of the time, I thought. We discussed the apartment I was to have and into which I was to move the following week. It was on the third floor and at the end of a hall. It would be a quiet and restful place. Milk was delivered early each morning at the doors of teachers who wanted it. I would have an electric stove and a small refrigerator. I could cook a good breakfast and have both cereal and citrus fruit with it, and I could prepare my own dinner in time to eat and take a short nap before reporting to the school for play rehearsals, with which I would be spending much time all year long. It would be possible, I thought, for me to follow Dr. Edwards's advice, at least most of the time, and to keep my condition a secret, for I was sure everybody would be alarmed if it were known that I might have tuberculosis. I did not want to run the risk of being asked to resign by arousing suspicions or raising questions. We discussed diet and cooking. Sylvia thought I should have soft-boiled eggs and little or no bacon or sausage for breakfast, rich whole milk with my cereal, and an orange or a grapefruit rather than the canned juice then available. I should also drink a glass of milk along with breakfast, another when I got home in the afternoon, two glasses with my dinner, and another before going to bed. It was important that I have a generous serving of beef, or fish, or chicken for dinner and that I have boiled or baked potatoes with butter rather than fried potatoes. I must be sure to have a good fresh vegetable salad with dinner. We discussed costs, too, and decided that I might be able to eat very well for as little as fifty cents a day but that I ought to go out for dinner once or twice on weekends. "Keeping house" would be a problem for me, she thought, but I would find it simple if I followed the three basic rules we had used while she was able to keep house. Provide for time, she reminded me, to make up my bed as soon as I got up, wash my dishes and clean and restore to their places pots and pans used in cooking, put up left over food, and hang up my clothing before I left my apartment for work. I was reminded that one is not ready to leave a house or apartment until it has been cleaned up enough for him not to be embarrassed to bring a guest home. A little dusting and cleaning is needed every day and a thorough cleaning at least once a week. One saves time by washing dishes after each meal and spares himself the dread of facing a stack of dirty dishes before he can prepare the next meal. During the morning several persons came by for brief visits, including a young woman from Louisa who had moved to West Virginia after she married. When lunchtime came, I left to find lunch for myself at a stand near the sanitarium. After lunch, I walked for a while along the road beyond the sanitarium and thought about our situation. For the first time I had to admit to myself that Sylvia would not recover. Her condition was worsening and new medications were not effective. She was taking medication to relieve the 52 �A Visit to Sylvia pain in her throat, not to cure her illness. Dr. Edwards had thought it most unlikely that she would get well but she might linger for a year or two before dying. I had not yet had time to consider alone the implications of my actually having tuberculosis. Adjusting to that would be a slow and agonizing process that I would have to work through alone. I would not be able to share with anyone the heavy burden of my secret, but I believed that I could come through if I found it possible to follow Dr. Edwards's advice. The trouble had been discovered early. The spot, perhaps no bigger than a dime, had not been there long. If by rest and adequate diet I were able to keep it from spreading during the following three months, I could most likely recover within six months to a year. I had no choice. I had to concentrate on getting well. Not wanting to disturb Sylvia during nap time, I sat in a lounge in the sanitarium for an hour. Others coming to see relatives and friends arrived and waited in the lounges for visiting time, some carrying flowers and gift packages. Talk was low. Many sat in solemn silence. I closed my eyes but was not able to nap. When it was nearly time for visiting hours, I returned to the roadside stand and bought a hamburger for Sylvia. Sylvia was awake and waiting when I arrived. An attendant had helped her brush and arrange her hair. She wanted to eat at once the hamburger I had brought, but had first to inhale into her throat a special powder she took ten or fifteen minutes before eating that numbed her throat so she would not suffer pain when she swallowed. She asked that I hand to her a pipette and a bottle of white crystals. When she breathed the crystals through the pipette into her throat, her eyes bulged and she looked frightened. After allowing time for the medication to take effect, she began eating the hamburger as rapidly as she could. She was hungry for it and wanted to eat it all before feeling returned to her throat. She perspired as she ate. After she ate, she drank a glass of water, which she sipped slowly. She was exhausted. That afternoon we talked about things her mother had written. She had received letters also from friends in Louisa and Huntington. We did not refer to her illness or to my work at Appalachian. She was interested in the progress of friends she had made in the sanitarium and we discussed war news. An attractive young woman who had made much progress toward recovery from lung cancer and was expecting to be released from the sanitarium within a few weeks called. She was radiant and smiling. Sylvia laughed a great deal in response to her witticisms and optimism. After she left, Sylvia told of her affair with young Dr. Edwards and of their shock when a nurse had popped into her room and found her and Dr. Edwards making love behind the door. Both she and the doctor had discussed their affair with Sylvia. They had feared that the nurse might cause problems for them, but so far the nurse had apparently said nothing about what she had seen. Sylvia had teased them by writing doggerel about their affair, which she read when they came by to see her. The afternoon passed rapidly. The light conversation, good humor, and laughter had been good for us, but each was aware, too, of the depth of the agony of spirit that lay beneath the laughter. As the time for the end of visiting hours approached Sylvia asked me to go out and buy another hamburger for her. She would inhale crystals and get ready to 53 �The Gratis Williams Chronicles: I Come to Boone eat it while I was gone. I hurried out for the hamburger. Sylvia did not feel that her throat was numbed enough for her to eat it by the time I got back. Visiting hours were just about over. We held hands for a moment and looked deeply into each other s eyes. I told her I would be back for an hour's visit the following morning and hurried away. When I looked from a window in the hallway across a court outside her window, I saw Sylvia propped on her pillows and eating ravenously the hamburger I had brought. The bus back to Beckley was crowded. The bus station was filled with tired people who were waiting. Crowds of young people, most of them black, stood along the sidewalk in front of the station. When I got off the bus I hurried to my room in the Hotel Milner, cracked my window two or three inches, lay on my back on the little bed, and stared at the ceiling a long time as I thought about my situation. I was numbed with grief for Sylvia and stunned by the knowledge that I had tuberculosis, too. Nothing was clear to me, but I knew I could recover if I could learn how not to worry and to lay my work aside and forget about it when I became tired. I had never been successful in doing either. I recalled the advice the black shoeshine man, the odor of his night of partying still clinging to him, had given me in Charleston while I was on my way to Boone. White folks take life too seriously and worry too much. I must learn to relax. Everybody suffers, mostly in secret probably. My suffering, as painful as it was, was not really unique. My job was to learn how to deal with it, how to keep it from becoming the main thing in my life. After dinner at the restaurant in which I had eaten breakfast, I walked for a while, came back by the bus station where I sat for a half hour and watched people come and go, most of them dressed up for Saturday night and looking happy. When I began to doze, I got up, selected a newspaper from the rack, and returned to the hotel. Reading in the little room was not pleasant. The lamp on the bedside table had a 25-watt bulb in it, and the ceiling light must have had a 60-watt bulb in it. Soon my eyes began to burn and I became drowsy. Realizing that I was very tired, I prepared myself for bed, cracked the window, turned off the lights, and lay down. The murmur of street noises and the far off chorus of katydids singing a plaint to departing summer eased me into sleep. About two o'clock I woke up with a start. I had not had a nightmare, but I was perspiring and felt clammy. I sat in darkness on the side of the bed and reflected. Sylvia had been getting better until only a week or two before she asked that I come that weekend to see her. We had thought she might be able to join me in the little apartment in Boone before autumn was over. That would not be possible. I wanted to be with her in her illness, to come and sit beside her for a while every day, to give her support as her illness grew worse. I could not do that. I felt uneasy and guilty. I could only come to see her occasionally, for it would be necessary for me to conserve my energy and to have some money at the end of each month to pay my creditors. If at all possible, I wanted to pay off completely the loan to the finance company in Huntington when I received my first check. I needed some new clothing. My newest suit, which my sister had given me in the fall of 1940, was beginning to look stale. My shirts were worn and frayed. But I would make them do until I was in better financial circumstances. 54 �A Visit to Sylvia After perhaps two hours, I realized that solutions to problems worked out during sleepless hours in the middle of the night never seem right when one wakes up in the morning. I must cultivate the habit of going back to sleep. Not yielding to the temptation to get up and read or write or to sit and think dark thoughts would help. It would be better to remain in bed, turn off dark thoughts, refrain from reflectiveness and analysis, change my position in bed, and lie quietly until sleep comes again. Sunday morning I found the restaurants closed. I walked to the bus station, where I was able to buy an egg sandwich and coffee at the stand that catered to travelers. After checking again bus schedules to the south, I bought a Sunday paper and returned to the hotel, where I read for perhaps an hour before packing my bag. I checked out of the hotel, carried my bag to the bus station and placed it in a locker, and waited for a bus to Pinecrest. Visitors were arriving, most of them by car. They carried with them gifts for relatives they had come to see; flowers, boxes of food, packages, books and magazines. Sylvia was expecting me. She had been able to eat most of her breakfast and felt better than she had felt the day before. She had slept well, but her throat was sore. Eating the hamburgers might have irritated it, but she had needed the good meat. She had become tired of the bologna, hot dogs, meat loaf, and fish cakes served in the sanitarium. She was in a teasing mood. Our conversation was light and playful. It was good to be with her. I did not refer to my insomnia or my uneasiness about financial matters. I felt that I must not say anything about problems of my own. A nurse whom I had not seen before came and visited for a few minutes. After she left, Sylvia said she was the one who had found Dr. Edwards and the attractive patient making love behind the door. Toward the end of our hour together, I held Sylvias hand and stroked her hair as I stood in silence by her bed. I kissed her on the forehead. Her eyes were moist and her hand trembled as I said good-bye and promised to write at least a few lines that night. The bus from Beckley to Bluefield was crowded, but I was able to get a seat next to a window. A middle-aged woman wearing a hat with a broad brim sat beside me. We did not speak. The woman left the bus a few miles out of Beckley. No one occupied the seat she had vacated. Glad to be alone, I dozed in the warm bus all the way to Bluefield. I found myself wanting to think about Sylvia and my own problems but tried to put both out of my mind. The light dreams of my dozing were fleeting extensions of droning conversations near me, inarticulate and monotonous, into dream conversations of people I had known, but they were pleasant little excursions into escape from my own concerns. In Bluefield I hurried with my bag in my hand to the bus then loading for Abingdon. Seats by the windows were all occupied, but I was able to get an aisle seat next to a young woman whose permission I asked to sit beside her. We engaged in conversation. She was a teacher. Not long before she got off the bus at Lebanon, she asked me what I did. When I told her I was a teacher, too, she said she had decided I was a salesman. She then asked what I taught. When I told her English, she said, "I might have known it." She had talked so easily and well that I was glad she had not known from the beginning that I was an English teacher. 55 �The Gratis Williams Chronicles: I Come to Boone My seat on the bus from Abingdon to Boone by way of Damascus and Mountain City, Tennessee, was next to a window but over a wheel. The road was narrow and winding. While we were gaining elevation in the gorge near Trade, I became nauseated. I struggled with an urge to vomit, swallowing as rapidly as I could the flood of hot saliva that kept boiling into my mouth. Just as I was deciding that I should let the driver know I was in trouble, he pulled the bus over and stopped. He was looking at me in the mirror. I got up and made my way to the front. He opened the door for me. I was vomiting by the time my feet struck the earth. I retched and heaved but did not vomit on myself, not even on my shoes. Shamefacedly, I returned to my seat. Conversations on the bus were suspended for a minute or two, but nobody laughed at me. I had never had car sickness before. I wondered whether my having a spot on my lung had anything to do with the nausea and vomiting, which continued to bother me for two or three years, especially at higher elevations. We arrived in Boone in darkness. 56 �c Glad to be Living and Working in Boone I walked to Faculty Apartments, for I did not want to spend a quarter for a taxicab. I still had nearly twenty dollars in my pocket, but I would need it, I thought, for food, a few kitchen utensils, laundry, and dry cleaning. At the apartments I learned that Professor and Mrs. Antonakos would be leaving for Chapel Hill in a day or two and wanted to talk with me about what they would store in the apartment I was to occupy. Miss Foster was to return later in the week and would want her room. I refreshed myself and called on the Antonakoses. Professor and Mrs. Antonakos were affable and courteous. Incisive in his speech but good natured, he talked easily. Mrs. Antonakos, with a coil of hair around her head, was somewhat severe in appearance, but her voice had a lyrical quality and she was gentle, though she spoke guardedly as if she had carefully thought through in advance what she said. They would be gone for a year, they said, for him to study at Chapel Hill. They were leaving in the apartment personal items which they would be glad for me to use, but they wanted me to know what belonged to them personally. They had identified each. The beautiful cherry chest in the living room was theirs. They had stored in it clothing and personal items they thought they would not need in Chapel Hill. The long chest, shaped somewhat like a coffin, sat by a window and was an attractive piece. Professor Antonakos had made a storage closet of heavy paper and soft pine in the narrow hall to the bathroom. They were leaving some boxes of things in it, but I was welcome to use unoccupied space. They were also leaving drapes in the living room and curtains in the bedroom. Both had been cleaned recently and might not need cleaning again for a year. They were pleased, they said, that I would be occupying the apartment in their absence. 57 �The Gratis Williams Chronicles: I Come to Boone They felt comfortable about leaving their own things in my care. They would leave the key to the apartment with Mrs. Coffey, the hostess. There was no hot water in the apartment building yet. I stood in the bathtub and sponged with cold water. Dressed for bed, I wrote Sylvia a longer letter than I had thought I might, recounting to her the conversation with the teacher who had thought I might be a traveling salesman, my nausea on the bus, and my visit with the Antonakoses. I was careful not to reflect my own discouragement or loss of hope about her situation. Two days later I moved my things into the apartment and went up town and bought groceries and basic utensils for the kitchen. Pleased to be my own housekeeper, I cooked dinner for myself, discovering in the process that I had much to learn about how to cook on an electric stove. But I ought to be able, I thought, to eat very well for fifty or sixty cents a day. Some time before the first month had ended, Mr. Wey called me in to tell me that there was a problem with my certification. I had not known before that as a teacher in a college demonstration school I would be required to have a certificate. He explained that my basic salary of $150 a month would be paid by the County Board of Education, which required certification, and that the College would furnish me the apartment and utilities valued at $40 a month but that I would receive no check from the College. It was then that I learned North Carolina had eight-month high schools. My annual cash salary would be $1200, but I could have my apartment for twelve months, which would bring the total worth of my year's work to $1680 plus salary for any work in the summer school I might do. The Certification Division in Raleigh had determined that I needed three quarter hours of credit in methods of teaching English in the high school in order to meet requirements for the graduate certificate. My first concern was whether my salary might be reduced because I did not qualify for the graduate certificate. Mr. Wey explained that I would continue to be paid $150 a month for a time but that my salary would be reduced and deductions would be made for overpayment in earlier months later in the year if I were unable to meet requirements for the higher certificate. I explained that the course in methods of teaching in high school, which I had taken with Dr. William H. Vaughan, then President of Morehead State Teachers College in Kentucky, had met requirements in Kentucky for a certificate to teach in high school and that my projects for the course had been in English and history. Mr. Wey advised that I write Dr. Vaughan a letter requesting that he describe in a letter to Dr. James Hillman in Raleigh the contents of the course I had taken and emphasize the component for English teachers. Dr. Hillman might accept the course as satisfactory if Dr. Vaughan were willing to state in his letter that it was equivalent to a methods course for teaching English. If I thought Dr. Vaughan could not do that, then I should arrange to take the course by individual study from Dr. Abrams. I disliked the idea of taking the course from Dr. Abrams. To do so would, I thought, suggest that I was not already qualified to teach the course in methods of teaching English in the high school, which I had 58 �Glad to be Living and Working in Boone already begun and was enjoying. Mr. Wey advised that I determine whether a letter from Dr. Vaughan would solve my problem. If not, I could then arrange to take the course from Dr. Abrams. That night I wrote to President Vaughan, recalling for him in my letter that I had done project work in the teaching of English and emphasizing that it would be necessary that he account the course equivalent to a methods course in English. I half feared that his integrity and strict honesty might be such that he would not feel he could recommend his course as equivalent to a methods course in English. I was burdened with anxiety and dread until I heard from him a few days later. He included a copy of his letter to Dr. Hillman, in which he not only stated that the course I had taken from him was equivalent to a course in methods of teaching English in high school but that it met requirements in Kentucky for certification in high school English. He went on to say that I had been a successful high school English teacher in Kentucky for a number of years. I showed the copy of Dr. Vaughan's letter to Mr. Wey. That would be satisfactory, he said. Dr. Hillman, a former teacher at Appalachian, was a fair man and would issue a graduate certificate for me. I felt as if a burden had been lifted from my shoulders. The class in English methods was exciting and challenging. All English majors, it consisted of 25 bright and well-dressed young women ranging in age from 21 to 23 and a slender-faced young man with a vision problem. I thought he was most likely classified as 4F because of his eyes. All of them seemed to be exceptionally well prepared in English. I administered some standardized tests in English essentials to them, though, and found that there was a considerable range in their scores and that the norm for the class was in the eleventh grade. However, when I considered their scores in conjunction with their total educational experience, I decided that they had done well on the tests, for they had gone to eight-month public schools for eleven years for a total of 88 months and national norms for the twelfth grade were for students who had attended nine-month schools for a total of 108 months.23 Discussions in class were lively. They spoke and wrote well and were charged with ambition to become successful English teachers. My sixth period class continued for a time to disturb me. Negativism pervaded the class which seemed, as a group, to be set against me. Yet, the students were bright and responsible, and competition among them was keen. I tried many innovations, most of which engaged their attention for a day or two but soon became stale for them. I invited Mr. Wey to come to my class, observe me for the entire hour, and make suggestions for possible improvements both in my presentation of materials and my dealing with the students as individuals. Unannounced, he came one day and was in a seat in the back of the room before the students arrived. To my amazement, the little girls came quietly into the room, took their seats, and waited silently for the class to begin. All were eager to participate in discussion. Each responded when called upon. All set about with industry and good will to work exercises connected with the assignment I had made carefully. It was as if they thought Mr. Wey was checking on my effectiveness as a teacher and that they were 23 North Carolina public schools shifted from an eleven to a twelve year curriculum during that year. 59 �The Gratis Williams Chronicles: I Come to Boone determined to show him that I was a good one. After the class left, Mr. Wey laughed his slightly snorting little laugh and said, "You are doing all right. Wy, you have those kids eating out of your hand. Thank you for inviting me to your classroom." Thereafter, I felt at ease and comfortable with the class. It became easy for me to tease those who became negative, to inject an undertone of light humor into discussion, to compliment those who did exceptionally well, to show compassionate respect for and come to the defense of those who made errors. It pleased me to see them grow together as an entity, to become a challenging, highly motivated, and most industrious class. Much later, members of that class who enrolled in my undergraduate and then graduate courses at the College were often the best students in the courses. I think it possible that I had never before had a class with comparable high intelligence and achievement. Living in my apartment enabled me to maintain the privacy I needed for relaxation and rest. I was alone and remote from my fellow teachers there. Apartment 33 was at the end of the hall on the third floor of the building. Catherine Smith,24 a new art teacher at the College, and her aged mother were in Apartment 31. Julian Yoder and Helen lived across the hall from me. Dr. Orby Southard and Irene lived in Apartment 30 next to the Yoders. Annafreddie Carsteens, a new psychology teacher at the College, and her aged mother, lived in the apartment under mine on the second floor. All were quiet people who kept their radios tuned low and retired early. In addition, it was possible for me to lie down on the table in my office for a half-hour after lunch. I worked in my office for at least an hour after students left in the afternoon, took a walk after that, and began cooking my dinner as soon as I got home. I prepared plain, simple food, but provided for variety in my diet. For breakfast I ate a dry cereal, citrus fruit, two eggs, bacon or sausage, and toast with margarine, with both coffee and milk to drink. For dinner I had a salad, a meat, a legume, potatoes or corn, cornbread or rolls, and a dessert, with two glasses of milk. I gained very little weight, continuing, despite the hefty meals, to weigh about 135 pounds for the next three or four years. After taking care of the dishes and the pots and pans, I lay down for an hour. Much of the time I returned to the school for play rehearsal for an hour or two after dinner. It became increasingly easy for me to put aside thoughts about my own situation but more difficult for me to put Sylvias condition out of my mind. After play rehearsals I wrote long stream-of-consciousness letters to Sylvia. The whining of the wind around the apartments as we moved into autumn and the roar of the wind and the beating of storms in the trees below the City Cemetery on the hill behind the building were orchestrations of sadness, melancholy, and loneliness. It was difficult for me to sleep well. I suffered from bad dreams and sprang up in bed in terror and streaming with perspiration from frightening nightmares. Then I would lie awake for interminably long periods, but I did not yield to the temptation to get up and read or write, though I would sometimes get up and prepare a glass of warm milk. Then I wanted to sleep when I should be getting up. The crowing of Mrs. Watson's rooster and the mooing of her cow in the barn next to the graveyard "Catherine Smith taught art at Appalachian from 1941 until her retirement in 1966, serving as chairperson of the art department for twenty-five years. The art gallery on the Appalachian campus is named in her honor. 60 �Glad to be Living and Working in Boone invited me to sleep a little longer. Sometimes I was late for the faculty meeting and was always embarrassed to arrive after the meeting had begun. Mr. Wey would reprove me for my tardiness, sometimes in the presence of the faculty members, but I could only sit in silence when he did so, for I did not feel free to tell him about my illness. Once or twice, when I explained that I suffered from insomnia, he told me I was not getting enough exercise. The human body is made for work, he insisted. If I should take enough exercise, I would rest well. In the early morning faculty meetings I continued to restrain myself, marveling most of the time at Mr. Wey's administrative abilities and his thoroughness in analyzing situations and solving problems. He was certainly the most fair-minded person with whom I had ever worked. He shared with his faculty what he was thinking and tried his best to build on what he found that was good and positive in those who needed help. His meetings were carefully planned. He always brought with him an agenda on a clipboard, from which he worked. He prepared as carefully for each faculty meeting as he might have done to meet a class. Fair, willing to consider all points of view, courteous, and considerate, he was able to establish and maintain a spirit of team work in his faculty. After I had been in Boone about a month, Mr. Wey called me into his office one afternoon and told me that Mr. Wilson had sent over to him my papers from the Placement Bureau, which he had been holding. Mr. Wey had not seen them before. He noticed that I had been a high school principal for seven years in Kentucky. I had said nothing about this. He invited me to talk about my experiences. I began by explaining that I had thought it unwise to volunteer in discussions in faculty meetings accounts of how I had handled administrative matters while I was a principal. I could think of nothing, I said, that might antagonize my fellow teachers more than for me to preface contributions I might want to make with, "When I was a principal..." or tell little anecdotes in which I was the hero. But I told him that for three years I had been the principal of what in Kentucky was considered a large high school, one with a faculty of 22 and an enrollment of over 500. The school was a member of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools. My experience as the principal of this school might be helpful when we got around to preparing for membership in the organization. Mr. Wey was pleased. He invited me to his home for dinner so we could talk about what we might need to do in organizing ourselves for a visiting team. After that, Mr. Wey told the faculty that I had been the principal of a large high school that belonged to the Southern Association and that he intended to involve me in plans for preparing Appalachian Demonstration High School for admission to the organization. He called on me thereafter for my opinion about matters discussed in our faculty meetings, for I continued to feel that my volunteering opinions readily was unwise. One of Mr. Wey's characteristics as a principal that I admired most was his willingness to change his mind when he saw that decisions he had made were not working. He would say that he had been wrong. It had been difficult for me to do that in the highly politicized school system in which I had worked in Kentucky. There, one always had to be right to survive. Another of Mr. Wey's admirable traits, I thought, was his eagerness to give others credit 61 �The Gratis Williams Chronicles; I Come to Boom publicly for contributions that he could accept. Other administrators I had worked with felt compelled to lay claim personally to all good ideas that they accepted from others. I had become artful in planting ideas so I could hear them expressed later as those of the superintendent himself in a system in which all wisdom (and most blessings) flowed from the superintendent. Working with Mr. Wey was comfortable. One could be as open and nearly honest as he knew how to be without feeling that he was supplying items for a hidden agenda. I told Mr. Wey that I was enjoying academic freedom that I had not known since I was a teacher of a one-room school and that I admired his administrative style, but I did this privately, for to have done so in faculty meeting might have seemed to others at least simpering if not like "apple polishing." As I recall, the College had 45 faculty members, perhaps ten of whom were already in military service. Soon I began to meet those still on campus. Dr. Wiley Smith and I met in the road below the high school and enjoyed a conversation that might have lasted a half hour. He had a keen and insightful mind, I thought, and intensely blue eyes that appeared to come into sharp focus just a bit in front of themselves. As I enjoyed watching him wind up his mouth before he said clever things, a shapely co-ed with hair to her shoulders and wearing a form-fitting light blue sweater that glistened in the afternoon sun, an ample skirt that came almost to her ankles, bobby sox, and quite dirty saddle oxfords, came by. She stopped to greet Dr. Smith, who had been one of her teachers. After the exchange of greetings, he introduced me to her. As she hurried on, Dr. Smith watched her in silence for a moment. Then, turning toward me, his eyes a bit misty, he said, "I never get close to one dressed in one of those tight sweaters that I don't want to reach out and feel of her." He chuckled lecherously, and we continued with our conversation. Afterwards, I was puzzled by his comment about the pretty young woman. I could not decide whether it was offered as an expression of disapproval of current styles in dress or as a confession. After becoming better acquainted with him, I decided that he was only trying to shock me. From the window of my office I could see walking along the road two or three times every day a tall conservatively dressed man wearing a cap with a bill similar to caps that had been stylish in the 1920s. He carried a briefcase and was deliberate in his movements. One day I met him. He presented himself to me as George Sawyer, the teacher of sociology at the College. His manner of speaking was as deliberate as his walking. He told me two or three carefully crafted jokes with walloping punch lines. As he delivered a punch line, his face would assume a straight, grave expression which he held for a moment. Then he seemed to peep from behind his mask to determine whether I had caught the point of his story. When I laughed, he joined me in merriment. I enjoyed his jokes and anecdotes, which he continued to tell me for thirty years, sometimes coming by my office simply to tell me a good one he had just heard. The faculties of the campus elementary school and high school were expected to attend general faculty meetings of the College on Monday afternoons. At the first of those meetings Mr. Wilson introduced new faculty members of the campus schools. We responded by standing for a moment as our names were called. While each of us was standing, Mr. Wilson recited briefly our backgrounds, including states from which we came, colleges and 62 �Glad to be Living and Working in Boone universities we had attended, and school systems in which we had worked. He did this without reference to notes, appearing to be proud of himself for having in mind factual information about each of us. Regular faculty members responded with animated faces as they turned in their seats to get a good look at each of us. Then Dean Rankin requested by name the chairman of each department to present any new faculty members in that department. There were so few holders of doctoral degrees in the faculty that the title of doctor was considered more distinguished than professor. All males who did not hold doctorates were addressed and referred to as professor. Women were addressed and referred to as miss. As I recall, Appalachian had in its faculty at that time only one woman with a doctor s degree, Dr. Maud Cathcart in the biology department. In private life, Dr. Cathcart, who retained her maiden name professionally, was Mrs. Stout, but no one ever called her that. We were able to learn the names of department chairmen early: Miss Glada B. Walker, Art; Dr. Robert Busteed, Biology; Dr. W. Amos Abrams, English; Professor A.R. Smith, Chemistry; Dr. Harry B. Heflin, Education; Professor Gene Garbee, Health and Physical Education; Miss Lucy Brock, Home Economics; Dr. J.T.C. Wright, Mathematics; Miss Virginia Wary, Music; Dr. Wiley Smith, Psychology; Dr. D.J. Whitener, Social Studies. Also introduced were Mrs. Emma Moore, an aged woman of the vintage of President Dougherty, Dean Rankin, and Professor Joseph Williams, the Librarian. Mr. H.R. Eggers, the Registrar, was presented to explain procedures for reporting mid-term grades. It was a point of pride for me to remember the names when I met them on the campus or on the streets of the town. Mr. Wilson had emphasized the spirit of friendliness that pervaded the campus and told us that everybody always spoke to everybody else, including students. Soon I was meeting and remembering thereafter others in the faculty: Professor Vance Howell who taught Political Science; Miss Meta Liles, Dr. Graydon Eggers, and Miss Helen Burch in the English Department; Miss Helen Foster and Professor O.M. Hartsell in the Music Department; Miss Ida Belle Ledbetter in Biology; Miss Cleone Haynes and Miss Thursa Steed in Health and Physical Education. Miss Myrtle Brandon, the Dean of Women, was also a teacher in the Education Department. One of the more colorful personalities, Mr. Leonard Eury,25 was Mrs. Moore's assistant in the Library, but Mr. Eury and others including Coach Red Watkins, Professor Starr Stacy, Professor Edwin Dougherty, and Professor Gordon Nash, left in a few weeks to join some branch of the military service. Occasionally, after the rainy season was over, faculty members who lived in the apartments would sit in the afternoon sun in front of the building and visit. Sometimes I would sit with them for a few minutes. My friendship with Dr. Abrams grew. He told me about the North Carolina English Teachers Association, in which he was a member, and the North Carolina Folklore Society in the activities of which he had participated for several years. He invited me to go with him to the meetings of each group. I discussed with Mr. Wey the advisability of my 25 Leonard Eury served as College Librarian until his retirement in 1970. The W. L. Eury Appalachian Collection, founded in 1968, was named after him in 1971. 63 �The Gratis Williams Chronicles: I Come to Boone becoming a member of these groups and what arrangements I should make for my classes when I attended meetings. Mr. Wey, who believed it most important that teachers identify with professional organizations, encouraged me to join both if I wished to do so. My classes, however, would have to be covered by a qualified person whom I would pay at the substitute rate of five dollars a day from my own pocket. He knew of no substitute available in English, but thought Dr. Abrams might be able to suggest someone. It was unfortunate, he thought, that the College provided no funds for travel and subsistence for faculty members interested in participating in professional meetings. I would also have to bear travel and subsistence costs for attending meetings, but he considered participating important and expenses for doing so worth bearing if I could afford to spend the money. Participating in professional activities was encouraged by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools. Being able to report that I was an active member of these organizations would look good on application materials. Dr. Abrams and I discussed these matters. I decided to go with him to the fall meeting of the English Teachers Association at the North Carolina College for Women in Greensboro. We could ride down to Greensboro with someone he knew who was planning a trip to Raleigh at that time and come back on a bus. We could contribute perhaps a dollar each toward gasoline costs for the trip down, and the bus ticket back would not cost much. By that time I had received my second salary check and had bought myself a new suit for $13.00 at a sale up the street, a suit that I did not like very much and that did not fit me very well, but it was a good suit, the sale price of which had been slashed when it was moved to the bargain rack in the basement because of its small size. Although I could not feel well dressed in the suit, I would not look shabby. It had been possible at the end of the first month for me to repay Mr. Wilson the twenty dollars I owed him. I insisted that he accept a dollar for interest, but he would not have it. I had finished paying in one payment what I owed the finance company in Huntington and had been able to pay for Sylvia's room at the sanitarium without undue hardship. I had also gone to see Sylvia again the first weekend in October and would go again the weekend before the meeting in Greensboro. Before deciding finally that I would go with Dr. Abrams to the meeting, I wrote to Sylvia about it, for I did not want to spend as much as $15.00 to attend a meeting without discussing it with her. She insisted that I go and that I participate actively in the organization. The trip would be good for me, and she felt that I deserved the right to spend some of my meager salary for professional advancement. I told Dr. Abrams that I would go with him. Dr. Abrams recommended Mrs. Daisy Eggers as a well-qualified substitute teacher. I asked her whether she would be willing to take for the recommended five dollars a day my classes on the Friday that I would be gone to attend the meeting. She was, and took the assignment so seriously that she came in time on Thursday to sit in one of my classes before I provided her with lesson plans for Friday. The trip to Greensboro was my first one east of Boone and down that side of the Blue Ridge. Highway 421 was narrow, crooked, and in places so steep that the driver low64 �Glad to be Living and Working in Boone ered the car into second gear. Below Deep Gap the countryside was much torn up by a flash flood that had left death and destruction in its path two years earlier. As we descended the mountain, I could see a series of hazy blue ridges falling away in mystery in the far distance. The highway was routed through the towns. I saw North Wilkesboro, dominated by its impressive new hotel, for the first time. Then beyond the town we followed an alternate route through Ronda, with its chair factory, to Elkin, where we crossed the Yadkin River into Jonesville, a town I had not heard of before. Having heard that some of my ancestors had migrated from Wilkes County to Elaine, Kentucky, prior to 1820, I was personally interested in the countryside. Eroded farms, dilapidated houses, crooked barns, scrub brush on hillsides, and other evidences of depression poverty convinced me that I was traveling through a tired, worn-out land. I wondered whether it had been so poor and down at the heels when my ancestors had left over a hundred years earlier on the six-weeks trip over the mountains to what they considered a better land in the hills of Kentucky. Coach Robert W. (Red) Watkins rode with us. It was on that trip that I became well enough acquainted with him to remember who he was when I met him on campus or in town, for he was occupied with coaching activities in the afternoons and had not attended faculty meetings regularly. We let Coach Watkins out in Winston-Salem, where he was to visit with friends and relatives. Dr. Abrams and I got out at the O. Henry Hotel in Greensboro, where we engaged a beautiful room in an upper story that overlooked the city. It was quite dark when we arrived, but after getting ourselves settled in our room we went to dinner at a good little restaurant in the hotel. The following morning we checked out of the hotel and rode a bus out to Woman's College where our meeting was held. Dr. George Wilson was our host, a jovial, spirited man whose professional interest was in American dialects. He was also editor of PADS, the publication of the American Dialect Society. He convinced me that I ought to join the society and invited me to prepare for publication a word list from Appalachian speech, which I did during the next year. Dr. Abrams participated extensively in discussions and seemed to be one of the leaders in the North Carolina English Teachers Association. Most of the members were experienced and confident women who taught in city high schools. Dr. Abrams introduced me personally to most of them, making me feel good with compliments and the half-teasing attitude he maintained, both toward the lady teachers and me. It was obvious that the members held Dr. Abrams in high esteem. I met people there that day with whom I was to work actively in the Association for the next seventeen years, for I soon became a member of the Central Committee and attended planning meetings twice a year and the English teachers' divisional meetings at both regional and state conventions of what was then the North Carolina Educational Association. We ate together on campus. The meeting continued for a while in the afternoon. Sometime during the day a new professor at Woman's College, a Dr. McNutt, I believe, gave a challenging talk on teaching writing to high school students. He recommended 65 �The Gratis Williams Chronicles: I Come to Boone especially that teachers try having high school juniors and seniors write "exegeses" of poems. I could not recall ever having heard or seen the word "exegesis" before and did not know what he was talking about. I wondered whether I might have been the only teacher present who did not know the word, but I could not tell from observing them. Afterwards, I did not feel sufficiently courageous to ask anyone for a definition, but I wrote the word on the back of my checkbook so I could consult a dictionary when I got back to Boone. About the middle of the afternoon Dr. Abrams and I caught a bus to Winston-Salem. It was a cloudy day, but I could see the rolling, well kept farms and the prosperous countryside out of Greensboro. Many trees still had green leaves on them and others were flaunting the autumn colors that we had enjoyed in Boone before the frosts had come to the mountains a few weeks earlier. We waited in Winston-Salem for a bus northward to Bluefield, West Virginia. Since it was not possible for us to make connections for a bus to Boone that night, we bought tickets to Boonville, where we spent the night in the home of Dr. Abramss sister, Louise, and her husband, Ralph Coram. Louise and Ralph lived in a new house, not yet completed, down a side street in Boonville. I had met neither of them before, but we enjoyed a delightful visit with them. Their bright-eyed little daughter, Winona, perhaps three years old, and I played games while Doc talked with Louise, a lively, vivid person who taught English in the local school, and, later, with Ralph, quiet, relaxed, and at ease with the two English teachers. Winona had a panda almost as big as she was. When I held the panda on my knee and carried on a conversation with it, like Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy, she was so pleased that she required more of me than my imagination could supply. I escaped into a songfest, in which the panda sang children's songs and recited nursery rhymes that delighted Winona. Louise rescued me by suggesting that Winona show me the pups, who lived in a lot over the bank behind the house. After visiting with the pups, we went exploring together. Across the fence and in the edge of the woods behind the house, we found an ancient graveyard, in which there was a stone for a woman who was over a hundred years old, 108, as I recall, when she died. Ralph was a farmer. The following morning he took me to meet his father and mother and to see the farm, a prosperous one with modern machinery, full barns, and fat cattle. After the tour of the farm Ralph took us up to the corner where we caught a bus to Boone. In North Wilkesboro we saw mountain people standing around the bus station, among them a pale young woman with a snuff stick in her mouth and breast feeding her baby with the same unconcern that I had observed in mothers at church when I was a boy in Kentucky. I thought that perhaps many of the blue-eyed, fair-skinned, and rangy mountain folk might have been my distant kinsmen, for they looked very much like the people who came to Blaine to trade on Saturdays. On the way from North Wilkesboro to Boone the motor of the bus ground with agony as the driver geared down to manipulate steep, sharp curves. Below the crest of the Blue Ridge I became nauseated again, but after opening the window for fresh air I was able to make it to the top of the mountain without having to vomit. The trip had been an enriching one for me. I had learned why the region west of the 66 �Glad to be Living and Working in Boone Blue Ridge had been designated the "Lost Provinces." I had seen the face of a new land, I had gained a deeper respect for Dr. Abrams, and I was more proud than ever of Appalachian Teachers College. I was glad to be living and working in Boone, That night I wrote in my letter to Sylvia a full account of my trip and expressed again my high regards for Dr. Abrams. Working at the high school became more pleasant and enriching for me as I began to make use of student observers from the methods class. Soon they were helping me with the preparation of teaching materials for my two freshman sections and reading papers and quizzes. One assisted me with directing one-act plays the dramatics class was preparing. By the middle of October I was able to complete work for the day and make preparations for the following day by five o'clock each afternoon. I came back in the evenings for play rehearsals and was usually ready for bed by ten o'clock. The short nap on my work table after lunch, the longer one in bed or on the couch after my dinner, and eight hours in bed each night provided me with the rest time I needed. I was finding it easier to push aside concerns for my own health, to rest when tired, to leave a job without giving it further thought before taking it up again, but it was more difficult to adjust to the seriousness of Sylvias illness. Anxiety and deep dread disturbed my sleep. People invited me to dinner occasionally and my fellow teachers at the high school sometimes included me in their social plans. After pleasant outings and evenings with others, I found myself looking tired and disturbed when I glanced at myself in the mirror while brushing my teeth before retiring. I felt guilty when I thought of Sylvia suffering and slowly dying, for I wanted to be with her. I wanted to be alone at times, to let my thoughts flow freely. One Saturday at the peak of the autumn's color season I rode the bus to Elizabethton, Tennessee, wandered around for an hour or two, and then came back by way of Newland and Blowing Rock, drinking deeply all the while the bittersweet of October s poignancy, its prodigy of painful beauty. I saw what Thomas Wolfe had described in Look Homeward Angel, a book that had more than anything else invited me to the mountains of North Carolina, which have always expressed October best. After my trip, Ruby Donald was interested in knowing why I wanted just to ride a bus over those narrow roads to Elizabethton and back. I felt shy, as if a secret had been pried out of me when I responded that I liked to feel the color season flowing by. One Saturday during the lingering autumn John Nelson, the social studies teacher at the high school, invited me to ride with him and his wife, Mary, to Lenoir. Mary needed to stop by the hospital there for an examination and he wanted to shop for clothing. Perhaps I would like to shop, too, for he had learned that there were bargains available in men's clothing. Although I knew I would not be buying any clothing, I gladly accepted his invitation, for I wanted to ride down the mountain in autumn from Blowing Rock to Lenoir, which I had not yet seen. Johns car was dilapidated, but he was glad to have it at that time when any car that 67 �The Crafts Williams Chronicles: I Come to Boone would run at all was a prized possession. We left Boone at eight o'clock, early enough, John thought, for him to get to the hospital in time for his wife's appointment at ten o'clock. It was a bright day. The ride along the edge of the gorge in Blowing Rock was frightening. Visibility was so clear and sharp that one could see the individual trees clinging to the steep side of the mountain all the way to the bottom of the gorge perhaps 2000 feet below. The most spectacular view I had yet seen, the mountains were piled, heap upon heap, as far as one could see, the closer ones standing out in sharp detail in the sunlight and looking almost close enough for one to throw a stone across the gorge to them, even though they were miles away. Highway 321 was narrow, on a steep grade, and as crooked as a snake crawling in the dust. John crept along in second gear applying the brakes so often that he had to stop on level stretches to let them cool. Once, beside a little clear stream below the church in the bend of the road near the turn off to Blackberry, he had me dip up a gallon tomato can of water for his radiator, which was so hot that steam was boiling out of it. We laughed because a radiator would get so hot in a car going down hill that it would have to be refilled. We must have spent the better part of an hour going down the mountain, at the foot of which we began to see many trees on which leaves were still green. The drive along the river below the mountain was through productive farming country. Happy Valley, a pleasant little hamlet with a textile mill beside a stream and a store by the highway, was the only community we passed before reaching the outskirts of Lenoir, an impressive little city with a proud hotel, the Carlheim, settled among splendid trees, a statue of a Confederate soldier in the center of its bustling business district, and along a low ridge the lovely campus of Davenport College, already closed, a casualty of the Depression, we had heard. We took Mary to the hospital and went shopping. I looked but did not buy anything. John looked at some suits with bargain prices, but purchased only two shirts, a tie, and some socks. While John was in the hospital with Mary, I walked on the Davenport campus and peeped through windows of attractive old buildings surrounded by giant oak trees. It was such a quiet, restful campus that I regretted it was then abandoned. We ate sandwiches at a little shop near the bus station and started back to Boone, having been in Lenoir not more than two hours. At the edge of town John stopped at a filling station for oil and gasoline, producing the ticket book required then. The attendant filled his radiator. The trip up the mountain was an ordeal. John would gear down to second and then low for steep places and stop on level spots to let the engine cool. I found water for the steaming radiator three times, the last time in the little stream below the church, but I filled the can two-thirds full and held it between my feet in case we would need more water before we reached Blowing Rock. We arrived in Boone at two o'clock. We had spent six hours making the 60-mile trip to Lenoir and back for a two-hour visit there. Certainly, Boone was hard to get to from all directions.26 26 Cratis Williams note: By the mid 1950s Highway 321 up the Blowing Rock Mountain had been rebuilt. Since then one could drive to Lenoir in forty-five minutes, but the new highway passes the same clear little stream from which I dipped water for John Nelson's radiator. I never see it that I don't remember my first trip to Lenoir. 68 �Glad to be Living and Working in Boone After I had received my check for my first month's salary and did not feel so tightly pinched, I went along occasionally with other teachers from the high school to the college cafeteria for the evening meal, where we could buy well prepared and wholesome but plain food at quite reasonable prices. In fact, a college student at the time paid only $3.50 for a meal book, which, it was said, one who selected food carefully could make last for a week. Owing to the scarcity of meats in war time, our selection was limited mostly to stew, meatloaf, patties, fishcakes, bologna, wieners, breaded chops, and small country-style steaks, but we had an abundance of both vegetables, many of which were grown on the college farm, and fresh milk from the College Dairy. Students and teachers especially relished Mrs. Ragan's spice cake and Mrs. Cullers's pastries, baked the same day on which they were served and of consistent high quality. In the cafeteria we had opportunities to become acquainted with college students, especially those who were taking methods classes and doing practice teaching in physical education under the supervision of Miss Donald. Bill Killian, Hughs friend on the editorial staff of the college newspaper, The Appalachian, for which Hugh was the business manager, was with us often. Before the fall quarter was over, I had become well enough acquainted with college students to recognize by name as many as fifty or sixty besides those enrolled in my methods course. When I went alone to the cafeteria, I was usually able to eat with someone I had already met. These opportunities for social exchange enabled me to develop a feeling of involvement in the life of the campus. I liked Appalachian students, more of whom, I learned, came from small towns or farms in the piedmont than from the mountain region. Especially friendly and congenial, they were generally serious young people, usually the first in their families to go to college, eager for an education, and ambitious to become teachers. Most of them were poor, I was told, and worked in mills or chopped cotton or hoed in the fields during the summer to supplement the meager help sacrificing parents of usually large families could offer toward their college education. Others were themselves sons and daughters of struggling school teachers, many of whom were graduates of Appalachian. But their poverty did not show. In those days students dressed for college. Young men did not wear overalls, jeans, hickory shirts, denim blouses, or rawhide shoes, nor young women calico dresses, gingham aprons, or cotton stockings to college. The College operated its own laundry and dry cleaning establishment and charges were minimal. Residence halls were equipped with abundant facilities for bathing. College students were well dressed, well groomed, and clean in those days. They did not refer to their poverty in their conversations nor to humble, workingclass origins. Only the quality of their spoken English betrayed them. Slovenly speech, careless diction, illiteracies, and folk idioms identified them as rural or working class young people, but they were generally courteous, considerate, and well mannered and left the impression that they were informed in etiquette and acquainted with the habits and customs of that middle-class society to which they aspired. Most important for their instructors, they respected and honored their teachers, even those whose idiosyncrasies they made the subject of indulgent conversations or mimicked in moments of levity. Those teachers who lived in rooms and suites in Faculty Apartments found them69 �The Gratis Williams Chronicles: I Come to Boone selves restricted for entertainment possibilities. As we became better acquainted, we worked out arrangements for socializing in the apartments of those who were willing hosts. We occasionally bought food and pooled our resources for dinner with the Nelsons, After dinner, we sometimes played simple card games such as hearts, or those who could do so would play bridge. Mr. and Mrs. Wey had all of us in groups of four or five to their home for dinner and cards. Sometimes we would dance, but most of us, though willing learners, were not especially skilled at dancing. My apartment was well suited for communal dinners and talk sessions afterwards. Ruby Donald and Hugh Daniel began a courtship after a few weeks. We pooled our resources for simple dinners in my apartment, usually including at least one other person, but sometimes a couple like the Nelsons. These dinners were the basis of a friendship with Ruby and Hugh, who married later, that has continued since that time.27 Figure E. Ruby Donald and Hugh Daniel on King Street, © 1942. Photo courtesy of Ruby Daniel. Sylvia had never trusted my culinary skills so far as to let me fry a chicken. Even when she was too ill to do so, she would fry the chicken when we had one. I liked fried chicken very much but was not getting to eat it often in Boone. One day I bought a frying chicken from Mrs. Amelia Greer at the Winn-Dixie Store, confessing as I bought it that I had never prepared one. Mrs. Greer advised that I ask one of my neighbors for a recipe and follow it closely, for frying chicken, she said, is really simple if one watches the heat closely and turns the chicken at the right time. I asked Miss Catherine Smith, my next door neighbor, how I should prepare my chicken. She had me write down the procedure, which I followed slavishly. She had me roll the chicken in cracker crumbs, which I did not know was ever done, but it was especially good chicken, Pennsylvania fried, someone told me, for Miss Smith, who had come from Pennsylvania, knew nothing about Kentucky fried chicken. I liked the chicken so well that I fried chicken for my guests thereafter and was able to include chicken more often in my own diet. Sometime before homecoming the English Club, under the sponsorship of Miss Meta 27 Ruby Donald and Hugh Daniel were married the following summer at the end of the school term and Hugh went to midshipmen school at Notre Dame before serving in the South Pacific. Ruby continued to teach at the high school for the duration of the war. Upon Hugh's return, they left Boone for Memphis where Hugh attended Southern College of Optometry, later opening a practice in Waynesville, North Carolina. Hugh and Ruby both served on Appalachian State University's Board of Trustees, and Hugh served on the first Board of Governors of the University of North Carolina System. 70 �Glad to be Living and Working in Boone Liles, a southern lady from Tarboro and much admired by young women majoring in English, invited me to a tea one lovely afternoon in the social room of Lovill Hall. Although I considered teas stiff and artificial, I felt it important that I accept the invitation, for all of the students in my methods class, including the slender-faced young man, Terry Mattern, were likely to be there. A few times while I was a student at the University of Kentucky I had helped my friend, Sidney Shell, who lived in the attic of the president's home, assist Mrs. McVeigh, the president's social-minded wife, with her teas at Maxwell Place.28 I knew about teas, I thought, and the importance of standing about, looking ones best, sipping tea noiselessly, and occasionally engaging in light talk, but never for more than a few minutes at a time with other guests. Light talk, I thought, should never degenerate into a conversation, or sink to the level of a discussion, at a tea. As soon as my sixth period class was over, I rushed to my apartment to freshen up, changed into my new $13.00 suit, touched myself with cologne, and hurried to the social room of Lovill Hall. Almost all of the young ladies in my methods class were there, dressed in pretty tea dresses and high heels, their hair hanging to their shoulders, and wearing white gloves. They were without exception attractive, animated, and gracious. Mr. Mattern, the slender-faced young man in the class, was all dressed up in a three-piece suit, a gleaming white shirt, and a tie knotted so tightly and neatly that it stuck out like a race horse's tail. It seemed that all of the members of the faculty, many of them with their spouses in attendance, and student office holders were there, some of them already saying good-bye to the hostess, the president of the English Club, and Miss Liles, the sponsor, when I arrived. Dr. Abrams, standing close by, was obviously pleased with what seemed to be a social triumph for English majors. Soon President Dougherty arrived, accompanied by Dean Rankin. A young lady took them in hand immediately, relieving Dr. Dougherty of his spotless hat and hanging it on a rack near the entrance. Another young lady arrived with a cup of hot water and a tea bag, a cube of sugar, a spoon, and three tiny cookies on the saucer and thrust it into Dr. Dougherty's hand. He did not move far from where he was standing. While engaging Dr. Abrams in a discussion, he crumbled one of his cookies in the hot water, stirred it with the spoon gently, and sipped it, his tea bag and cube of sugar lying in place on his saucer. After he had drunk half of his concoction, he crumbled another cookie into the cup, stirred it a long time, and continued to sip. When his cup was empty, a young lady came with a teapot of hot water and asked whether he would like more. He looked at the empty cup for a moment and held it out for a refill. Then he crumbled his last cookie into the water, stirred it around and around, and continued to sip. People came, had tea, and left, but Dr. Dougherty continued to talk with Dr. Abrams. When his cup was empty, the tea bag and the sugar still lying on his saucer, a young lady came by and asked whether she might relieve him of his cup. As he handed it to her, he observed, "Young lady, that was powerful good tea." Her eyes twinkled but she managed to keep her composure as she looked at the 28 Frank L. McVey was president of the University of Kentucky from 1917 until his retirement in 1940. He and Mrs. McVey were the first UK president's family to live in Maxwell Place, built in 1870 and sold to the University in 1917. It remains the UK presidential home. 71 �The Gratis Williams Chronicles: I Come to Boone tea bag and sugar on the saucer. Someone handed Dr. Dougherty his hat and he left. Sensing my amusement, Dr. Abrams explained in a low voice that Dr. Dougherty, who did not like tea and did not want the sugar, was not absent minded. He knew exactly what he was doing, but felt it improper to refuse to accept the cup that had been offered him. One bright Sunday afternoon I decided to go walking alone to the top of Howard s Knob. I thought the exercise would be good for me, but feared that I might need to stop and rest frequently because of my lungs, and if I became too tired to walk all the way to the top I could rest a while and return to my apartment. I did not ask anyone to go with me because I did not want to risk in the presence of a companion the possibility of having to return to the town before making it all the way to the top of the Knob. On my way up the street I met Dr. Abrams, Dr. Busteed, and Dr. Whitener near the old Coffey residence on the corner of Appalachian Street and Main Street. Dr. Abrams wanted to know where I was going. I told him that I was planning to walk through the upper side of Boone, which I had not yet seen. He and the others were coming from a meeting of a Lions Club committee, he said. He then said that I might enjoy being a member of the Lions Club. I explained that I had enjoyed being a member of Rotary International in my home town in Kentucky but did not at the time want to be a member of another civic club. All three of them talked about the fun Lions have at their meetings and the good work they do for children who need glasses. A Lions Club is not much like a Rotary Club, they said, and they hoped I might decide later that I would like to become a Lion. I walked to the courthouse square and turned up Water Street toward Howard's Knob. The road looped around the upper side of town, a section called Junaluska, in which the black population of Boone lived. I could see that the road looped back above a steep pasture field and that one might cut off perhaps a quarter of a mile by climbing a hundred yards up the steep field. Soon I saw a path across the field and followed it, panting heavily and resting frequently until I reached the road above. The dirt road was not very steep for a way but then ascended on a steep grade toward the saddle gap between Howard's Knob and Rich Mountain. I rested when my heart began to pound and made it to the gap in perhaps 45 minutes from the time I had left the apartments. The rutted old abandoned trail from the gap to the top of the Knob looked as if it had not been used for many years. I was finding my way to a spot where one could sit alone, feel the fresh brisk breeze whipping across his face, look at the town far below him, and think his deepest thoughts in strict privacy, I thought. I passed the foundation of a house, much of the floor still in place, that had apparently blown down in a wind storm. The ruins of the old house were the only signs of former human habitation there, although I had already heard that Howard, a Tory, had hidden in a cliff on the Knob for a year or two before he took the oath of allegiance to the new nation in 1777. 72 �Glad to be Living and Working in Boone Beyond the end of the trail I ran into surprises. Behind nearly every tree and rock was a young couple. Some were standing, some sitting, and some reclining. They were college students who had slipped away from campus. "Boys" over one entrance to the administration building and "girls" the other, segregated seating in the auditorium, an eight o'clock curfew in the evening, and other precautions did not prevent courting couples from coming together when they set their heads to do so. Feeling like an unwelcome intruder, I retreated from the scene and returned to Faculty Apartments. Dr. Abrams invited me to hear his collection of recordings of traditional ballads and songs which NYA students had arranged and catalogued for him. He permitted me to listen in the late afternoon in his classroom while he worked in his office or attended meetings. Occasionally, we found time to discuss ballads he had collected. He thought it important that I continue with my interest in collecting and that I become a member of the North Carolina Folklore Society, to which he had belonged for several years. He would be pleased to have me go with him to the annual meeting of the Society during North Carolina Culture Week in early December. I wrote about it to Sylvia and discussed it with her when I visited her. Membership dues were only a dollar a year, as I recall, and the trip to Raleigh and back by bus, expenses for sharing a room with Doc in the Sir Walter Raleigh Hotel, where the meeting would be held, and the cost of meals would not exceed fifteen dollars, but it would be necessary that I hire a substitute teacher to meet my classes at the high school on the one day that I would be away. Sylvia urged that I accept Doc's invitation and that I join the Society. I told Doc he could include me in his plans to attend the meet- 73 �This page intentionally left blank �c Winter's Nightmare When I went to see Sylvia in early November I was distressed to find her emaciated, blanched, and hollow eyed. She could not even swallow a sip of water without first soughing through a pipette some of the medicinal powder, Aureomycin, I believe it was called, to numb her throat. She was so weak that she required help just to sit up in bed. Her joy in living was gone. Even smiling required effort as her paperthin lips peeled away from her teeth, leaving them exposed to the gums and greatly exaggerated in size. Her arms were as slender as tobacco sticks and her beautiful hands were thin and bony. She thought she probably weighed no more than seventy-five pounds. She was slowly starving to death. I suggested that intravenous feeding might give her strength, but she did not want it and the doctors did not recommend it, for there was no hope for her recovery. She would probably not live more than a few weeks longer. Sylvia had given up hope. She wanted very much to die. Her pain was almost unbearable. She dreaded having to deal with it to the end. If she were physically able to do so, she said, she would get out of bed, go to the chest, gather up her medicine, and then get back in bed and take all of it. She would not wake up and her suffering would be ended. She looked at me imploringly. She could not ask me to hand the medication to her, but if I could I would be helping her. My heart pounded like a jackhammer as my sense of being ballooned to encompass the entire room and my vision became blurred. Sylvia had managed a ghastly smile. I could make out distinctly only her large eyes and those enormous teeth. I shuddered and contracted into myself again. I could not bear the pain of knowing that I had helped the one I loved better than all the world to die. I held her fragile little hand while we looked into each other's eyes a long time. 75 �The Gratis Williams Chronicles: I Come to Boone After a while, she said she wished that she was at her mother's home. She was not going to get well and she preferred to die in the house in which she was born and had grown up. We discussed problems involved. We had no notion of what it might cost to hire an ambulance to take her to Cherokee, but I would write and ask her mother to get a price from Mr. Curtright, the funeral director in Louisa, and she could request someone at the sanitarium to get prices from funeral homes in Beckley. We could engage one and I could come at Thanksgiving time and be with her on the trip. When I got back to Boone, I wrote Mrs. Graham. She engaged Luther Hogston, a neighbor, to take her to Louisa to talk with Mr. Curtright, who studied a road map and offered to send an ambulance for Sylvia for forty-five dollars. Someone in the office at the sanitarium called funeral homes in Beckley. The director of a new home there was willing to send two young men with an ambulance over the mountains from below Charleston to Louisa and on to Cherokee for thirty dollars. I called that director and made arrangements for him to send the two young men on the trip on Thanksgiving Day and sent him ten dollars as a deposit. One of the pleasant occasions at the College that fall was homecoming. The weekend chosen for homecoming, which might have been in late October, was a golden one with bright weather throughout. Most of the students and faculty must have participated, but activities were not largely attended, for gasoline rationing, the war, and the dwindling student body reduced severely the number of persons who might have been present in normal times. Playcrafters, the drama club that had flourished under Professor Antonakos's direction in other years, had prepared under student direction some dramatic sketches and one-act plays for Friday night, carrying on, I learned, a tradition that had grown up five or six years earlier under Antonakos's leadership. Most of the small student body and remaining faculty and spouses attended. Many of the students in my methods class and two or three student actors from the high school were involved in the play production effort. At a reception afterwards in the meeting room of Playcrafters under the auditorium of the administration building, teachers and spouses, President Dougherty, and Dean and Mrs. Rankin came by for punch and cookies and an opportunity to meet and compliment the actors, still in stage costume and makeup, and the directors. Few visitors were there, though. Alumni and friends of the College would arrive on Saturday. No provisions had been made for a Saturday morning parade led by a lively band and a panache of prancing majorettes. Both the band and the majorettes were greatly reduced in numbers that year. Instead, we walked leisurely past a surprising number of colorful displays and tableaux strung across the lawns from Lovill Hall to the administration building, and gleaming in the bright morning, each attended by one or two costumed students representing the organization or club that had prepared the exhibit. I do not recall an alumni luncheon, or even a meeting, and believe that there might not have been a formally organized alumni association of the institution in existence at the time. After a stroll across the campus I went by the book store, where a few alumni and faculty members were enjoying 76 �Winter's Nightmare conversation over coffee and soft drinks at the tables and in the four or five booths while the juke box played loudly recordings of the music popular at the time. Feeling out of place and ill at ease, and not wanting to intrude on any of the groups around the tables, I stood by the counter and sipped a 7-Up. After a simple lunch in my apartment and a long nap afterwards, I freshened myself up, dressed in my new and ill-fitting tweed suit, and walked down to the stadium in the bottom where Rankin Hall is now located. The little band was already playing and the energetic cheerleaders, dressed in orange and black sweaters and skirts that seemed dull and worn, were working hard to generate enthusiasm in the small and somewhat dispirited crowd on the home side of the stadium. There might not have been more than fifteen or twenty supporters of the visiting team in the stands along the north side of the field, which was bounded by Appalachian Street, then opened through the campus and one of the main roads into the town. The cheerleaders, under Dr. Amos Abrams's direction, were mistresses of their routines and were superbly coordinated in their execution, but the cooperation of the small crowd was sporadic and largely indifferent. I do not remember the name of the team Appalachian was playing that day. I entered the stadium from the north side and walked around the end zone to the south side. As I was climbing the tier of wooden seats to the top row, where I wanted a seat in the mid zone, I met Dr. Wiley Smith and was surprised to note that he was wearing a tweed suit just like mine, but his suit looked good on him. As we exchanged greetings, I thought I detected a bit of a surprise that he should see someone else wearing a suit like his. He had most likely paid full price for his suit, unlike my bargain basement clearance sale purchase, and was proud to be wearing it. The football game was not a good one. Both teams seemed to be leftovers. As I recall, two or three of Appalachian's players had been borrowed from the local high school squad. Despite the verve of the spirited cheerleaders, the liveliness of the band, the prancing routines of the pretty majorettes, and the crowning at half time of a beautiful homecoming queen (for whom no dance was scheduled that evening) on a windy afternoon in autumn, the football game was a disaster. I have forgotten who won the game but realized that neither team deserved to win. Nothing was scheduled for Saturday night. Instead, faculty members invited the few alumni who had returned to campus to dinner in their homes. Dr. Abrams and Lillian invited me to their house for dinner, attended also by three or four alumni who were then teaching English in high schools. Late that afternoon I had met Hugh Daniel on campus. Hugh and Ruby were entertaining a recent alumna, who was teaching in an elementary school in Allegheny County, and her date for the evening, who was one of Hugh's friends. The teacher, a good party girl, had brought with her a bottle of Four Roses. Entertaining them in Ruby's room in the Faculty Apartments would be awkward and crowded. Hugh wondered whether I might like to have all of them as my guests in my apartment. I had ice in my refrigerator. He and Ruby would bring mixers, extra glasses, and snacks. I explained that I had accepted an invi77 �The Gratis Williams Chronicles: I Come to Boone tation to dinner, but that I would leave my door unlocked and they could make themselves at home in my apartment until I returned, perhaps by 9:30. Following Lillian Abrams s delicious dinner, built around a most successful chicken casserole, and an evening of delightful conversation that sparkled with Dr. Abrams's wit, I took my leave about nine o'clock and hurried to my apartment. The party was in progress. Hearty laughter and the tinkling of ice in glasses let me know that my guests were enjoying themselves. My door was locked. Fearing that letting myself in with my key might startle them, I knocked. There was a hushed quiet as Hugh came and let me in. Everybody laughed, but I saw no evidence of a party. The bottle of bourbon and the mixers had been hidden behind the chest. Only the desk light was on. In the semi-darkness I was presented to the teacher from Allegheny County, a plump but attractive young woman with dark hair hanging to her shoulders. She was congenial and laughed easily, showing beautiful teeth. Hugh asked what I wanted with my bourbon. Not caring for either of the mixers, I asked for a double jigger cut with branchwater and cooled by one cube of ice. There was a hearty response to my order. It seemed no one present had ever heard of mixing whiskey with branchwater. Observing that the bottle of bourbon was half empty, I consumed my drink quickly and announced that, being by then "even Steven" with my guests, I would accept another lighter drink, with one jigger, two cubes of ice, and the glass filled with branchwater. I sipped this one for the remainder of the evening. We swapped stories, laughed a great deal, and enjoyed ourselves, the two couples sitting together on the long couch while I sat in the easy chair. The rest of the bourbon was consumed by about 11:30. Conversation continued for another half hour. The young teacher expressed her appreciation for my hospitality and the guests departed. It had been a successful party but I was soon very much alone in the quiet building. As I prepared for bed, I noticed in my bathroom mirror that my face was mask-like and my eyes were tired. Suddenly I was exhausted. I thought of Sylvia, suffering and dying, and felt guilty because I had not thought of her while enjoying the party. But she and I had enjoyed many similar parties with friends. I would tell her about this one, homecoming, and the football game on a perfect autumn afternoon in my Sunday morning letter. I slept better than usual. Early on Thanksgiving Day I arrived at Pinecrest Sanitarium to ride with Sylvia in the ambulance to her mother s home. She had become so emaciated that the contours of her teeth were visible beneath the pallid skin of her face and her eyes were as large as eggs, her thin lids meeting only halfway when she batted them. She whispered with difficulty that she weighed only 65 pounds. She was unable to sit up by herself, but once propped into a sitting position she could use her hands and had retained considerable strength in her frail arms. Attendants had packed her bag and a cardboard box. The ambulance would arrive at ten o'clock. After visiting with her, I went by an office to sign her out of the sanitarium and then to the X-ray room to have my chest X-rayed again. I was told that Dr. Edwards, off duty 78 �Winter's Nightmare that day, would read the film and send me a report the following week. When attendants came to take Sylvia to the ambulance, I stood at the second story window above the exit and watched them wheel her from the building. I had stood at this same window and watched them bring her into the building four and a half months earlier. Then she had seen me at the window and smiled with hope. Borne from the building head first, she could have seen me at the window again, but if she did she was unable to smile a recognition. Her face was rigid and white in the sunlight and her large eyes were fixed. She looked like a corpse. I shuddered with grief as I stood alone by the window and fought back an almost overwhelming urge to cry out my agony and weep. I went downstairs and out of the building through the loading exit and presented myself to the two young men, nineteen or twenty years old, who would be driving the ambulance. They pointed out to me on a road map the route westward they planned to take a few miles below Charleston. I sat beside Sylvias cot in the ambulance and talked to her. She attempted to say very little herself. Struggling to whisper against the purring of the motor exhausted her. The morning was bright on the mountains around Beckley and along the New River Gorge, but we came into hazy weather below Gauley Bridge. Sylvia rested comfortably on the cot. The young men were careful, smooth drivers and managed the traffic lights in Charleston without disturbing her. As we were leaving Charleston, she whispered that she Figure F. Sylvia Graham Williams and Gratis Williams, shortly after they were married in 1937. 79 �The Gratis Williams Chronicles: I Come to Boone was thirsty and hungry. She wanted a dish of vanilla ice cream and a glass of ice water. I helped her arrange her medication. She soughed the powder into her throat, gagging and struggling as she did so. I told the young men in the cab to stop at the next restaurant they saw and we would have lunch. In a few minutes the driver pulled into the parking area of a short order restaurant. The young men had brought lunch with them and ate in the cab. I went into the restaurant and ordered a hamburger for myself and a dish of vanilla ice cream and a glass of water for Sylvia. The little restaurant did not prepare food and drinks to go. I took the dish of ice cream with a stainless steel spoon in it and the glass of water with a straw in it to Sylvia. She struggled with the water but drank very little of it. I fed her ice cream but she took only a few bites of it. As I returned the dish, spoon, glass, and straw to the waitress I saw that the spoon and straw had bright red lipstick on them. When I told the waitress that she might want to scald with boiling water what I was returning, for the person in the ambulance had tuberculosis, she looked at the lipstick on the spoon and straw as if it were offal and, snarling with malevolence, dropped gingerly each article into the garbage pail. When I asked whether I might pay for the articles, she snapped "no" with begone-with-you venom in her voice. The three or four people at the counter who heard our conversation leaned away from me as if I might have been a leper who had dropped like a spider from the ceiling into their midst. They were all still staring at me with hateful disdain when I looked back at them from the door of the restaurant. I was glad that the young ambulance drivers had not witnessed my burning humiliation and I did not report to Sylvia what had happened. The ambulance crept along the narrow road through the hills from the Kanawha Valley to Fort Gay. The afternoon was overcast with light clouds. The landscape was generally grey but bedecked here and there with dark oaks that had not yet surrendered all of their color. Wisps of smoke from black chimneys of weathered little houses signaled preparation of Thanksgiving dinner; men and boys waited on front porches or clustered around battered cars or trucks with ragged fenders parked by the gates of little brown yards. As we went through Louisa, I craned my neck to see whether I might recognize any of the few people straggling along the sidewalks, but they were country people whom I did not know. I saw only two people I had known. Buell Lyon was standing in front of his gas station and Doug Lewis was cleaning the windshield of a dusty flivver beside his gas pump. Neither recognized me. Sylvia was glad that we had been able to come through the town without being seen by former friends and neighbors there, for she wanted as few people as possible to know that she was coming home to die. Sylvia slept lightly on the way from Louisa to the Wellman Bridge. I held her warm thin hand and watched familiar countryside move by. As we crossed Adams Hill, I had a deep, sinking sensation of gloom as I held Sylvia's hand tightly. I watched in silence the passing of the familiar banks, rocks, and trees that I had seen many times with her, happy and laughing, beside me in our car. This was our last trip together over an intimate and friendly road, the last lap in our journey to the end. 80 �Winter} Nightmare Sylvia woke up when the driver stopped and changed gears to cross the Wellman Bridge. She was able to see the familiar countryside as the ambulance moved slowly and smoothly over the bumpy dirt road from the bridge to the mouth of Cherokee Creek. People at Paris Elswick's store recognized us and threw up their hands at us. We met no one on the road from the bridge to Cherokee. Although it was Thanksgiving Day, people were not driving their beaten up cars, held together with baling wire and the ingenuity of amateur mechanics, for gasoline Figure G. Berta and Lemual Graham with Sylvia and was rationed. We arrived at the Graham Gratis on the Graham farm. Cherokee, Ky., circa 1938. home at three o'clock. Mrs. Graham had moved a bed for Sylvia into the living room, which she had cleaned thoroughly. The blinds on the long double windows were rolled completely up, and a low wood fire was smoldering on the hearth. The young men carried the cot on which Sylvia lay into the house. Mrs. Graham and I transferred her to the bed and propped her up with pillows. She looked happy as light from the windows gathered in her enormous eyes. I paid the young men twenty dollars and thanked them for the care they had taken to make the long ride as comfortable as they could for Sylvia. While the driver was writing a receipt, I looked at the picture hanging on the wall above Sylvia's head. A dying American Indian with a long dipping spear in his hand slumped in his saddle as his horse, standing on a hillock, lowered his head toward sunset. That picture had been hanging there the first time I came to see Sylvia in 1931. Mrs. Graham, stoical and controlled, did not betray to Sylvia her shock at seeing her so thin and weak, nor did she indicate that she noticed how large Sylvia's eyes were or how pale her skin was. The young ambulance drivers, eager to be on the road, left about 3:30. We made Sylvia as comfortable as possible and then retreated to the kitchen so she could take a nap. Mr. Graham, who had gone to his nephew's home for a shave and a hair trim, returned soon. Sylvia awoke from her light nap when he came in. We hurried into the room, for Mr. Graham, then 76 years old, was hard of hearing and Sylvia could only whisper. Like Mrs. Graham, he did not express shock at seeing Sylvia so pale and wasted away. As I shook hands with him, I noticed that he had had most of his great shock of white hair trimmed away and was red-faced and thin. He did not look quite natural to me, but I did not know why. Sylvia struggled to laugh and whispered, "Dad has had his mustache shaved off. This is the first time in my life I have ever seen him without it." Sylvia, who loved her father deeply and looked like him, had often bantered with him to have his heavy, walrus 81 �The Crafts Williams Chronicles: I Come to Boone mustache shaved off so she could see what he looked like without it. That night she whispered to me that he had done it for her so she could see before she died what he looked like without it. She thought he looked better with it. That night we kept a lighted kerosene lamp on a stand table inside the open dining room. I slept on the couch so I could attend to Sylvia's needs and keep a low fire burning on the hearth. She coughed a great deal and called for water often, though she struggled to get even a few drops down and strangled easily. Neighbors came by to see her on Friday, but their visits with her were brief. Some stayed to sit on the wide porch for a time, for the day was warm and pleasant. All of the callers, neighborly and friendly, offered no comments about Sylvia's grave condition and behaved as if they expected her to be up and around soon. Fearing that I might not be able to get back to Boone in time for work Monday if I waited until Sunday morning to leave, I left soon after daylight Saturday morning. While Mrs. Graham prepared breakfast with Mr. Graham sitting silently in a chair by the wood box, I sat by Sylvia's bed for what proved to be our last conversation. Sylvia had rallied a bit at home. She had been able to take more liquids Friday than usual. She thought she might live another month or six weeks. Our winter holidays at the school would begin a week before Christmas, only three weeks away. I would be with her during a two-week holiday season. She teased and laughed. After a hearty breakfast of country ham and eggs, big biscuits and honey, I packed my light bag and kissed Sylvia on the forehead while holding her hand tightly. She smiled and teased me. She seemed happy and accepting of what lay ahead when we said goodbye, but I recognized that she was wanting to protect me from pain and heartbreak. As I hurried on foot through the frosty morning to Elaine, three miles away, to catch an eight o'clock bus to Louisa, I wept for Sylvia the tears I could not shed in her presence. Her courage and beautiful acceptance of the inevitable tugged at me. I wanted her to live long enough for me to be with her during the holidays. It was not possible for me to get back to Boone that day. I rode a Norfolk and Western train from Fort Gay, West Virginia, to Bluefield, took a bus to Abingdon, Virginia, spent the night in an ancient hotel across the street from the bus station, and went on to Boone on Sunday. Except for the little bus from Blaine to Louisa, which had only a handful of passengers on it, everything was crowded. Every seat in the railroad coach in which I rode was taken. I remember that I was awakened from a deep slumber by a bright eyed young man who took a position in the aisle and played and sang to an accordion. After his first piece, he responded to requests, and many young people in the coach sang along with him. Young men in uniforms, young women with dreams in their eyes, smartly dressed young mothers with happy children on their laps were hurrying back from Thanksgiving Day visits. Sunday morning in Abingdon was lightly overcast but a light rain was falling in Boone when the bus arrived in the early afternoon. I took a taxicab to the Faculty Apartments, a quiet place shrouded in Sunday silence. Four quart bottles of milk, only one of which had spewed off the cap, were waiting at my door. 82 �Winter's Nightmare During that week I received from Dr. Edwards at Pinecrest Sanitarium a report of my chest X-ray the preceding Thursday. The spot on my lung had neither grown nor diminished. I was advised to continue with my diet and rest regimen and report for another Xray in three months. At the end of that week I went with Dr. Abrams to Raleigh to attend the meeting of the North Carolina Folklore Society. I engaged Mrs. Daisy Eggers to teach my classes for me on Friday. Thursday afternoon Doc and I rode a bus to Boonville, where we spent the night in his sister's home, and went on to Raleigh Friday morning, arriving in time to have lunch with the officers of the North Carolina Folklore Society in the Sir Walter Raleigh Hotel, where Doc had reserved a room for us for Friday night. It was at this lunch that I met Arthur Palmer Hudson, long-time secretary of the Folklore Society, Richard Jente, a professor of German at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Joe Clark from North Carolina State College at Raleigh, Newman I. White of Duke University, and others, including, I believe, Ralph Steele Boggs of Chapel Hill and Beatrice Cobb of Morganton. Our bus had taken us through Guilford College, Elon College, Burlington, and Durham. In Durham we had passed beside the low stone wall beyond which we could see old Trinity College, which had become Duke University in the 1920s. Doc, a graduate of Duke, told me much about old Trinity and Duke. I remembered as we passed Elon College that I had ordered biological supplies from there while I was a science teacher at Blaine High School in Kentucky in 1933-1934. The road from Winston-Salem to Raleigh, Doc explained, crosses piedmont North Carolina, rich in the history of the state, and the sandy coastal plain lies east of Raleigh. Down there, where he had come from, customs were different and people spoke a different dialect. At Pinetops, down in Edgecombe County where he had grown up, housewives made thin, blue-looking cornbread of just meal and water and a pinch of salt and people said "wan't" for "wasn't" and "own" for "on." His father and mother still lived at Pinetops, near Tarboro. He would take me there to see them sometime and we could sit under a cypress tree and fish in Tar River. By the time we had arrived at the elegant Sir Walter Raleigh Hotel, headquarters of North Carolina's annual Culture Week, I was feeling as if I had reached back a long way in history. I liked the rolling piedmont farms and pretty towns, even though farmhouses and outbuildings and the towns themselves needed repairs and paint as did houses and towns in Ohio and Indiana. I fancied I could see something of the Old South remaining in Raleigh, despite the neglected aspect that the Depression had left with it. I was pleased to have Dr. Abrams as my sponsor. Still uneasy in the presence of older and experienced college teachers, I soon found myself comfortable and relaxed with those at the special table that had been reserved for the North Carolina Folklore Society. Conversation was light and filled with quips, banter, and anecdotes. Doc Abrams, in introducing me, called attention to my work as a ballad collector, singer, entertainer, and student of Appalachian proverbial lore and dialect. I felt self-conscious because I thought he was crediting me with more than I deserved, but I soon found that he was mostly clearing the 83 �The Gratis Williams Chronicles: I Come to Boone way for me to converse with those present. Dr. Jente, a collector of proverbs, and Dr. Clark, who had grown up in east Tennessee, Dr. Hudson, who had published a book of ballads and songs he had collected in Mississippi, all found opportunities to encourage me to participate in the conversation. Later that afternoon I enjoyed the program of the Society, which included a report of Newman I. White on the progress of efforts to publish the North Carolina folklore collection of Dr. Frank C. Brown, a professor at Duke. I was amazed that so many people were attending the meeting, including splendidly attired dames and stylish looking young ladies, that attendants had to keep carrying in chairs for late comers. After the program, cookies and punch were served. That afternoon we attended a tea in the governor's mansion and then that evening, a lecture, the highlight of the Culture Week program, in Morrison Auditorium. Hundreds of people, many of them in formal evening dress, attended the lecture. Before I left Kentucky I had attended a meeting of the Kentucky Folklore Society in Louisville, but it had not had the class or tone of the meeting in Raleigh. Apparently, patrons of culture came from afar to participate in Culture Week activities. Old retired gentlemen who had been historians, poets, writers, musicians, renowned professors in the humanities and the arts, sat about the lobby or in groups on the mezzanine of the Sir Walter Raleigh Hotel. Once I had heard Professor Edwin Mims, whose students at Vanderbilt University had attracted national attention as the Southern Agrarians, speak briefly at a meeting of English teachers at the University of Kentucky. I recognized him sitting alone in the lobby of the Sir Walter Raleigh Hotel. He was sporting a white goatee and wearing a winged collar and looked much as he had looked three or four years earlier at Lexington. Dr. Abrams thought he had retired and returned to his native state and was living at the hotel, which seemed to me to be an appropriate home for so renowned a professor. That night I found myself exhausted. The day had been a full and exciting one. I had been lifted to a new level culturally, I thought. But there had been no opportunity for rest, and I had not dozed at any of the meetings. I had thought of Sylvia a few times and realized that a deep concern for her had been with me constantly. My fatigue and fear that the spot on my lung might spread pulled at me, but I could not tell Dr. Abrams my troubles. We talked for a while after we were in bed, but I dropped into a deep sleep while Doc was telling me something. When I woke up two or three hours later embarrassed that I could not remember the end of our conversation, Doc was sleeping soundly. The following morning Doc told me that he had suspected he might have been talking to himself and asked me a question without changing the tone of his voice or the tempo. When I had not responded, he knew I was asleep, but he did not know how long I had been asleep. Buses were crowded on Saturday, but we were at the station in time to board a bus to Winston-Salem early enough to get seats together. We spent Saturday night with the Corums at Boonville and arrived in Boone Sunday afternoon. I had enjoyed the meeting of the Folklore Society and other events at the end of Culture Week so well that I joined the �Winter's Nightmare Society and continued to return for annual meetings, except for the year I was on leave, for eighteen years. It might have been the following week that the local PTA sponsored a parents' visitation at the campus demonstration schools. Mr. Wey urged that the teachers dress their bulletin boards with exhibits of outstanding student writing or projects and make ourselves available to those parents who might wish to come by to meet us or to talk with us about how their children were getting along. Many of the teachers were less than enthusiastic about the affair and dreaded having to meet parents of some of their students. We had agreed in faculty meetings that we would offer positive evaluations whenever we could of students but that we would not hesitate to tell parents how we thought their children might improve their study habits and how parents might help. I enjoyed meeting parents of my students, though, and was gratified by the reports of parents, sometimes of students who were not doing very good work, that my students generally thought very well of me and enjoyed my classes. We had three or four exceptionally talented students in the campus schools. One bright boy in the sixth grade was given permission to enroll in a high school class and a college class. I was not surprised to discover that teachers in the demonstration schools were just as prejudiced against brilliant students as teachers I had known in the high school at Louisa. I think they were afraid that bright students might ask questions they could not answer or offer information that would suggest to other students in the class that the teacher was not well prepared. Parents of these students took much interest in the PTA and were present to discuss their children and their progress and their problems with their teachers. Teachers generally dreaded meeting parents of these students, but they were also fond of telling how they managed to keep "smart alecks" in their places in their classes. Students in my high school dramatics class were working on a round of one-act plays. I met for a while each evening a cast for rehearsal. One group, with a second-year student of dramatics as director and another as stage manager, was trying to prepare One Dozen Roses, a romantic little comedy dealing with late teen-age life, for production at the high school assembly program on Friday, December 11th. Nights were getting colder and frost was on the roofs in the morning, but days, though crisp, were bright and filled with sunshine. Going to rehearsals for an hour and a half each evening was pleasant, for the students were working hard and enjoying what they were doing. Back in my apartment by 8:30 I spent an hour writing a free-flowing, stream-of-consciousness letter to Sylvia. I responded to her letters, in which she wrote about happenings in the community, who had come by to see her, letters from friends, but not much about herself, and told her about the play rehearsals. Dr. and Mrs. D.J. Whitener, whose son Jack was in one of my freshman English sections, invited me to dinner in their home on Faculty Street at six o'clock Thursday evening, along with Hugh Daniel and Bill Killian, who were the business manager and the editor of the student newspaper, The Appalachian, for which Dr. Whitener was the faculty adviser. After arranging with the cast of One Dozen Roses for a dress rehearsal at eight o'clock, I 85 �The Gratis Williams Chronicles: I Come to Boone accepted the invitation to dinner. It was a pleasant evening. Mrs. Whitener had prepared a delicious dinner. Conversation, managed skillfully by Dr. Whitener, was lively and included Jack, who was shy but articulate. Bill Killian, also shy, did not say much, but Hugh Daniel's good humor, contagious hearty laugh, and easy talk set a tone of informality that helped to relieve Jack and Bill of tension. We talked much of current events, the progress of the War, the still depressed but recovering economy. I hurried from the dinner through a balmy evening to dress rehearsal, which was promising. Actors and actresses were exuberant, and Betsy Webster, the student director who sat beside me, was apprehensive at first but so encouraged at the end by the rehearsal that she hugged me as the curtain was pulled. Unaccustomed to being hugged by my students and surprised at the sudden display of enthusiasm, I was somewhat embarrassed when one of the young men teased Betsy about trying to make up to the teacher. We were all pleased that the play was ready for the stage. That night I wrote a long letter to Sylvia, a letter which I did not send, but kept sealed in its envelope for forty years before opening it. I did not sleep well that night. Perhaps the excellent coffee I had drunk at the Whitener dinner made me wakeful. About midnight I woke up from a troubled dream with night sweats. I got up, bathed my forehead with cold water, drank a glass of milk, and read for a while before going back to bed. At two-thirty I woke up again from a terrifying nightmare which I have never been able to forget. In the dream my brother and I had crossed the ridge from a neighbor's farm to ours in the mid-afternoon of a day in late autumn when the hills were tawny and the grass in the pasture was sere. While I was running ahead of my brother down the slope of the highest point in the ridge, I came so suddenly upon a heap of fresh yellow earth that I was on top of it before I could stop. There below me was an open grave with an open coffin in it. Sylvia lay in the coffin, her lids only partly covering her mud-colored eyes and the contours of her teeth discernible under thin skin made yellow by the muddy water that had sunk to a pool in which the coffin rested. I fell backward on the heap of earth as I tried to cry out but found myself unable to utter a sound. I woke up chilled with horror, leapt out of bed, and sat for a time in the kitchen. It was 2:30 when I turned on the light. I thought about the nightmare, Sylvia's illness, and Dr. Rhyne's book on extrasensory perception, and wondered whether the dream had meaning. I remembered going with my mother when I was about five years old to a funeral in a graveyard near home, the first funeral I ever attended. I was playing among the gravestones when the singing began. My mother motioned for me to come to her. Between us was a heap of yellow earth. I had mounted the heap before I realized that it had been dug from the open grave below it. On the other side in an open homemade coffin lay the corpse of Lena Osborn, whose eyes were half open and the prints of whose teeth showed through thin skin. The sight terrified me. I fell backward, picked myself up, and raced around the grave to my mother's side. Lena Osborn had wasted away with tuberculosis. Obviously, my subconscious had transferred the images and the emotions of an early experience to my concern for Sylvia. But I had looked 86 �Winter s Nightmare down from a second story window of Pinecrest Sanitarium at Sylvia on the cot as she was being taken to the ambulance that brought her to her home at Cherokee. She had looked like a corpse. This must have been another image used in my dream. I went back to bed. Just as I was sitting down to breakfast the next morning someone rapped on my door. It was the hostess, Mrs. Coffey, who had come to tell me that there was a telephone call for me. I threw on a robe and rushed downstairs. The call was from Herman Wilcox, agent for Western Union at the Bus Station. He had received a telegram that said, "Sylvia died at 2:30 this morning." I asked Mr. Wilcox to hold the telegram for me to pick up later in the day and discussed with him an itinerary that would put me in Louisa at the earliest possible moment. He checked schedules for me. Two or three buses out of Boone in the forenoon would make connections with buses going north toward Huntington, West Virginia, or to Louisa by way of Jenkins, Kentucky, but if I should take any of them I would not get to Louisa until the following day. The closest way in the shortest time would be to take a bus to Bristol that would connect there almost immediately with one going to Bluefield. I could then ride a Norfolk and Western train to Fort Gay, West Virginia, across the river from Louisa and arrive about one o'clock in the morning. I would have a layover of an hour or two in Bluefield. That seemed to be the best schedule to follow. The bus in Boone I would need to take would leave about noon. I asked Mr. Wilcox to prepare a ticket for me to Bluefield. Getting from Louisa to Cherokee late at night was a problem. One could not call by telephone from Boone to Cherokee, but with patience one in Louisa might be able to get through two or three old-fashioned community switchboards. I called Nova Wellman in Louisa. She would try to call Mrs. Graham and tell her that I would arrive on a train at Fort Gay about one o'clock in the morning and walk across the bridge to Louisa, where she should have Luther Hogston or Herbert Sturgill waiting for me in front of the Riverview Hospital. Nova assured me that she would get my message to Mrs. Graham. If she should not be able to reach her by way of the antiquated telephone system, she would drive her husband's half-ton truck out to Cherokee and deliver my message personally. As I returned to my apartment, I remembered my terrifying nightmare and was aware that Mrs. Coffey's message delivered a few minutes past seven o'clock was a foreboding of bad news. I was certain that Sylvia had died and the telephone call would confirm her death. I wept as I tried to eat my breakfast, washed and put up my dishes, and dressed myself for the day. I then went downstairs to the telephone in the hall and reported to Mr. Wey that my wife had died and I would need to be leaving for Kentucky about noon. I could assist with the presentation of our play at the student assembly but would be leaving soon afterwards. I would return to Boone on Tuesday and be ready to meet my classes again on Wednesday. Mr. Wey, who might not have had to deal before with the problems created when a teacher must leave suddenly for a few days because of a death in the family, extended sympathy before discussing the problems. I should not attempt to come to the morning faculty 87 �The Gratis Williams Chronicles: I Come to Boone meeting, he said. The student directors could handle the presentation of the play. He would tell them why I was not there. Although it was early in the quarter to turn classes over to practice teachers, he could do that and ask critic teachers with free periods to sit in the classes. Faculty members free at the time could meet my speech and dramatics classes. It would not be necessary for me to employ a substitute teacher, for I would need all of my salary to help pay bills. All I would need to do would be to come by and prepare lesson plans and assignments for my classes and leave them with Frances Teems, his secretary. Mr. Wey's kindness, consideration, and help in arranging for my absence were exemplary. I wept silently not only in grief but also in appreciation of Mr. Wey's greatness of heart as I returned to my apartment, glad that I had not met anyone in the halls to see my weeping. After packing a light bag that would not be too heavy for me to carry while walking from Cherokee to Elaine Monday morning, I went up town to the bank for money I would need for the trip. The weather had changed during the night. Clouds were low over Boone and a mixture of light rain and wet snow was falling. The change of humidity might, I thought, have aggravated my bronchial problems and made it more difficult for me to sleep. I returned to the school. Before stopping by the principal's office, I peeped into the auditorium to see how the cast was getting along with arrangements for the play. The student directors were giving orders like professional producers and members of the cast were hurrying around, one of them carrying one dozen red crepe paper roses arranged in a vase. I did not make my presence known, but hurried on to the office to tell Miss Teems I was there and would be leaving about eleven o'clock to pick up my traveling bag and report to the bus station to catch a bus that would be leaving about noon. It did not take long for me to prepare the lesson plans and assignments that Mr. Wey had requested. When I took them to the office, Miss Teems told me to go to the lounge and rest. Mr. Wey had thought it might be good for me to talk with somebody for a while before I left. Ruby Donald and Doris Penix were waiting for me in the lounge. Ruby and Doris had brought coffee from the school cafeteria and were sitting together near the window. Solemn but not emotional, they encouraged me to tell them about Sylvias illness and death. I had not discussed the nature or seriousness of her illness with anyone in Boone and found it difficult to do so. For the first time I revealed that her trouble was "secondary tuberculosis" that had recurred in the throat seven or eight years after her "cure" of lung tuberculosis in Dr. Dickey's sanitarium at Southern Pines, North Carolina. We knew from the time Dr. Proctor Sparks had diagnosed her problem in the spring that there was little hope of her recovery, for at that time tuberculosis of the throat was almost always fatal, but she had shown signs of significant improvement at Pinecrest and we were encouraged to think for a time that she might be able to join me in Boone by October. By the end of October, though, we realized that there was no hope for her recovery. Doris, who had entered Morehead State Teachers College as a freshman during Sylvia's senior year there, thought she had seen Sylvia and knew who she was but had never �Winter's Nightmare met her. When she and Ruby expressed sympathy for me for the heavy burden I had been bearing in secret during the time they had known me in Boone, I could not tell them that I was continuing to deal secretly with my own attack of tuberculosis. I explained that Sylvia was so sensitive about having tuberculosis that she required absolute secrecy about it and that none of her neighbors at Cherokee had known for sure what her illness was. I felt as if I were betraying her by telling, even after her death, that she had died of tuberculosis. Ruby thought that most tuberculars are ashamed and seek to conceal their illness. I agreed with her. When the time came for me to return to the apartments for my bag and go to the bus station, Ruby went along with me and stayed to wish me well when I got on the bus. As we sat together at the station, we talked of other things. The bus to Bristol was crowded but there was a seat for me near the front. I suffered from nausea as we crossed the mountains but I had not eaten lunch and had taken only a few sips of the coffee that Ruby and Doris had brought to the lounge for me. Able to step outside for a few breaths of fresh air at brief stops, I did not get sick. Tired and deeply alone, I did not enter into a conversation with the aged gentleman with a cane who sat beside me, but I was afraid to nap because of nausea. As I recall, the bus to Bluefield was loading when we arrived in Bristol and there was not enough time to enter the bus station even for a cold sandwich at the counter. I took a seat next to a window in the bus to Bluefield. A young woman wearing a dark blue dress with a snow white collar sat beside me. As we left Bristol, I noticed that no rain was falling. The clouds were high and white, but a sifting of light snow was scattered among patches of dark winter trees near the tops of the low hills. My seat mate, a teacher, was going home to see her mother, who had become ill during the week. I did not tell her the kind of work I did or why I was traveling, for I wanted very much to be alone. A few miles out of Bristol I fell into a deep sleep, from which I awoke only briefly when the bus stopped at the towns along the Trail of the Lonesome Pine. My seat mate sat upright and looked straight ahead. Burdened with grief while awake, I was aware of incoherent but pleasant dream sequences flowing like a river in my naps, sequences that seemed to be completely unrelated to my going home to bury my wife, whose death was a shocking finality beyond which I could not see or know. After I woke up briefly at the bus stops along the way, I fell asleep again and plunged into my dream where I had left it, enjoying it as I had enjoyed floating on my back in the summer swimming hole when I was a boy A few miles below Bluefield I woke up and pulled myself into an upright position. My seat mate, observing that I had been sleeping soundly, asked what kind of work I did. When I told her I was a teacher, she said she might have known it but thought I was perhaps a salesman of some kind. I did not want to tell her that I was going home to bury my wife. I walked from the bus station in Bluefield to the passenger depot of the Norfolk and Western, where I bought a ticket to Fort Gay and sat for a long time in the crowded station, suffused with the faint odors of coal smoke from locomotives and cigar smoke. Again 89 �The Gratis Williams Chronicles: I Come to Boone I dozed, riding on a restful river of dream sequences that carried me away from the reality of the present. When dinner time came, I put my bag in a locker and found an inexpensive restaurant crowded with working-class people. I ate a hamburger steak with pale peas, mashed potatoes and gravy, and a dry slice of tomato on a leaf of limp lettuce and topped with a dab of cream colored mayonnaise and had a small glass of milk. Although we were nearly a year into World War II, one could still find restaurants in which the price of a dinner was only forty-five cents. On the way back to the depot, I wrapped my scarf around my neck and pulled my coat collar up, for it was cold and damp. Back at the station I sat with my overcoat on and my hat pulled over my eyes. After I became warm, I dozed in my seat, escaping again into a pleasant and regenerative sequence of impressionistic dreams. I had to wait a long time for the train to Fort Gay. My catnaps and dreams were coming at the time of the nap I had been in the habit of taking after dinner. I became wakeful in an hour or two and took a stroll on a busy sidewalk across the street from the depot. Although the evening was young, I was amazed at the number of dressed up young women whom I met along the way, floating perfume in the air and smiling as if they knew me. When I stopped for a traffic light to change, I looked back. The two friendly ones I had just met had stopped at the edge of the sidewalk and were looking back at me. One motioned for me. Having met no men as young as myself, I realized that while the young men were "off to the seven seas" the girls they had left behind were becoming lonely. The cool air soon woke me up. I returned through the brisk night to the depot, got my bag from the locker and waited for the train, which was on time. The coach was crowded with dressed up, animated, talkative people. I found a seat at the back of the coach among black people-older, well dressed, heavily perfumed, and less talkative than the whites. As we left Bluefield, talking subsided and people began to settle back in their seats. After checking tickets, the conductor turned the lights down low and people went to sleep, the men covering their faces with their hats. I woke up briefly from my dozing when the conductor announced from the back of the coach the stations along the way. A few miles from Fort Gay, the conductor touched my shoulder and told me in a low voice that I would be getting off at the next station, where the train would stop for two minutes. I was ready. The conductor helped me down the steps. I was the only one to get off at Fort Gay, and no one got on. The train moved on at once. I walked from the station and across the bridge to Louisa, stopping at the toll house to pay the sleepy attendant three cents. As I came off the bridge, I saw a farm truck parked in front of the Riverview Hospital. Mrs. Graham, dressed warmly in the heavy brown alpaca overcoat I had left at the Graham house, was watching for me through the rear window of the cab. Mrs. Graham was alone in the truck. We embraced silently. She had been dozing. She said Herbert Sturgill, who had brought her to town, was waiting in the hall of the 90 �Winter's Nightmare Courthouse. I was to go for him if he did not hear the train whistle. I put my bag in the bed of the truck and started, but we saw Herbert coming around the old jail. I sat between him and Mrs. Graham. The weather in Kentucky was cool and cloudy, but the road from the Wellman Bridge to Cherokee was not muddy. We did not talk much. Nova Wellman, unable to get a call through to Cherokee, had gone out in her husband's truck and delivered my message. She had also offered to meet me at the bridge and bring me out, but Mrs. Graham had wanted to meet me herself. Mr. Graham and a few of the neighbors were keeping a wake for Sylvia, who had requested that no undertaker be employed and that she not be embalmed, and who had suffered a great deal the last day of her life. She had not lost consciousness, though, at the time of her death. At two o'clock in the morning she had announced that she would be dying soon, called for a pencil and paper, and had written the telegram stating that she had died at 2:30. She asked Mr. Graham to take it to Luther Hogston, give him the money to pay for sending it, and sent him on to town with it. She died at 2:30 with only Mrs. Graham present before her father had had time to return from the trip. After writing the telegram, she whispered that our marriage had brought fulfillment to her and that she regretted I must now go on without her. She had died easily a short time afterwards. Mrs. Graham and Aunt Jenny Cooper had dressed her and prepared her for burial. Her corpse was in the lower room on the bed on which she had died. She had asked to be moved to the lower room soon after she had arrived from Pinecrest. The fire had been removed from the heater soon after her death, and the doors and windows were opened so the room would be cold. When we arrived at the Grahams, Mr. Sturgill got out and came in with us. His wife was among those keeping a wake in the living room. I went alone into the lower room, cool and smelling of carnations in a floral arrangement that Nova Wellman had brought. A kerosene lamp on a stand near the bed burned with a white flame that trembled in the breeze from the open window where white curtains rustled. Sylvias hair had been arranged carefully, weights had been removed from her eyelids, and her beautiful hands, crossed at the wrists and wax-like, were resting across her stomach. She had a fine profile. I remembered having noted early in our courtship the fineness of her profile as she was carrying a lighted kerosene lamp down the stairs one night. More than ever before, I was struck by how much she looked like her father. I remembered a folk saying that family resemblances show most in corpses. I knelt beside her, touched her hands and her broad brow, and wept. We had enjoyed an intense love, had known each other as nearly completely as it is possible for lovers and mates to know each other, and had found the knowledge rich and fulfilling. Her death left in me an empty place, and tore me apart with anguish. Soon Mrs. Graham, who had known much grief and troubled sorrow, came and stood by my side. Feeling that grief is private and intensely personal, I did not offer to discuss how I felt. Mrs. Graham, neither emotional nor sentimental, understood. She called my attention to a dimple in the back of Sylvias left hand, which, she thought, might have 91 �The Gratis Williams Chronicles: I Come to Boone come from the strain of writing the telegram but Sylvia could also have been frightened by death and unwilling to betray her fright to her mother. Sylvia disdained the sensational and the mawkish. Mrs. Graham also noted how much Sylvia looked like her father, who was shaken with emotion by her death, for she had been his favorite child and she had loved him dearly from her infancy. We then discussed plans for a coffin. Sylvia had not wanted an undertaker's burial. She had wanted a casket and stone similar to that of her sister, who had also died of tuberculosis in 1935. Mr. and Mrs. Graham, knowing my financial limitations and understanding that I was deeply in debt, had considered buying a casket from Curtright Funeral Home but decided that I might not want them to do that. I did not have money then to pay for a casket, but I was sure Henry Curtright would permit me to pay for one in installments. If he required a note with security, then Mr. Graham could sign the note with me. Mrs. Graham had engaged Herbert Sturgill to go to town with us Saturday morning to purchase and bring back a casket and box. Saturday was cloudy and dark. Herbert Sturgill came for Mrs. Graham and me about 9:30. He had put a tarpaulin in the truck to protect the casket in case of rain. We arrived at the funeral home about 10:30. I explained to Mr. Curtright that I was not prepared to pay for a casket then but should be able to complete payments within a year and expected to pay interest. He and I had known each other since he had established his business in Louisa while I was a high school student there. He had no qualms about my honesty and would not expect interest on an unpaid balance if I could finish paying within a year. He would extend credit for an undertaker's funeral if I wanted it. I explained that Sylvia had requested that we not have one and that I wanted only to buy a casket, which we would take back to Cherokee with us on Mr. Sturgill's truck. He then showed us caskets, beginning with expensive, ornate ones and ending with pine boxes covered with black cloth that cost as little as $75. We selected a beautiful one covered with an ashes of roses fabric. The price was $200. We decided not to buy a metal vault but to use the sturdy pine vault that cost nothing extra. Mrs. Graham observed that the casket we chose was very much like the one for Sylvia's sister, except that hers had been covered with a silver colored fabric. While attendants were loading the casket and box on Mr. Sturgill's truck, we supplied Mr. Curtright with information needed for vital statistics records. I signed a note for $200 and Mrs. Graham signed as my security. On the way back to Cherokee, we stopped to ask Arthur Morris, a United Baptist preacher who had been one of Sylvia's teachers at Rockhouse School, to preach the funeral and conduct graveside services the next afternoon at two o'clock. The dark sky was lower, the wind had begun to blow, and a light rain was falling when we reached Cherokee. Aunt Jenny Cooper had taken charge of the kitchen. Neighbors had brought food. A big dinner around chicken and dumplings was waiting for us. Later in the afternoon Sylvia's Aunt Izzie Moore and her cousins, Ruth and Watson, arrived from Winchester bringing floral arrangements. Near dinnertime Nova Wellman and Sophie Roberts, our friend and fellow teacher at Louisa, arrived in a truck. Nova had checked at the florist's and the funeral home and brought flowers that had arrived, including a beautiful arrangement 92 �Winter's Nightmare of carnations ordered by Appalachian State Teachers College. Nova and Sophie were not weepers and wailers. They recalled incidents in their relationship with Sylvia that reflected her splendid sense of humor and the depth of her understanding of people and motives behind what they do. We laughed a great deal. The following day was cold and cloudy with snow blowing occasionally in an icy wind that cut to the bone. After sharing breakfast with those who had watched during the wake, I walked up to the family graveyard to look at the grave that neighboring men had dug in the yellow clay beside the grave of Georgia, Sylvias sister. It was neatly cut and deep. The pine vault for the coffin was in place. The chestnut wood cross boards that would cover the vault lid after the coffin had been lowered into the grave were arranged in two stacks to serve as the bier for the graveside services. No one was there. Neighbors had done their job well and retreated before the piercing wind. Soon after a big mid-day dinner followed by a hot apple cobbler that Aunt Jenny had made, people began to gather in the home. My father and mother arrived on mules, which they hitched to posts in the yard fence. The day was so intensely cold that they had almost frozen. Arthur Morris arrived in his Model A Ford about 1:30. It was too cold to have the funeral on the broad front porch of the home, too cold, even, to have the hall doors open. We decided to place the casket on two kitchen chairs in the hallway, leave the doors open to the living room and the lower room, and let people sit or stand near the doors, while Mr. Morris stood at the foot of the stairs to deliver his funeral sermon. Aunt Jenny, an excellent singer, led in the singing of a hymn from the Sweet Songster, Mr. Morris's sermon, delivered in a conversational tone instead of a chant, was not doctrinal but an evaluation of Sylvia's achievements and a statement in praise of the positive influence her life had been on those who loved her and the many young people who had been her students. Knowing that Grahams were not Baptists, he delivered an ecumenical sermon which Sylvia would have approved, I thought. Sylvias father and mother and I sat near the open coffin during the sermon, each of us weeping lightly by the time Mr. Morris had finished. I closed the coffin lid, and the six pallbearers and two attendants bore it on poles up the steep hill to the graveyard. Not more than twenty or twenty-five persons had been present for the funeral. Many of them did not join the procession to the graveyard. When the coffin was in place on the improvised bier, I opened it again and Mr. Morris, Aunt Jenny, and one or two others sang from memory two or three verses from "The Poor Wayfaring Stranger." There was a commitment of ashes to ashes and dust to dust and a brief prayer. I closed the coffin lid, and the pallbearers lowered the coffin into the grave, screwed down the lid of the vault, placed the cross boards over it, and began filling up the grave. With the hollow thump of the first shovelful of earth on the cross boards, we left the grave in charge of the pallbearers. The hollow thump of the lumps of clay on the coffin brought tears gushing from my eyes. The frigid wind stabbed me with a shudder that bore my grief as I turned away to go. That evening Mr. and Mrs. Graham and I were alone. After a dinner of leftovers, we 93 �The Gratis Williams Chronicles: I Come to Boone sat by a roaring log fire in the living room while a north wind shook the rafters of the hundred-year-old house, and related incidents in which Sylvia had been involved. Near bed time, Mrs. Graham nudged Mr. Graham gently with her elbow. He cleared his throat and told me that they had discussed my situation. Sylvia had loved me so much that she would not hear even the slightest of criticisms of me. I had loved her. They both loved me and were proud to have me for a son-in-law. Sylvia was dead. I was a young man with most of my life ahead of me. I would find it hard to accept my loss, but in time I would. He and Mrs. Graham were in agreement that I should, as soon as I was able to do so, search for another lover, marry again, and become a father. They would not feel that I was betraying Sylvia by loving another and marrying again, and they wanted me to write to them along and come to see them whenever I returned to Kentucky for a visit. I was happy in Boone and doing well there. If I could keep my health, I might find myself being promoted because I deserved to be in a school in which it was not necessary to play politics for promotions. Mr. and Mrs. Graham were intelligent, perceptive, and wise. They had suffered many losses and known much sadness, and they were old enough to have learned that time seems long for the impatient young but short for the patient old. I never loved them more than I did that night. I slept on the couch in the living room in which a low wood fire burned on the hearth. Throughout the night a cold wind lashed at the eaves of the old house and the timbers creaked. Once in a troubled dream I heard so plainly Sylvia ringing her bedside bell in the lower room that I rose upright on the couch. Mr. Graham came into the room before daylight, built a bright fire, and sat before it. Mrs. Graham arrived and sat with him for a while before going into the kitchen to prepare breakfast. We ate a steaming breakfast of ham and eggs and hot biscuits with strawberry preserves before daylight. As soon as it was light enough for me to see, I packed my light bag and left on foot for Elaine. The wind had died down. Frost covered fences and trees by the roadside and floated in the air. I walked briskly, recalling as I hurried on incidents along the road involving Sylvia. I stopped on the Narrows to determine precisely the tree below the road behind which we had hidden a kerosene lamp Louella Miles had lent us one dark night when my car became mired up in a mudhole in front of her house. The only light she had was the lamp which she insisted that we borrow. The wind kept blowing out the flame. When I had used my last match, I hid the lamp and we felt our way along the dark, muddy road to Sylvias home. The only person I met on the familiar road to Elaine was Lewis Kazee's son, who carried the mail on horseback from Elaine to Webbville, and usually stopped about 7:30 at the Cherokee post office where Mrs. Graham was the postmistress. I waited at Cox's Garage and short-order restaurant for the bus to Louisa. At Louisa I waited in the drug store and at the Courthouse for three hours before crossing the bridge to Fort Gay to catch a Norfolk and Western train to Bluefield. Not many people were stirring in Louisa. I saw only three or four courthouse loafers I had 94 �Winter's Nightmare known. It was a dark and cold morning with air so still that a pall of coal smoke from locomotives hung over the town. Of the oldtimers in the Courthouse with whom I had brief conversations, no one referred to Sylvia's death. About 11:30 I walked down to Rip s Restaurant for a hamburger, which I ate at the counter. Before I had finished eating, the restaurant was crowded with high school students, many of whom I recognized. They looked at me quizzically and nodded a recognition or spoke briefly as if they half feared to be seen talking with me. None paused for an exchange with me. While I was paying my bill at the cash register, four of the high school teachers came in, but none spoke to me. As I was returning my billfold to my pocket, I looked briefly at them after they had settled into a booth. One nodded a recognition in a startled fashion and turned his attention immediately to his companions. I knew I was not welcome in Louisa. Outside the restaurant, I looked through the window in time to see all four of the teachers staring after me. I crossed to the east side of the street to avoid meeting the noon hour crowd of teachers and students. I was happy at Boone, where, so far as I knew, I had no enemies or evilwishers, I was not in a mood to enjoy, as I might have enjoyed on other occasions, the indignities of fearful teachers and students whose principal I had been for three years, but I thought I was learning something about the political aspects of casual friendship. The station master at Fort Gay told me the eastbound train was on time. I was the only passenger boarding it at Fort Gay. The train would stop for no more than two minutes. I bought my ticket and waited beside the track for the train, which stopped with a screech. The conductor helped a woman and a child down the coach steps and held my elbow while I got on. The train had started again by the time I had chosen one of several empty seats. I settled into my seat with my thoughts and memories. 95 �This page intentionally left blank �Christmas I decided that I must write to my draft board at Louisa and explain that I no longer had a dependent. Though I was now eligible for the draft, I desired very much to complete the school term at Appalachian, after which I would report in May to volunteer. Dr. Joe Carter, who had been our doctor while Sylvia and I lived in Louisa, had written a letter to the board stating that I was the sole support of a sick wife who was in a sanitarium and that I myself had heavily scarred lungs and would probably not be physically qualified for military service. I had not heard from my board. I was not yet prepared to state for my records that I was then suffering from tuberculosis. Perhaps the spot on my lung would disappear by May and I would pass the physical examination at the induction center in Huntington. I should, I thought, base my plans on the assumption that I would be accepted for military service. The cost of Sylvia's casket had brought my debts to $2200. When I thought of the possibility of my being accepted for military service, my blood pressure rose and hot water poured into my mouth. I would receive only $750 in cash for the remainder of my year at Appalachian. I was honor bound to pay Curtright. Paying interest on my notes at banks and making modest payments on the principal for a total of $250 might satisfy the bankers. I would then have $300, or $60 a month, to meet my own expenses for five months. I decided to follow this plan and put financial worries out of my mind as best I could. No longer needing our household furnishings stored in Curt Young's place, I could see whether I might be able to sell them when I returned to Lawrence County for the Christmas holidays. A part of my debts was money I had borrowed to pay for some of the furniture. If I should be able to sell it for 97 �The Cratis Williams Chronicles: I Come to Boom half of what I paid for it, 1 could use the money to reduce my indebtedness another $300. Refrigerators, kitchen ranges, and stoves were becoming scarce. Ours were in excellent condition. I might be able to get more than half of what I paid for them. But my creditors would have to wait for the remainder of what I owed them until after I had completed my military service. As the train rushed through the mountains in a grey afternoon, I dozed very little. Passengers, mostly older women who might have been returning from visits with sons or daughters employed in war industries in Ohio, were subdued and quiet. From the depot in Bluefield I rushed to the bus station in time to get a bus to Bristol, where I could make connections to Elizabethton the following morning for a bus to Boone that would arrive there about the middle of the day. Seats in the bus station were all occupied. I stood about on the ramp and watched buses unload and load until mine arrived. The bus to Bristol was crowded, but I was fortunate to find a seat by an old man returning to east Tennessee from a visit with his daughter, who was working in a plant in Columbus, Ohio. He was excited about his trip and talked about Columbus, which he had visited for the first time, and his daughter, who was doing classified work about which she was not permitted to talk, even to her old daddy. He wanted me to guess his age. He was immensely pleased when I guessed 65. He laughed with gusto, his face animated and his bright blue eyes darting about. "Would you believe," he said, narrowing his eyes at me, "that I am 75 years old?" He had been a widower for three years. One of his problems was that his youthful appearance made him attractive to younger women, some of whom had been "chasing after him." But he had decided not to marry again. He could not stand the thought, he said, of having another woman come in and take over his wife's things. The old man, an unsophisticated egotist, conversed easily. I found him interesting and encouraged him to talk. There was no opportunity for me to think about myself and my problems. In Bristol I passed up the fine hotel near the bus station because I thought a room there would cost more than I wanted to pay and went to the Virginian, an old hotel with modest rates, but which was not at the time operating a dining room. Having settled into a room with musty Victorian furnishings and soiled wallpaper, I took a bath, the first one I had had since I left Boone. In a nondescript little restaurant around the corner I ate, for thirty-five cents and a tip, a surprisingly good hamburger steak with french fries, three or four chips of dill pickles, and a thin slice of a fresh tomato on crisp lettuce. Happy conversation in the next booth between two middle-aged, working-class men and a heavily made up young woman with a soft voice reminded me that lonely young women were searching for lovers. My long day without a nap left me tired. I bought a newspaper in the hotel lobby but found myself too tired and sleepy to read very much of it. I slept soundly that night and was pleased to remember next morning fragments of dreams in which Sylvia and I were together and there was no awareness of her death. 98 �Christmas Instead of going on to Elizabethton, as I had planned to do, I took an early bus through Abingdon and Mountain City. It was not crowded. No one occupied the seat beside me. I dozed until the bus started up the narrow winding road through the gorge below Trade, Tennessee, where I became nauseated and struggled with a temptation to vomit. The weather became brighter as we came out of the gorge at the North Carolina state line. From Highway 421 down Cove Creek one glimpsed sweeping views of the upper coves and timbered side of Snake Mountain, which terminated as Howard's Knob at Boone, bathed in light, though the sun was not shining. It was an enchanted land, a satisfying place. When I thought of the school, the excellent young principal, the friendly teachers, and my likable students, I felt as if I were coming home. The clouds were high over Boone. The weather was warm for the middle of December. I walked from the bus station to the apartments and met no one along the way whom I recognized. At the apartments I picked up from the table in front of Mrs. Coffey's room a handful of mail that had arrived in my absence and went to my apartment, where I took a long nap before preparing my dinner. I called Mr. Wey to report that I had returned and would be on duty at eight o'clock the following morning, wrote Mr. and Mrs. Graham a brief letter, and went to my office to prepare for classes. The school would be closing for the winter holidays at the end of the following week. I would be fully occupied with preparation for my classes. I made no reference to my bereavement to the teachers or my students. People looked at me with sympathy in their eyes but no one mentioned my bereavement. I talked about the burial with Mr. Wey and discussed it one evening with Ruby Donald and Doris Penix. It was traditional at the school for homeroom teachers to plan a Christmas party for the last meeting of the homeroom students before the holidays. We drew names for inexpensive gifts and decorated the room in Christmas colors. I provided money for cookies and red punch and the boys prepared everything. I was taken by complete surprise when one of my homeroom boys, G.C. Greene, Jr., presented me with a gift, beautifully wrapped and decorated. I opened it and found a new white shirt and a striped tie. The card attached to the box had been signed by all of the boys. I found it difficult to refrain from showing my emotions. I had never received a gift from my students before. Everybody was busy with Christmas plans. I had no visitors to my apartment during the time between my return from Kentucky and the beginning of the Christmas holidays. Nobody invited me out. I did not go to the college cafeteria or the restaurants uptown for evening meals but prepared in my own kitchen simple meals with a heavy concentration of proteins and milk, which I ate at six o'clock. I slept an hour after dinner, prepared for my classes, and read until eleven o'clock as regularly as I could. There was an emptiness in my life with which I found it difficult to deal. My brisk walk to the apartments for my mail each day at noon became disappointing, for I had developed the habit in order to pick up my letter from Sylvia. Expectancy had been a part of the habit. After finding no mail at all for three or four days, I stopped going. At night I wanted to write letters to her, as I had done all year. Not having her to write to emphasized my loss. 99 �The Gratis Williams Chronicles: I Come to I was lonely and ached with a hurt I could not assuage. Sometimes I sat alone and wept. It did not seem appropriate for me to talk about my grief, and fellow teachers were not calling on me out of a sense of respect. Even though I kept saying to myself that I must not worry about anything and eat good food, take my cod liver oil and mineral supplements, exercise mildly, and sleep all I could, I found myself so tortured at night by troubling dreams and insomnia that I welcomed the crowing of Mrs. Watson's rooster and the mooing of her cow at daylight. I wrote to Mrs. Graham that I would return to her home for Christmas and then spend a day or two with my father and mother before going to Columbus, Ohio, for a visit with my sister. I had my bag packed and was ready to go after school was dismissed at noon. The bus from Boone to Sparta had only four or five passengers on it. I took a seat somewhat removed from other passengers. It was a dark, cloudy day. A rain the night before had left the earth wet and the streams swollen. The bus was warm. I dozed much of the way between Boone and West Jefferson. At West Jefferson I noticed for the first time a pink marble statue of Pocahontas in the display yard of a monument dealer. Not sleepy from there on to Sparta, I was able to see much of the green rolling countryside, for I had traveled from West Jefferson to Sparta in darkness on earlier trips. At Sparta, I caught a crowded bus from Winston-Salem to Charleston, West Virginia. I found a seat beside a heavy dressed up middle-age woman, who replied when I spoke to her but looked straight ahead without saying another word between there and Bluefield, where she left the bus. I moved over into the seat she had vacated. No one took the seat next to me. Nearly everybody got off the bus at a rest stop at Beckley. I ate a cold sandwich from a dispenser and drank a soft drink, as people wandered about or gathered in groups on the sidewalk. In Charleston most of those who got off the bus rushed to a waiting bus to Huntington, which already had several passengers in it. We reached Huntington sometime in the late evening. The station was crowded with talkative, laughing people. I did not go into the waiting room, but hurried on down to the corner and engaged a room for the night at the Milner Hotel. After settling myself in my room, I freshened up and walked up the street, looking into the packed waiting room of the bus station and at crowds of happy and well dressed people on the ramps. I remembered the threadbare, grim crowds I had seen there less than a year before. Prosperity had come with the War, and those traveling in December, 1942, were filled with the Christmas spirit as they hurried home for the holidays, money in their pockets and gifts in their suitcases and shopping bags. I walked as far east as Walgreens, where I went in and ate a dish of ice cream at the counter. On the sidewalk outside I saw Myrtle Curry and her mother, friends Sylvia and I had known and with whom I had left a dulcimer I could not carry with me when I went to Boone. They had their arms filled with 100 �Christmas bags and packages and were waiting for a bus. I walked over to the grand railroad station with a statue of Huntington, the railroad builder, in the yard. The waiting room was crowded with travelers, well dressed, laughing, and happy. Returning to Fifth Avenue, along which only a few people were hurrying, I walked past the Mosely residence where I was rooming when I had received the call to come to Boone. The house was dark except for the window of the room which Miss Westall had occupied. After breakfast the next morning at the White Tower, where I had eaten egg sandwiches with coffee while I was in Huntington, I went by the Mosely home for a brief visit. The Captain had gone to the country to ride one of his horses and Miss Westall was at work, but I enjoyed a good conversation with Mrs. Mosely and the friendly black couple who worked for her. Jim remembered with good humor and gratitude my prying his false teeth from his throat when he went to sleep while sitting in the kitchen door, fell down the steps, and swallowed his teeth the day before I left for Boone. Huntington was swarming with Saturday shoppers. Moving among the happy crowds was exhilarating to me. I shopped for a few Christmas greetings. Remembering that I needed some new undershirts, I went to Huntington Dry Goods Store on Third Avenue to see whether I might find some in my size in the bargain basement. Two attractive young women, perhaps high school girls with vacation jobs, were in charge of the corner in which underwear was sold. The smaller one, shapely, animated, smiling, and eager to help, was free at the moment to talk with me. I told her what I wanted, but just then the other one turned away from the customer, who had inquired about something but had not bought it, and took charge of me. She had what I wanted. While she was putting two undershirts in a bag for me and accepting pay for them, the other was flirting with smiling eyes. As I turned away to go, I heard her say, "He was my customer. You took him away from me. You just did that because he's cute." Hurriedly, I adjusted my tie and checked to see whether my hat was raked at the right angle, turned, and walked past them. Their smiles boosted my drooping ego. It had been a long time since I had engaged in such an open flirtation and I could not remember how long it had been since an attractive young woman had said I was cute. I returned to the Milner, brushed my teeth, packed my bag, left my key at the desk, and walked up to the square to catch a trolley car to Ashland. The ride was a nostalgic experience for me. I enjoyed riding in trolley cars and had gone from Huntington to Ashland and back on one many times. I was fortunate to get a seat. Many stood in the aisle, steadying themselves by holding to seats. I rode to Thirteenth Street and hurried to the bus station. Clusters of laughing, talking people stood along the sidewalk. The station was crowded. I bought a ticket to Louisa. My bus would leave soon after lunch. There was not an empty seat in the waiting room. I stood against the wall with my light bag beside me on the floor while considering whether to wait for a seat at the counter and have a sandwich and milk there or go around the corner for lunch in a little restaurant in the Ventura 101 �The Gratis Williams Chronicles: I Come to Boone Hotel building. Thinking I might see someone in the crowd whom I had known, I was searching faces when a tall man with a friendly and vaguely familiar looking face walked up to me and asked, "Are you Gratis Williams? You might not remember me, but we went to school together on Caines Creek." He waited a moment to see whether I might remember him. I did not. "I am Curt Blankenship," he said. I remembered him then. It had been twenty years since we were in school together. He was one of the shy twins, Curt and Bert, whom I could never tell apart. They were very poor, sons of a widower who was a tenant living in a battered little shack up a branch in the head of the creek. The boys came to school each year only as long as they could go barefoot, for there was no money to buy shoes. There was a sister, too, but she did not come to school. I had never seen her. It was Curt who had delighted the school one Friday afternoon when he recited as his "piece," a folk rhyme: "Chicken pie and pepper cake/ The bullfrog died with the bellyache." He had not been able to finish grade school, but he had a good job and was doing all right then. The bus to Louisa was crowded with young people on their way home from jobs in war industries in Ohio. I did not recognize any of them. Mostly young women, they seemed to be persons who had not gone to high school. They talked easily, many appearing to be determined to illustrate how well they had mastered Buckeye diction. Most of them got off the bus at Louisa for a rest stop, using facilities in the Courthouse. Afterwards, many of them crowded into the drug store for sodas or ice cream. They must have been returning to Johnson, Floyd, or Pike County. When I went in to inquire about the schedule to Blaine, the clerk said to me in a low voice, "Did you ever see so much Columbus red?" I looked around at those sitting at tables, or standing in clusters near the front of the store, sipping sodas or licking ice cream cones. Almost all of them wore dresses with bright red waists and skirts of red and green plaid. Their hair styles were so much alike that one might have thought all of them patronized the same beauty shop. "They come back from Columbus dressed like this," the clerk continued. "We call them Columbus reds. People in Columbus call them 'Louisies' because they say they are from 'Louisy.'" The bus arrived at Blaine after dark. Most of the passengers who got off at Cox's Restaurant were young women who had grown out of my knowledge, if I had ever known them. They, too, wore "Columbus red." Each carried on one arm a coat with a collar of artificial fur and in the other hand a black suitcase too big to carry four or five miles up a muddy road. Fathers of some of them were waiting in the restaurant. As I started, one of the young women called and asked whether she might walk with me. I looked at her closely. Her keen black eyes looked familiar, but the clusters of black curls I did not remember. She was tall and slender and with makeup applied with some skill, I thought. In fact, she was a pretty girl, perhaps eighteen or nineteen years old. I told her that I would be pleased to have a walking partner and confessed that I did not remember who she was. She was the daughter of the tenants on the farm Mrs. Graham had inherited from her parents. I had seen her often when she used to come to the post office at Cherokee, pick up any mail for her parents that might have arrived, and come in and sit on the porch to rest a while before walking, barefoot and brown legged, the three miles back to her home on Lick Fork. She was going to walk the five or six miles home that night. 102 �Christmas Her big black suitcase looked heavy. I offered, though, to carry hers and let her carry mine. She would swap for a little while if she became tired, she said. I did not have a flashlight. A rain the night before and warm weather had left the road an extended mudhole. Clouds were thick. The night was pitch black, but we could barely see water holes in the road when we were careful. She chattered and laughed mirthfully as we stumbled along through the mud. Her mother had written her that Sylvia had died. She talked much of how well she had liked Sylvia and admired her pretty clothes. After we had walked a half mile she was willing to exchange loads with me. After we crossed the Cherokee bridge across Blaine, we found the mud stiffer and the road more difficult for walking than the road along the Narrows had been. We decided to leave the road and walk at the edge of the fields. When she became tired and staggering, I invited her to hold my arm, for she apparently had poor night vision. Soon she began telling of dates she had enjoyed with men who worked at the plant with her, squeezing my arm from time to time. Once we sat on a fallen post to rest. She sat close to me and clapped me on the shoulder and laughed to emphasize the cleverness with which she had dealt with men she had dated. At Cherokee I expressed concern for her traveling alone, loaded with that heavy black suitcase another three miles in the darkness. Mrs. Graham would prepare a bed for her and she could go on to Lick Fork next morning. But she had written her mother that she would be home that night. She had thought her little brother would meet her at Blaine. Something must have happened. She stumbled on into the darkness. Mr. and Mrs. Graham were listening to a radio program. The only light in the room was from the glow of wood coals in the fireplace. They were expecting me, but I was late. Mrs. Graham offered to prepare a supper for me, but I declined. She turned the radio down and we talked. Herbert Sturgill had brought out from Louisa the living room and bedroom furniture that Sylvia and I had stored in Curt Young's house. Mrs. Sturgill would buy at half price, as I had proposed, the couch, end tables, and two chairs. Mrs. Graham would buy the remainder of it. Mr. Graham had talked with his cousin, Lafe Wellman, who operated a hardware and furniture store in Louisa, about selling for a commission our refrigerator, stove, and dining room furniture. Mr. Wellman was not certain that he could sell it but he would permit me to have it moved to his store and he would see what he could do with it. Mr. Graham had told Lafe Wellman that I would talk with him while I was home for the holidays. We talked until eleven o'clock, mostly about neighborhood events and local persons, those who were ill, or had gone away to work, or were in some branch of military service. We referred frequently to Sylvia, but casually and unemotionally as if she might have gone away on a visit. The bed in the living room had been moved out. After the eleven o'clock news I retired to the unheated lower room in which Sylvia had died and slept on the bed that had been ours when we had our own house in Louisa. 103 �The Cratis Williams Chronicles: I Come to Boone While at the Graham home through Christmas Day, I visited with neighbors who came to the post office, unpacked and placed in shelves in the lower room the books that had been stored at Curt Young's, went through and discarded teaching materials from Kentucky that I no longer cared to keep, and arranged and put in Sylvia's trunk letters she had received from me during her illness along with her poems. Mrs. Graham helped me sort Sylvia's clothing, and we decided to whom we would give articles of value. Except for such articles as aprons and housecoats, Sylvia's clothing was too small for her mother. Working with Sylvia's things in this fashion was good for me. I thought I was better able to accept her death as a result but learned later that deep emotional attachments require a long time for resolution. One sunny afternoon the Sturgills came for a visit. Mrs. Sturgill liked the living room furniture and the lamps that went with it, but since there was no electricity available at Cherokee then, she did not take the lamps. I helped Mr. Sturgill put the couch and chairs in his truck. He paid me $35 cash for the furniture. Christmas night I discussed my financial situation with Mr. and Mrs. Graham. If Lafe Wellman should be able to sell my refrigerator, stove, and dining room furniture for what I wanted for them, I would have $300 to apply toward my debts. I planned to pay Henry Curtright as quickly as I could. When I returned for a visit in the spring I would have the cash needed to buy a stone for Sylvia's grave, one like her sister's. Mrs. Graham offered to buy the stone, but I felt that it was my obligation to furnish it. Mrs. Graham agreed to go with me to select it. I would return after the school in Boone closed in April and we could order the stone before I would volunteer for military service in the quota for May. It was my understanding that creditors were required to hold the debts of people in military service until they were discharged. Neither Mr. nor Mrs. Graham thought I would qualify for military service. The day following Christmas I walked the three miles over the hill to the home of my father and mother for a two-day visit. They were lonely. None of their children away from home had come back for Christmas. They had only my little brother, twelve years old at the time, with them. Everybody on the creek, except old people and children, had either joined the army or gone away to work. The local school, which I had taught for three years, had only nine or ten children in it. There was talk that it might be closed in a year or two. While I was there both sets of grandparents, all looking older than I remembered, came for visits. My great uncle Jake came for dinner one day. He had become a widower since I saw him last. Then 72, he was, as they say, "a-whettin' and a-honin' for him another womern." A compulsive talker, Uncle Jake addressed himself mostly to me and most of his stories were accounts of his recent encounters with widows, old maids, and teen-age girls, all of whom were "a-drawin' up to him." He talked loudly and rapidly. My mother, amused by his self-exaltation, would occasionally walk from the kitchen to ask him questions or offer comments. Uncle Jake, seeing me as a fellow widower, thought we must have interests in common, but he left little room for me to say anything. When he was ready to leave, he said, "When you come back this spring, come down and stay all night with me, and I'll take you a-courtin'." 104 �Christmas My mother was distressed that my brother Ralph's marriage had broken up. He and his wife had resigned as teachers and gone to Columbus to work in war industries. They worked different shifts. She had fallen in love with a man with whom she worked, requested her half of investments and the bank account, the car, and the furniture and gone to live with the other man, who had promised to marry her after divorces came through. Following the separation, Ralph had given up the apartment and was living in a rooming house. My mother, who could not accept divorce, was sure the other man, whose wife and several children lived elsewhere, had no intention of getting a divorce to marry Ralph's estranged wife, who after her lover tired of her, would come right back and want to live with Ralph again, after she had "run through with" everything they had. Mama thought of her as a "piece of trash." She feared Ralph would be "easy and mealy mouthed" and take the "hussy" back. She wanted me to talk with him about that while I was in Columbus and to tell him that if he should take her back "after the way she had entreated him," she "shan't ever step foot in my house again what time I have breath." I walked, mostly through the fields, to Elaine in time to get the morning bus to Louisa, where I had my suit pressed while I waited and my shoes shined before having lunch at Effie's, beside the railroad track, where I would not see former students or fellow teachers. I took a Norfolk and Western train from Fort Gay to Columbus and a taxicab to my sister Ruth's home. While in Columbus I had four experiences which I have always remembered. My sister Ruth and her husband John invited me to go with them to a party in the home of friends of theirs. Ralph had been invited, too. He was nattily dressed, charming, and a favorite of the men present. He told good stories and laughed easily, but after his tongue had begun to seem thick and he staggered against the newel post, I remained close to him and discovered that he was making frequent trips to the liquor table and was drinking heavy drinks of hard whiskey straight. It was his intention to get drunk. When he started up the stairs to the bathroom, he collapsed on the stairs like a rag doll and came sliding back. We carried him to a bedroom, took off his shoes, loosened his tie, and stretched him out. He was unconscious. We were embarrassed that he had not limited himself to a few social drinks, but I was convinced that he was suffering keen disappointment, shame, and humiliation, though no one had referred to his former wife. Ralph invited me to spend an evening with him. He had a date. He and his girl were going to a night spot called the Setting Sun, where drinks were served, there was good music, and people who wanted to could dance. His date had a friend, a recently divorced Catholic woman about my age with four children who had not dated since her husband ran off with another woman. She and her children lived with her father and mother, strict Catholics who did not want her to date. The attractive woman had been with Ralph and his date a time or two. Ralph's date had told her about me, that I was a teacher and recently widowed, and she thought she might enjoy going out with me. I agreed to go along on a date with the friend. I took a cab to Ralph's rooming house, hoping that he might want to talk about his 105 �The Gratis Williams Chronicles: I Come to Boone problems while he was getting himself dressed for the evening. He evaded my questions. He was not ready to talk about how he felt about his divorced wife. He dismissed the matter with "I was more than fair in dividing with her what we had, and I'll not take her back." When he had dressed and was ready to go, he called the young woman who was to be my date and told her we would come by soon to pick her up. He then ordered a taxicab. My date for the evening lived in an older working-class district. Her parents' home, about 1910 vintage, was a row house. When we arrived, Ralph decided to wait in the taxicab while I went in for the young woman, whose first name was Rose but whose last name I have forgotten. Two older men dressed in work clothes were sitting on the lighted porch. I presented myself and told them I had come for Rose. The men did not tell me their names. One of them, apparently Rose's father, told me to knock on the screen door and she would be there. I knocked. A little boy responded and reported that Rose was not quite ready but would be there in just a few minutes. I wondered whether the boy was Rose's son. The man invited me to have a seat and interrupted his conversation with his neighbor to ask where I was from. Neither had ever heard of Boone but the visitor had been to Charleston once, which he apparently thought was in North Carolina, and wanted to know how far Boone is from Charleston. When I replied that I did not know exactly but that it is about the same distance from Boone as Columbus is, they looked at each other quizzically. Then the father asked, "And what do you do?" When I told him that I was a teacher, he turned toward his companion and they resumed their conversation, neither paying any more attention to me. Rose appeared in about five minutes and I presented myself. She was a slender Irish girl with fair skin, brilliant blue eyes, and dark hair. She told her father she would be home about midnight. She did not offer to take my arm. I opened the door of the cab, she climbed in beside Ralph and I sat beside her. Ralph gave the cab driver directions to his girls house. Ralph and Rose talked. She had a pleasantly modulated voice but chose her words carefully as if she feared she might make a grammatical error. I thought she probably knew that I was an English teacher. We had a booth at the Setting Sun. I sat beside Rose. Ralph's friend, whose name was Audrey, was uninhibited and talkative. We drank beer. Audrey selected several records for us to hear during the evening and sang along with some of them. Our conversation was inconsequential. Rose said very little except in response to questions. She rarely looked at me, so I saw her mostly in profile, her pretty nose tilted slightly at the end. Once during the evening I pressed her hand, lying open and relaxed on the seat. Her hand was shapely and warm but dry and hard like a working person's hand. She did not respond. Her hand was as passive as if it had been made of rubber. Suddenly, it occurred to me that Rose was uncomfortable, ill at ease, and feeling guilty about having a date. I gathered her unresponsive hand in mine and squeezed it. It flopped back like rubber into passivity. I patted it gently and withdrew my hand. After we had consumed several beers, Rose became more talkative and went into detail about the work she did but she would look at me only briefly. Rose and I faced the entrance to the Setting Sun, which was a favorite spot of people 106 �Christmas from Kentucky. It was crowded with laughing, happy young folk, most of whom were young women. Two well-dressed girls waiting at the front for seats kept looking at me as if they knew me. In a few minutes I recognized them. They had been sparrow-legged students in the junior division of the high school at Louisa while I was principal there and had grown up since then. When I nodded my recognition, they came to the booth to speak to me. They had been Sylvia's students in English classes. I presented Rose and Audrey as my brother's friends and then presented Ralph. I was embarrassed at first because they had found me there but rebounded when I realized that they could have been embarrassed by my seeing them there but were not. They were pretty young women who were working in a plant. They asked about Sylvia, whom they referred to as the best English teacher they had while they were in high school. They had not heard of her death. Apparently, the incident established my credibility for Rose. She asked me two or three questions about Appalachian and Boone, neither of which she had ever heard of. She had gone to a parochial school and graduated from a Catholic high school before marrying at the age of eighteen. At the end of the evening I ordered a taxicab for Rose and me and Ralph ordered another for him and Audrey. Rose was talkative on the way home. She wished she had gone to college instead of marrying at age eighteen. She had been a good student in high school and would have enjoyed going to college. When we arrived at her home, her father and his friend were still sitting on the lighted porch. I asked the cab driver to wait while I escorted Rose to the door, where I thanked her for going out with me. She said she had enjoyed the evening. I bade her good night without offering to shake hands with her. And so ended my first date as a widower. Aunt Alma, my mother's sister, and her husband, Nelson Williams, my great uncle Jake's son and a first cousin of my father, lived in Columbus. They had gone there soon after their marriage as late teen-agers and before I could remember. Nelson, who had been a railroad engineer for many years, had held his job throughout the Depression. I had known them mostly as well dressed and apparently well-to-do aunt and uncle who returned to Kentucky for short visits in late summer nearly every year and to attend funerals, homecomings, and family reunions. Their only child, a son about two years younger than I, had died when he was only a few weeks old. My mother had told me that Aunt Alma, who had become very religious in recent years, was in poor health and suffered intensely at times from a disease of the liver. She urged that I be sure to go see her while I was in Columbus, for she had been especially fond of me, her oldest nephew, and would not live much longer. I promised my mother that I would go see her. Two or three days before I planned to leave for Boone I called my aunt to ask whether it was convenient for me to come for a visit. She and Nelson would be delighted to have me come that very afternoon and I had to come prepared to spend the night. They had always hoped I would come to see them. They had heard that I had been in Columbus a time or two but I had not called them. She upbraided me for my neglect of them. I agreed to come prepared to spend the night. 107 �The Gratis Williams Chronicles: I Come to Boone Aunt Alma and Uncle Nelson owned a row house in an old fashioned but still proud working-class neighborhood with trees along the sidewalks, well kept yards, and freshly painted porch floors. Every room in the house shone as if it had just been cleaned and the good but inexpensive furniture was waxed and polished. The guest bedroom looked like a model in a furniture store. I complimented my aunt on her taste and skill as a housekeeper. She had a roast in the oven. Nelson would be home about seven o'clock and we would eat about eight. Not yet fifty years old, Aunt Alma in some ways looked older. Her naturally curly hair was as black as ever and her lively dark brown eyes as bright, but she was thin and her fair skin was dappled with dark brown spots, even the skin on her hands and arms. In response to my inquiry about her health, she went into detail, supplying a refrain of religious expressions like "Bless God," "God be praised," " Bless His Holy Name," "Blessed Jesus" to her account of a recent attack, brought on, she thought, by an imbalance in her medication. She had been in the hospital for several days. While there, she had been delirious and had tried to tear her skin off with her fingernails. It had been necessary to restrain her in a strait jacket. "Blessed be His Holy Name," she concluded, "He lifted me up and restored me." As she talked, she paused occasionally and stared with a faraway gaze as if she saw something I did not see. At the end of her account she stared past me and with a smile of happy recognition on her pretty lips for a long time. But she was getting along well then, she said, and was able to do her housework and cook for Nelson. My mother had sent Aunt Alma pictures of me through the years. She had them all over the house. Standing on the dresser in the bedroom was a picture taken during my first year as a teacher. She had pictures of other nephews and nieces, but they were in an album she kept in the drawer of her library table. While we were waiting in her living room for Uncle Nelson to arrive, she told me that she prayed for me every day and had done so for years, that she asked God to bless me and guide me in the ways of righteousness and that she knew He would, Praise Him. I was stunned by the realization that I had meant so much to her without having known it. I felt guilty because I had never been to see her, had never written her a letter, or sent her a Christmas greeting, or given her a present. She asked about my soul's welfare, whether I was saved. I felt like a hypocrite when I told her that I was at peace with God and felt confident in his grace, for I knew that for her salvation came as a mystical experience, as being born again, and exemplified itself in religious ecstasy and piety. I knew that as she understood and had experienced salvation I was not in that number, but I knew also that I did not want to be. She left me with the radio while she went into the kitchen to prepare for supper. About seven o'clock Uncle Nelson arrived, all dressed in striped coveralls and an engineers cap and carrying an overcoat across his left arm and swinging a black lunch kit in his right hand. Startled when he found me sitting in his living room, he did not recognize me at once, but he was voluble and warm in his welcome. Without taking the time to go by the kitchen to greet my aunt, he rushed upstairs to take a shower, shave, and change clothes before supper. Soon he came bounding down the stairs, booming questions at me as he 108 �Christmas came. Like his father (and most Williamses), he was a compulsive talker and one who could not wait for a question to be answered before hurrying along with his own narratives. We went into the dining room for my aunt's delicious supper and sat opposite each other at the table. Aunt Alma, who was on a special diet, did not eat with us. She sat on a high stool near the table and "supervised" us, bringing more hot biscuits as we needed them and seeing that we had milk in our glasses. Uncle Nelson kept a cascade of narrative charging and leaping over his own asides and interruptions. He gave me a full account of railroading in those busy times when the nation was gearing up for an all-out war effort, turning aside frequently to relate episodes of special runs he had made and arguments with his bosses he had won. His epic, of which he himself was the adventurous Ulysses, was expansive, but he had such a high regard for factual detail that he would frequently correct himself, sometimes two or three times, before continuing. Since he did not seem to be greatly interested in the adventures of a school teacher, I was a listener. My contributions to the conversation were short questions I managed to ask from time to time mostly to demonstrate that I was listening and interested in his narratives. Following the rneal, he took me out to show me his carefully tended back yard, which he had converted to a victory garden the spring before. While we were gone, my aunt ate her simple supper. She was washing dishes when we returned. We sat in the living room while Uncle Nelson talked. After finishing the dishes, Aunt Alma came and sat quietly with us for a time. She had begun to droop. Uncle Nelson was annoyed when she found it necessary to interrupt him to say that she would be getting up early to prepare Nelson's breakfast and pack his lunch in time for him to get to the railroad yards by six o'clock. I could sleep as long as I wanted to. She would keep a breakfast warm for me in the oven. She went off to bed. After a time Uncle Nelson turned to asking me questions about people he had known on Caines Creek while he was growing up. My reports reminded him of many stories involving the old-timers which he told. I noted that he made judgments readily and was generous with his moral strictures, traits I had observed in others from Caines Creek who had gone away and enjoyed a measure of success in the world. About 10:30 he announced that we would listen to the eleven o'clock news and then go to bed, since he had to get up so early. He always tried to listen to the news before lying down. He launched into his own analysis of the world situation, inserting, as appropriate, accounts of conversations about the progress of the war he had had with men at work. He was more up to date on the news than I was and was so charged with interest in the news report that he would interrupt with his own opinions. Following the program, he speculated for a bit on the turn of events and what he was certain would happen next. I slept well. I was dimly aware of stirring around in the house in the early morning hours but did not wake up until about 7:30. Everything was quiet. Aunt Alma had lain down again after Nelson had left the house. When she heard me in the bathroom, she got up again and set out a warm breakfast for me. She sat with me while I ate. 109 �The Gratis Williams Chronicles: I Come to Boone About nine o'clock I was ready to leave. Aunt Alma was sitting by her fireplace when I set my light bag down to say goodbye to her. In the midst of the conversation she spoke my name almost in a whisper as if she meant to tell me a secret. I was standing at the end of the fireplace with my hand on the mantel. She said in a voice charged with emotion, "Gratis, Jesus came day before yesterday and visited with me. I was sitting here and looked up. He was standing right where you are standing now." Suddenly my spine felt like an icicle. I moved back a few inches so as not to fill the space Jesus had occupied. "He was a little man about your size," she continued. "He looked at me sweetly and smiled. The light around his head became brighter. He did not speak, just looked at me and smiled. Then, he faded away." She studied my face intently for a moment and then looked beyond me with her faraway gaze. I could think of nothing appropriate to say. After a moment she said in her natural voice, "His visit filled me with happiness and assurance, Bless His Sweet Name." She got up, walked with me to the door, and embraced me before I left. (A few weeks later Aunt Alma returned to the hospital, where she had to be restrained again in a strait jacket. She died a painful death.) Back at my sister's I prepared to go to town to window shop and feel the throb of urban life at noon time on a work day. The weather had become mild. I did not need to wear an overcoat. I rode a trolley car to High Street and wandered through the shopping district, looking especially at clothing for men. Some of the shops were advertising their post-Christmas sales and many suits and overcoats in my size had been marked down. I needed a suit and an overcoat desperately. My $ 13 suit was for fall or spring and my older suits were threadbare and out of style. My overcoat was six years old, but I felt that I could not really afford to spend money for new clothes, even at bargain prices. My brother-in-law had bought two days earlier for only $45 a rich brown suit with two pairs of pants and a topcoat of the same material at J.C. Penney's. I liked his outfit very much. He thought the same suit was available in my size. Although I was sure I could not afford to buy one, I did have $35 that Herbert Sturgill had paid me in cash. That with only $10 from my salary money would be enough if I should find myself overcome by an urge to buy. I went to Penney's, just to look around. There was an outfit like John's in my size. The length of the trousers would be adjusted while I waited if I wished to buy. I tried on everything and was pleased with the color and the neat fit. But I needed time to consider. I strolled among shops until I became tired, stopped for lunch in a little restaurant near the Neil House, and then sat in the Neil House lobby a long time, associating it with Theodore Dreiser's novel, Jennie Gerhardt, which, as I understood it, had been set partly there. I dozed for a bit, got up and stretched myself, and went back and bought the suit and topcoat. After I had paid for my purchase, the clerk told me that the women who altered trousers were overworked just then and it would be at least an hour before they could get to mine. I could sit and wait or take a walk and come back. I decided to return to the Neil House. A dry wind hurrying along down High Street was whisking bits of paper and chewing gum wrappers along the sidewalk. As I stepped from the street up to the level of the side110 �Christmas walk, I noticed the scraps scooting along toward me and remembered that Mark Twain had once picked up a fifty-dollar bill along there, announced in the paper he had found it, and left town before being overwhelmed by the number of claimants. While I was chuckling to myself about Mark Twain's good luck, I saw what looked like a bill lifting, sliding, lifting, and bouncing toward me. I picked it up. It was a twenty dollar bill. Not disturbed, as Mark Twain had been, by a vestigial conscience concerning such matters, I was pleased to think that good fortune had smiled on me and never once considered either advertising in the paper that a twenty dollar bill had blown into my hand or taking the bill to the police station. Instead, I remembered a men's shop two or three doors beyond the Neil House in which I had seen in the window a good looking yellow shirt and a beautiful tie that were just right for the suit I had bought. I put the bill in my wallet and hurried to the shop, half afraid that someone had already bought the tie I wanted. The tie was still there. I paid $3.50 for it, more than I had ever paid for a tie before, and bought a yellow shirt, a light blue shirt with a matching tie, and a bright green sport shirt made of a new synthetic material said to have been derived from cornstalks. I still had $2.00 of my fortune money. My package was waiting for me when I returned to Penney's. With my new clothing under my arm I walked to the bus station to check bus schedules to Boone and learned that I could leave Columbus at seven o'clock in the morning and get to Boone at nine o'clock that night. The following morning I was at the bus station on time. Snow was falling. By the time the bus was loaded and moving the snow was perhaps an inch deep. It became deeper for a few miles south of Columbus but by the time we had reached Chillicothe there was no snow at all. I changed buses at Ashland, Kentucky, and came on U.S. 23 through Louisa and Pikeville to Jenkins. The day was cloudy but there was no snow in the Big Sandy Valley. From Jenkins to Bristol there was no snow, but a few miles south of Bristol we came into snow again. It was six or eight inches deep in Boone, where a frigid wind was blowing and the snow was drifting. I rode in a taxicab from the bus station to Faculty Apartments, which seemed abandoned because so few had returned from their holidays. My apartment was quiet and lonely, and I could hear no sounds in apartments near mine. It was two or three weeks before I learned that Catherine Smith, my next door neighbor, and Annafreddie Carsteens, who lived in the apartment under mine, had lost their mothers, who had been living with them, about the time Sylvia had died. 111 �This page intentionally left blank �Longing to Call Boone Home As we moved into the second semester at Appalachian High School, teachers began including me in social activities they arranged. Mr. Wey and Jeannie invited me to their home for dinner several times, usually along with two or three other staff members. Dr. Abrams and Lillian had me to dinner occasionally. People living in the apartments, even those I had not met, began calling on me for brief visits in the late afternoons. No one referred to my having lost my wife recently. It was as if one were expected, after a few weeks of bereavement, not to refer to his loss any more. Holding my grief within intensified the pain of it at times. I would return to my apartment from a dinner or a room party, where I had enjoyed gaiety and laughter and not thought of Sylvia at all, and sink suddenly into despair and feel guilty. The state of my health disturbed me, too. I took cod liver oil and my iron tonic faithfully, drank a quart of milk each day, and ate eggs and meat, but I had not yet regained all of the weight I had lost before coming to Boone. I took colds easily and coughed at night. I took a brief nap after lunch and a longer one after dinner, walked two or three miles a day and did bending and stretching exercises for about ten minutes before going to bed, and tried to sleep seven or eight hours at night, but I continued to be troubled with night sweats, bad dreams, and insomnia. I awoke often, wet with perspiration, from troubled dreams and tossed about for an hour or two before going back to sleep just before dawn, then sleeping through the alarm and arriving late for faculty meetings. One afternoon about the middle of January two young women called on me. I had seen them in the building and had met one of them in the hall and on the stairs a few times, but I did not know their names. They presented themselves, Jennie Sue Allen and 113 �The Gratis Williams Chronicles: I Come to Boone Melba Lovill (later Tugman). Jennie Sue was a secretary in Dean J.D. Rankin's office and Melba worked for Barnard Dougherty in the business office. They were my neighbors, had seen me in the building, had heard of my wife's death, and had come for a brief neighborly visit of welcome. I invited them in. They sat on the long couch and I in an easy chair. After about ten minutes Melba excused herself to run some errands and Jennie Sue remained, though she, too, must be hurrying along soon to meet another young woman in the building to go together to the cafeteria for dinner. Jennie Sue, a slight young woman in her early 20s, had well kept dark hair that rested on her shoulders and intensely dark eyes that danced and sparkled when she smiled. In our conversation I learned that she had graduated from college with a major in English but had not taught school because she preferred to work as a secretary and receptionist. She was not engaged, as most of the unmarried young women were, and did not have a "regular boyfriend." I told her that I was not yet ready psychologically for a girl friend and might not be for a long time, for I had loved my wife deeply and was missing her more than I could say. But if she could accept a casual relationship with me I would like to invite her to be my partner at parties and other social affairs if she were interested, knowing that I was not a serious suitor. She said she understood. She was lonely herself at times and would enjoy going with me. I could not tell her about my illness, but I did tell her that I was head over heels in debt and so desperately poor that I rarely went to the movies because I felt I could not afford to pay the price of a ticket. She said we could "dutch" if we should decide to go to a movie together or out for a dinner at a restaurant. Figure H, Gathering of teachers in front of Faculty Apartments prior to an outing in the country, September 1943. (l-r) Sallie Pat Carson, Mary Madison, Dorothy Snyder, Gratis Williams, Ellen Bell, Pete Felts, Ruby Donald. Photo courtesy of Hugh Daniel. 114 �Longing to Call Boone Home Jennie Sue, who, I learned soon, was intelligent, wrote well, and spent much of her spare time reading, was naturally a quiet, pleasant, and smiling person. She became my partner when Hugh and Ruby brought food and drinks to my apartment for meals, or when we played cards, or went to a movie. After a few weeks my friends began including Jennie Sue when they invited me to parties. Quiet, smiling, warm, and sincere, she made friends easily. She was tolerant and charitable in her estimates of others and did not criticize others readily, but because she was keenly perceptive, listened well, and observed closely she understood better than most why people behave as they do. slus Before I left my office at five o'clock, I was usually able to complete preparations for my classes the following day and to check tests and papers I had accepted from my students. I only found it necessary to return to the school in the evening Figure I, A country outing, 1943, (l-r) when I was to meet groups from my dramatics Gratis Williams, Woody Mizell, Winnie classes for play rehearsals or to sell tickets for bas- Stokes, Hugh Daniel, Ruby Donald, Photo ketball games. I had time to read. Some of the courtesy of Ruby Daniel. books I read were appropriate for high school students. I took time to make objective tests on these books that students could take in ten or fifteen minutes. Other books from the College Library I read for relaxation, but I did not attempt to build for myself a reading program as I had done while I was working for New Idea at Coldwater, Ohio, or International Nickel Corporation at Huntington. Mr. Wey, who began planning that year for a self-study of the high school for the Southern Association of Schools and Colleges the following year, had four or five of us in his home several times for planning meetings. As I did not then think I would be returning to Boone the following year, I felt for a long time more like a referee and consultant than a participant at the meetings, but I especially enjoyed helping to develop a statement of the philosophy of our school. We wrote a tentative statement at our first meeting, a carefully worded paper about three-fourths of a page long. At subsequent meetings we criticized, revised, and re-wrote until we finally had what Mr. Wey preferred to call a first draft. He felt that as we discussed what we were actually doing at the school and changes we hoped to implement, we would want to revise the statement of our philosophy again at the beginning of the following year. We were not yet prepared to state goals and objectives or to identify strategies for change but we engaged in lively discussions of these matters as we considered our statement of philosophy. I became so interested in what we were doing that I began to wish I could return the following year and help complete the self-study. Sometime early in 1943, perhaps in February, Dr. Abrams invited me to give a twen- 115 �The Gratis Williams Chronicles: I Come to Boone ty-minute program of Appalachian songs for the Lions Club, of which he, Dr. Whitener, and Dr. Robert Busteed from the College were members. I accepted his invitation and prepared and rehearsed several times in no more than a humming voice a program that I thought I could do in twenty minutes. The Lions Club was meeting then in the dining room of the Daniel Boone Hotel. The light-heartedness, good humor, and friendly fellowship of the Lions around the immense fireplace in the lobby of the hotel before their dinner meeting in the dining room impressed me. Unlike my fellow Rotarians at Louisa, Kentucky, who had been grave, reserved, a bit stiff, and inclined to nap and nod, even at luncheon meetings, the Lions were lively, informal, and relaxed. I saw among them business and professional people I had met up town, and they made me feel that I was a welcome visitor. The Lions met at tables arranged in a U shape in a curtained off part of the dining room. At that time the club had twenty-eight members. The food was exceptionally good. The peas did not rattle like bullets on our plates, the mashed potatoes were not watery, biscuits were not warmed over. Mrs. Price, the wife of the proprietor of the hotel, supervised personally the preparation of the food, and enjoyed an enviable reputation as a cook. She baked the pastries herself. The food was unlike any I had ever eaten at a club meeting. The Lions engaged in lively conversation while two "tail twisters," twins Howard and Raleigh Cottrell, kept a routine of pranks going. After we had eaten, the president called on the program chairman. Dr. Abrams was presented. He gave me a brief but somewhat exaggerated introduction, including an account of our first meeting, and presented me not only as an accomplished singer and interpreter of Appalachian ballads and songs but then, also, the ugliest man in Boone. The Lions applauded his introduction so long that I had to wait to begin my program, which everybody enjoyed so well that I was called back for two encores, even though the Club tried to restrict its meetings to one hour. Recognizing that the response was more in the spirit of fun and foolishness than of appreciation of my songs or my skill in singing them, I was, for all of that, pleased with my reception. No one had seemed bored. I had never had a better audience. Having given a similar program to the Louisa Rotary Club, I remembered long-suffering and patient looks on the faces of many of the Rotarians and the feeble and mechanical round of applause "for manners' sake" they had given me when I sat down. I thought I would enjoy being a member of the Boone Lions Club. In a few weeks Dr. Abrams told me that the Club was beginning a membership drive and he would like to sponsor me for membership. The Club wanted to expand and hoped to take in six or eight new members. He discussed with me costs and worthwhile activities of the Club, emphasizing its good work for children with poor vision. The men had enjoyed my program and spirit of good fellowship. He was sure I would be accepted. I asked for three or four days to consider whether I ought to join. Certainly, the men enjoyed themselves and the dinners served at meetings were good and reasonably priced. There would be some work involved in being a member, but it would be so much fun that I would enjoy it. I was concerned mostly with the cost of belonging and whether even a little extra work might tax my energies. I could not reveal that the state of my health was a factor if I declined an invitation to join the Club. I discussed the matter with Mr. Wey, 116 �Longing to Call Boone Home who was not a member. He did not think he had time to be a member, he said, but he and Mr. Chapell Wilson both liked for the members of the faculties of the campus schools to participate in community activities. If I thought I had time to be a member and would enjoy belonging to the Club, I should join. I also discussed the matter with Jennie Sue. She thought the Club was one of the most active organizations in town and that I would enjoy belonging to it. I told Dr. Abrams that I was willing for him to sponsor me for membership. As I recall, seven new members were initiated, including Professor A.R. Smith from the College faculty and Mr. Lee Reynolds, who taught seventh grade at the campus elementary school; Guy Hunt, who owned and operated Hunt's Clothing Store; Frank Payne, an insurance agent; and Mr. Price, the proprietor of the Daniel Boone Hotel. I believe the seventh new member was Council Cook, who had an electrical appliance shop. One of the rules of the Club was that members had to be addressed or referred to by their first or full names. One who slipped up and addressed or referred to another as Mr. or Dr. was promptly fined ten cents by one of the tail twisters. Collections, as I recall, went into the blind fund. Soon I came to know many of the business and professional men of Boone by their first names. I believe names of members who were in military service continued to be included on the membership roll. Members whose names I remember were Amos Abrams, Wade Brown, Robert Busteed, Jake Caudill, Howard and Raleigh Cottrell, Jim Councill, Joe Crawford, Bus Crowell, Clyde Greene, Watt Gragg, Milt Greer, Albert King, Bill Matheson, G.K. Moose, B.W. Stallings, Lee Stout, DJ. Whitener, Herman Wilcox, and Gordon Winkler. Soon after I became a member of the Club, a decision was reached to put on a Lions Club show to raise money for the blind fund. I was asked to develop a format for and direct a one-hour show. I protested that I was totally inexperienced in such work, had a full schedule at the high school, and did not want to assume such a task. I could not, of course, let it be known that I was physically unable to assume the extra work involved in such an undertaking. But the pressure, coupled with the argument that I was the only member of the Club who was a play director, was so great that I seemed unable to decline. In three weeks I prepared a kind of Lions Club Follies, selected the talent needed from among the members and their wives, met groups for rehearsals, advised with the publicity and the arrangements committees, and had the show ready for the stage. The arrangements committee attempted to schedule the show in the college auditorium, but since we would be selling tickets for admission, President Dougherty would not give us permission to use college facilities. The manager of the Appalachian Theatre gave us permission to use the Theatre but required forty percent of the collections for ticket sales. The show was scheduled for the evening of April 8th. The publicity committee did an outstanding job with advertising and advance ticket sales. We expected a full house. The night before the show was to be given we had a dress rehearsal in the theatre after the movie. It was three o'clock when I got to bed. 117 �The Cratis Williams Chronicles: I Come to Boone A soft snow was falling when I woke up in response to my alarm clock set on "loud." I was dog tired and coughing when I dragged myself unwillingly from bed. While I was shaving I was seized by a choking cough, with which I struggled. At the end of the attack I began spitting up blood. Frightened and tense, I began considering what I should do. In a few minutes there was only a trace of blood in my sputum. I wet a towel in cold water and held it against my neck and chest while taking as short and shallow breaths as I could. The coughing stopped. I decided to face the day as if nothing had happened while waiting to see whether I had another hemorrhage. I knew that I would be able to rest that day only a short time following lunch. I was careful not to over exert myself physically in order to avoid if possible another attack of coughing. I did not have another hemorrhage. Snow fell intermittently throughout the day but it melted when it struck the warm spring earth. At 5:30 I began meeting with the "actors" for the show, helped them apply makeup, including mustaches and beards for some of them, supplied them with white cardboard top hats I had ordered for the show, and had them ready for the stage by seven o'clock. By then a heavy soft snow was falling so fast and remaining on the ground that we began to wonder whether the audience would get there. Since few people believed there could be a traffic-snarling snow at that time of year, the theatre was packed. Excited by such a turnout, the actors were stimulated to do their best. The show, following no theme, included a scene in Dr. Sawbones's office in which two strapping fellows held a man with a broken leg on a table while Bill Matheson prepared to amputate the broken limb. The bottle of whiskey that a relative had brought for the patient to drink in order to withstand the ordeal was consumed with great gusto by the doctor and his helpers instead. Fortified by the spirits, the helpers laid hold of the struggling patient. Bill Matheson suddenly drew an enormous handsaw from under the table and was in the act of bringing it across the victim's leg when the curtain closed. Audience response was thunderous. Milt Greer, made up with lamb chop sideburns and a goatee and wearing a frock coat, delivered a marvelous folk sermon, which Dr. Abrams had recorded at a rehearsal. One of the Cottrell twins and Aunt Jenny Critcher engaged in an almost naughty dialogue in the park. A quartet did a few barber shop numbers. Council Cook sang quite well two or three songs, including "Lonesome Road." The show was a hit with the audience. By the time it was over, though, eight inches of snow had accumulated. The "cast" met briefly for a reception in the home of Ray and Lib Manship, who lived in a little brown house among the trees on the north side of King Street a block from the theatre. The top hats, though glazed, had begun to come unglued by the time the reception was over. Over 500 tickets had been sold. Everybody had enjoyed the show. The Lions were elated. By 9:30 I had slogged my way through the deep snow to the apartments, my feet sloshing in my wet shoes. I was so tired that I considered wiping my feet with a towel and dropping in bed, but decided to take a soaking hot bath to protect myself from pneumonia. I was sure the fatigue, exposure to the weather, and the wet feet would leave me with at least a bad cold, but I slept well and woke up in the morning without a sign of a bad cold. I wore overshoes and an overcoat to school. But the day was bright and warm and by mid afternoon the snow had melted away. 118 �Longing to Call Boone Home The memory of my hemorrhage haunted me and kept me fearful. With final examinations, rehearsals for War Correspondent, the senior play, and working with student speakers for commencement exercises ahead of me, I found it necessary to decline most of the invitations I received for dinners and parties. I tried hard to maintain my routine of resting after lunch, taking a nap after dinner, and going to bed as early as I could each evening. A bonanza came to me before the school was out. The North Carolina legislature, which met in early 1943, increased handsomely the salaries of teachers retroactive to September, 1942. I received nearly $500.00 as my increase, which brought to a total of $2140.00, including the worth of my apartment at $40.00 a month, my salary for my first year at Boone. If I should be able to return to Boone the following year, Mr. Wey explained, the increase would become a part of my salary. I was happy to think that the increase I had received, together with what Mr. Lafe Wellman could get for my furniture, would enable me to reduce my indebtedness by seven or eight hundred dollars. Although I told Mr. Wey, Mr. Wilson, and Dr. Abrams that I would report to my draft board at Louisa in May, they wanted to include my name in the class schedule for the summer terms. No one had been selected as my successor and it was important that the instructor's name be listed along with the classes to be offered, for students tended not to register for courses listed without an instructor's name on the schedule. If I should learn that I would not be drafted until September, I could teach both summer terms. Dr. Abrams and I had discussed my interest in offering in summer school a course in ballads and songs with emphasis upon those variants that had survived in the oral tradition of Appalachian mountain folk. I had as a valuable resource his excellent collection of recordings of native singers. I could use as a text Kittredge's one-volume edition of Child's English and Scottish Popular Ballads. We could invite a native singer, such as Frank Proffitt29 or Mrs. Laura Timmons,30 to visit the class once or twice, possibly arrange to take the class on a pleasant afternoon to the home of a native singer for a program on the porch or in the yard, and might be able to interest Dean Rankin in scheduling a well known folk singer for an evening program. The course, Dr. Abrams believed, would appeal especially to English majors, music majors, and elementary education teachers, especially those from Florida, South Carolina, and Georgia, who came to summer school to earn credits for the renewal of certificates to teach. He and I went together to discuss the possibility of offering such a class with Mr. Chapell Wilson, who was the director of summer schools. Mr. Wilson approved at once what we proposed and wanted to include the course in the 1943 summer class schedule, even though I might not be there to teach it. If I should be drafted in May, then the course could be deleted at registration time without causing serious problems. The course was scheduled, the first time, we believed, such a course had been offered below the graduate level in the country. 2 "Frank Proffitt (1913-1964), Watauga County resident with a life-long interest in traditional music, collected and performed traditional mountain ballads, and recorded on Folkways and Folk-legacy labels. His son, Frank Proffitt, Jr. continues in his tradition of musicianship. 30 Laura Timmons (1894-1964) was a local folksinger. 119 �The Gratis Williams Chronicles: I Come to Boone War Correspondent, not really a very good three-act play, was a wartime mystery with a cast of ten persons. Seniors selected for parts worked hard to achieve conversational delivery and convincing character. Not fully successful, they did learn their parts well and achieved a stage presence that enabled them to relate to one another convincingly. A stage crew built an imaginative portable set that could be assembled and taken down quickly in order to clear the stage area of the gymnasium for physical education classes. Students from the dramatics classes handled makeup and took care of stage props. We gave the play twice, once in the morning to the student body and once in the evening to their parents and other townspeople. It attracted nearly a full house for the evening performance. One of the social affairs I attended near the end of the year was a picnic at the Fish Hatchery at Rutherwood for the staff and maintenance personnel at the College, an annual affair that Mr. Barnard Dougherty,31 the Business Manager, arranged with the expert help of John Welborn32 and the cafeteria staff. Jenny Sue had invited me as her guest. So few of us had cars and those who did were so restricted by gasoline rationing that Mr. Dougherty made arrangements for us to be transported to and from the picnic. It was a beautiful afternoon and the young grass was fresh and vivid, but buds on trees had not yet begun to swell. Fires had already been built for roasting hot dogs and marshmallows and the smoke from the burning hardwoods stimulated appetites. Pots of steaming coffee had been brought from the cafeteria, but there was also an abundant supply of half-pint bottles of cold milk from the dairy and soft drinks in tubs of ice. Stacks of buns and bowls of coleslaw waited on an improvised table. Jenny Sue took me among the workers and introduced me to those I did not already know. President Dougherty, Dean Rankin, Mr. Herman R. Eggers, and Mrs. Emma Moore, persons to whom staff members were responsible were there, but members of the faculty had not been invited. Dr. Dougherty stood apart from the crowd and talked in a low voice with Mr. Eggers, the registrar. He did not move from the position he had taken until the food was ready. Someone prepared for him his hot dog and marshmallows. Mr. Barnard, as the business manager was called, made a few remarks and called on Dean Rankin to ask a blessing. Dr. Dougherty, interrupted by the asking of the blessing, proceeded with his account of something to Mr. Eggers as soon as the blessing was over. Others took positions around the fires to roast their hot dogs, moving as the shifting smoke dislodged them. Those at the picnic seemed to be well acquainted with one another. There was a cohesiveness present, such as one might have found in a family reunion. A few of the workers had been with the College almost from its beginning. I felt that the staff and work force were the hidden empire, of whom the faculty was not fully aware, that made the College possible. ^Barnard Dougherty (1909-1965) was business manager of the college from 1938 to 1955 when he was appointed vice president and comptroller. ^John Welborn, a graduate of Appalachian Training School and Appalachian State Teachers College, worked in food services for 34 years, serving as director until his retirement in 1973. Welborn Cafeteria was named in his honor. 120 �Longing to Call Boone Home We had also a senior hike to Flat Top Mountain near Blowing Rock. In late April, a few days before the close of the school year, the seniors and their faculty sponsors were given permission to take packed lunches and hike along one of the old roads from Boone to Blowing Rock and return by another of the first roads between the two towns. Both roads were unimproved and a part of one of them had been abandoned. It was said to be eleven miles to Flat Top and back. Afraid to try to walk eleven miles in a day, I agreed to walk until we had lunch and then return alone to the school where I would complete some work in my office that I needed to do. We left the school at ten o'clock and walked up Winkler s Creek, turning left at the Austin farm, where two of my freshmen English students, Mary and Martha, lived. I had been to the Rocks in Winkler's Creek but had not gone beyond them. From the Austin farm the road was little more than a trail. It was a fair day. Trees had not yet begun to leaf, but weeds were beginning to grow and the grass in meadows and pastures was young and tender. The dirt road, little traveled but rutted in places, frequently crossed the low and clear creek. There were no bridges, but foot travelers up and down the valley had put stepping stones at shallow crossings and foot logs over deeper ones. Beyond Austins the countryside was largely abandoned. A few rustic homes had freshly plowed gardens and barnyards within enclosures fenced with scrap wood. Occasionally, we passed an abandoned house with a sagging lichen covered shake roof, a deteriorating stack chimney, porch floors rotted away, doors standing open or ripped off the hinges, and windows long since knocked out. Second growth trees had marched across even the yards of many of the old houses. The few families living along the old road were still in the Depression. When we had climbed to a gap along a straight stretch of the trail, where deep ruts worn into a clay base by farm wagons and ancient trucks were filled with leaves, I looked at my watch. It was almost noon. I decided to eat my lunch there beside a spring. Two or three of the hungry boys ate their lunches, too, expressed regrets that I could not go with them on to Flat Top, where we could see the Cone Mansion, and hurried on. I ambled back to Boone, stopping occasionally to rest. I thought I had walked about eight miles. One Sunday morning near the end of the year G.C. Greene called and invited me to ride that afternoon with him, Charles Boone, and Kenneth Clay to Camp Yonalossee. They picked me up about two o'clock. We left Boone through Hodges Gap and drove along a narrow road to Shulls Mills. My first trip out that way, I was able to see much of the road bed of the East Tennessee and Western North Carolina Railroad, abandoned after the 1940 flood had washed away much of the road and broken the dam on Watauga River. We stopped above the old dam and explored the rocks in the river there, a favorite site for picnics and outings. The Robbins Hotel, a rambling wooden structure located at the mouth of a little hollow across the road from the railroad bed, was still receiving guests, but it was weathered and needed painting. 121 �The Gratis Williams Chronicles: I Come to Boone The boys told me that Shulls Mills had been a flourishing place a few years before when a big lumber company had been located there. It was said that it was then larger than Boone. The railroad had been extended from Linville to haul lumber out to Elizabethton, Tennessee, and on to Boone later. We turned left across the valley at the hotel, crossed a low-water bridge over the river, and followed a narrow, winding road up the mountain to Camp Yonalossee for Girls. I did not go into the camp, stretched along the side of the mountain, but waited in the car while the boys went down to ask about some young lady who was working there while the camp was being prepared for the summer. They decided to go on to Flat Top. The road to Flat Top had trees growing along both sides of it much of the way. It was a hard packed, narrow dirt road and looked as if it had been there a long time. In earlier days, that had been the main road from Boone to Blowing Rock, the boys said. We stopped on Flat Top and walked around but did not go to the Cone Mansion. Just to show me around, the boys decided to return to Boone by a back way. They drove to Linville and came back along the narrow road beside the railroad bed to Shulls Mills. I saw Grandfather Mountain from the back side. We stopped for a few minutes near an old railroad sign that told us we were at Linville Gap. At that point one could see how vast and rugged Grandfather Mountain is. It seemed a long way down the mountain to Foscoe, where the road became straight and level back to Shulls Mills. As we were turning left at the old hotel, I looked up the valley at Grandfather, whose profile was well defined. A small cloud rested on his brow as he reclined in mystery, a million years old. The trip was one of the most impressive I had taken all year. Grandfather Mountain, bathed in a blue mist, rugged, enormous, added to the enchantment of the land that I longed to call home. Boys in my home room were exceptionally considerate. From time to time throughout the year I would remember their response to me when Mr. Wey introduced me at the student assembly at the beginning of the term. Our relationship had been harmonious, warm, and fully trusting all year, even from our first meeting in the classroom. I soon knew that their booing me when I was introduced was more of a humorous response to Mr. Wey's high praise for lovely Miss Poole than a rejection of me. I found that they had a delightful sense of humor and an admirable capacity for enjoying one another. This esprit the group had already. I could take no credit for it. It had developed over the years, for most of those in the group had been together since they were in the primary grades. My homeroom group included Charles Boone, Kenneth Clay, Cecil Greene, G.C. Greene, Jr., Hal Greene, Ted Hagaman, Ronda Hardin, Fred Hodges, Roy Johnson, Roy Marsh, Randall Page, Walter Ragan, Reece Roberts, Phil Vance, Harold Watson, James Watson and William Wilson. I believe there might have been four or five others whose names I have forgotten. My involvement with plays and helping students selected to give talks at the commencement exercises enabled me to become acquainted with many students who were not enrolled in my classes. I enjoyed them and felt that they enjoyed me. At commencement 122 �Longing to Call Boone Home Figure], Members of Gratis Williamss homeroom, Appalachian Demonstration High School, 1942-1943. 123 �The Gratis Williams Chronicles: I Come to Boone many of the parents of students with whom I had worked took time to tell me that their sons and daughters had thought well of me as a teacher and referred often to what they had learned in my classes and quoted me in discussions. They hoped I would be able to return the following year. The campus schools, having only an eight-month term, closed about a month before the College was scheduled to close. I was so deeply involved in activities at the school that I did not attempt to prepare to leave Boone until I had turned in my reports, cleaned out my files, and carried to my apartment teaching materials and personal effects that I did not want to leave in my office. Even though I might not return to teach in the summer school, my apartment would not be assigned to anyone, for the Antonakoses would return to occupy it at the end of the summer. I could leave there anything I wanted to leave if I could return to get it before I would be drafted for military service. The other teachers hurried away soon after commencement. Tired and very much alone except for dinners with Jenny Sue, I rested for a long weekend before I began packing my things in boxes, which I tied with stout string, addressed to myself at Cherokee, Kentucky, and stacked in my living room. If I should be drafted so quickly that there would not be time to return to Boone to have the boxes sent by parcel post back to Cherokee, Jenny Sue would engage a taxicab driver to carry them to the post office and she would send them for me. Carrying only one bag with me, I left by bus for Beckley, West Virginia, on a beautiful day in late April. The sun was shining in Boone and the air was crisp and clear, but the only visible sign of spring was lush grass in yards and pasture fields. I spent that night in the Milner Hotel in Beckley and reported next morning to Pinecrest Sanitarium for an X-ray of my lungs and a talk with Dr. Edwards. The spot on my lung had disappeared. I was not yet out of danger, though. Dr. Edwards advised that I continue to eat eggs, drink at least a quart of milk a day, take my cod liver oil, and rest after lunch and dinner and report for another X-ray six months later. I told him I was on my way to Kentucky to volunteer for military service. He told me that a skin test for tuberculosis was routine procedure in medical examinations for military service, that I would then be sent for an X-ray, and that a doctor would talk with me. It would be most important that I report that a spot on my lung had disappeared only recently if the X-ray did not show one. He was confident that I would not be accepted for military duty. As my bus descended the mountain to Gauley Bridge, I could see signs of spring. Trees were budding, willows were already flaunting tags of tender green, blooming sarvice trees shimmered in the sunlight. In Huntington trees had leafed out. I had traveled through spring as it was climbing the mountains. Arriving in Huntington too late to make bus connections to Louisa that day, I engaged a room at the Milner Hotel near the bus station and took a walk. Huntington was bustling. Sidewalks were crowded with well dressed people hurrying along, many with packages in their arms. Window displays of stores and shops announced the advent of spring. I walked along Fourth Avenue to the Walgreen Drug Store. Crowds stood on the corner and waited for city buses. I crossed Fourth 124 �Longing to Call Boone Home Avenue and walked back toward the Milner, but stopped at a little restaurant where Sylvia and I had eaten a few times and had a seafood dinner, pleased that I was no longer so poor that I could not afford a good dinner occasionally. After dinner I walked over to the railroad station, also crowded with people waiting for trains. As the evening was still young, I decided to ride a trolley car to Ashland, Kentucky, for I liked to ride trolley cars. It was so crowded when I got on that I stood in the aisle to Westmoreland before a seat became available. Many of those on the car were working people returning to their homes in Kenova, Catlettsburg, and Ashland. Passengers knew one another. They talked, teased one another, and laughed, all happy to have jobs again and free from fear as they responded to the coming of spring. I did not see any familiar faces. I got off at the corner of Winchester Avenue and Thirteenth Street in Ashland. Crowds were standing on the corner and people were clustered in front of stores and shops. I walked up to the bus station. Every stool at the lunch counter was occupied, as were all the seats in the waiting area, and people stood along the wall, their bags beside them, talking and laughing. I saw no one I had known. Not wanting to wait for a cup of coffee at the crowded counter, I walked back to the corner and took the next car back to Huntington. It was not crowded. The following morning I had breakfast at the White Tower, where I had eaten often while I was working at International Nickel Corporation. The cost of an egg sandwich and a cup of coffee was still only fifteen cents. After breakfast, I walked by the Mosely home for a brief visit with Mrs. Mosely, the servants, and Miss Westall, her hair in curlers and wearing a house robe while she enjoyed a cup of coffee. Captain Mosely had gone to his farm to ride his horses. The bus from Huntington by way of Lavalette and Wayne to Louisa was not crowded. I sat near the back of the bus and talked with Oscar Cottrell, a black man with whom I had played cowboys and Indians in the pine woods behind Louisa while I was in high school. I had not seen him for many years. A big man with the same broad smile and happy face that I remembered, Oscar recalled many of our Saturday escapades on Pine Hill. At Louisa I left my bag at the drug store in which the bus station was located while I attended to business matters. I volunteered for the next military draft quota and learned that a bus load of draftees would report to the center in Huntington in about a week. I went by the Riverview Hospital and talked with Dr. Joseph E. Carter, who had been our physician while Sylvia and I were living in Louisa. I told him about my bout with tuberculosis and that Dr. Edwards had thought I would not be accepted for military service. Thinking that I might not receive a careful examination at Huntington, Dr. Carter wrote a letter to the draft board in which he reviewed my medical history and recommended that I be given a thorough examination. I went to see Lafe Wellman. He had sold all of my furniture for me. My refrigerator, he said, was almost new. Thinking it was worth more than half price, or $200, he had been able to sell it for $300. I did not tell him that I still owed the bank $200 I had borrowed before leaving Louisa to finish paying for the refrigerator. Mr. Wellman had not tried to make a profit on the sale of my furniture. I had been in his Sunday school class when I was a boy. Our families were friends. Sylvia's father was his 125 �The Gratis Williams Chronicles: I Come to Boone cousin. I had suffered from misfortunes. He was glad to be of help to me. He wrote me a check for what he had collected. I went to the Funeral Home and paid Henry Curtright the remainder of what I owed for Sylvia's casket. My business all attended to before noon, I decided not to have lunch at Rip's, crowded at lunch time with high school teachers and students, but stopped at Effie's Diner by the railroad track. Only a few farmers, none of whom I recognized, were there. After lunch I walked back to the drug store to wait for the bus to Elaine, On the way I met one of the high school teachers, to whom I spoke. He paused to shake hands with me, but seemed uncomfortable. He said he did not have time to talk as he hurried on. Since it did not matter to me whether we talked, I was amused. Apparently he thought I had wanted to detain him. While I was shaking hands with him, I noticed that the man who had been my assistant principal was not far behind him. When I started on, though, I did not see him. Looking around, I saw him on the other side of the street. He was hurrying along toward the school. I thought he had crossed the street to avoid meeting me. They were exceptionally fine teachers. I regretted that they were also frightened little men. The bus to Elaine had only a few passengers. I got off at Low Gap and walked up the old rocky trail to the bridge across Elaine at the mouth of Cherokee. I met no one on the main road. Gasoline rationing was keeping people at home. Plowed gardens and wisps of smoke from kitchen chimneys were the only signs of human habitation. Pete, the snow white spitz that had belonged to Sylvia and me, was lying on the porch of the Graham home. When I opened the gate of the yard fence, he began barking joyfully, bounded off the porch, and leapt several times to my chin to kiss me, wetting my front at each leap. Mr. and Mrs. Graham came from inside the house to greet me, both amused by Pete's enthusiastic welcome. They were expecting me. Mrs. Graham had baked pies and was preparing a special meal for my homecoming. We talked far into the night. I reported on my visit with Dr. Edwards at Pinecrest, the letter Dr. Carter would write to the draft board, my volunteering for the draft, Lafe Wellman's sale of my furniture, my paying in full what I had owed Henry Curtright. The check I had received for a salary increase retroactive to the first of the school year together with the check Mr. Wellman had written for the furniture provided me with enough money to purchase a stone for Sylvia's grave, get new eyeglasses, and pay off one of the notes I owed. I would report in a week for the next draft quota for Lawrence County and would know soon whether I would be inducted into military service or be rejected. Mrs. Graham agreed to go with me the following Friday to the place in Ashland at which she had bought a stone for the grave of Sylvia's sister. We thought Sylvia's stone should be like it or similar to it. A day or two later I walked over the hill to visit my father and mother, both lonely because they had with them only my little brother, then twelve years old. While I was there, my father asked me how much money I had made as a teacher at Boone that year. When I reported proudly that I had made $2140, he responded, "And with all of your 126 �Longing to Call Boone Home expensive education! Hell, son, I can make more than that swapping knives." Mrs. Graham had a neighbor take us to Louisa on Friday in time to get a bus to Ashland by mid morning. We selected a stone similar to the one at the grave of Sylvia's sister. The monument dealer agreed to have the stone erected at the grave. I paid him $150. We got back to Louisa in time for me to pay off a $200 note at the bank, but Mrs. Graham advised me to wait until after I had responded to the draft call. If I should be accepted for military service, the bank would be obliged to carry my note until I returned. I might need my money. The day before I was to report early in the morning at the courthouse to the draft board I walked to Elaine and rode the afternoon bus to Louisa. I spent the night in the home of Ernest and Nova Wellman, whom I invited to have dinner with me at a restaurant. The following morning I went to the courthouse, where most of the young men who were to report at the induction center, had gathered. Some of them had been high school students while I was the principal of the school in Louisa. The bus in which we were to ride to Huntington was parked behind the courthouse. Mr. Chesley Lycan, the chairman of the draft board, appeared at eight o'clock and stood by the door of the bus. From a list he had in his hand he called the names of those who had been selected for that month's quota. As each person's name was called he responded and entered the bus. I believe there were twenty-eight of us. Mr. Lycan then entered the bus and gave us brief instructions. He appointed me to check the roll when we entered the bus that afternoon to return to Louisa. He thought we might be ready to leave the center in Huntington as early as two o'clock. He asked that we not stray far from the center. He wished us well, left the bus, and the driver started. Most of the young men talked and laughed as if they were pleased to be joining the army. Others were quiet, sober faced, and reflective. A few were grim, unresponsive, and uncommunicative. I thought they were frightened. I was the oldest of the group. The young men who had been students at the high school while I was the principal did not appear to remember me. We were in Huntington within an hour. At the center we were rushed through routines by efficient personnel. The tough sergeant who supervised our undressing for physical examinations barked his instructions, throwing in sharp oaths and profanity with considerable skill. One of the grim faced young men, an awkward and fumbling fellow, became so frightened that he was unable to urinate in his little bottle. At two o'clock he had not yet been able to urinate, even though he had drunk a plenty of water. But he finally succeeded and we were able to leave at four o'clock. When I was administered the skin test for tuberculosis I was directed to a station for chest X-rays. Later, I met with a doctor who had read Dr. Carter's letter and who asked questions about my medical history. He studied my X-rays, but he did not tell me whether they revealed a spot. He commented on the concentrations of scar tissue in my lungs. I might break down in rigorous boot training. He could not approve my acceptance for military service at that time. 127 �The Gratis Williams Chronicles: I Come to Boone We were herded into an eating facility where we passed rapidly by counters to pick up our plates of food for lunch. The unappetizing food, consisting of fried bologna, watery mashed potatoes, pinto beans with no seasoning in them, limp slaw, and a square of white, dry cornbread, had been slopped onto the plate. It must have been the worst food I have ever eaten in my life. At the station for checking out we were given our classification cards. Mine was 4-F. The clerk stamped in red ink on the back of my hand REJECTED. When the shame-faced boy who had taken so long to fill his little bottle finally joined us, I called the roll. All were present. The bus driver hurried back to Louisa. We arrived too late for me to get a bus to Blaine that evening. I went to the telephone office and called Mr. Wey. He was still in his office at the school. I reported that I had been classified as 4-F and would like to return to Boone if my position at the school were still open. No effort had been made yet to find a replacement for me. I was invited to come on back. I had come to Boone on a one-year contract. I assured Mr. Wey that I would be returning for life if they could put up with me that long. Figure K, 128 �Index INDEX OF NAMES Abrams, Amos 42-46, 51, 58, 59, 63-67, 71-73, 77, 78, 83, 84, 113-119 Agle Apartments .............42 Allen, Jennie Sue..... 113-117 Antonakos, Antonios......... ............11, 33, 35, 57, 58, 76, 124 ....69, 85 Appalachian, The Appalachian Theatre 38, 117, 118 Austin, Mary and Martha ...21, 121 Belk's Department Store Blaine, Ky. 22, 24 ........8, 25, 37, 65, 66, 82, 83, 88, 94, 102, 103, 105, 126, 127, 128 Blaine High School, Ky. 83 Blankenship, Curt and Bert 102 Blowing Rock, N.C. 67, 68, 121, 122 Boggs, Ralph Steele ....83 Boone, Charles 121, 122 Boone Lions Club. 72, 116-117 BooneTire and Furniture 36 Boone town dump... 26, 34, 37 Brandon, Myrtle ....63 Brock, Lucy .....63 Brown, Frank C 84 Brown, Wade 117 Burch, Helen .....63 Busteed, Robert.... 63, 72, 116, 117 Caines Creek, Ky. 102, 109 Camp Yonalossee 121-122 Carsteens, Annafreddie........... 60, 111 Carter, Joseph 97, 125-127 Cathcart (Stout), Maud 63 Caudill, Jake......... 117 129 �The Gratis Williams Chronicles: I Come to Boom Chapell Wilson Hall Cherokee, Ky. 13 .............26, 76, 81, 87-89, 91, 92, 94, 102-104, 124, 126 Clark, Joe 48-50,83 Clay, Kenneth 121-122 Cobb, Beatrice 83 Coffey, Mrs 11, 35, 58, 87, 99 Cone Mansion .121, 122 Cook, Council 117, 118 Cooper, Aunt Jenny..... 91, 92, 93 Coram, Ralph, Louise, and Winona 66 Cottrell, Howard and Raleigh 116-118 Cottrell, Oscar 125 Councill, Jim 117 Cove Creek, N.C 99 Crawford, Joe........ 117 Critcher, Aunt Jenny .118 Crowell, Bus 117 Cullers, Mrs ..........................69 Curry, Myrtle 100 Curtright, Henry 76, 92, 97, 104, 126 Daniel, Hugh... 70, 77, 85, 86, 115 Daniel Boone Restaurant ....27, 116, 117 Davenport College .....68 Davidson College ....19 Deep Gap..... 65 Donald, Ruby 22, 40, 67, 70, 77, 88, 99, 112 Dougherty, B.B..... 14, 43, 44 Dougherty, Barnard 114, 120 Dougherty, Edwin ....63 Duke University .44, 83, 84 130 �Index Dukes, Mr ...15,26 East Tennessee & Western North Carolina (ET&WNC) Railroad Edwards, Dr 2, 121 .....41, 50-55, 78, 124-126 Eggers, Daisy 64, Eggers, Graydon ..................63 Eggers, Herman (H.R.) 43, 120 Elon College 83 Eury, Leonard. 63 Faculty Apartments 11, 15, 22, 33-36, 40, 73, 77, 82, 111, 114 Farmers Hardware 36 Flat Top Mountain 7, 121 Flood of 1940 .........37, 121, 122 Foscoe, N.C 122 Foster, Helen ...35, 38, 39 Garbee, Gene 63 Gateway Restaurant 17, 40 Georgia State College for Women 22 Gragg,Watt Graham, Berta ......117 33, 76, 81, 82, 87, 90-100, 102-104, 126, 127 Graham, Georgia 93 Graham, Lemual........... 81, 82, 91-94, 103 Grandfather Mountain ......122 Greene, Cecil 122, 123 Greene, Clyde .........117 Greene, G.C., Jr.... .....99, 121-123 Greene, Hal 122, 123 Greer, Amelia 70 Greer, Milt. 117, 118 Greer Drug Company 25 Guilford College 83 131 �The Gratis Williams Chronicles: I Come to Boone Hagaman,Ted 122, 123 Happy Valley, N.C 68 Hardin, Ronda.... 122, 123 Hartsell, O.M. 63 Haynes, Cleone .........63 Heflin, Harry B....... 63 Hillman, James 58, 59 Hodges, Fred .122-123 Hodges Gap.... 121 Hogston, Luther .....76, 87, 91 Hotel Milner ................49, 54 Howard's Knob 72, 99 Howell, Vance 63 Hudson, Arthur Plamer 83, 84 Hunt, Guy......... 117 International Nickel Corp 1-3, 19, 115, 125 Jente, Richard .83, 84 Johnson, Roy 122, 123 Junaluska .....72 Kazee, Lewis ....94 Kentucky Folklore Society 84 Killian, Bill 69, 85, 86 King, Albert .....117 Ledbetter, Ida Belle 63 Legg, Jack......... 3 Lenoir, N.C 67, 68 Lenoir Rhyne College 19 Lewis, Doug ....80 Liles, Meta ..............63, 71 Linney, Nell Coffey 40 132 �Index Louisa, Ky. 2, 14, 25, 40, 52, 53, 82, 85, 87, 90-97, 101-107, 111, 116, 119, 124-127 LovillHall 71, 76 Lycan, Chesley 127 Lyon, Buell 80 Ma AngelFs Restaurant 27 Manship, Ray and Lib ........118 Marsh, Roy 122, 123 Mast General Store 9, 10 Matheson, Bill 117, 118 Mattern, Terry 71 Maxwell Place 71 McVeigh, Mrs 71 Miles, Louella ..94 Mims, Edwin..... 84 Moore, Aunt Izzie 92 Moore, Emma 63, 120 Moose, G.K 117 Morehead State Teachers College 22, 26, 58, 88 Morris, Arthur .....92, 93 Mosely, Capt. and Mrs 3, 101, 125 Mountain City, Tenn 56, 99 Nash, Gordon 63 Nelson, John and Mary ..40, 67 New Idea, Inc. (Coldwater, Ohio) 115 New River Bridge 48 New River Gorge 4, 79 Newland Hall 12, 15, 22-26, 33-37 Norfolk & Western Railroad 82, 87-89, 94, 105 North Carolina College for Women........ 64 North Carolina English Teachers Association 133 63-65 �The Gratis Williams Chronicles: I Come to Boone North Carolina Folklore Society 63, 73, 83 North Carolina State College at Raleigh 19, 83 O.Henry Hotel 65 Osborn, Lena ....86 Page, Randall 122, 123 Pastime Theater 38 Payne, Frank ..117 Penix, Doris 22, 23, 40, 88, 99 Pinecrest Sanitarium ........2, 4, 41, 42, 50, 55, 78, 83-88, 91, 124, 126 Playcrafters 12 Poole, Miss 18, 20-23, 40, 122 Price, Mr. ..117 Proffitt, Frank 119 Ragan, Mrs 69 Ragan, Walter ...122 Rankin, Dean J.D ......44, 51, 63, 71, 119, 120 Rankin Hall 77 Reynolds. Lee .....117 Rich Mountain ........40, 72 Rivers, Mrs. 1, 18, 20, 21, 42 Robbins Hotel 121 Roberts, Reece 122, 123 Roberts, Sophie 92 Ruth's Place 36 Sanitary Barber Shop 17 Sawyer, George ..62 Shell, Sidney 71 Shulls Mills 121 Sir Walter Raleigh Hotel 73, 83, 84 Smith, A.R 63, 117 134 �Index Smith, Catherine .........60, 70, 111 Smith, Wiley 62, 63, 77 Snake Mountain.... 99 Southard, Orby and Irene 40, 60 Southern Association of Schools and Colleges 115 Sparks, Proctor. 2, 88 Sparta, N.C.... 6, 47, 48, 100 Stacy, Starr 63 Stallings, B.W. 117 Stallings Jewelry Store 10 Steed, Thursa 63 Stout, Lee .117 Sturgill, Herbert.......... 87, 90-92, 103, 104, 110 Teems, Francis 34, 35, 88 Timmons, Laura...................................................... Trade, Tenn... 119 56, 99 Trail of the Lonesome Pine 7, 89 Tucker, Miss... 22, 23, 41 Tugman, Melba Lovill ......114 Vance, Phil .122, 123 Vanderbilt University 84 Vaughan, William H... 40, 58, 59 Virginia Interment College 7 Walker, Glada B 63 Walker's Jewelry Store 36 119, 120 War Correspondent Wary, Virginia ..63 Watkins, Robert W. (Red) 63, 65 Watson, Harold .............122, 123 Watson, James 122 135 �The Gratis Williams Chronicles: I Come to Boone Webster, Betsy 86 Wellman, Ernest and Nova .................127 Wellman, Lafe ......... 103, 104, 119, 125, 126 Wellman, Nova.... 87,91-93, 127 Wellman Bridge ............................80, 81, 91 West Jefferson, N.C ..47, 100 Westall, Miss ..4, 101, 125 Wey, Herbert 12- 23, 30-34, 39-42, 58, 59-64, 70, 85-88, 99, 113,-119, 122, 128 White, Newman I 83, 84 Whitener, DJ ..............63, 85, 117 Wilcox, Herman.. 25-27, 87, 117 Williams, Alma and Nelson 107, 108, 109 Williams, Joseph .63 Williams, Ralph 105-107 Williams, Sylvia Graham 2-6, 12, 16, 24-26, 39-45, 50-55, 60-64, 67, 70-85, 88-95, 97-107, 111-113, 125-127 Wilson, Chapell 1, 2, 5, 11-15, 35, 41, 42, 51, 61-64, 117-119 Wilson, George 65 Wilson, William 122 Winkler, Gordon 117 Winklers Creek 121 Wright, J.T.C 63 Yoder, Julian and Helen ........60 Young, Curt 97, 103, 104 136 �Chronology GRATIS DEARL WILLIAMS CHRONOLOGY April 5, 1911 Born to Curtis and Mona (Whitt) Williams in his grandfather David O. Williams's log house, Caines Creek (Lawrence County), Kentucky. The oldest of five siblings to survive infancy. 1922 Ulysses (Lyss) Williams shot and killed. March 25, 1924 Graduated from elementary school (earning a Certificate of Promotion to High School). May 27, 1928 Graduated from Louisa High School (Kentucky); received the "Honor Student Trophy." 1928-1929 Attended Cumberland College, Williamsburg, Kentucky, on a tuition scholarship and workship. 1929-1933 Taught in one room schools on Caines Creek in Eastern Kentucky. Summer 1932 Took summer classes at Morehead State Normal School and Teachers College, where he studied principles of secondary teaching with William H. Vaughan and Earnest V. Hollis in preparation for certification for principalship. June 2, 1933 B.A. University of Kentucky. 1933-1934 Teacher of science, Elaine High School, Kentucky. 1934-1938 Principal and teacher of English, Elaine High School, Kentucky. August?, 1937 Married Sylvia Graham. August 20, 1937 M.A. University of Kentucky. 1938-1941 Principal, Louisa High School, Kentucky. Summer-Fall 1941 Employed, New Idea, Inc. (maker of farm implements), Coldwater, Ohio. 1942 Instructor, Apprentice School, International Nickel Company, Huntington, West Virginia. August 1942 Accepted a position as "critic teacher" at Appalachian Demonstration High School, Boone, North Carolina. December 1942 Sylvia (Graham) Williams died of tuberculosis, Cherokee, Kentucky. 1942-1946 Critic teacher, assistant principal, director of drama, and director of the first school-wide counseling program established in North Carolina, Appalachian Demonstration High School, Boone. 1946-1949 Assistant professor, English and speech, Appalachian State Teachers College, Boone. Summer 1948 Student, New York University. 137 �The Gratis Williams Chronicles: I Come to Boone Summer 1949Summer 1950 Leave of absence from ASTC to accept a teaching assistantship at Washington Square College of New York University. July 31, 1949 Married Elizabeth Lingerfelt, a native of Elizabethton, Tennessee, in Levittown, Long Island, New York. Two children: Sophie (b. February 18, 1953) and David Gratis (b. April 25, 1955). 1950-1958 Professor of English, Appalachian State Teachers College. Summer 1954 Angier Duke Research Scholar, Duke University. 1958-1975 Dean of the graduate school, ASTC and Appalachian State University. 1961 Ph.D. New York University. Dissertation: "The Southern Mountaineer in Fact and Fiction." 1962 Awarded Founders Day Certificate for excellence from NYU. December 29, 1966 Fire destroys ASTC administration building, burning Gratis Williamss office, containing his ballads collection, research files, correspondence files, and much of his personal library. April 1972 Received Achievement Award Trophy, North Carolina Historical Association. 1973 Received O. Max Gardner Award, University of North Carolina. August 1973 Named Honorary Citizen of Harlan County, Kentucky. 1974 Acting vice chancellor for academic affairs, Appalachian State University. 1975 Acting chancellor, Appalachian State University. November 1975 Received Brown-Hudson Folklore Award, North Carolina Folklore Society. April 1976 Symposium in honor of retirement from Appalachian State University (later evolved into the Appalachian Studies Association). July 1976 Received Laurel Leaves Award from Appalachian Consortium. July 1976 Retired. 1979 Received the W.D. Weatherford Award from Berea College. 1984 Received honorary degrees from Cumberland College, Morehead State University, College of Idaho. 1985 Received honorary degrees from Marshall University, Appalachian State University. May 11, 1985 Died, Boone, North Carolina. 138 �Bibliography SELECTIVE BIBLIOGRAPHY OF GRATIS D. WILLIAMS Books, Monographs and Chapters 1937 Ballads and Songs. M.A. thesis, University of Kentucky. 1961 "The Southern Mountaineer in Fact and Fiction." (3 vols.). Ph.D. dissertation, New York University. 1973 "Introduction." In Western North Carolina Since the Civil War. Ina W. Van Noppen and John J. Van Noppen, vi-x. Boone, NC: Appalachian Consortium Press, 1974 "Afterword." In "...a right good people." Harold E Warren, 126-127. Boone, NC: Appalachian Consortium Press. 1974 "Appalachia and the Human Spirit." Position paper for Southern Appalachian Regional Conference Toward 1984: The Future of Appalachia? Boone, NC, H23- H24. 1975 "The Human Spirit." In Toward 1984: The Future of Appalachia? 97-98. Boone, NC: Appalachian Consortium Press. 1976 Programs for Preparing Community College Personnel at Appalachian State University. Boone, NC: Appalachian State University. 1976 "The Role of Appalachias Colleges in Appalachias Future." Paper read at Mars Hill Conference on Education in Appalachia, June 25. Gratis D. Williams Papers, W.L. Eury Appalachian Collection, Appalachian State University. 1976 "The Appalachian Scotch-Irish Mountaineer Reader." In Reading and the Adult New Reader, Helen H. Lyman, 97-103. Chicago: American Library Association. 1976 Appalachian State University. Boone, NC: Appalachian State University. 1977 "Introduction." In Joy in the Mountains. Lou and Alice Winokur, 6-7. Boca Raton, FL: Lou and Alice Winokur. 1977 "The Small Legal Distillery in Eastern Kentucky." In Our Appalachia: An Oral History, eds. Laurel Shackelford and Bill Weinberg, 103-108. NY: Hill and Wang. 1977 "Introduction." In Western North Carolina: Its Mountains and Its People to 1880, Ora Blackmun, xiii-xv. Boone, NC: Appalachian Consortium Press. 1983 William H. Vaughan: A Better Man Than I Ever Wanted to Be. With "Introduction" by James M. Gifford. Morehead, KY.: Morehead State University. 1992 Southern Mountain Speech. With "Introduction" and "Glossary" by Jim Wayne 139 �The Gratis Williams Chronicles: I Come to Boone Miller and Loyal Jones. Berea, KY.: Berea College Press. 1995 / Become a Teacher: A Memoir of One-Room School Life in Eastern Kentucky. With "Introduction" by James M. Gifford. Ashland, KY.: Jesse Stuart Foundation. Journals and Periodicals 1956 "Lawrence County Superstitions: Pregnancy, Childbirth, and Infancy." Kentucky Folklore Record 2(4): 137-140. 1958 "Fabulous Characters in the Southern Mountains." North Carolina Folklore 6(2): 1-6. 1960 "The North Carolina Mountaineer's Appearance in Fiction." Bulletin: Appalachian State Teachers College, Faculty Publications 1960-1961. December: 20-28. 1961 "The R in Mountain Speech." Mountain Life and Work 37(1): 5-8. 1961 "A.E.I.O.U. (Vowels and Dipthongs in Mountain Speech)." Mountain Life and Work 37(2): 8-11. 1961 "Rhythm and Melody in Mountain Speech." Mountain Life and Work 37(3): 7-10. 1961 "The Content of Mountain Speech (Part IV)." Mountain Life and Work 37r(4): 13-17. 1962 "Kit Brandon, A Reprisal." Shenandoah 13(3): 55-61. 1962 "A How-To-Do Essay on the Motivation of College Teachers." North Carolina Education 28(9): 23,72. 1962 "Verbs in Mountaineer Speech (Part V)." Mountain Life and Work 38(1): 15-19. 1962 "Mountaineers Mind Their Manners (Part VI)." Mountain Life and'Work 38(2): 19-25. 1962 "Metaphor in Mountain Speech (Part VII)." Mountain Life and Work 38(4): 9-12. 1963 "Metaphor in Mountain Speech (Part VIII)." Mountain Life and Work 39(1): 50-53. 1963 "Metaphor in Mountain Speech (Part IX)." Mountain Life and Work 39(2): 51-53. 1964 "Prepositions in Mountain Speech (Part X)." Mountain Life and Work 40(1): 53-55. 1965 "To be Saved, the Mountaineer Must be an American First Not A Mountaineer." Appalachian South 1(2): 38-39. 140 �Bibliography 1966 "Sut Luvingood as a Southern Mountaineer." Bulletin: Appalachian State Teachers College, Faculty Publications 1966. 44(4): 1-4. 1966 "Frank Proffitt: 1913-1965." Mountain Life and Work 42(1): 6-7. 1967 "Subtlety in Mountain Speech (Part XI)." Mountain Life and Work 43(1): 14-16. 1967 "Preparing Teachers for the Expanding Junior College Program." North Carolina Education 33(6): 16-17. 1967 "Moonshining in the Mountains." North Carolina Folklore 15(1): 11-17. 1967 "Traditional Ballads and Folksongs from the Southern Appalachians." Proceedings of the Seventh Marshall University English Institute: Folklore and Children's Literature•, 25-58. Huntington, WV: Marshall University. 1968 "Mountain Customs, Social Life, and Folk Yarns in Taliaferro's Fisher's River Scenes and Characters." North Carolina Folklore 16 (3): 143-152. 1971 "Kentucky's First Mountain Story." Kentucky Folklore Record 17(1): 1-4. 1971 "Linney's Heathen Valley." North Carolina Folklore 19(2): 55-58. 1971 "Heritage of Appalachia." News from the Appalachian State University TTT Project. Winter: 1-3. 1972 "A Look at Boone's Music of 100 Years Ago." Watauga Democrat, July 3:25. 1972 "Who Are the Southern Mountaineers?" Appalachian Journal 1(1): 48-55. 1973 "Response of Gratis Williams." The Oliver Max Gardner Award, 11-15. Meeting of the Board of Governors of the University of North Carolina, Greenville, NC, July 13. 1975 "The Southern Mountaineer in Fact and Fiction (Part 1)." ed. Martha H. Pipes. Appalachian Journal 3(1): 8-61. 1976 "The Southern Mountaineer in Fact and Fiction (Part II)." ed. Martha H. Pipes. Appalachian Journal 3(2): 100-162 1976 "The Southern Mountaineer in Fact and Fiction (Part III)." ed. Martha H. Pipes. Appalachian Journal 3(3)\ 186-261 1976 "The Southern Mountaineer in Fact and Fiction (Part IV)." ed. Martha H. Pipes. Appalachian Journal 3(4): 334-392. 1976 "Appalachia in Fiction." Appalachian Heritage 4 (4): 44-56. 141 �The Gratis Williams Chronicles: I Come to Boone 1976 "Eastern Kentucky True Bicentennial Area, Most Direct Line of Colonial Heritage: A Bicentennial Essay." Ashland Daily Independent, July 4:3. 1977 "The Appalachian Experience." Historical Sketches of Southwest Virginia 11: 1-9. 1977 "The Mountain Folk of Western North Carolina." Tar Heel Junior Historian 17(1): 2-6. 1978 "The Liberal Spirit in Contemporary Education." News from the Southern Cluster of TTT: 1-2. 1978 "Appalachian Speech." North Carolina Historical Review 55(2): 174-179. 1979/1980 "Ballad Collecting in the 1930s." Appalachian Journal 7(I-2}: 33- 36. 1980 "Ye Offspring of Vipers." Appalachian Heritage 8(2): 32-37. 1985 "The Appalachian Homestead." Watauga County Times.,.Past 17/18: 13-15. Video (available in W. L. Eury Appalachian Collection, Belk Library, ASU) 1981 "The Ballad of Appalachia." Interview with Gratis D. Williams by Rogers Whitener and Ron Rankins. Boone, NC: Center for Instruction Development, Appalachian State University. 1986 The Story of English (Part IV): The Guid Scots Tongue. [Includes interview with Gratis Williams.] Produced by William Gran. BBC TV co-production with MacNeil-Lehrer Production in association with WNET Chicago, IL: PMI/Films Inc. 1986b American tongues. [Includes interview with Gratis Williams.] Producers, Andrew Kolker and Louis Alvarez. New York, NY: The Center for New American Media. 1998 Cratis Williams: Living the Divided Life. Produced by Fred Johnson and Jean Donohue. Covington, KY: Media Working Group. Gratis Dearl Williams Papers The Cratis D. Williams Papers, a subset of the Cratis Dearl Williams Collection, contains mostly post-1967 papers, including Williams's research papers, speeches, conference presentations, memoirs, correspondence, and genealogical research, as well as materials related to the history of Appalachian State University and to Williams's service as graduate school Dean and Acting Chancellor. The Cratis Dearl Williams Collection is housed in ASU's W.L. Eury Appalachian Collection. 142 �ncal Sources/List of Photographs Biographical Sources 1969 Who's Who in America. Chicago: A.N. Marquis Company. 1971 Leaders in Education. 4th ed. London and New York; Jaques Cattell Press/R.R. Bowker Company. 1985 "Gratis Williams Memorial Issue." Watauga County Times...Past 17/18. 1996 Dictionary of North Carolina Biography. H.G. Jones. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press. List of Photographs Figure 1. A new generation of Williams, 1917 ii Figure 2. As a high school graduate, 1928 Figure 3. Gratis and his one-room school class, Caines Creek Figure 4. Ralph J. Williams with his grade school students, Caines Creek, 1938 ix Figure 5. Gratis with brothers Ralph J. and Ottie Curtis, 1930 ix Figure 6. Curt Williams with Gratis, late 1920s x Figure 7. While principal of Elaine High School xi Figure 8. Gratis and Ethel Gambill, Blaine, Kentucky, 1933 xii Figure 9. Louisa High School Building xv Figure 10. Faculty, Louisa High School, 1940 xvi Figure 11. Gratis and friend, 1949 xxv Figure 12. Gratis and "Miss Homecoming 1948" xxv Figure 13. Elizabeth Lingerfelt, New York City, 1949 xxviii Figure 14. Gratis Williams married to Elizabeth Lingerfelt xxviii Figure 15. Letter from Gratis Williams to Doc Abrams, published in N.C. Education, Sept. 1949 xxviii vii viii Figure 16. Gratis at his new house, 1954 xxix Figure 17. "Preacher Gratis," 1963 xxxi Figure 18. Dean of the graduate school, 1968 xxxi Figure 19. Gratis Williams and Loyal Jones, 1984 xxxv Figure 20. Gratis and Herb Wey, 1973 xxxv 143 �The Gratis Williams Chronicles: I Come to Boone Figure A. Sylvia Graham Williams, 1937 Figure B. Herbert W. Wey, 1940's 12 Figure C. Main entrance of Appalachian Demonstration High School, 1940's 13 Figure D. Faculty Apartments, 1942 36 Figure E. Ruby Donald and Hugh Daniel, 1942 70 Figure F. Sylvia Graham and Gratis Williams, 1937 79 Figure G. Berta and Lemual Graham with Sylvia and Gratis Williams, 1938 81 5 Figure H. Gathering of teachers, 1943 114 Figure I. A country outing, 1943 115 Figure J. Gratis Williams's homeroom, Appalachian Demonstration High School, 1942-1943 123 Gratis Williams 128 Figure K. 144 �The Gratis Williams Region, 1942 Hwttingtqp: Source: Appalachian University, G1S & Processing Lab, Eric Schmidt, 1998. �ABOUT GRATIS WILLIAMS (April 5, ipii-May ii, 1985) for in he of his at North Carolina. two-volume Ph.D. in Fiction/' so the of his his so the to life as a in "The to put an to it. With as a he the it to be � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Appalachian Consortium Press Publications Description An account of the resource This collection contains digitized monographs and collections from the Appalachian Consortium Press. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Appalachian Consortium Press Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Appalachian Consortium Press Date Issued Date of formal issuance (e.g., publication) of the resource. June 1, 2017 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource <a title="Digital Scholarship and Initiatives" href="http://library.appstate.edu/services/digital-scholarship-and-initiatives" target="_blank">Digital Scholarship and Initiatives</a> Publication Digital Publisher Digital Republication Appalachian State University Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The Cratis Williams Chronicles: I Come to Boone Description An account of the resource <span>Following his retirement in 1976 from a distinguished career as a teacher and administrator at Appalachian State University in Boone, North Carolina, Cratis Williams wrote these memoirs of his life odyssey from a log cabin in eastern Kentucky to the upper echelons of American education.</span><br /><br /><a href="https://drive.google.com/open?id=1CusNMiTGNjI_1RRo7gaBtmihAv0PWQmd" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Download EPub<br /><br /></a><a title="UNC Press Link" href="https://www.uncpress.org/book/9781469641959/the-cratis-williams-chronicles" target="_blank" rel="noopener">UNC Press Print on Demand</a> Subject The topic of the resource Williams, Cratis D. Appalachian State Teachers College (N.C.)--History Appalachian State University--History Educators--North Carolina--Biography Boone (N.C.)--History Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Williams, Cratis D. Williams, David Cratis Beaver, Patricia D. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1999 Language A language of the resource English Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Appalachian Consortium Press Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource PDF Biographies E-books Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed</a> Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. https://www.geonames.org/4456703/boone.html Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a title="UA 76 Appalachian Consortium records" href="https://appstate-speccoll.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/9" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"> UA 76 Appalachian Consortium records </a> Is Part Of A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included. <a title="Appalachian Consortium Press Publications" href="https://omeka.library.appstate.edu/collections/show/82" target="_blank" rel="noopener"> Appalachian Consortium Press Publications</a> Temporal Coverage Temporal characteristics of the resource. 1990s Appalachian State University autobiography Cratis D. Williams https://omeka-test.library.appstate.edu/files/original/8ef19b8ab7dd05f2893c2d6a33771b51.pdf 192321684f6b38c2d92f02c6839e2d71 PDF Text Text �CABIN A Mountain Adventure Regional Focus Series �Appalachian Consortium Press Boone, North Carolina �CABIN A Mountain Adventure by Barbara G. Hallowell Illustrations by Aline Hansens �The Appalachian Consortium was a non-profit educational organization composed of institutions and agencies located in Southern Appalachia. From 1973 to 2004, its members published pioneering works in Appalachian studies documenting the history and cultural heritage of the region. The Appalachian Consortium Press was the first publisher devoted solely to the region and many of the works it published remain seminal in the field to this day. With funding from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities through the Humanities Open Book Program, Appalachian State University has published new paperback and open access digital editions of works from the Appalachian Consortium Press. www.collections.library.appstate.edu/appconsortiumbooks This work is licensed under a Creative Commons BY-NC-ND license. To view a copy of the license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses. Original copyright © 1986 by the Appalachian Consortium Press. ISBN (pbk.: alk. Paper): 978-1-4696-3656-6 ISBN (ebook): 978-1-4696-3658-0 Distributed by the University of North Carolina Press www.uncpress.org �To John, Anne, and Charlesuprooted and transplanted, they flourished, and to Tom, a very special partner With the exception of the Hallowell family members and George, Della, Oscar, Green Berry, Henry, and George, Jr., all names of people have been changed. Place names are real. �This page intentionally left blank �Acknowledgements Writing a book is a solitary task. During uncountable hours the writer pores through files and books, journals and letters, tapes and papers. Through more hours he imagines and creates-or sits and stares into space unproductively. From the information pile he selects pieces and sets them into place within that grand puzzle, the story. But writing a book also involves people, lots of people, who influence it by contributing information, advice, support, and criticism-or perhaps just a willing ear. To the many people involved with this book, I owe much appreciation. For their willingness to tell about family life and early times at the Nelson farm, I thank Gertrude Lowe, Rachel Huggins and Gladys and Hubert McCarson. For his encouragement of my writing about the farm and cabin and for his expert information about the mountain dialect and people, I want to thank Dr. Cratis Williams of Appalachian State University and Appalachian Consortium. The pleasure of this and presenting him a copy of the printed book has been denied me, however. His death has taken from us one of the most informed persons on Southern Appalachian mountain people and culture. For their helpful suggestions about the manuscript, I thank my mother, Ruth Gawthrop, and my sister, Nancy Wilson; cousins Jean George and Betty Girdler; friends Helen Fish and Dr. Hal Smith; editors Mead Parce and Rick Gunter; authors Wilma Dykeman and Elliott Wigginton. For her graciousness, perseverence, and talents in planning and creating the illustrations and for her editorial advice, I thank Aline Hansens, and for his interest and support, Dr. Elton Hansens. �For consistently cheerful and careful service in copy work, I thank Sinclair Office Supply of Hendersonville. For giving time and ideas and hard labor often beyond the call of duty, I thank our children, John, Anne, and Charles Hallowell. And most important of all, for making the cabin project possible and for his considerate and patient support of the book through its growing pains and evolution, I thank my husband, Tom. What a team! �Contents 1. "Where?" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 2. The Hunt . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 3. Cleanup. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37 4. Decisions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59 5. "'Bout Three Months". . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83 6. "Take 'Er All Down" ........................ 121 7. "Put 'Er Up Agin" .......................... 145 8. Born Again . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173 9. "Chimley" ................................ 195 10. Closing The Gaps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215 11. Weekend . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231 Footnotes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 253 �This page intentionally left blank �Introduction The North Carolina Mountains-Boone, Sugar Mountain, Banner Elk, Blowing Rock-this was the whole new Appalachian world opening before our eyes when in 1980 my husband and I decided to leave hot Sarasota, Florida, summers for the cool of the mountains which we had heard so much about. At first we mostly enjoyed the change of climate and the breathtaking scenery of this Blue Ridge Mountain area. As the misty summers and glowing autumns passed, we explored the countryside and came to know people whose roots were here. We were enchanted with the beauty all around us and delighted with these friendly, softspoken natives and their natural dry wit. Our new summer home gained depth and meaning, and added a new dimension to our lives. We began to appreciate and collect paintings and crafts by local artists. Feeding the birds became a rewarding daily routine. We found many familiar New England feathered friends and made acquaintance with hummingbirds, Carolina wrens, redbreasted nut hatches, towhees, and others. We were fortunate to become associated with the Appalachian Consortium which offered a deeper understanding of the culture and heritage of the area. When, as a member of the Appalachian Consortium Publications Committee I read Barbara Hallowell's "Cabin: A Mountain Adventure", a strong sense of recognition of my experience discovering Appalachia made me want to share her story with you. Her tale of the experiences as an outsider and her family from New Jersey and Pennsylvania moving into the Hendersonville, North Carolina, region is delightfully told. In the process of buying a piece of mountain, where they tore down and rebuilt an old log cabin, they learned much about mountain living, speech, and mores, thereby gaining a true understanding of Appalachia. Their encounters with the natural environment add flavor to her story. The book captures many of the same impressions and feelings shared by others moving to this region. I hope you will enjoy it as much as I did. Joan H. Dobbins Board of Advisors Appalachian Consortium ��Chapter 1 "Where?" South 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 A Piece of Mountain 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 2 9 �South A screech owl's wavering call, plaintive, comfortably familiar, floated through the open window from the night woods. I smiled as I lay abed-how fortunate we are to live where owls call at night! At times we could hear the purrs and chatters of raccoons as they crept on dark trees or fingered tidbits in the stream. Maybe right now a 'possum was scuffling through our yard or a cottontail nibbling spring sprouts. Certainly, the ubiquitous shrews were scurrying about in feverish search for prey to satisfy voracious appetites. Night or day, wildlife used our premises; life was busy out there. I rested, content and grateful, and slipped quickly into deep sleep, peacefully ignorant of a piece of news that within the hour would shake my steady world. A jarring rumble jolted me wide awake, and I froze, listening acutely. "Did you hear that?" I whispered intensely toward Tom, but he was not beside me. Men's voices sounded. Suddenly I laughed out loud and relaxed in relief. Of course! That was just the garage door sliding up on its tracks beneath the bedroom, just Tom and the boys returning from the city. Thoughts of their big event flickered in my dull, sleepy mind. Our teenage sons, home from school on spring vacation, had picked up two neighbor boys and driven to meet Tom after work. All had made the hour-long trip into New York for a double-header basketball game at Madison Square Garden, an exciting event for the four youngsters, a refreshing change from intense job responsibilities for Tom. Now Tom climbed the stairs to our room. "Hi," I mumbled drowsily. "Have fun?" "Yep. Both good games. Close. Overtime for both." "Nice." I dozed off while he readied for bed. Suddenly I was aware that he was sitting on the edge of the bed beside me. I glanced up into glaring light. He still had his glasses on. "What's up?" I queried, perplexed, curious. "Well, you've always said you'd go willingly wherever we might be sent." 2 �Instantly sitting wide awake, I shouted a suspense-laden, "Where?" The prospect of a company transfer for Tom had loomed throughout the nineteen years of our marriage, but as each year passed, the likelihood diminished until we had dismissed the possibility. But suddenly, this was it! Only one out of four or five possible locations was attractive to us, and an eternity passed before he answered quietly, "North Carolina." "Great! Terrific!" I collapsed onto the pillow and listened as Tom described his new job at the company's North Carolina plant. We basked in the glow of this fine prospect. "When did you learn of this?" "Today, but we can't tell anyone, even the children, till it's announced at the plant next week." "You had to sit through all that long evening and not talk about it?" "Yep." ''And both games overtime!" We sat in turmoil and silence as a flood of questions, excitement, misgivings, delight, and dismay engulfed us. "Tom! What about Europe?" "What do you think?" For years we had dreamed of a family trip to Europe, delaying until our three children, John, Anne, and Charlie, had sufficient history and language in school to provide solid background for a worthwhile venture. The great plan was completely arranged for July-itinerary decided, passports on hand, special clothing purchased, and luggage set. Enthusiasm and air castles flourished in all of us. "When do you report for work in North Carolina?" "April first." One week away. "And we'll have to buy a house there and sell this one and move after school is over in June and ....Tom, we can't possibly go to Europe!" "That's what I concluded." "Oh, the kids'll be crushed-by everything-except your job, of course." 3 �"I know." We sat on, gloomily mulling the prospect of their leaving here. This was home-they had never lived anywhere else. They loved it here where their roots ran deep. Our quiet, New Jersey village was true hometown. Our U-shaped street of solid homes abounded with playmates and bordered a farm. The children had learned how corn grows and when strawberries ripen, watched spring plowings and summer-fall harvests, and witnessed the results of drought and deluge on a farmer's crops. The moods of the woods and life of the pond were everyday experience. With winter came neighborhood ice hockey and sledding, with summer came swim teams and shelling at the ocean beach only four miles away. The house welcomed a clutter of beach combings and defunct hornet's nests, baseball gear and roller skates. Snakes and turtles, injured birds and baby raccoons, infant cottontails and developing toads, even creeping creatures from mantids to monarch larvae, found care and eventual release from our home. How could our young folks leave all this? Through morning's earliest hours we struggled and groped in the jungle of new and changed plans, always trying to convince each other that a move after seventeen years in a house and neighborhood we loved would not be too major. The day came when the news was announced, and the shock was massive. Each family member fought a deep personal battle, the hurt intensified by the crumbled dream of a family trip to Europe. But as overburdened weeks sped by and Tom flew in on occasional weekends, bringing information about the area he was learning to know and enjoy, unexpected excitement for the changes ahead began to build. Though dear things in home and neighborhood became dearer, the challenges of North Carolina grew acceptable, then even attractive. Our family of five began to look forward to the move. A family conference set up requirements for the house Tom was hunting. "Let's get a big, oldtime farmhouse, Dad," one of the boys declared. 4 �"Yeah! All rambly with lots of rooms but nothing fancy," someone added. Visions of the simple but wonderfully spacious old stone or clapboard farmhouses we had known throughout eastern Pennsylvania and Maryland influenced our dreams. "Can we have a pasture and stable for a horse?" Anne, at sixteen, was determined to realize her dream of owning a horse, and we concurred. "And a stream?" "Gotta be a yard space for playing soccer." "Let's have it on a hill where we can look off and see stars without a lot of trees to look through-no glaring street lights." "Let's have a mountain view." "Yes!" Tom glanced at me quickly as we noted the enthusiasm in this unanimous endorsement of his idea. Because our new hometown, Hendersonville, lay amid the Blue Ridge Mountains, a mountain property with a view and hill and rhododendron in masses seemed natural-even imperative. For years in the crowded northeast our outdoors-loving family had journeyed to places close and distant, but always we hiked or explored in national or state or county parks or on private land. Do not pick. Do not feed. Do not walk on. Do not take. Do not go beyond this point. Do not-do not-do not. All agreed, since we had to move, we would like a place where we would be free to take a rock, pluck a flower, build a pond, pasture a horse, eat the berries, set up a blind, dig a fern, bush-whack off the paths, and enjoy any time or season. Tom discovered quickly that most "oldtime farmhouses" in the mountains were log cabins of modest proportions, many of which had crumbled long ago or been torn down or modernized beyond recognition. No realtor greeted him with a rambling house overlooking a fine view of mountains. I flew to Hendersonville two weekends to investigate what Tom had found, knowing that a decision had to be made on the second trip, but disappointed with what we found. Our choice was nineteen years old, a spacious but modern house on four acres. It lay in a hollow, bordered by a stream, enhanced by a small meadow, a horse shed, and neighbors within loud calling distance. More than a hundred white pines surrounded 5 �the house, and every window framed a pleasing outlook into them. The place was undeniably lovely and would serve our needs well, so we pushed aside our disappointment that it lacked the flavor of the mountains and concentrated on these positive features. After describing it to the children with lukewarm effect, Tom assuaged us all with a spur of the moment thought, adding rather carelessly, "Maybe after we get settled, we can hunt a little piece of mountain, a few acres close to home. We could even all pitch in and build a shack on it for overnights." The children pounced on this wild proposition with unexpected fervor, "Neat-o!" and, "Hey, really? That's a great idea!" and, "Let's start hunting!" but in the turmoil of our final days in New Jersey, it had to be shoved into temporary storage. Sale of the house, farewell parties, and a festive garage sale preceded that day of confused emotions when hard-muscled movers packed our possessions into a massive van. Then on July 17, 1971, a station wagon load of tearful Hallowells, plus Happy, our mostly-beagle, two hens, four guinea pigs, and assorted plants and baggage, bid a dramatic farewell to a crowd of equally tearful neighbors and headed south. South! Whoever thought we would be turning away from the northeast? From early colonial times our heritage lay deep and intertwined in the rolling hills of southeast Pennsylvania, Maryland, and New Jersey, holding us more strongly than we cared to admit. Most relatives still lived in these home states, but we were leaving, heading toward a state which seemed like a foreign country. The prospect of living in a state which included one of our favorite places, the Outer Banks and Cape Hatteras, delighted us at first, until we discovered North Carolina's size; we would live almost as far from Hatteras in North Carolina as we had in New Jersey. Hendersonville lay in the western mountains on a map line south from Detroit, Michigan. Nearly 650 miles later eager faces filled every window of our car as we rode down busy Main Street in Hendersonville. A typical variety of small town stores passed by slowly, and in front of them people sat in relaxed and sociable comfort on green park benches under maple shade. 6 �"Looks like a restful town," someone commented. " 'Tis," answered Tom, "especially this time of year. Summer people come here from Florida and Georgia and South Carolina and the Piedmont of North Carolina to enjoy cooler weather-and of course, scenery and mountain crafts. They say it's been a big summer tourist town since way back in the 1800s. I understand it really boomed in the '20s, lots of hotels and boarding houses and ... :'. "What's that?" Suddenly, set back in its square, an imposing, columned building stood grandly beside us. A gold domelike structure with a statue topped it. "That's the courthouse;' Tom explained. "Hendersonville was founded as the Henderson County seat. I think it was in 1841 when they started building the town, and it's been the hub of the county ever since. People I've talked to are really enthusiastic about living here. 'Lots going on,' they say. The state summer theatre is in Flat Rock, just a couple miles away, and there's a new symphony and continuing education classes and ....". He paused. "And there's a terrific library," I put in, having explored it during a house-hunting trip, "and art groups and hiking clubs. Apparently the affluent summer people from Charleston who settled in Flat Rock in the early 1800s started a tradition of high culture around here that's still going full tilt!" Tom continued the run of information. "And I checked with the Chamber of Commerce and learned there are over 100 churches in the county and only 50,000 people." "Three golf courses, too, and games at the high school." "I read that Henderson County is one of the biggest apple growing counties in the whole country;' Anne added. "Hope they make good cider." Already we had passed the brief business district and returned to scattered houses and countryside. Only two and a half miles from town we turned into a gravel lane and drove under low pine boughs to our house, where four car doors swung open simultaneously and the Hallowells and Happy spilled out. John, Anne, and Charlie rushed into the empty house. Tom and I followed 7 �hastily, eager to see their response. Pleased faces revealed obvious delight for them and relief for us. The furniture arrived and we settled in, now official residents of western North Carolina. The roar of our beloved ocean was hundreds of miles away, but the splash of rocky mountain streams cascading through rhododendron thickets awaited us. 8 �A Piece of Mountain The family from New Jersey gradually learned the ways of the people in their new home territory. We had moved to a town where unhurrying store clerks serve with natural courtesy and call, "Hurry back!" as we depart. We had moved to a county where someone walking along a rural road waves as we pass, and we wave back, feeling good, each sharing that point in the road at the moment with a gesture of friendly greeting. We learned that here a pond is called a lake, a small valley is a holler, a sheltered dip in the hills is a cove, and a stream is a branch. If the branch has strong and steady flow, it is bold, and hundreds of branches rush over rounded rocks and boulders between the hills. For some of the local folks tires are tars---='Them tars you got there is mighty wore!' And oil is ole---='Git yer ole man to up that tank." Here people he'p you when you need help. Rhododendron is called laurel, and laurel is called ivy, and both are often hacked down as weeds, for they grow in persistant, impenetrable thickets. Anne and Charlie were astonished and pleased to find that if they left a sweater or book lying somewhere at high school by mistake, they would find it when they returned to hunt it. We found that hot summer days, never as humid as we had known, are followed by fresh, cool evenings. One can even sit out on screenless porches without being consumed alive by mosquitoes. The dirt road, paved into history in the areas we had known, is a routine fact of mountain living. Hundreds of dirt road miles, lined by forests, ferns, and flowers instead of sterile roadside strips, wind and rewind up and down the hills. The color of our car changed to dusty beige as we explored them. The mountains grew in fascination and charm as we roamed their coves and slopes and summits, and pressure built for releasing from storage Tom's wild idea about "our piece of mountain." We talked often of what it should be. "Top priority is a good view and big expanse of sky;' I noted, "and it should be sunny and protected, not facing north winds." 9 �"Dad, it'll be mostly for Mom and you 'cause we'll be off at college and jobs, so it should be mostly what you folks want." John, at seventeen, was far more foresighted than his parents, who kept visualizing a place especially for our young people, ignoring the passage of time. "Yes, but we want you three to enjoy it when you come home. What would you like?" we persisted. ''A motor cycle course!" John responded instantly, indulging his dream of owning a cycle, "and a place to practice target shooting with Grandpa's rifle." "A place close enough to ride my horse to," added Anne, for already she had negotiated to purchase her equine dream. "Gotta have a little pond for Mom, for frogs to jump in, you know." Fourteen year old Charlie loved to tease me about my soft heart for wild creatures. "Wouldn't it be neat to find one of those old Appalachian mountain cabins we've seen!" Anne had succumbed to the charm of log houses. "Hold on! We're not looking for a house!" Tom insisted we be realistic. "This has to be easy on the pocketbook, folks. We're just after a bit of acreage with a view, and there's lots of it around here plenty cheap right now, but put a house on it ...." A significant silence followed his unfinished statement. "I just want to wander around the place with time to watch and photograph things without interruptions and 'Do not touch' signs." "Me, too. But really, I won't be around very much." "Me, either:' "Dad'll want it for bird watching." "I don't want to hear any motors." "What about John's motorcycle?" "Now, how are we going to explain to any realtor that we want a quiet outdoor lab for bird watching and nature photography combined with a rifle range and a motor cycle course near a pond where frogs'll jump in?" No one laughed, each too intent on an imaginary picture of the property. 10 �"Imagine hiking on our own mountain land!" "It better be west of town so it's near home and still close to the big mountains on the Blue Ridge Parkway." "We'd better make a list." The list evolved quickly and lay conspicuously on a table for many days so all could live with it to be sure it was complete and right. It finally stated eight features: 1. View of mountains 2. Woods 3. Open Fields 4. Stream or pond 5. 10-20 acres, depending on price 6. South or west exposure, i.e. land dropping off in that direction 7. West of town, but within a half hour drive of town 8. A small shack or shelter or good site for one I typed multiple copies of this list, prefacing it with a statement that we realized finding all of these features would be difficult, post-scripting with, "The ideal place would be a small mountain cabin that can be put into useable condition, located in a clearing facing south or west with mountain and woods behind and a view in front." Mid-October beamed with sunshine and goldenrod. Three months of mountain living lay behind us, and the family was eager to indulge more heavily. The hunt was on. 11 �This page intentionally left blank �Chapter 2 The Hunt Realtors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 39.6 Acres ............................... 15 Getting Acquainted ........................ 21 Walking the Boundaries .................... 30 Title .................................... 32 Anticipation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34 13 �Realtors They laughed-all six of them, without exception. On a blustery October day I made the rounds of six realty offices to present each with the list of requirements for our mountain property. Each realtor perused the list with solemn interest, then laughed. Each looked at me directly and commented essentially, "You must realize, Mrs. Hallowell, that nearly everyone hunting acreage in this area wants a mountain view with stream and woods and ...." Apparently we were hunting a needle in the haystack, and other buyers were lined up at the realtors hunting with us. To top it, we wanted our land with a view to be cheap and close to town. Though the laughs were polite, their prevalence and similarity unsettled us, but naivete encouraged stubborn hope, and we felt deep satisfaction that action on our dream had started. Through the ensuing weeks I traveled countless winding miles with various realtors as they showed properties which in realty terms sounded exciting, but the "fine, extensive woods" of one was a long, straight row of pines in a hedgerow between two cornfields, and the "panoramic view" of another was sliced by a huge power line, complete with looming steel towers. On a tract with "a magnificent view, natural beauty, carefully preserved," a major portion of the land lay at a 45° angle or greater. One tract of over one hundred acres covered a small mountaintop. Its 360° view, and 5-acre lake set in mature woods nearly tempted us to overindulge, but common sense rallied and won. Another site of special beauty and potential lay at the end of nearly ten disheartening miles of dirt road with multiple hairpin turns. Each realtor struggled diligently and diplomatically to convince me we were hunting an impossible combination of features and must compromise. "Yes, I understand, but we have a feeling, we know that a special place lies tucked away somewhere near here, undiscovered." The more discouraging the hunt, the more determined we became to find exactly the right site. The more we explored the forested hills and coves, the more we fell in love with them, convinced that this hunt was destined to succeed. 14 �39.6 Acres What made me look at the classified ads on acreage one midNovember morning? Days had passed without a thought for them. I just happened to look, and a simple three-line ad caught my interest: "39.6 acre old farm, half cleared, half woodland, 2 streams, springs," more acreage than we wanted, but if it were inexpensive.... I drew a red circle around it and called the listed realtor who replied, "That's the place I called you about last week." I remembered his call; I had been busy with house guests. "Let's go see it. Now," I suggested. In a jeep we jostled and lurched along one of the unpaved roads that snake through the forested hills west of town. The realtor remarked rather apologetically that the small house on the property was "pretty run down. Some old folks are living in it. Land's been in her family for generations, but they don't own it now." They would be attached to that land, I thought, but influenced by his lack of enthusiasm for the house, I concentrated on assessing terrain and heard only bits of his talking. ".. .lost ownership... business problems of some sort .. .fellow that owns it lets them live there ...wants to unload the place ... pretty neglected ...." As we turned into a quiet, overgrown lane, the realtor assured me we were only five or six miles from town, though it seemed at least twenty. We crept along banks patched with evergreen leaves of galax, arbutus, and partridge berry amid dried remnants of ferns, and bounced over several rocks protruding in the lane. The ceiling of intertwined oak, tulip tree, and sourwood twigs stopped suddenly, and ahead in a clearing, partly hidden behind two stately hemlocks, stood the house. "Like I said, it needs repair," the realtor muttered quickly in the understatement of the year. I studied the dilapidated, ugly structure in unabashed silence. The jeep stopped behind two junk cars abandoned in the lane. Several more, minus wheels, rested beyond them near a sagging corn crib. We stepped between two of the head-high boxwoods which bordered the front yard, and a strong whiff of their pungent 15 �scent swept me back to the magnificent boxwoods at Longwood Gardens in southeastern Pennsylvania near my childhood hometown. I grew up associating boxwoods with wealth and elegance. How did a humble mountain home have such handsome shrubs? As we climbed several worn stone steps and passed a strip of mostly-weeds garden, the front door stood open, held by an unshaven old man in a crumply felt hat. He welcomed us with a toothless grin, for we were expected-the house had a telephone and the realtor had called ahead. Oscar Huggins asked us in. "This here's Deller," he muttered as his frail but lively-eyed wife appeared from a back room. Della greeted us with a bright smile and promptly plunged into non-stop conversation about the house as the realtor tried simultaneously to explain that I was looking for mountain acreage. I noticed the water in the back room kept running and wondered why no one shut if off. I had been raised to consider a drippy spigot as intolerable and wasteful, and this was not merely dripping but splashing noisily. Della nearly burst with impatience to show us her house, but the realtor allowed only a glance at its several downstairs rooms before urging me outside. The property was far more likely to encourage a sale than the forlorn house. Della was visibly disappointed. Sickly with angina, she stood framed in the doorway, a study of wistful watching as Oscar followed us into the yard. Gray sky intensified the dreary, monochromatic tones of late autumn countryside, though a few persistent yellow sprigs of tulip tree broke the somber scene. Several acres of open fields, some terraced, extended out to the south and down to the west. Beyond these were woods, and through the trees, mountains. Oscar looked off to them. "Used to see them mountains yonder just fine. Warn't no trees growed up then. Hit was all clear, all farmed." He drawled his words slowly, avoiding elaboration. "None of these woods were here?" I asked, needing affirmation. "Nope. All fields. Corn and tater fields and the like-and orchards." I gaped at the endless woods surrounding the few open acres, 16 �trying to absorb this startling fact and picture the scene as it may have looked back then. "How long ago was that?" "Mebbe thirty-forty years, I reckon, since Deller's daddy died 'bout '39. That'n over 'ere was in 'maters, and this'n here was fer cows. Over yonder was sometimes corn, sometimes hay. Hit was a fine place ... a fine place," he added to himself, appearing lost in memories for a moment. In the silence I heard water running. "Is there a stream in the meadow down there?" "Shor is! A good branch down 'ere, a bold'n, and another'n back down over 'ere," and he swung an arm in the opposite direction. We sauntered to the south side of the house. I found myself so drawn to the derelict house that concentrating on property was difficult. The colorful variety of worn asphalt shingles had obviously protected it a long time-greens covered the south gable, tans the house wall, and out back reds and a few blues showed on a little addition, the kitchen. Around back several shingles had been torn from the main house wall, and a few dangled. The wall beneath showed clearly, and my heart jumped. Logs! Beautiful, squared, hand-hewn logs! I tried to appear calm and asked casually, "Are these the original logs?" "Sure are!" "How old are they?" "Mebee seventy-eighty years. You'll hafta ask Deller. She'd know. Her daddy, George Nelson, built it." "What wood are they?" "They's oak and yeller poplar, and some's chestnut. Cut right here on this land, they were." "Is this stuff between the logs mud?" "Sure is!" An honest-to-goodness old Appalachian mountain cabin for sale! I studied the house with new eyes, trying to picture it without the multi-colored shingles and tarpaper roof. Roof! "What's under those sheets of roofing?" I ventured, holding my breath. 17 �"Nuthin';' Oscar answered. He paused, then added, "The old shingles was took off a couple years ago. They were chestnut. George Nelson made 'em here hisself. Man that owns the place now thought they might catch far and put that on," pointing. "Where are they now?" Ignorant of the mountain ways, my mind found them stacked neatly somewhere, hoarded as irreplaceable chestnut wood which should be treasured. "Oh, we needed farwood. Burned real good, they did." We passed the leaning corncrib and started up the slope behind the house, stepping over a metal, U-shaped trough, rainspout-like, on the ground. Water coursed through it. "What's this?" I asked. "Hit's bringing' water from the branch?" "Where to?" He looked a touch impatient with this ignorant outsider so full of questions, but we were easily thirty feet from the house. Suddenly he grinned and volunteered, "I'll show you." Trampling through mint, which scented our progress, we followed the trough to where its water spilled through a piece of wire screen into a pail. From a hole in the pail's bottom, a hose carried water downhill to a hole in the kitchen wall. "Gravity feed;' stated the realtor, guessing correctly that I had not encountered this type arrangement before. I was bursting to ask more about the primitive but effective water system, but the men were pushing into a tangle of honeysuckle, blackberry, grape, and field weeds. Young sumac, locust, and dogwood trees poked through it, clues that perhaps a dozen years had passed since this slope had been cultivated. Uphill was older forest. "This here was orchard;' said Oscar, indicating the younger area, and looking uphill, he continued, "and thay 1 was a tater field futher up." "Is the entire acreage woods- except for the fields we see?" "Yep. Only 'bout eight-ten acres is fields now." We pushed up into the tangle far enough to be able to look over the house top when we turned toward the west, and I caught my breath at the scene spread before us. A series of close, soft- 18 ��sloping wooded hills framed a generous wedge of layered mountains extending to perhaps twenty miles away. To the south, other mountains rose above the nearby forest. By climbing a few feet further up the hill we gazed on a nearly 180° unobstructed view of mountains and absorbed the beauty in silence. Oscar probably saw it as a daily fact in a lifetime of local living. The realtor probably saw it as a prime selling point, a solid case for dollars. I saw it fresh, as a newcomer unused to mountains in everyday living. The list I had presented to the realtors flashed brightly in mind-view, woods, fields, stream, slope toward south or west, reasonable number of acres, west of town but near town, maybe a small shack or cabin-and the price was very reasonable. With mounting excitment I thought of all those laughing realtors and felt deliciously smug. I had found the needle in the haystack! 20 �Getting Acquainted Only fifteen minutes! Tom, Anne, and I drove the mountain road from our house to the old farm in only fifteen minutes, only five miles from door to door, wonderfully, unexpectedly convenient. Concern for Tom's and Anne's response checked my enthusiasm for seeing the farm a second time. Bright sun beamed on us as we stepped from the car - things were working in our favor. Tom promptly looked across the fields, well beyond the conspicuous foreground of junk cars, and I watched in suspense, but his face revealed no hint of his impression, and he said nothing. Anne took one look at the dilapidated house and glanced at me; her face told all. She, too, could envision it without tarpaper roof and asphalt siding; she had fallen in love with it already. Della and Oscar invited us in eagerly, and as we stood rather awkwardly in the middle of the living room, she immersed us in history. "It's always been called 'the Nelson farm' here. Granddaddy-that's Green Berry Nelson-we called him Papnobody's sure just where he come from-he bought a lot of land here first after the Civil War and built him a log house near the branch way down in the holler at the foot of this mountain. Raised him five children, and later his son, Tom, he had a sawmill there and helped him build a big fine eleven-room house across the road-with a porch on three sides. I can show you right where it stood. It burned down." I was relieved when she paused a moment. "Then when Pap's land was divided up, m'daddy, George Nelson he was, got this farm here. His sister got a cow, which was s'posed to be equal. Shows how important cows was then. Daddy built a small log house down in the meadow there. I 'member seein' it down there 'tween the chicken house and the branch. And he grubbed this whole farm from the woods, grubbed it with a mattock, he did. And when Daddy's family c'menced gettin' too much for his small house down there, he built this'n and made a log barn, too. There was more land then out there where the barn was; most of it's washed away now, like in that flood of '16. M'daddy shaped all these logs with his broadaxe, 21 �he did. He was good with wood." "How many people lived here?" I felt triumphant to work in a question. "There was eight of us young-uns." I looked about me. This modest house had been home for George Nelson with his big, busy family. This land was their inheritance and their key to survival, their whole life, their piece of mountain. "Yes, I was horned here and been livin' here all my years. They'll carry me outa here feet first, they will." We felt like intruders, pushing in on a heritage to which we did not belong. Yet, the place was for sale; someone would buy it. We would look it over, at least, and already ideas on how to save some of that heritage were stirring in my mind. Though Della's busy mind whirled in the past, a time brimful with happy memories which poured out freely, angina, indigestion, and poverty dominated her present life. The straggly effect of her wasted frame and senility distressed me, but neither could hide her delicate features or those lively blue eyes, still beautiful. Surely in her youth they were highly admired! Della had lived hard and happily on this isolated farm, a rugged, capable, independent woman, but now, dependent and occasionally confused, she clung to my hands with her own frail pair. The blue eyes danced as she described the house and premises as they had been, with laughter bubbling as she recounted childhood experiences. Did reveling in the farm's past alleviate her distress over its littered, overgrown condition? Suddenly she sprang into the present, intensely eager to show and tell us every detail of the house. An enclosed stairway to the loft divided the 16x30 foot log house into two rooms downstairs. The larger was the living room with three windows stretched across its north end, the right one smaller and plainer than the other two. "Used to be a big, high, rock fireplace and chimley where the two big winders are. That little'n was the only winder in this room. M'daddy used to set there by it and make shoes for us. He made shoes for all of us for years, till you could buy the store-bought kind." A TV set now stood beside it. "We got rid of the chimley 22 �'cause it was fallin' away from the house, and chimleys was old fashion. We wanted something more modren, and we needed more winders 'cause it was so dark in here." To the left of the windows stood a small, black, wood stove, its pipe angling to the wall and into a small brick chimney. "Is this the only heat?" Tom asked. "Oh, no!" Oscar answered. 'Got a good cookin' stove back in the kitchen, too. 'Sail we need." A treasured piano stood primly upright against the stairwall. On top the faces of various relatives-or kin, as Della called them -beamed from an array of tinted photographs, an antique clock ticking steadily beside them. Several worn pieces of massive but comfortable sectional sofa and assorted chairs encouraged relaxation. Walls were white plasterboard, the ceiling pale green painted tongue-and-groove boards. The effect of all was neat, clean, and humble, and love for the old place radiated. "Here's the bedroom." She urged us to the smaller of the two log rooms, where we poked heads in but did not enter, for a dresser, a homemade bed, and a closet of plywood and corrugated cardboard monopolized the floor space. As we backed from the doorway. Della opened a small, handmade door beside us under the stairs. The backside of stair treads and risers formed the ceiling for a cosy closet. Light from a low watt bulb barely revealed jarwide shelves lining the walls and lower risers, each neatly arranged with jams and jellies and home-canned foods. Della named them proudly and lifted several precious jelly jars for us to hold to the light and admire. "Ain't they clear!" she beamed. Suddenly, she insited we take one, and it would have been unkind and rude to have refused her generous gesture. "Do you want to go upstairs?" Della asked. "Yes!" the three of us responded simultaneously, all now completely caught up in her tour and curious to explore further. "You'll hafta go up yourselves," she directed. "I cain't do stairs 'cause m' chest gets to hurtin':' I led the way. Just enough light crept down from the loft's two windows to reveal soft curves of water on the stair treds. Oh, the number of feet that must have traversed on this narrow passage 23 �through its years of serving the big family! At the top my feet froze in place. "Is it safe to walk around up here?" I called back. Della laughed. "Why, sure!" Tom had already pushed by me gently and passed the thin partition that set off a north loft room from a south one. He walked gingerly out onto the sagging floor. Anne passed by me, too, but hesitated to put the weight of two people on the section of floor where Tom stood, his head bowed with the low ceiling. She turned left into the south room, stepping over and around a variety of boxes, old furniture, jars, and clutter, to look out the window. A view of side yard, junk cars, and meadow and woods held her attention for long moments, but she said nothing. I stepped very softly from my top stair safety zone onto the loft floor, unconsciously assuming that the more lightly I stepped, the less I would weigh, and avoided the center where the sag was ominous. All said little, feeding the illusion that quieter meant lighter, then retreated downstairs where Della waited with a flood of conversation dammed up, while, Oscar stood by, grinning, his crumply hat still on. We were swept through a doorway out of the main log house into the back room, the kitchen. A great, round pedestal table, clothed and inviting, dominated the room. Behind, solidly established against the north wall, stood the woodburning cookstove, radiating steady, cozy warmth. The opposite corner, where a white porcelain sink was snuggled against the wall, answered my previous day's perplexity about the dripping spigot. The two holes on the sink's upright back were not equipped in the customary fashion. Cloths neatly stuffed the hole where a hot water spigot might have been, while a small pipe with a single, old fashioned faucet or bibb projected from the cold water hole. From it water splashed steadily into the sink, trickled through a perforated drain, and disappeared into a pipe through the floor. We could hear it splattering onto the ground outdoors. Now I knew! Branch water flowed through the troughs and the screen on the bucket I had seen the day before and into the kitchen sink and out again in a steady stream. No wonder Della 24 �had not turned her water spigot off! Now I knew, too, that these elderly folks were living with no supply of hot water, nor had they ever had one. "That's all the rooms there is," stated Della, disappointed to arrive at the end of her tour. Oscar muttered a few words into her ear. "Oh, yes!" She sparkled again. "I forgot the room on the porch. Did you see it yet?" "No, and we'd like to." A bed and stacks of stored items left no room for entry and little room for comment, but we noted the space enclosed a bit less than half the front porch. We stood with these old folks on their porch, subdued by their humble living, perplexed by the decision on hand, and fascinated by this experience. Our decision would influence them tremendously, too. Della bubbled on about the past, but we were so engrossed in the present that we barely listened. Tom and Anne had yet to look over the land, our most important concern, and all this history, though interesting, was superfluous and meaningless unless we bought the farm. Again we left Della behind in the doorway, Oscar guiding us to expolore the open land. Only five buildings still existed on it: a board chicken house nearly lost in young ailanthus trees, a tiny log coop only several feet square, the leaning corn crib, and two privies. One, long abandoned, crumbled north of the house. The other, just beyond the corn crib, comprised the current facilities. Someone in a flash of humor had splashed OPEN in blue paint across its weathered door. Oscar shuffled past these buildings and led us down a narrow path to the meadow. Dried November weeds snapped as we walked by. Several goldfinches, disturbed while eating seeds from plumes of shoulder-high goldenrod, swooped up and off, scolding us. Seed burrs accumulated on our pantlegs and sleeves, and a crow flew low across the hollow, cawing a warning to field and woodland that intruders were on the way. White-throated sparrows chipped in the shrubs. Various tires, car parts, and rusted tin roofing lined the way. 25 �At the lowest point a foot-wide stream crossed our path, running briskly through the weeds. Oscar stepped over it routinely and started up toward the far field, but our trio stopped like school boys at a puddle. Our guide, sensing he was not being followed, turned, then took several steps back toward us. "This ever dry up?" wondered Tom aloud. "Nope. Always flows good." "Where's it from?" "Up yonder a piece," and Oscar pointed into woodland oblivion. "Water to the house comes off this branch futher up." "It's O.K. to drink then?':_a stupid question of mine. Of course it was! He had just said so, but somehow one needs extra verification in unfamiliar circumstances. "Sure is!" For those who had lived in the polluted northeast where drinking from a stream was unthinkable, the delight of this pure meadow water tempted overwhelmingly, even on a cool, November day. We scooped with our hands and drank icy, absolutely delicious water. Oscar watched us intently, wrapped in thought. Just beyond the stream lay four terraced fields bordered by dense hedgerows. At the end of the second one, a perfectly flat stretch of perhaps half an acre, we walked under a giant pear tree. The ground beneath it lay blanketed with hundreds of pears in various stages of decay, a crop unharvested this year. In the largest field, perhaps two acres, corn stubble and weeds jutted from ridged and furrowed ground. The reddish soil looked exhausted. At either end of the cornfield several aged apple trees struggled above sprigs of young locust and dogwood. Holes pocked their gnarled limbs, providing potential nesting cavities for downy woodpeckers or chickadees or titmice. We returned along the edge of this old orchard, recrossed the stream, and immediately turned down into the field that dropped westward below the house. Along the stream a dense stand of sun-loving alder stopped suddenly at the woods, where shadeloving rhododendron took over. Each thrived above a ground cover of old tires and jars and tin cans. The water splashed out of sight through the rhododendron noisily, obviously cascading 26 �over rocks in this primary stage of its long course from mountain to sea. Half a car blocked our path along the woods-field edge, and hundreds of seedling trees, the vanguard of an invading forest, jutted in the grasses. We pushed through them and circled back up to the house and on up the hill immediately behind it, where Tom and Anne had their first look at the full mountain scene, viewed in admiring silence. We three exchanged quick glances of approval. Conversation was subdued during much of this rambling, each person preoccupied with his own busy considerations, each studying the farm from a different point of view, seeking independent judgement. Della and Oscar politely went indoors a short while as we put to use a "settin' bench" on the front porch to discuss our opinions. "M'daddy made that bench from a big huge limb that broke off the beech tree in the holler in a storm," Della threw in before disappearing. "We need to know more details," Tom stated, concisely summing our opinions, so he called the realtor. "Is there the wildest possibility it might suit you to come out here right now?" "Why, sure!" Things continued to work our way, and while we waited for him, Della and Oscar joined us on the porch. "Fine old wisteria vine," Tom noted. The dense vine twisted around the south porch post (was post supporting vine or vine supporting post?) and engulfed the adjacent porch fence and railing in a tangle of stems. "M'daddy planted that there. He did love growin' thingshad a green thumb that wouldn't quit. Ever type of fruit that'd grow here he had growing: strawberries and raspberries and currants and grapes and peaches and plums. Had some limbertwigs and a winter banana, too." "Winter banana?" "Oh, a kind of apple, whitish with reddish on one side. You never cooked as good a apple in your life! Thay was an apple tree he called Shockleys below the boxwoods where he put a swing on. In the fall of the year he had big barrels in the barn loft and would put a layer of straw and a layer of apples and a layer of 27 �straw and a layer of apples in the barrels, and in the spring you could still go to the barrels and get good apples." "Did you ever spray the apple trees?" I was thinking of the massive spraying apple growers use now. "Never knowed what a spray was. Never sprayed anything. Fruits were good, too. Now we have to spray for everything." Along the porch railing wide boards had been nailed on top so flower pots could sit upon them. Browned remnants of summer flowers jutted from the pots. Conversation limped as Tom and I tried to be pleasantly sociable while swirling with real estate concerns. "That's a nice dogwood," Anne observed. Admiration for trees seemed a likely subject of common interest. "Must be really old." " 'Tis. That tree was just a sprout when Daddy built this house. He said he was careful of it 'cause it was dogwood. Wait'll you see it in the springtime; all the blossoms you wouldn't believe!" All sat quietly, gazing off over the land. Della continued wistfully, "Once you could see clear out to everywhere from this porch." Oscar's earlier claim was substantiated. "We could set here and watch sunsets and sky and see the mountains all acrost there clear to Brevard. Now it's so growed up it's nuthin' but trees. Used to be everything here was trimmed and mowed. Why, this was a showplace. You could've walked around it in nylons, it was so neat. If you could see the place through my eyes, you'd know thay was good livin' here. When Daddy was livin', this was the Garden of Eden. Oh! the bloomin' there was-life everywhere! Used to be a big huge chestnut spreadin' right here over the house, but it took a blight like tomaters do." She chattered on, hungry to inform, and if we bought the farm, our appetite to learn would be as insatiable, but not yet. The realtor's arrival brought relief. "We want to investigate what's in those woods, what the land is like in there," Tom explained, "and what the view is like further up the hill," so for over an hour we tramped the irregular wooded land, the men checking contours, distances, outlooks, and business aspects, while I puffed along, falling further and further behind, eyes to the ground as I searched for plants that would 28 �indicate the type woods this might be at the height of its growing season. Anne shuttled between us. The blanket of autumn leaves revealed the tree species, but it hid most small plants. On steep slopes, however, the leaf layer was thin. Here patches of arbutus and rattlesnake plantain, dried stalks of Jack-in-the-pulpit, shriveled fern fronds, and decaying paired leaves of pink lady slippers were like dessert heaped generously onto the other features of the property. The discovery of a bank of maidenhair fern was pure icing, even though they were only dried, crumbling stalks. In spring the ferns would grace the bank with flowing green tresses, and best of all, where maidenhair grows, many forest wildflowers grow. Despite strenuous efforts, we covered only a fraction of the wooded land, but the message it shouted to Anne and me was overwhelming: this is it! Tom remained calm, as usual, his opinion an enigma, but before we left, he made arrangements to return the next day to try walking the boundaries with Oscar, a decidedly positive sign. 29 �Walking the Boundaries Walking the boundaries of this rugged, nearly 40-acre tract was a big undertaking, but Tom felt compelled to see and understand the nature of the entire property. Charlie joined him, the exploration party guided by Oscar, who must have had some misgivings about the venture. They puffed up hills and clung to saplings to keep from slipping down hills, and Tom wondered what comprised an acreland measured on the level or up and down hill. They hunted elusive clues of property boundaries in dense woods-a fence post, a strand of barbed wire, a notched tree, or a difference in tree size, for the forests on adjacent properties were older. Tom learned that the property included four small parallel downhill ridges, each with a stream or wet area in its valley. Occasional tiny waterfalls, inches high, spilled over rocks in the stream beds. Some areas were open oak forest, others impenetrable thickets of laurel and rhododendron. Old chestnut stumps jutted here and there, remnants of the magnificent chestnut forests which thrived in the Appalachians before the blight struck early in this century. The roots of a few still lived and energetically sent up shoots that in this season were only leafless sticks. Tom marvelled that these well-forested hills had been cultivated only thirty-five years ago, but in this region of plentiful rainfall and long growing season, a forest can engulf abandoned fields quickly, erasing traces of cultivation. He noticed, too, that the acreage included a number of locations that afforded beautiful views of nearby hills with mountain ranges spreading behind. Oscar tired quickly, Charlie lost interest and patience with the repeated searches for non-existant boundary traces, and Tom realized that further pursuit was not only impossible but unnecessary. Later Tom and Charlie strode into our home kitchen. Charlie grabbed several slices of raisin bread and a tall glass of milk and disappeared instantly to watch a TV football game. Tom sat down opposite Anne and me (John was away, a college freshman in Ohio) at the kitchen table and said nothing, fully aware that we were bursting to hear what had happened. 30 �"Did you walk the boundaries, all the way?" I ventured. "No." "How come?'' My enthusiasm drooped. "Kept getting lost. He didn't know where the lines ran." "Didn't know the lines!" I exclaimed in disbelief. "He's lived there over thirty years!" How little I understood at that time! "He hadn't been up in most of those parts for years, and it's all changed-fences gone, forest grown, completely different from how he remembered it. We got into jungles of laurel we couldn't push through, and the poor old fellow just wasn't up to hiking up and down those hills. He got awfully tired, so we decided to stop. I'd seen enough anyway." What did that mean? We waited for him to continue, but he didn't, stretching his little game of suspense. "Do you think the place is O.K. for us?" Anne asked rather faintly, almost afraid of his answer. "Let's make an offer on it," he replied, eyes twinkling, and we all beamed at each other. 31 �Title A swirl of visits to realtor to lawyer to banker to realtor, a series of phone calls, and a deluge of desk work busily occupied Monday of Thanksgiving week, a week Tom had taken for vacation. He made an offer on the farm, and that evening received a phone call-the offer was rejected. On Tuesday we made a second offer, but heard only silence. On Wednesday our family piled into the station wagon to join relatives in Maryland for the Thanksgiving holiday, but amid happy festivities hung the uncertainty of our real estate venture. We did not dwell on it; neither could we shake it. Nine long days passed before Tom answered the telephone's ring and heard our realtor's voice. "They've accepted your offer!" We spun in astonishment-the unexpected had happened! Deep down, almost unconsciously, each had prepared to lose the farm. Suddenly we were free to act, to plan, and our balloon of dreams swelled until it bulged magnificently. Within days it collapsed, utterly flat. What had seemed so easy, so straight-forward and even romantic, became tangled and uncertain. A tiny but vital detail in clearing the title needed resolution but was trapped in family complexities, jammed against the proverbial stone wall. We sagged with disappointment. The possibility existed that the title could never be cleared properly. When things looked especially dismal, we went to the farm to convince ourselves against it, to agree that it was not worth all the hassle and legal mess and prolonged wait, but the mellowed logs, the layered mountains, the steady stream, and the sloping forest had all cast their spell. We fell in love with the place more than before. Anne's delight in riding her horse to it and talking with the old folks was no discouragement. Next we tried to avoid the farm, hoping to diminish interest, and even investigated other properties, renewing the hunt. Places with finer streams and grander views and richer woods lured us, but our hearts were lost to the Nelson farm. Weeks passed, four, five, six, each plagued with discouragement and impatience. Anyone peering in on one of our innumer- 32 �able conferences with the realtor would have seen the three of us sitting there bleakly, shaking our heads, saying little, for there was little to say. We talked long hours with family members involved with the title problem. All meant well and wanted to do the right thing, but not everyone understood how to go about it. Gradually, through the gentle power of good will, mutual trust, and fairness, the obstructing stone wall was dismantled stone by stone, and with the simple writing of one small signature on the proper line, the three and a half month ordeal ended suddenly. Three and a half months by realty standards is not long. "Why, some of those mountain properties take years to clear," stated a realtor friend. "Property lines on many were never fully defined, or perhaps they extended from the big chestnut at the corner of Zeb Joiner's cow pasture to Buford Ertan's fenceline. The chestnut tree died three generations ago, and the fenceline rotted away in the forest." But three and a half months for us seemed interminable. On that important evening when all parties involved with the property closing were poised to converge on the lawyer's office, eager for the grand moment of signing the property over to us, the lawyer's secretary called. "Mr. Murl had to go to bed unexpectedly with flu." Several days later we met at his office and accomplished the property turnover in routine moments. The event seemed anticlimatic-no fanfare, no festivity, no flags. Tom and I did not know how to feel-jubilant, relieved, apprehensive, overwhelmed? We knew that even though our signatures filled the owner's blank on the deed, we would always sense the presence of George Nelson, cabin builder, who grubbed this farm from forest and raised his family there. Their history would not be lost. We knew, too, that now we owned a tired, littered, dilapidated farm, complete with six and a half junk cars and a rotting log house with an elderly couple living in it. 33 �Anticipation "Oh, Mrs. Hallywell, I'd dearly love to do that!" Della burst out with this enthsusiastic exclamation in response to a suggestion I had just made-would she be interested in taping some of her extensive knowledge about the history of the old house and the way of life on the farm in past years? Now that the farm was officially ours, we were eager to collect as much information about it as possible. "Why, any time you want to start you just come out here, and I can tell you all sorts of.... Oh! the flowers and bulbs there was and two big cherry trees, those big dark sweet cherries, you know... called 'em black hearts. Used to be cherry trees all over this mountain, Daddy's and other people's trees, clear to the top where it's woods with houses all around in Laurel Park now. Oh, you don't know how good it mal<es me feel to haveyo~ J)'~~ple so interested in this place! Thay was a duckpond down in the holler, and sometimes the ducks'd walk up in the branch and get into the spring. We'd know it 'cause the water'd get all muddied up. And the chickens'd sneak into the orchards in spring time and come back with little bids and ...." "Wait a minute, Mrs. Huggins!" I had to interrupt. "I'm tremendously interested in hearing all these things, but let's wait until I have the tape recorder here. I can't possibly remember all you're telling me." "Oh, yes." Her animated face fell. I understood her disappointment. Suddenly she laughed heartily, "One time when I was just a little'n a big turkey chased me in from the barn, and you wouldn't believe it now how I could run! I flew! You know, that big pear tree over yonder's loaded with little pears that makes the best p'serves you'll ever eat. They's so good .... ," and she drifted into silence with a bright smile on her pretty, slender face. Was she recalling the taste of pear preserves on hot biscuits or corn bread? "You just come here any time, and I'll enjoy talkin' to you s'much! Why, people'd come in here to buy apples and cider and ... and 'long about late March we'd collect a mess o' creesies that growed in the fields all around. When you don't have greens to eat through winter, those creesies tastes mighty good. We'd boil 34 �'em and throw out the water and boil 'em again with fatback. That's eatin'! Cooked poke leaves the same way, just those first little shoots you get in spring. Older leaves aren't good. Used to pickle those big old poke stalks. You peel off some of the outside and cook 'em till they're tender and put 'em in vinegar like you do any other kind of pickles. And we'd fill a ten quart bucket with branch lettuce 2 and use it for salads and cookin' greens both, and then ...." "Mrs. Huggins, I'll be terribly busy at home for a couple of weeks helping the three children get ready for their summer activities. John'll be mountaineering counselor at a camp in Weaverville, and Anne is going to Wyoming for six weeks at an ecology school, and Charlie will spend a month in Wyoming, too, hiking and camping in the Wind River wilderness there. In a couple of weeks-there's just no way I can do it before then-yes, after the first week in June, they'll all be off, and I'll come here often. I'm really looking forward to it!" "Oh! so'm I! It'll be so nice! I just can't wait!" Each glowed in anticipation of the fun ahead. On May 31, several days later, shortly after breakfast, the telephone rang. It was Della's niece. "I thought you'd want to know that Aunt Deller died. She was found in bed this morning-dead." 35 �This page intentionally left blank �Chapter 3 Cleanup Unpleasant Realizations Vandals Traces Relief Map The First Advisors Down to the Logs 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 042 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0. 044 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 • 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 37 38 48 50 56 �Unpleasant Realizations Another jolt struck within weeks. Oscar and the family members he would live with in a nearby town collected what they wanted from the house and loaded it onto a small dump truck. When they were about to leave, an extensive assortment of leftovers, even large pieces of sectional sofa, still lay scattered about the house, prompting Tom to inquire gently, "Mr. Huggins, how can we help you with the rest of these things here, and what about all those things you have in the chicken house and corn crib and around the yard? And the old cars?" Oscar studied his feet and hunched his shoulders, looked up, then down, obviously avoiding an answer. At length he muttered, "Oh, we'll clean it up sometime," escaped into the truck, and left the farm. We sympathized. Severing the ties of years so abruptly was difficult, but when weeks passed and repeated efforts to have him remove his possessions and junk failed, in no way could we avoid the unpleasant conclusion that we had purchased not only land and a rotting house but also mountains of junk. The romantic dream of a picturesque log cabin nestled on a wooded mountainside darkened dismally in the looming cloud of a massive and inevitably disagreeable cleanup job. In a major ebb of enthusiasm and the flurry of summer commitments, we neglected the house through the hot months, then lazily extended the procrastination through autumn. Though we tramped the fields and woods in the happiness of constant discovery, becoming familiar with the contours and pathways and plants and fencelines, we bogged down in apprehension and uncertainty when we studied the bedraggled house. Should we try to rescue the logs from their rotting foundations, or should we just let nature overwhelm the structure? Only one way could this be answered-strip the house to its bare logs, inside and out, and then seek advice from people who know about log cabins. On a crisp, bright December 26th, the massive cleanup began. The spirit of an archaeological dig caught hold as our vacationing family arrived at the cabin with a burst of determination and energy. This job might even be fun! Who knows what treasures we might 38 �uncover! "Here he comes!" I called to my three menfolk who were already rummaging noisily within the house. "Just listen!" The old dump truck clattered and clanked as it struggled on the stony dirt road from the hollow at the bottom of the mountain. We stood on the front porch, looking toward the noisy evidence that Vern McCoy and his ancient blue dump truck were arriving as scheduled. All grinned as we waited, enjoying the prospect of working with this delightful man who would lend a hand for the day and haul away the debris. Vern McCoy could devise or fix nearly anything and had often done odd jobs for us at home. Now he would see the cabin for the first time and offer an opinion, which was important. After all, he grew up in these mountains and understood log houses. Sounds of the truck stopped for several moments. We knew Vern was making the sharp turn into our narrow lane and winding along the far side of the hill. Suddenly the clatter and clank resumed as he rounded the bend. He pulled up in front of us, leaned from the cab, beaming, his blue eyes twinkling. "Howdy! Nice day, hain't it!" The truck door screeched open. Vern pushed back his faithful western hat with its side brims rolled, letting loose a haphazard tuft of gray-brown curls, and lowered his tall frame to the ground. Then, suddenly frowning, he walked to the house and stood before it as we watched anxiously. "Hit's a sorry lookin' place, hain't it?" he drawled, candidly expressing his first impression, and with slow, lengthy strides, he proceeded around to the south side, then to the back. In silence he studied the rotten foundation logs, ignoring the solid, strong logs which lay exposed above. "Hmmmmmmmm." We waited his assessment tensely. "They's mighty tarred logs." "Tarred?" I questioned, puzzled, wondering where he found tar on them. "Yep, plumb wore out." "Oh!" I was still not used to the mountain dialect. McCoy stalled a bit, clearing his throat, appearing to study 39 �the structure more carefully. He stooped down, then straightened and looked directly at Tom, stating, "If'n hit was mine, I'd set a match to it." A bleak silence followed this blunt suggestion. Finally, as if simply to break it, Tom commented flatly, "Well, that's interesting." We chewed on this first morsel of official advice as we attacked the interior wall coverings in the log section of the house, so charmed by the candor of his opinion that we ignored its implications. Plaster wallboard covered layers of brown wrapping paper over a spread of flattened cardboard cartons, each layer nailed solidly to underlying logs. Beneath the cartons stretched three layers of varied wallpapers carefully hiding simple, old-fashioned whitewash. Clouds of plaster dust and house dust hung as we tugged and ripped, breathing through bright bandanas tied over noses and mouths. Divided labor evolved automatically as the stronger men did the pulling while Anne and I gathered debris into rapidly growing piles and tried to sweep what seemed like thousands of nails and loose litter from under foot. We collected old cans and household leftovers and pieces of floor coverings for the piles, too. Standing to rest a moment, I pondered the designs on the wallpapers and recalled how thrilled I was as a child when my bedroom was repapered. It suddenly became a beautiful, absolutely new room. Surely the children in this house bubbled with excitement when the stark whitewash was first covered with decorative paper! How the family must have glowed with pleasure as each successive layer surrounded their living space with fresh decor! The cartons? The wrapping paper? Perhaps those later layers told of sterner times. Certainly they were to insulate-inevitably cold must have worked its way inside to chill the family. Now the coverings lay broken and torn and mixed in dusty piles. We carried debris, bit by bit, to the truck, and the first load was piled high when Vern McCoy set off with it for the county dump. Then we collected a second heaping truckload. McCoy waved cheerfully from the cab and yelled, "Be seein' ya," as he 40 �headed out the lane with this final load of the day. Beyond our sight, did he shake his head in bewilderment of those crazy outsiders? Did he mutter to himself, "They gits a farm but don't want to farm none and wastes time messin" 'round with a sorry old place that ain't worth nuthin'." "Two towering truckloads! Whew!" Charlie explained when the noise had subsided. "Never thought there'd be that much stuff!" No one dared mention that the job was barely started. The interior was only partially stripped, the exterior had yet to be done, and then came the corn crib, chicken house, old cars, junk lying all over the premises .... The enormity of our task began to loom unpleasantly. Six people had each worked four and a half hours, worked hard and steadily, yet it was a mere sampling. 41 �Vandals Something looked strange. A visiting friend had asked to see the farm, and as we drove up to the house, I knew instantly that something was wrong. The loft windows were missing. The front door window gaped with jagged edges. I turned the car around hastily and departed. Someone had caused damage, and two lone women were not about to investigate. Three days passed before Tom and I were free to return, and we found a mess. In the porch bedroom wallboards had been ripped off and ceiling boards pulled down. In the main bedroom more ceiling boards dangled, and the window was pushed out from within. In the loft the dozens of stored jars were a mass of jagged fragments-the vandals had not missed one. Peering out the vacant windows, we saw broken chairs in the yard below, thrown through closed windows, carrying away sash as well as pane, scattering broken glass in the grass. Linoleum was ripped from the kitchen floor. We were completely perplexed and hurt as we surveyed the ugly scene. What was the purpose of this action? Throwing chairs through closed windows or breaking jars might be classified as sick or perverted "fun," but pulling down ceilings would require tools and work. Why such effort? Was someone hunting something? The county sheriff offered only a listening ear and the suggestion that we post the place. Post it! We wanted the farm to be a friendly place, welcoming anyone as long as they respected the land and its wildlife and buildings, not a forbidden place surrounded by a series of NO TRESPASSING signs. But two metal posts now stand at the entrance of our inviting, peaceful lane, with a metal cable extending between them, an ugly, unfriendly cable. A padlock secures it and must be locked for each visit. A NO TRESPASSING sign greets the visitor instead of a WELCOME sign. We nailed more signs to the house, attached a padlock to hold the front door shut, and nailed boards and plastic to cover the gaping windows, making the cabin interior dark and gloomy. We resent those locks. They go against all the farm stands 42 �for-simple, trusting, honest living, quietly remote from pressures. We were idealistic and naive to think that remoteness means escape from the malicious destroyer who finds fun at his brother's expense. As I spent hours meticulously picking fragments of glass from the lawn grass, my mind searched repeatedly for a motive for the vandalism. What kind of tragic, lonely, confused personality would reap satisfaction from the act? We felt pity rather than anger, but the event was unsettling. 43 �Traces John and Charlie, as chief squirters, charged off eagerly with cans of white spray paint, Tom and I followed as chief hunters, though actually all four of us would be looking for traces. Starting from the dirt road at one property corner, we plunged into dense woods and immediately up a steep hill, pulling ourselves along by grasping small trunks and shrubs. "Fellows, are you marking anything yet?" I called ahead as I struggled. "No. Too busy climbing." "Here's a fence post!" yelled Charlie. "Got wire on it, too." "Great! Squirt the nearest tree-and the post, too." We were determined to mark the farm boundaries, covering a section at a time over a period of weeks. Boundary trees would be squirted generously with white blotches, making the perimeter obvious, and henceforth in our wanderings we would know when we passed from our land onto a neighbor's. Surveyors had passed through several years previously and splashed some trees with red, but though careful hunting located an occasional trace, most red paint had faded away. Also, fence lines once bordered the farm. Now occasional posts still jutted in the woods, but most lay toppled and rotting beneath dense layers of leaves. Finding posts encouraged the troops-they pushed on eagerly to meet the challenge of the next trace, but sometimes only by pulling long strands of barbed wire from beneath heavy mats of leaf mold could we enjoy the victory of the next post. Then the fence line disappeared. As when Oscar Huggins had been guiding, the boundary's only trace was the difference in tree sizes above and below it on the hills. "Here's a red mark!" The welcome find made direction certain again, renewing enthusiasm. For nearly two hours we progressed, foot by foot, until we floundered in a tangle of rhododendron. The dense, rigid branches slapped us with dark, leathery leaves, while setting each foot onto the ground involved a series of calculated decisions. "What's the point of going on through this stuff?" leader John called back. 44 ��"Can you see anything ahead?" Tom yelled above the leaf clatter. "All I see is this dumb rhododendron," returned a disgusted John. "How could surveyors have surveyed through this?" Charlie asked. "They didn't. They'd've hacked it down, and we'd be seeing traces of where they went through." "Then we must be off the boundary." "Well, that's for sure!" "Now I understand why some mountain people don't feel as warmly toward rhododendron as imports like us do." "Yeah, they hack it out, and Aunt Nancy said in Michigan before Christmas the stores were charging $10 a bunch for it." "Wow! There's a lot of $10s hangin' around here!" "How about this! Lost on our own land!" I exclaimed, trying to boost adventure as I sensed our project deteriorating. "We're not lost, the boundary is," stated Charlie in disgust. Enthusiasm had plummeted, with even Tom annoyed how easily we had lost the line. "We've had enough of this for today. Let's go get something to eat." Instant, unanimous agreement! We retraced our steps toward more open woods and headed in the direction of the house, passing long strips of terraces with topsides forested by saplings and sloping sides colored by evergreen Christmas fern. "Think of all the work making these terraces," I exclaimed, "and they had only horses or oxen and a drag scoop to do it, too! No one shared my enthusiasm for traces of George Nelson's hard work, so I strugged to keep quiet as we passed numerous small rockpiles humped throughout the woods, more evidence of his efforts to make farmland from forest. "Here's the turtle shell! We're nearly there. What's for lunch?" A landmark familiar from previous wanderings stood before us- a locust fencepost with the white, bony shell of a box turtle hooked over its top. Had one of the Nelsons put it there? How long ago? Why? The past kept intriguing as the boundaries kept eluding. 46 �Suddenly I recalled my disblief and impatience when Tom and Charlie attempted to walk the boundaries with Oscar and reported he could not find them -on land he had lived on for over thirty years. It had seemed to me downright incompetent, but now I understood. 47 �Relief Map "Got any more sugar?" Tom asked. He was home from work, recuperating from a virus infection, and was emptying my sugar cannister into a bowl. "Sure, I'll get it for you." Then curiosity prompted a question. "What's it for?" "I'm making a map." "Sugar? For a map? "Yep. I'll show you." The dining room table was laden with glue and tape, scissors and Scout knife, cartons and slide projector, felt markers and cans of spray paint, a heaping miscellany of equipment all contributing to the production of a map, a relief map. "But how? What about the sugar?" Tom enlightened me with a full accounting of the procedure. Some weeks ago a close-up color slide photograph he had taken of a topography map of the mountain where our farm lies had served as the germ for an idea. Several days of being sick in bed had incubated the plan for the homemade map. Now came the hatching. Today he had projected the slide onto a sturdy piece of cardboard from a carton and traced the contour lines. More layers of cardboard were cut, each representing one level of elevation and conforming to the contours. Glued in place with oneinch separators between levels, they formed a stairstep hill, complete with little valleys and ridges. "I need something piled over the hills to fill in between the layers of cardboard," Tom continued. "Sand or plaster of Paris would be too heavy, and I hit on sugar. If I pile a lot of it on and shape it to the hill properly, then I can spray it with plastic spray a number of times, making a hard surface layer. Then I'll paint that layer several times to strengthen it. By then, I can dump out the supporting sugar from underneath, leaving just the contoured surface. Light weight, too. Then I'll paint on green woods and brown fields and blue streams and mark the cabin and outbuildings in black." I stood there amazed at his ingenuity, and several days later we admired the finished product that had turned out precisely as 48 �planned. Tape around the rough edges gave a finishing touch to this unique creation. Now we had a bird's eye view of our farm property. 49 �The First Advisors An archaeologist finding this collection 300 years hence would cheer with jubilation, but we were far less enthused by the assortment as we waved another heaping load of discards out the lane and listened to its clattery ride down the road. "Load number three gone!" We beamed with relief. Tom, our boys, Vern McCoy, and I had just spent four hours piling junk from the corn crib, chicken house, and adjacent areas onto the loyal blue dumptruck. We worked against time and cold on a gloomy, raw day, but ever since I have regretted not taking time to list even part of the incredible variety, all of it beyond use. I recall a few items: chick feeder, golf club, door, mop, tin roofing, burlap bags of jersey loopers, plow blade, cosmetic jars, car bumper, soggy fertilizer, cans of rusty nails, bleach jugs, car chain, rake, shoes, spark plugs, window sash weights, coconut halves, shotgun parts, car fender, kerosene stove chimneys, license plates, jack, cooking pots, and the inevitable wire coathangers. Having neither strength to cope with trash nor money to hire someone else to do it, the old folks, Oscar and Della, had resorted to the only course they found possible, stashing their junk in the most convenient locations on their premises. Cleanup on the farm was progressing well, and Tom and I made frequent use of the land for hiking, bird watching, botanizing, photography, and wonderful loafing. Charlie and Anne and John, when home, shared some of these activities and added horseback riding and target shooting. But permeating all the fun was that persistent, nagging question about the house. Somehow we just could not accept McCoy's advice to "set a match to it;' but finding that special someone who would not only know log houses but have a feel for them continued surprisingly difficult. Most local log homes are gone, torn down as old fashioned or obsolete, used for firewood or to construct farm outbuildings, even overwhelmed by nature in the forest. Today only a lone stone chimney, a few overgrown boxwoods, or persistent periwinkle or daffodils or fruit trees mark the site of many once-flourishing homesteads. Some log houses were incorporated into barns or homes, their walls covered with siding that conceals any identity. 50 �With the houses went the people who intimately knew their construction details. Many leads took us around the county to "old timers who might know," delightful folks with whom we had hours of talk about past ways. "Why, sure, when I was a young'un, we lived in a log house over yonder, up Big Hungry way. Had a big old wood stove that kept the place right cozy and got our drinkin' water from the branch there, gravtee feed, y'know. M'daddy worked us a right good livin' there off that land. We was a happy lot." But when questions about log construction details or who might help us arose, heads shook, brows furrowed, and glances were exchanged. Either they did not know or they did not want to get involved. Whenever we read or heard of a nearby reconstructed log house, we visited its owner to discuss the procedure and learn who did the work. "Did the work ourselves," we heard repeatedly. "Couldn't find anyone to help." "But how did you know what to do?" "Didn't. Just tried something, and if it worked, fine; if it didn't, tried something else." Procedure boiled down to trial and error, no one making any effort to belittle the task. We noted that most had created strictly modern homes built from old logs. How we wanted the experience of doing most of the work ourselves, too! But Tom was deeply involved in the planning and implementation of major construction for his department at work. As I would be shuffling penciled drawings of humble cabin plans, he would be covering our dining room table with great sheets of complex drawings for a multimillion dollar building. His time for cabin work would be minimal. We needed help. The hunt for old logs to replace our several rotten ones also led us into the far reaches of the county, but the right shape and size remained elusive. In remote hills we discovered several abandoned houses with tantalizing, perfect logs and knocked bravely at doors of nearest homes to track down possible owners. "Some feller in Miami has owned that there land and old house for years. Don't never come up this way that I ever knowed of' The houses 51 �would undoubtedly rot away, forgotten and useless, taking history with them. One owner, delighted with our attention to his cabin, explained, "M'granddaddy built that little house, and m'daddy was borned in it, so we're akeepin' it to fix up some day." The tiny house with its precious logs was an heirloom, like a chest or bed. As we looked and asked and listened, gradually developing a deeper knowledge and understanding of log houses, we realized more than ever that George Nelson's carefully arranged rectangle of logs was an architectural endangered species. Its kind was being killed off, and the surviving individuals must be protected and pampered at any cost. To save the cabin became a cause, not only just to save the Nelson homestead, but to save a true Southern Appalachian log house. We jotted down names of several builders who might give it a look, maybe even help, and one mild winter day our first advisor rode to the farm with us. As we turned in the lane, he exclaimed. "Why, this here's the old Nelson farm! I've been here aplenty. I didn't know you was talkin' about this place. Why, m'granddaddy raised thirteen kids on that hill over yonder. I been all over these hills," and he flung his arm in a grand sweep that would have surpassed 360° had it not been restricted by the car. His enthusiasm collapsed when he saw the house. "Now, that's a pity. This used to be a fine house, a fine place." After he had walked around it, shaking his head from time to time, he stated, "No, I wouldn't want this job at all. Wouldn't know where to start in a job like this'n. No tellin' what you'd git into. Takin' it apart's worse'n puttin' it up new. I 'predates your askin' me, and I sure wish I could he'p you, but I just cain't afford a job like this'n." We understood and enjoyed hearing tales about his early days in the area, but had to cross him off our short list of potential builders. The season had progressed into February before a somewhat drab, almost gloomy builder contemplated our problem house in solemn, studied silence. Bluebirds called soft messages in the large maple above the chicken house, and a titmouse lustily declared his territory at the edge of the woods. Daffodil spears with yellowing 52 �buds decorated the front yard banks. While Tom talked with this uninspired man, we sauntered around the yard, and my thoughts meandered to the happy anticipation of watching spring spread its beauty over our lovely fields. Soon that delicate green of new.... "These foundation logs must be replaced; they're rotten." I was jolted back to the builder as he suddenly announced this recommendation as if proclaiming some bold and revolutionary idea. "I recommend jacking up the entire structure and replacing all the foundation logs. The roof must be renewed and the back porch reconstructed." The last statement almost caused us to burst into laughter. The kitchen stoop, which barely merited the title "porch," appeared as if a well-placed kick would collapse it permanently. "Yes," responded Tom politely, waiting for more imaginative, less obvious advice, but none came. "Do you have equipment for jacking?" "No, I don't." "Can you suggest someone?" "Reve Thomas used to do jacking, but he's given it up now. Got to be too much for him. Can't say I know of anyone offhand!' "Do you know where we could get some replacement logs?" "No, can't say I do." Concluding that this man would not be caught dead tackling this job and thoroughly unimpressed with his sensitivity or imagination, Tom let him off the hook by asking, "Do you know of anyone who might consider undertaking this job?" "Nooooo, I really don't." After an appropriate exchange of small talk, he escaped us and must have heaved as big a sign of relief as ours as he drove out the lane. A mountain born realtor friend with a love for old cabins expressed interest in looking at ours and boosted our spirits with his hearty, "This place is great! By all means, restore it!" We clung to these optimistic words which gave a powerful shove to our dragging momentum. The serviceberry trees were lacy with blossoms, and field sparrows called from beyond the hollow when an old timer joined us 53 �at the farm. He had come recommended with reservations. "I wouldn't ask him to build a fine house, but for the rustic kind of job you'll want, I wouldn't be surprised if he's your man. He doesn't work much now, so might have the time and probably be glad to do it at his own pace. He'd know as much as anyone around here these days." Hopes rocketed. As the wiry little man approached, he turned his head and squirted a brown jet of tobacco juice into the nearby violets. "Howdo. I'm Cate Owens. Purty day, hain't it? Nice place you got here, really nice. Understand yer wantin' to do up the house. Gonna live here?" "We just want to fix it up enough so we can enjoy it on weekends and vacations." "Vacations, hunh?" His eyes had a fleeting twinkle. "The only vacation I'll ever git is when m'toes is stuck up, and then I won't know nuthin' about it." He burst into contagious laughter at this bit of wit which obviously had been used before with good results. We joined him heartily, charmed immediately by his friendly simplicity and wonderful mountain talk. As we stressed our desire for a simple, basic cabin, our hopes that he could help us build faded quickly, for he seemed frail and unwell. "I know what you wants. Youens wants an old timey house. I built one fer a man back when I was a young-un, the beautifullest little log house hit was, over there in Avery County near that town ...that town ... blamed if I can recollect hit's name. I guiss I could figger how we done it. But I'll tell you one thing fer sure 'bout this house of yournses. Hain't looked it over too careful yit, but I'm atellin' you you'll hafta take 'er all down and fix 'er underneath and then put 'er all up agin. Hit'll shor take vision, lots o' vision;' and he paused, savoring this fine word as well as his own picture of the new house, and we shared the moment envisioning our own. "Wish I could he'p you on it-hit'll make a fine house," he continued after he looked it over, "but I'm agittin no accounter all the time. Had a fool accident with m'mule a few months back. Was hitchin' him up, and he spooked and drugged me a ways 54 �and wrenched m'back, and I hain't done no good since. I was fixin' to quit workin', but a man's gotta eat. Cain't do nuthin' heavy, though; just git all tarred out. I come here hopin' I could he'p, but hit's a heavy-type job. If I took holdt of one of them logs and c'menced movin' it, Lord he'p me, I'd be worser'n I can tell you." He lingered an hour or more, and no one could have decided which of us had more fun. We wallowed in frustration and disappointment that Cate Owens was disabled, for we liked him. This was our man, a fellow in tune with our project. Then one day, amid April's burst of glory, while cherry trees were snowing the ground with fallen petals and dogwoods whitened hedgerows, while oaks blossomed and pink lady slippers budded on graceful stalks, Tom led Jimmy Payne and his crew of wrecker trucks from Hendersonville to the farm. Wonder of wonders, they hauled away the six and a half junk cars, and the cluttered scene was transformed! 55 �Down to the Logs "And what did you do down there in North Carolina?" I could picture the interested mother in Ohio, welcoming home her college-age daughter who had visited us a few days. "Well, we kicked a rotten porch off a broken-down mountain cabin and yanked plasterboard from inside walls." John had taken his guest to the farm to see the log house and hike a while and must have remembered our proclaimed policy of "little by little," that accomplishing even one small task on each visit would all add up to progress. The young folks kicked away the rotten supports and ripped off the crumbling boards of the tiny kitchen stoop. Inspired by this to grander things, the workers delved into stripping more plasterboard from the living room walls. They arrived home dusty and weary and smiling broadly from their accomplishments. "It was really great fun!" exclaimed our guest. Sometimes for only minutes, sometimes for concentrated spurts of an hour or two, the interior wall stripping continued. The plasterboard crumbled rather than coming loose in handy sections, the nails holding the layers beneath it refused to budge, the wallpaper clung. Anne blossomed with special talent for dislodging nails with hammer and nail bar. I specialized in the tedious task of scraping chunks of whitewash from the logs-with putty knife, chisel, nail file, screw driver, fingernails, wire brush, or whatever tool seemed likely to dislodge the hard white layer from its particular groove or crack. One day when sourwoods blossomed and blackberries ripened and a scarlet tanager called on and on from the top of the tall honey locust, dusty figures with bandanas over their noses moved about in the dark and dusty interior of the old log house. The happy realization that today was the final day of this choking, miserable job urged us on. Piles of wall debris lay humped on the cabin floor for the last time, and back and forth, back and forth McCoy, Tom, Charlie, and I plodded, each methodically playing his laborious turn in this too-familiar game of fill-the-old-blue dump-truck. Sweeping the entire floor served as the winning play. The dust settled. We stood wearily in the empty room, study- 56 �ing the effects of our labors. The exposed logs were handsome, and Tom fingered several of the broadaxe marks on them. Unconsciously, I copied his movement on another log, then suddenly exclaimed, "It's beautiful!" The men all nodded, smiling agreeably. 57 �This page intentionally left blank �Chapter 4 Decisions The Kitchen ............................. 60 More Misgivings, More Advisors .............. 64 Corncrib ................................ 69 Tires ................................... 71 Zeb Collins .............................. 75 The Drawings ............................ 77 Builder ................................. 79 59 �The Kitchen The cabin? What cabin? This summarized our unexpectedly indifferent attitude toward the old log house throughout the second summer of our ownership. Though the pressure to act grew more acute, action became the victim of our involvement with family jobs and everyday living. Anne was in Norway, living in Bergen with a Norwegian family. Charlie started as dishwasher at a pancake house and advanced to flipping pancakes and cooking steaks. His schedule kept him busy well into the night. John worked shifts at the plant where Tom worked, a different shift each week, and even when on day shift, his hours differed from Tom's. Work demanded unusual portions of Tom's time, while my life seemed centered around meals at any time of day and growing and preserving vegetables and fruits. The three men were coming and going at constantly changing hours, one sometimes appearing for breakfast as another finished dinner. In one phase Charlie arrived home from work, hopped from the car, and left the motor running; John climbed in and drove off to work. The cabin endured low priority, but occasional jobs sneaked into the tight schedule-like the kitchen. Dismantling the "kitchen room," as the Nelson family called it, happened in reverse of plans, quite backward, or actually, inside out. What a tremendous blessing this was! Tom, John, and I approached its exterior one warm morning. Field sparrows called from many directions, and the indigo bunting sang interminably from his perch on top the hemlock. The beautifully weathered clapboards glowed mellow-gray in soft morning light. We would remove and store them carefully, saving them for something special. John gently urged a chest-high board away from the wall, using a claw hammer and a small nail bar. As we watched in motionless suspense, the old wood stubbornly resisted John's steady pressure. Suddenly it splintered grandly in a shattering crack that sent all stumbling back in surprise. One board was destroyed, and a second snapped quickly though pried even more meticulously. 60 �"Too much overlap at this level," John concluded, "and they're awfully brittle. We'll have to start on the top ones and work down." "I'll get the ladder from the car," Tom volunteered, then paused, "Did anyone put it in?" Silence. "Did we all forget?" Silence. "Well, there goes that project!" Each annoyed with self and others for such forgetfulness, we ambled inside the kitchen to assess its interior and perhaps use our efforts there. Plasterboard walls loomed. "No! I can't face that horrible, dusty stuff again!" I lamented, knowing that eventually I would have to, but winning unanimous support for my sentiments. Fortunately, delay was easy, for a variety of window and door moldings and cupboards overlapped the wallboard and required attention first. The satisfying screeches of nails pulling from wood accompanied straining muscles. Quick results were pleasing, but by early afternoon all delaying tactics had been exhausted. The plasterboard came next. I cannot say we attacked it with courage; it was with resigned, dogged acceptance. Since the struggle required concentration, conversation lagged. Then Tom remarked, "Have either of you registered on what's beneath this stuff?" We looked. "Oh, no!" "Yccch!" exclaimed John. A solid wall of strong boards was deep-nailed into the studs. Our ride home after the day's hard work was subdued, partly from fatique, more from the discovery of those boards. As we bounced along in silence, I shoved aside all thoughts of the formidable effort that would go into removing them and mused instead on things a Nelson family member had told recently about that old kitchen. "They added that kitchen room to the log house around 19 and 28 or 30. One of George Nelson's sons had a little house near the lane entrance for a while. When it got tore down, its wood was used for that new kitchen room. They built a little porch off the log house so when you went to the kitchen, you stepped out- 61 �doors to the porch first, but they found they didn't like that much, 'specially in winter, so they closed in the porch and made it part of the kitchen. That's why the floor's the way it is-them big, wide boards agoin' one way bein' the kitchen, the little one goin' the other way being that little old porch. Then they added that tiny little extry porch, the one John and his girl knocked off." So all those kitchen clapboards and the fine floor boards and the uprights with the boards so well-nailed into them had served first in another house! "In my earlist recollection, back in the early 1900s, the big fireplace was the cookin' place. They used big iron cookin' pots. The fire never went out from fall till spring. They always did what they called 'bedded the fire down' for the night, and next morning they just knocked the ashes off and fanned the coals with an old turkey wing to make the fire start burnin' real quick. And the hearth rock-oh, it was as wide as a table-it'd get so hot! Little bare feet sure warmed up on that!" As I listened, I could almost feel that good heat on cold feet. "There was a bed near the hearth, but when they added the kitchen out back, they'd didn't put a bed in there. I know'd a lady said she wouldn't have a kitchen 'thout a bed in it. "The kitchen was moved around 'cordin' to what the family needed and 'pendin' on what time of year it was. What's bedroom now was kitchen for a while, and the room on the front porch was kitchen once. When the weather was good, the family ate on the porch. Before settlin' down, someone had to get a fly brush-that's a twig with leaves on it for swattin' flies with. In later years somebody made a little piece of screenin' wire 'tached to a stick for hittin' flies-called it a fly flap. "You know, they didn't get a icebox here till after World War II, and they had to get the ice in Hendersonville and carry it all the way back. Then 'bout in the '60s, they got a little 'lectric 'frigerator for Della and Oscar. Before all that we canned just about everything we knew to can and pickled and dried things and made p'serves. It sure was busy around here! And you know that big hole in the bank across from where the log barn was-we called it the tunnel-that's where we stored 'taters and turnips. Heeled 62 �cabbages in way out in the field." As we neared home, my thoughts jumped from the kitchen to a gnawing sensation of rebellion. Why had we wasted a magnificent summer day knocking apart somebody's old worn out kitchen? We should be picnicking by a mountain stream or hiking in high places or exploring Cherokee country in the Smokies. Would we ever be building rather than tearing down and cleaning up? Should we continue this time-consuming folly? When family effort several days later had the kitchen walls stripped to the wooden boards, Tom noted, "This old room's in really good shape; the walls are sound and sturdy. Let's let it stand a while." "We could make it into a guest house!" quipped someone. "I love its lines. It's really quite cute." I had grown attached to it. "I like it, too;' agreed Tom. "Let's keep it." So the old kitchen lived on, the importance of its future role never suspected. How could we ever have managed the big job ahead without it? How grateful we became for the irresponsible trio who had left the ladder at home one day! 63 �More Misgivings, More Advisors Tom perched on the broad arm of an upholstered chair, leaning against the east living room wall, while I stretched masking tape across the solid wall of logs to the west. "Oughta be lower," he advised. I moved the tape. "Hows that?" "O.K., I guess, but it's hard to decide window size when I'm seeing the view under these circumstances. Sit here and see what you think." We were playing with the idea of a front living room window. If the house were restored, two of the three north windows would be replaced by a stone fireplace. We would need more light; and any new window should be on the front, toward the western view, meaning the porch room would have to go, for it stood behind the front wall where our hypothetical window was outlined in tape. All we could do was stare at the logs and envision the view. "What are we doing?" Tom looked at me quickly, perplexed. I elaborated, "What are you and I doing here in this dilapidated house? Tom, you know it would be an awful undertaking to restore this thing, much as we'd like to." "Sure would. What'll we do with the house then, forget it?" "We could just relax and enjoy the property like we set out to do originally and ignore all this house mess. Let it rot! After all, it's the land we wanted. This thing just tagged along." We mulled this a moment before I went on, "Of course, if we're out here alot, we will need a shelter of some sort." "Building something new would be a lot less work." "But these logs are so beautiful!" Every bit of common sense shouted and blared that we were crazy, yet the feeling persisted that we should heave common sense to the winds and pursue this adventure, this whim, this intriguing possibility, this tired, proud old cabin that had capitivated us with its living history and exciting potential. Neither of us expressed further opinion or stated a conclusion. We returned to the tapes on the log wall. 64 �And we lined up more advisors. Queen Anne's lace bobbed in mid-summer finery, and bluebirds were feeding their third nestful of young on the morning a man well-acquainted with old cabins arrived. I had met him at a National Historic Site where he was curator of a restored collection of Appalachian log houses, and as he guided me around, I told him about our cabin. "I want to see it;' he had announced with immediate interest, implying that we would be doing him the favor. Confessing his "affliction" of a soft heart for old log houses, he was eager to encourge saving as many as possible. His trained eye studying our house noted features no other advisor had pointed out. Thirty foot logs were exceptionally long. Rounding of exposed rafter tips was an unusual and fine touch. He lifted slightly the low end of a vertical board which covered the corners and looked at us, smiling broadly. "Beautiful! Double lock notching, perfectly fit! This house was built by a real craftsman who cared. Don't dare let anyone talk you out of restoring it. Look at those logs- except for a few, bad spots on the lower ones, they're great! It should restore beautifully." Transfused with new determination, we called an architect. Preposterous! An architect for a worn out log cabin! But his firm had reconstructed a lovely old cabin in an adjacent county, so I had tracked him down for advice. Many weeks later, stylishly clad and all business, architect Homer Dock arrived at the cabin and immediately looked unsettled, even a bit shocked, by the condition of house and premises. His prosperous firm was not accustomed to dealing with structures of this caliber. He inspected the house conscientously, however, unavoidably intrigued, pointing out several defects which others had either not noticed or ignored. "Several of these rafters are in two sections, nailed together by a third. Unsafe, completely unsafe. The entire roof support structure as well as the roof must be replaced. In fact;' and his arms made an all-encompassing sweep of the house, "you'll have to reconstruct everything. The only useable part of this thing is the logs, and they're probably rotten on the ends- 65 �most are. Cut the ends off, use shortened logs, and design and build a whole new cabin. And by all means, build it further up the hill where the view is better." A bleak silence followed. Our determined, one-track desire to restore the cabin to its authentic, original form faltered. Dock grabbed his opportunity. "If you'll come down to my office and present me with a list of the features you want in a cabin, I'll draw some plans for you to consider." "Then would you do the building?" "Well, ah, I'd have to know more details first. This, ah, this isn't the kind of job we customarily do, you understand. The cabin you saw was a special favor for a longtime friend. Any builder could use our plans, of course." "We understand;' Tom said with more profound meaning than the architect might have caught. Our house was a hot potato; he-and no one else-would risk touching it. Should we give up after all and resign ourselves to attempting a slow, spare time restoration alone, fumbling through, taking years? The experience would be tremendously rewarding. But our three young folks were seldom home to help now. With John and Anne both off for college soon and Charlie off to prep school, Tom and I realized with a touch of sadness that time had evaporated our dream of the farm as a family place, always ready for regular family use. Though the three students would be home occasionally and help generously, mostly there would be only two of us. John had been right when he predicted that our piece of mountain would be mostly for Tom and me. The undertaking alone was overwhelming. The temptation to see what ideas the architect might produce led us to his office where a plan evolved quickly: 1) Take the house apart-discard rotten parts, save useful ones. 2) Rebuild up the hill -the view is much better. For these we would have to: 3) Survey the hill-the new house must fit it properly. 4) Compile data on dimensions of useable materials. 5) List requirements for the new house. 66 �From our data the architect would make sketches of several possible plans for us to consider. What fun! We offered him some rough sketches how we thought the cabin should look, but he rejected these bluntly, without a glance, explaining that he wanted to tackle the plan fresh and uninfluenced. Uneasiness crept over us, but curiosity lured us on. "Shades of the pioneers!" I exclaimed several days later as, feeling thoroughly inadequate for the job, I approached the impenetrable tangle on the hill behind the old house with pruning sheers and a spindly saw. Stronger Tom had the larger tools. How challenged pioneers must have felt as they approached virgin forests with cross-cut saw and axe! Before we could survey, we must clear away the dense growth of young trees, shrubs, and vines. Dogwood, sassafras, locust, maple-I named them as I snipped and sawed them from their roots. Sumac, holly, tulip tree. It hurt to cut off lovely little trees. Blackberry, poison ivy, honeysuckle, greenbriar-this pesky foursome was expendable. What a variety of plants had invaded this old orchard where only one of the original apple trees clung to life, twisted with age, but gamely supporting several live twigs among its brittle dead branches. For several hours Tom and I yanked and cut, dragged and piled, and took breaks frequently to relax beneath the two white pines which towered uphill from the site. The warm needles beneath were dry and pungent as we gazed to the mountains and watched hawks wheeling high above. During one break I thought aloud, "I wonder about George Nelson-when he worked on this hill-picking apples maybedid he stop for quiet moments, too, looking over to those same mountains for refreshment?" No response was necessary, and Tom offered none. We sensed George and daughter Della watching us and saying, "Take good care of this land we loved. Appreciate its beauty and use it well." I had laughed at the prospect of our surveying a building site, for we had neither tools nor experience, but I had underestimated Tom's ingenuity. From three afternoons' work on the hill, with 67 �Anne's invaluable help during a weekend home from college, we held before us an impressive array of numbers and lines on paper and admired a veritable forest of numbered stake across the hill. Hiring someone else to do the job would have been far quicker and easier, but now we glowed with a sense of great accomplishment. Primitively but adequately, we had surveyed a hill, all by ourselves! In compiling data for the architect we took special pains to emphasize our desire for a structure resembling the original log house, the house as George Nelson had built it, using the same dimensions, and the same early door and window locations. Simplicity and authenticity were top priority, to be pushed aside only for minimal electrical items-a few lights, a tiny stove, a small refrigerator, and several heating elements-and for a modest kitchen sink and tiny bathroom. Certainly these modern comforts could be included without compromising the spirit and atmosphere of an old cabin. We reviewed the data repeatedly, convinced they were organized, concise, and easy to interpret, and delighted to have all the precise data and air-castled requirements for our dream cabin on that one, wonderful, little sheet of paper. One blue-skied day in November my visiting sister and I, radiating with the importance and excitement of our mission, carried the precious sheet to the architect. He laid it aside unceremoniously, not even glancing at it, pointed out that there would be delays on the drawings due to business pressures and the complexities of the upcoming December holidays, and proposed a local tour with him to look at several buildings he had designed and built using hand hewn logs. The buildings were unique and clever, several even quite handsome, impressing us, as he had hoped, with his talents. As we journeyed homeward later, however, each confided uneasiness-buildings of old logs, yes, but everywhere the effect of newness, even with contemporary touches, nowhere the comfortable, weathered effect we loved and hoped to keep, nowhere the aura of the Appalachian mountain cabin. The picture disturbed us. 68 �Corncrib We had no intention of taking it down this day. Tom, John, and I had snatched an hour of the dark December afternoon to run to the farm to investigate how we might dismantle the corncrib. It leaned precariously, utterly beyond repair. "A good kick ought to do it," John joked. "That old thing's probably tougher than you'd suspect," mused practical Tom. "Well, the slats have to go first. Let's see how easily they come off." John yanked one vigorously with his claw hammer and nearly fell backward as it let go instantly. Recovering, he knocked off a series of slats in quick succession, scarcely giving me time to shout, "Save the slats! Don't break them! Save the door, too. We can use them for something." "Great for kindling," laughed John, his handsome face alight as he teased me. "No, seriously," I countered, hastily collecting slats as they fell, "they'll make great picture frames." I fingered the weathered gray of one. "They'll make a heap of frames-all pictures, no wall." "But they can be used for lots of things like, well, like-they're beautiful old wood, and I know we can use them for something. We'll save them, so be careful." Tom had joined John knocking slats off but offered no support for either side of the banter. The flurry of activity soon had the corncrib standing bare of slats. Only upright corner logs separated roof from floor. John feinted an axe blow to one, a gesture which asked Tom, "Shall I go ahead?" "We weren't going to take this thing down today;' Tom said, grinning, and John understood the indirect affirmative. A solid blow to the first upright caused a mere tremble. John, obviously enjoying the prospect of the effects of more blows, worked vigorously. Suddenly the whole crib gave a few inches, and the uprights cracked at the base. After another mighty blow, he cheered, "Down she goes!" The old crib collapsed sideways, settling flat with a clatter of tin roof and a wonderful whoosh of air. 69 �The foe had been conquered, and the victor raised his axe in triumph. Maybe we hadn't intended to take it down this day, but we couldn't help it! 70 �Tires Fog hid the distant mountains. "Are they really out there?" someone queried, half serious. The western scene was a gray-white blank. We felt surprised that we had emphasized the mountains so much as "the view," for this day when they seemed nonexistant, a fine view persisted. By hiding the distant view, the fog cleverly emphasized the close. The near hills lay soft and filmy in a misty mantle of gray twigs. The two hemlocks loomed darkly beside the house, mysterious and protective. Behind them twig fingers on the tall honey locust reached upward into murky oblivion. A nuthatch coursed jerkily along its branches, investigating bark crannies for tidbits. A crow flapped over the cabin, swooped toward the hollow, and vanished into nebulous woods beyond. The fields lay silvery, harboring seeds and roots that would surge with growth when longer, warmer days returned. Many days will come when the mountains stand invisible, but we on our hill need have no concern for this. The close view pleases us equally. "Well, time's up for contemplating views and foggy trees," Charlie stated with a laugh. "Let's tackle tires." Where the stream drops into alders before sliding over rocks into the seclusion of :rhododendron, old tires lined its banks and bed. Most were bogged down, heavy with mud and water, but we had concluded their removal should be reasonably easy; after all, they numbered only about a dozen. But each tire pulled with puffing effort revealed another one or two beneath it, buried beneath years of fallen leaves and muck and silt. Each stubbornly refused to leave its resting place without forcing John or Charlie to struggle his utmost. Many ringed alders or rhododendrons ten to fifteen feet tall, and cutting the tires to free them was impossible with our simple tools, so the boys cut the shrubs-the shrubs were expendable. But the thicket was dense, and we were growing more and more impressed by the difficulty of the struggle and the mushrooming size of the tire pile. Gloves became soggy and cold, breath puffed visibly in the raw air, and few kindly feelings warmed our hearts as we thought 71 ��about the person who had placed those tires. Why did he go to the effort of hauling all those tires down there? Or did he stand on the hilltop with the tire poised for the downhill run and let 'er roll? We warmed to the picture of rolling dozens of tires down the hill. Maybe a couple of boys did it, maybe a boisterous gathering of happy men and boys. What fun! We could almost hear their laughter. But again, why? To dispose of them in a waste place? To prevent erosion? No one in the present family knew. Beauty certainly rated no consideration. Utility had undoubtedly been the motive, for the tires were arranged in the stream bed and on the banks methodically. Perhaps they broke the force of water plummeting down the narrow stream bed during summer cloudbursts. Perhaps the person who laid them felt as strongly about his motive as we did about ours to remove them, so we tried to understand him as we labored. The heap by the stream accumulated to thirty-six tires, bedecked with a motley collection of rusty car parts, collapsing cans, and broken jars. Though my suggestion a week later that we head for the cabin to carry tires up hill to the lane met with groans and drop-dead looks from our three visiting children, once on the scene they proved again the delightful cleverness of youth in making fun out of a dull job. As brilliant sun bathed the winter day in spring-like warmth and winter garments were peeled, each porter vied to outdo the others in devising the quickest or most ridiculous or ingenious method for carrying tires. Grunts, puffs, and laughter floated over the hill as the family of five worked and bantered. Engrossed in techniques and friendly competition, we were surprised to discover almost too quickly that the tire pile had disappeared from the hollow and reappeared by the lane. The many-hands-lighten-labor principle had worked magnificently, and while momentum soared, all descended on the flattened corn crib roof, prying and ripping the metal sheets from a pole framework, then knocking the poles apart with an axe. Another all-family effort a week later filled Vern McCoy's dump truck, and we waved him off gaily as he departed with the 73 �thirty-six tires, rattling sections of rusty corncrib roof, and another inevitable, incredible assortment of junk. "There goes load number four!" 74 �Zeb Collins "There it is! That's the kind of cabin we want!" I exclaimed, rushing the evening paper to Tom to show him a sturdy, plain log cabin on the front page. An accompanying article described the paintstaking restoration accomplished by Zeb Collins and the authentic antique furnishings his wife, Lora, and he had collected for it. Here at last was someone who would undertand what we wanted and maybe know someone who could help us reconstruct. I was jubilant. I called him next day, and he sounded delighted by the prospect of showing us his cabin and talking about ours, but due to work hours, Tom and he had no coincident time off for over a week. "What about now?" he asked. The importance of seeing his cabin brought my instant reply. "Great!" John was home and could accompany me, and Tom could see it another time. We drove the six miles to Zeb's house and for a wonderful hour listened and looked and questioned as Lora and he showed us around the 200 year old family cabin. They described its restoration, early furnishings, and use as a family museum. As we sauntered from the cabin back to the house, I exclaimed, "If only we could find someone to help us build who has your feel for it!" "I know your man," Zeb Collins stated quietly. "Wants to make a cabin for himself some day. He's never worked on one, but he's interested in them and knows building. He's working on a house now, but just may be able to fit yours in. Name's Candler, Joe B. Candler. Everybody calls him JB. Four days later Tom and I rode down the cabin lane, making quiet tracks in fresh snow, followed by a pale blue pickup truck with its tracks tracing ours. JB and his wife, Eula, were in the truck, coming to look over the cabin to consider doing the reconstruction job. An artist had been at work in the lane, fashioning a scene of white, gray, and black with accents of tan, subdued but delicately beautiful. Crystal by crystal the painter had applied an outline of snow white to every twig and blade, creating one of nature's 75 �annual masterpieces that never ceases to thrill. Despite its beauty, the day was raw. Cold penetrated our boots, and we shifted from one foot to the other as we studied our problem house. Even the view looked cold, a classic study in gray intensities, each mountain layer less gray than the one before it until the farthest blended with the sky. The white-gray of a snow squall moved cross the peaks, progressively obliterating the peak ahead as it revealed another behind. Tom told of the advisors we had had and of the information sent to the architect. JB expressed interest in seeing Homer Dock's proposals before making any decisions. He spoke in a deep, soft voice, asked few questions, made few suggestions, smiled a kindly smile, and was thoroughly calm and non-committal. After poking about the cabin, inside and out, inspecting it rather superficially, we thought, he seemed to have completed the purpose of his visit. Before departing he stated simply, "I'll think on it. Let me know when you get the architect's drawings." Standing rather dumbly, not knowing whether to be pleased or disappointed, Tom and I watched the tail of the pickup truck until it disappeared. JB certainly showed no enthusiasm, but neither did he turn down the job as had the other builders. We dangled. What next? Wait. 76 �The Drawings "The drawings are ready," Homer Dock stated casually over the telephone, never dreaming how eagerly I welcomed his words. Christmas had come and gone, the log house nearly forgotten in the swirl of events with family and friends. This news dropped us back suddenly into the bubbling pot of planning. Excited and tense with anticipation, Tom, Anne, and I drove to the architect's office. These would be just preliminary sketches, of course, proposing several possible plans, but we would have the fun of studying them while the family was still home on vacation. The timing was perfect! Together we could choose one and add touches to suit all whims. In no time Dock would have the revised, final drawings ready. At last we could proceed, once we lined up a builder. If JB did not accept the job, Dock's company might even provide a builder. At the office we sat down as directed at a great, wide tableI felt as if a roast pig were about to be brought in. All were dumbfounded when Dock spread before us not the small rough sketches of several plans we expected but huge sheets with completed drawings of a single plan. We glanced at them, then at each other, stunned and speechless, then quickly studied the sheets again, almost blindly, awkwardly masking our perplexed disappointment. The building we saw was not what we expected or wanted, and here it lay before us grandly, essentially in a final state. The little log house shown was attractive, but not an Appalachian mountain cabin. Colonial touchs, modern deck, bi-level front porch, and a flagstone patio are not features of mountain cabins. The window and door arrangement was completely revised. How could our careful verbal and written specifications be interpreted into this? Dock was obviously wary of the old cabin as we saw it and determined to direct us into a modern vacation house design. Our conventional ideas were not his cup of tea, so he had poured ours out and served his own brand. Groping for words, we expressed surprise at the finished plan and limply repeated that we would have to study the drawings carefully at home, then call him. There was nothing else to say. All parties sensed the let-down. 77 �We escaped the unpleasant situation hastily and settled into the car with discouraged sighs. Over and over during that long ride home we shook our heads in bewildered disbelief. He had drawn a final plan without showing preliminary ones and seemed perplexed when we did not greet with enthusiasm his imaginative, resort-style cottage. The next morning, still shaken and subdued by events, we visited Zeb Collins' cabin, yearning for assurance that this type cabin was right. How effectively that little house, so plain and utterly charming, captured our hearts and dispensed the dose of inspiration and determination we needed! Then, much to our surprise, the more Tom and I studied the architect's plans the more excited we became. We scribbled off our own sketches on piles of scratch sheets, constantly referring to his drawings for help, finding them absolutely invaluable for providing us with ideas. We called Dock to report the plans "very interesting and helpful," even paid the bill cheerfully, for all was not lost, and let the association end there. Further explanation or discussion would have accomplished nothing and profited no one. Dock was obviously not in tune with us. The happy fact was that the apparent fiasco had reversed into a huge success. After providing us with excellent details for basic construction and easily adaptable scale drawings, the architect's work revealed precisely the features we did not want. It guided us beautifully to the right course by suggesting the opposite. We laughed and marveled how completely we disagreed with his design. The unexpected twist was so wonderfully and ridiculously backwards, so utterly absurd and successful, that we had far more fun planning than had everything proceeded traditionally. A rainy afternoon several days later found Tom busy with several cartons, glue, tape, and a Scout knife. Cleverly he created a cardboard model of the envisioned cabin. There it stood in three dimensions, to be seen and studied from all angles. We felt like children playing with a toy house and knew we were on the right trail at last. The cabin project had had to develop through those many months of infancy, growing pains, and adolescence. It was mature. Now all we needed was a builder willing to tackle it. 78 �Builder "Oh, no!" I wailed. "How could we have forgotten it?" "I sure don't know, but we did. Guess we had too much on our minds." We were riding to the cabin, almost there, and Tom paused to collect his thoughts, glancing at his watch. "JB's due at 11:00. That's any minute. You drop me off at the lane, and I'll walk in and be there to meet him and get started on business. You won't miss much. He may be late." I pressed the car hard on the twisty road and chose a different route home, hoping to avoid the deep, muddy ruts we had encountered on Finley Cove Road. Recent rains had made the mountain roads nearly impassable. How could we both have forgotten our most important prop? Here we were, poised to plunge into details with a builder-not any builder, but one that might even say, "Yes!" All those hours of studying plans, all those drawings, all those walks back and forth across the hill behind the house to contemplate exact site possibilities, all that work led to this critical day when we would present our concrete plan to JB and hope he would find the prospect totally irresistable. For this all-important presentation Tom had made the cardboard model, and where was it? At home! Each had assumed the other had set it in the back of the station wagon. Now JB and Tom would be talking together, the gettingdown-to-business talk we had dreamed of, and where was I? On a stupid old road with sleazy, muddy ruts just as bad and slow as those on Finley Cove. No, the road isn't stupid, I fretted; we are. I stewed all the way home and all the way back, arriving in a breathless flurry to find JB and Tom calm, smiling, and just getting started. I had missed nothing; everything was beautifully under control. I felt rather foolish. Tom, in his patient way, laid our proposals before JB, who, in his patient way, pondered them, said, "Ya, unh-hunh;' anumber of times, and added little. He drove off two hours later with the architect's grand, printed sheets and our primitive, penciled drawings, having stated, "I'll study 'em." A week later he spent another two hours with us at the cabin, 79 �all trying to ignore the chilling January wind sweeping in from the meadow. The old porch thermometer registered 30°F; inside the house it was cosier, 48°F. Business took only part of the time. JB simply liked to stand around and chat, and gradually we began to know and like this man. He was a comfortable person, gentle and pleasant. JB departed saying he had enough information now to make estimates of cost and time. "Call me, say, Tuesday-Wednesday night. I think I can figure it out by then." He still had not indicated whether he would do the job. Tom was out at meetings both evenings, so the call fell to me, and with a mighty effort of will power, I managed to delay until Wednesday night. Impatiently I dialed and hoped he would answer so his response would not be delayed a moment longer than necessary. "Hello." It was Eula. "Is JB there, please?" Suppose he were out! "Just a minute." At last! Now we would learn the facts, know where we stood. In only a moment I would know if we had a builder. "Hello." "Hello, JB. This is Barbara Hallowell. We're wondering if you have those estimate figures yet." I tried to sound casual. Of course, the figures had to precede the vital question. "Nope. Haven't had time to work on 'em yet. How 'bout I call you when I do?" "Well, yes, that'll be O.K." What else could I say? "We'll wait for you to call us." Then I added lightly, "Hope to hear from you soon." I wondered if he realized even one tiny bit the depth of my disappointment. Ten days passed without his call. One evening I announced to Tom, "I can't stand this any longer. I'm going to call JB." This time JB did have the figures and did state in words, in full, meaningful, beautiful words, "I'd like to try that job." He suggested Tom and I discuss the figures and if we still definitely wanted him to call back soon. Our discussion lasted fully five seconds. 80 �The estimate was within bounds, help was urgent, experience in log cabin construction no longer a requisite. After an appropriate delay of a few minutes, we called back, and JB sounded delighted. He estimated the job should take " 'bout three months." Assuming work could start in a couple weeks, when he finished another job, say about mid-February, that would carry us to mid-May. In the glory of springtime the reconstructed cabin on our piece of mountain would be ready for use! After we hung up, I yelled, "We're in business, on our way!" And we basked in blissful ignorance of the extent of our undertaking. 81 �This page intentionally left blank �Chapter 5 "'Bout Three Months" Two Pines ............................... 84 The Site ................................ 95 Water .................................. 101 Three Weeks and Weather ................. 109 Price of a Bathroom ...................... 112 People ................................. 114 83 �Two Pines Late in the '30s winged seeds had slipped from between the scales of ripened cones on a mature white pine on the Nelson farm. A wisp of late summer breeze caught them and swirled them away from their parent tree, scattering them widely. Dozens sifted in among weeds and grasses at the edge of the newly-abandoned orchard, but in time only two of the tiny pines that sprouted there survived the intense competition with other plants. Tom and I were destined to control the fate of these two. Through many growing seasons the two pines flourished, and by the time we were negotiating to buy the farm, the orchard trees were only memories in the minds of a few people and the two pines stood nearly seventy feet tall. "They're big, all right," Oscar agreed as we stood admiring the fine trees several months before we bought the farm, "but they ain't but about thirty-thirty five years old, 'cause that's when we stopped usin' that orchard." "You won't cut them big pines if you buy this place, will you now?" begged Della, and with complete confidence I assured her we considered them two of the finest trees on the farm. No, indeed-we would not destroy them. I felt less confident about Oscar's saw and axe. He was aging, unwell, and needed firewood for heat and cooking. Those pines, so handy to the house, would provide a wealth of wood. With no grounds for authority, not being the owner, but with considerably serious intent behind the jest, I joked lightly, "Now watch that those trees don't see the inside of your stove!" Looking back, I feel embarrassed. Oscar said nothing, but what must he have thought of us "city folks?" From our point of view, we were by no means city folks, Tom having been raised on a farm, I in a small town in farm country, and our married years had been spent adjacent to a farm, but our knowledge of country ways must have looked skimpy to Oscar. Any mountain man knows that white pine makes poor firewood-burns too fast and "resins up yer chimley," and too, cutting one of those trees was a far greater task than one old man could undertake. Our ignorance must have caused some head shaking and wry chuckles. 84 �Who could have convinced me then that two years later, on a blustry raw day in February, I would be standing on that hill behind the house arranging with a lumberman to cut down the two pines? Tom and I had fought the decision, struggling to find a way out, but no matter how we planned, any cut in the hill for a cabin site would sever half the pines' roots. A strong gust could topple the trees, and below would lie the cabin. With three brief words we sealed the fate of the pines. "They must go." The trees were marked for the guillotine, and a vision of Madame Defarge knitting their symbols into her handwork as the axe would fall flashed through my mind. Arlie Corn and I trudged up the hill toward the pines in a cold drizzle. Only eighty-three years old, he outpaced me, and when I stood beneath the trees puffing, his breathing had barely accelerated. "Gonna be a right smart job gettin' 'quipment up here," he stated after silent assessment of the situation. "Not much profit in it fer just two trees, and one of 'em's crookedy." He gave these gloomy comments time to stir in my mind before adding, "We'll hafta cut 'em in ten-foot lengths and roll 'em clean down the hill to the ioadin' truck." It'll be clean, all right, I thought. Logs that size would crush everything in their path, but the job had to be done. Days later on a frigid morning when tightly-rolled rhododendron leaves dangled from their twigs like thin pencils, I stood between the two pines and scanned the vast expanse of sky. Not even a wisp of cloud patched its perfection. The blue-shadowed cove still rested, hoary with frost crystals. Snuggled in the protection of shrubby thickets, birds roosted, feathers fluffed to insulate bodies and cover perching feet. Here spreads the epitome of a wintry morning, I mused, yet when the sun rises above the hill in a couple of hours, its heat will warm us to jacket-peeling, and the rhododendron leaves will unroll and spread to catch the warmth. What a lovely climate here! No man-made sound broke the spell, only the tumbling stream sounds in the meadow and the waking twits of sparrows in a tangle of forsythia. The sudden, penetrating, raucous call of 85 �a pileated woodpecker startled life and echoed across the cove. Stand proudly above this lovely scene, pines, for this is your last day as trees. You must be subdued by man and forced to rest a while, but in time you will return to this hill to serve again in a different way. A massive flatbed truck crept in the lane. Old Arlie Corn and a middle-aged co-worker named Coy McCartle alighted, waved greetings, and climbed the hill. Soon their ear-shattering chain saw obliterated all other sounds as it gnawed into the base of the larger pine. I looked down uneasily at two fine dogwoods, one at least twenty-five years old, and hoped the men, as requested, could drop the pine between them. The saw chewed deeper, spewing millions of woody fragments. The great tree leaned slightly off vertical; no stopping now. Wedges were set into the gaping basal incision, and metal mallet head met metal wedge repeatedly, forcefully, with a sound so brilliant and penetrating it made my ears ring. The branch tips high above shivered with each meeting of metals while the wedges dug deeper into the wound. A powerful crack sounded; the clanking stopped as the men stepped back hastily. The huge tree began its descent, slowly, then gathering momentum as its center of gravity shifted. With splintering cracks, the leading limbs plunged into the ground and snapped. The thud of the massive bole followed. The tree shuddered and lay silent. A glance at one of the dogwood trees showed half of it missing, sheared by a large branch. The men apologized awkwardly, and I accepted and understood, but with a growing sense of defeat. One after another the things we wanted to save were being destroyed. The chain saws whirred again, lopping branches off the prostrate form. The executioners had sliced down the giant; now they stripped its clothes. Soon the trunk lay naked, circular wounds whorled on its circumference. While the saw sectioned the long pine pole into ten-foot pieces, I examined the stump which stood clean and exposed in a circle of yellow sawdust. Engulfed in the spicy scent of oozing pine resin and bruised needles, I counted 86 �rings to determine the tree's age-thirty-five years! Felling and trimming the tree had been no novelty to me, but then McCartle pulled from the truck two tools I had never seen before. "What're those called?" I asked, curious. "That'n's a cant hook and this'n's a peavey," he explained. "They's old time loggin' tools just as good now as ever." With them the men pried and shifted a mammoth log ninety degrees with apparent ease and control. Within seconds it charged fiercely down the hill with awesome power, halting obediently, as if by remote control, against several smaller, preset stop logs. I was tremendously impressed. A second huge log was maneuvered deftly into position and sent plummeting, behaving perfectly. The men beamed shyly as I commended their skilltoo soon. The third log struck a slight bump as it charged off and deviated direct-line toward a lovely dogwood. A projecting ground stub mercifully saved the tree by forcing the log to a different course, straight for the kitchen end of the house. Horror for the dogwood swung to greater horror for the kitchen. The three of us waited helplessly for the disastrous crash, but several old mimosa logs, stacked as if predestined in exact optimum location behind the house, heroically shifted the missile from its destructive line. Its force waned on a gentler slope, where it settled innocently near its fellow logs. The wild run had taken only seconds, but the loggers were subdued considerably as they tackled number four. When all the pine sections had rolled, the loggers guided each up a ramp onto the truckbed, into its proper position in the load, even lifting some on top of others. The mighty trunk of the first pine lay chained and controlled on the truck, while its bushy limbs sprawled cross the hillside, an awkward jumble of giant jackstraws. Lunchtime seemed a blessed break from the noise and stress of the morning. As we pulled out bulging lunch bags and basked in the sun, McCartle initiated the conversation. "I knew this place a long time ago when Uncle George Nelson farmed it and had it fixed up real nice." "Aaaach!" exclaimed Corn, spitting out a mouthful of 87 �coffee. "That dangblasted coffee's strong enough to float an iron wedge!" McCartle ignored him. "Yea, Uncle George had a water system from way back up on the branch-chestnut poles he'd scooped out-had 'em set all along the way to git water down here near the house. Wonder if it's still aworkin'." So the original line had been hollowed chestnut poles! "The chestnut must've rotted eventually," I surmised out loud, " 'cause it was replaced with tin gutters and metal roofing strips and in some places, just dirt ditches. No one tends the water line now, so crayfish holes have let the water out." Corn joined in. "Used to be you could see everywhere and beyond from here," and we chatted on until the men sauntered off to the second pine tree, their afternoon victim. Several of its smaller logs completed a full load on the truck, but not before Corn grimaced in pain when a log slipped and pinched his hand. "Is it bleeding?" I asked with immediate concern, ready to dash for the first aid kit. "Naw," McCartle laughed, "he's too tough to bleed," and I almost believed him. "Guess we'll be leavin' now." "You'll be back to load the rest in a little while?" "Nope. Be back tomorrow mornin'. We're done out." I certainly understood their being "done out;' but had hoped fervently that the job could be completed this day. The next did not suit to come all the way out just to open the cable lock, but I would have to make it suit. A plague on that cable! That evening Tom and I surveyed the scene of execution. Oddly, there was not the vacancy on the hill we expectedyounger pines behind the big ones stood exposed now. But the straggly heaps of brush sprawled conspicuously, impressive especially because the bulldozer operator was due any day now to level the site for the cabin. That brush had to be moved soon. Daylight-Savings Time which had been instituted due to a major energy crisis, gave us welcome light to work. We struggled to disentangle the branches, trudged down the hill, up the hill, down the hill, up the hill, each up accompanied by puffs, each down by resisting, resin-sticky, awkward limbs which we heaped 88 �onto a rapidly-growing pile. An hour of steady work created a mountain, yet the hill appeared as covered with branches as before. "Maybe we'd better let the bulldozer shove them down the hill," I suggested. Tom must have been mulling the same thought, for he was ready with an unexpectedly quick answer. "No! Think what that machine grinding up and down here would do to this ground. No, thanks! We'll manage. It'll be good exercise for us." We turned to watch the sun slip behind the mountain horizon and welcomed dusk, for weariness overwhelmed us even though behind the fatigue glowed quiet excitement. Next morning the sun still hid behind trees at my back as I drove toward the cabin. My mind stirred busily with anticipation of the log loading job ahead and was totally unprepared for stunning spectacle. The low mountains ahead at Jones Gap, where I would pass over a mountain, rested peacefully in deep, gray blue. Leftover night darkened the sky behind them where a bright fingernail moon persisted. Suddenly the uppermost hilltops glowed rosy lavender, and then, as if stage lights had been switched on, the sun rose from behind a hill and bathed the entire rangetop in a wild, orange light, almost frightening in its intensity. Dazzled, I braked and stopped midroad to feast on this grandeur, this superb display of color. Its astonishing brilliance against night's waning shadows verged on the supernatural. But within seconds a dark cloud slid over the sun and stopped the show abruptly. The hills lapsed into grayblue, and I sat quietly, alone on the road, savoring the moments I had been privileged to witness. Then I proceeded on my humble errand. Dawn does not need to be a spectacular splash of startling color to be magnificent. It can be the murky, gradual lightening of a spring day drenched in rain, when tree trunks stand soaking black against a yellow-green film of miniature new leaves. It can be the eerie, early light of fogbound summer mornings, when ears must detect what eyes cannot. It can be a blue world of crystals on a winter meadow. Magnificence comes with taking time to 89 �fully experience dawn, but habitually we forget to glance its way and miss its repeated shows. Dawn is persistently, sadly unwelcome, its beauty spoiled by association with jangling alarm clocks, sleepy groans, gulped cups of coffee, and pressures to be alert and productive. Priority goes to the morning paper or TV news. My reveries halted abruptly at the cabin lane's cable. Corn and McCartle were waiting, and within half an hour they had loaded the remaining logs of the second pine. "When can you saw the logs?" I asked. "Oooh, may next day or two or three," spokesman McCartle replied. "Does the lumber come back here for drying?" "Yep." "How long must it dry before we can use it?" I was full of questions. "Maybe two-three months. 'Pends on weather." "Three months! The cabin is supposed to be finished by then! That lumber is supposed to be used in it!" We looked at each other for an intense moment-then burst out laughing. "Well, it better be a dry spring!" I exclaimed. "Now, how do we stack it for drying?" Old Corn suddenly stepped toward me. "You gotta put you a board up here like 'is 'tween two trees and put yer boards 'gainst it on end sorta. One goes this side and one goes that'n, back and forth like. Hit's easy." He looked at me eagerly, seeking assurance that now I had the full picture. Fortunately, he was unaware that I was so entranced by his presentation that I completely failed to grasp his description. The soft, gentle, almost sing-song inflection and the strange pronunciation of his delightful mountain dialect had received my full concentration. He apparently interpreted my non-committal, "Ummmm," as understanding, for the men climbed briskly into the truck, and the second pine traveled to the sawmill. That evening before dinner Tom and I plodded up and down the hill again, dragging limbs, each one tugged from a snarled mass with difficulty. Occasional glances exchanged in passing were hard 90 �to assess. What was the other party thinking: this exercise feels great, or what on earth are we doing now? The enthusiasm felt the previous night did not settle with us this second night of limb hauling. Weariness had intensified, and the mass of branches on the hillside seemed endless. Two weeks later, while staring blankly at the kitchen wall as I stirred some cooking for dinner, I was startled by the telephone's ring. "We're deliverin' the lumber now. Be there in 'bout twenty minutes." Not, "Does it suit?" Not, "Can someone be there to let us in?" Just matter-of-factly, "We're deliverin'," as if I had endless time and no commitments. I was learning fast. For many a mountain workman, time is a nebulous thing. Much rural mountain living only a generation ago followed the pattern of former generations with the selfsustaining farm unit uninfluenced by the rapid scheduling and clock watching of contemporary living. An oblivious attitude carries on from this quite naturally. Do the job when you feel ready to do it, regardless of clocks and the plans of others. I heard one old fellow berating the outsiders one day, "These folks come in here and git theirselves all busied up and 'spect you to 'rive at such and such a time and pitch a fit if you don't. What's all their hurrin' up for? If the job don't git done today, more days is acomin'. Hit'll git done. The days ain't gonna run away." Most situations have two sides, and it enriches one to understand the other. The casual pace, the nonchalance in a long wait, the unperturbed approach were refreshing to my clock-oriented, impatient self. I saw values in these that forced me to question some of my own and began to understand more fully a statement I had heard about the mountain family-that we not be too quick to teach before we have taken time to learn from them. I flew to put on heavy work clothes, for the temperature was in the teens, and scribbled a hasty note to Tom, who was due home from work in half an hour, expecting dinner. "Off to cabin to receive lumber. Dinner later. XXX, B." Only McCartle was on hand when I arrived. He tried to drive the heavy truck up the hill toward the new cabin site, but though 91 �the upper ground surface was frozen, the truck's wheels sank through into soft mud. He had to retreat to the turnaround by the hemlocks. The only choice was to unload the lumber there. I watched his unloading pace briefly while freezing nearby in the increasing darkness and realized quickly that the job would take far longer than the time for me to become an iceblock, so I plunged in to help. The boards were heavy with sticky resin and awkwardly long. Some were frozen together, many coated with ice crystals. A half hour passed. We exchanged few words, for the work was hard, the wind biting cold, and darkness nearly complete. Both wanted the job accomplished as quickly as possible. After the last board clunked onto the pile, McCartle generously explained more clearly how to build a rack for drying the lumber; then each hurried for the warmth of our respective homes and dinners. Retrospect is strange. I look back upon that inopportune, bitterly cold, miserable job as one of the most memorable and rewarding experiences in the cabin reconstruction, and I wonder why. Something about being forced from my cosy kitchen, my comfortable homemaking, into weather I would ordinarily avoid, at a time most unsuitable, for a job about which I knew nothing, was deliciously different. The hard outdoor work exhilarated, and I arrived home rosy-cheeked, hungry, and brimming with satisfaction. I had unloaded fresh lumber on a mountainside in frosty darkness, and it felt incredibly good. Tom grasped instantly my description of McCartle's directions for the lumber rack. All we needed were two sturdy trees about ten or twelve feet apart with a strong board fastened between them about five or six feet up. The two hemlocks stood as perfect candidates with the lumber conveniently beside them, but nearly thirty feet separated the trees. No other trees of sufficient strength grew nearby, and we certainly had no intention of carrying the lumber to another site. Tom noted solid locust fence posts surrounding an adjacent garden area and soon had tall uprights securely lashed to two of them. A strong board was nailed between them. Now all we had 92 ��to do was lift the new boards on end and lean each against the cross board. Tom set one against the crossboard from his side, and I set one from mine, alternating to give air space between the boards. It went easily at first, and we chatted gaily, but with each lift we became more impressed by the job we had tackled. As I had discovered when unloading the boards, fresh lumber is heavy, and repeatedly bending down, lifting, and maneuvering into position these ten-foot lengths soon caused various anti-work symptoms which increased in geometric proportion. We worked slowly, carefully, huffing, straining, but when the job was barely half done, we were all done. In a carefree mood, remembering, "The days ain't gonna run away," we postponed further stacking to another day. Several days later, with energies restored and enthusiasm heightened by a balmy touch of spring, we completed the stacking in an almost festive mood, and in a silly moment called the board-laden rack our "tepee," for its triangular form resembled one. The name stuck. Tom wedged, braced, and propped the laboring structure, and the "city folks" were immodestly proud of their efforts. Far more satisfying was our sentimental pleasure in knowing that the two great pines had returned to their hill. They were resting now, mere rough boards, but seasoning, preparing for their important future role, and for a while they stood forgotten as other jobs set the stage for their next act. 94 �The Site A passerby, glancing our way, might have thought we had just created some masterpiece, for JB and I stood bathed in smiles, gazing at our project with unabashed pride. The object of our admiration seemed plain and undramatic-a few simple stakes and some string-but our smiles resulted from their significance. On this summer-like February afternoon JB had made the stakes with his hand axe while I had wandered, seeking signs of spring-budding daffodils, blossoming alders, honey bees on red maple blossoms, clover leaves growing in the yard. Then he was ready with the tools-a steel measuring tape, a carpenter's level, and some string. JB hammered a stake in and from it measured various distances and hammered in other stakes. Between them we strung lines. Since each line had to be absolutely level, he directed me to hold the carpenter's level mid-string, so he could raise or lower the line according to my instructions. The little bubble wobbled to the left or right of the level marker on this useful tool as a song sparrow burst with spring melody or a whiff of sun on pine needles touched by nose or a movement in the shrubs caught my eye. A rabbit? Thoroughly distracted, I kept forgetting whether the bubble's position indicated to lift or lower the line, and admitting an acute dose of spring fever, traded jobs with a laughing JB. Thanks to his concentration, the job was completed quickly. So we admired our stakes and string with full knowledge that within the confines of that small boundary the ground on the hill would be leveled soon by a bulldozer, and on that little shelf would rise the reconstructed cabin. Physically the accomplishment was minor. Psychologically a mountain had been scaled, a sea crossed, a hundred miles walked. The tidy, organized plan for the bulldozer was set clearly in mind. How simple it would be, just a, b, c, d! a. The bulldozer would come in the lane, follow it to the end, and push on up hill to the new site, automatically extending the lane. b. The operator would level the site, carefully, of course. 95 �c. The newly cut uphill bank would be contoured and smoothed, the loose earth on it set for seeding. d. Seeding would be done immediately so grass would be well along even before actual reconstruction began. But I had not yet met Broadus Rutherford Leedom. In mid-February Broadus roared into the lane atop his great yellow monster. My first impression of him was bulk-solid bulk, broad, thick, muscular bulk, topped with a round face, a huge grin with a bellowing laugh behind it, and dark, stringy hair to his shoulders. He was the cartoonist's caricature of the heavy equipment operator. He stopped at the turnaround by the hemlocks, jumped down, and greeted JB and me cheerily with a booming voice raised above the monster's engine noise. My mind constricted to one thought-why doesn't he turn off that dreadful engine? With my small voice inaudible above the roar, I stood mute. JB indicated the job was not here but up on the hill and gestured to proceed up the lane, but Broadus had already leapt to the machine and obviously favored short cuts. Like a charging bull elephant, he attacked the turnaround bank between the hemlocks and scooped off the top of the rise with a huge bucket. 3 Whether this was from necessity or for dramatic effect, I was too disheartened to care, for he had just scooped, buried, and squashed the gooseneck plants I had treasured from the old garden. The tender shoots had not yet pushed above the ground, so he did not know they were there, but why scoop at all? He galloped up the hill over hollies and dogwood - we had not had a chance to tell him we wanted to do as little damage as possible to the hill's vegetation-and made a split second assessment of the few remaining pine limbs. These must go! Before I was even halfway up the hill, with JB running not too far ahead, he had pushed the limbs of pine brush over to the wood's edge, shoving them onto sumac and dogwood, and made several passes that effectively mashed much of the area Tom and I had labored so hard to keep natural. Tears of frustration and disappointment welled, but there was no time to let them spill. I gestured frantically for him to stop and urged him to turn 96 �the motor low enough so I could be heard. "Please try to help us save the small trees and bushes on the rest of the hill," I plead, smiling rather bleakly, feeling like a mouse asking help from a behemoth. Broadus Rutherford L. was not preservation minded. He nodded and grinned and plunged the bucket into the bank. The entire hill trembled. A ridiculous picture of the earthworms and toads and grubs and hibernating creatures on the hill, shaken in their torpor, popped into mind. For two hours the shuddering noise and gouging machine ruled the hill while JB and I collected rocks exposed by the digging. They would be useful later. Summerlike sun beamed down on us, and I yearned to be rid of the overwhelming din and confusion, to hear sounds of spring. From apparent chaos a level site evolved, with the back bank properly angled. The scene looked terribly raw, but I sought consolation in the knowledge that nature heals quickly here. I heard Broadus yell to me, "Where'll I get some dirt?" "Dirt?" "Yeah, for the yard. Ain't enough dirt here for any yard around the house. Where d'ya want me to git it?" My mind leaped frantically from one place to another. What bump could we do without? I did not want him to dig anywhere. The worn out cornfield soil might be expendable, but it was too far away, and the lovely path to it through the meadow and across the stream would be ruined by the machine's repeated passage. Broadus, JB, and I conferred hastily and agreed that the bank behind the corncrib debris would be best. A tangle of honeysucke covered it, and lowering the bank several feet would produce no great trauma. Part of that bank became our yard, and the lane was extended to the new site in the process. A glorious sensation of relief swept the hill when the last sound of the giant machine faded down the road. Had those cardinals and titmice been singing all day? JB and I plodded around in the soft, bare earth, idly collecting a few rocks, assessing the scene. Exhaustion from noise, yelling, rock hauling, climbing, and torn emotions overwhelmed me, and I flopped onto the dirt and sat staring at the back bank. 97 �Suddenly I burst into laughter and surprised myself as much as JB, who looked at me completely startled. "I just thought of something funny," I explained. "I expected this bank to be all lovely and smooth when Broadus left, all perfect for seeding. We would just scatter the grass seed, rake it into the soft, loose earth on the bank, and in a week the bank would be covered by a green film. But look at it!" and we both laughed heartily. A shambles of broken roots jutted crazy-angled from along the bank. The layer of pulverized soil I had envisioned was in reality glaring red clay so compacted where the bucket had scooped against it that it shone. "No hope for raking that soil!" I exclaimed. JB nodded hearty agreement. "Might as well forget about it till most of the building's done." I thought his suggestion excellent. On a late February morning Vern McCoy screwed up his face, looked at Charlie and me, and scratched his head as he considered the job I had requested. "Ain't much room there, but I kin try." "I know it looks almost impossible, but just give it your best." The big ailanthus tree stood along the stepping stones from lane to house. Straggly and unattractive, it was shoving its limbs into the hemlock, overwhelming the ancient dogwood, and outdoing itself in producing progeny. Young ailanthus trees by the hundreds grew about the premises, persistent as weeds, smelly when cut, and shooting up huge suckers if lopped off at ground level. They seemed determined to dominate the hill, and our battle against them must begin by eliminating the parent trees. Felling timber was routine for McCoy, and he had already cut down the male tree, but this female tree could fall in only one narrow passageway. The trunk must angle snuggly between two boxwoods only four or five feet apart, and the spread of limbs must pass perfectly between the power line and a fine honey locust. McCoy plunged in with an air of confidence. He set two large logs on end by the tree's trunk, laid several old boards across these, and set an empty gasoline drum from his dump truck on top the boards. Defying gravity and all the rules of safety, he balanced precariously atop the drum and, reaching out with his chain saw, 98 �lopped side limbs off the tree. Spurred by the success of this feat, he removed the drum grandly, hopped onto the boards again, steadied himself, and reaching as high as possible, let the whirring saw teeth dig into the ailanthus trunk. Why so high, I wondered, but the noise made asking impossible. He stopped sawing several times to study the narrow corridor destined to receive the fallen tree. A remark I had heard a logger say about another logger's ability to fell a tree popped into mind. "Why, he can drop a tree and drive a stake with it!" To miss the obstacles, McCoy's job would have to be nearly as precise. He sawed on as we stood in tense anticipation of the crititical fall. "Timberrr!" yelled Charlie when the sharp crack of breaking wood resounded and the tree began its arc. We watched in fascination and dread. Perhaps the most surprised of all after the crash was McCoy. Perhaps his air of confidence had been cover for cold apprehension, but whatever his secret pre-fall sentiments, his post-fall emotions were displayed in full glory, his face shining with pride and delight. The tree had fallen perfectly, whether by luck or skill no one cared. McCoy sponged up the praise showered on him, reveling in success, grinning boyishly, explaining the strategy of the high cut in glowing terms, then suddenly, as if embarrassed by such open expression of his pride, he became all business, busily severing limbs from the trunk. His audience hauled them to a pile in the meadow. Charlie displayed minimal enthusiasm or muscle power for this monotonous job with its down and up hill hauls, but when the trunk had been cut into two-foot logs and required splitting before stacking, his interest suddenly mushroomed. Use of the mallet and wedge was new to him and required skill, so he was eager to give it a try. The older man's eyes sparkled as he handed Charlie the mallet and offered bits of practical advice. The axe arced, chips flew, wood split, and the woodpile grew as McCoy supervised and Charlie learned, each enriched, each proud of the final stacked pile. By mid-afternoon McCoy and Charlie had gone, and I 99 �sprawled blissfully on the pine-needled slope above the new cabin site, letting the sun's warmth relax weary muscles. Hammer sounds came from below as JB set the batter stakes. JB had explained batter stakes to me patiently, along with other terms he used which were everyday language for builders. "They're stakes that go at the corners where the cabin will stand, three at each corner. We'll stretch lines between 'em and then know where to dig for the footings." "Footings?" We laughed as my vocabulary expanded further. "We'll dig a trench along the lines and pour concrete into it. That concrete base is called the footings. Some people call 'em footers. Anyway, the cabin's foundation blocks will sit on them." The old house was resting on foundation walls of handsome brown stones George Nelson had labored to collect from adjacent fields. We had expected to rebuild this same wall, but JB and Tom decided there should be a small, cement block basement to house the water tanks. I balked vigorously at a plan which strayed so radically from structural authenticity, but the men convinced me we could face the blocks later with field stones. The visual effect would be similar. The sound of JB's mallet planking onto the batter stakes was fine music, rhythmic and significant of progress, but the sharp crack of splitting wood abruptly terminated his tune. I sat up and looked down the hill where he stood with a stick in his hand, and a stump of a handle. On the ground lay the mallet head with the other piece of handle still attached. "Had only one more corner to do," he stated calmly, "Guess I'll be makin' a new handle tonight." Quietly, patiently, JB projected the finishing job into tomorrow, while I fought impatience with the unfinished state of today. "Only one more corner." To me, it was like hearing only seven notes of a scale. 100 �Water Olie Brown called at 7:30a.m. "We're comin' to do your well today." "Wonderful! It suits perfectly. When will you arrive?" "Should be about nine-ten-eleven o'clock." Will I ever learn not to ask that question? If workmen say they are coming, they will arrive when they arrive. Designation of a certain time is meaningless. Charlie and I had scarcely greeted JB and Jedd Crawford, a kind-faced black man who would help dig trenches for the footings, when vibrations under foot signaled the arrival of heavy equipment in the lane. The noise rumbled slowly, ominously down the narrow, curving pass, preceding an enormous well rig which crawled into view, a mass of mechanical complexity ridiculously incongruous in this humble setting. Such elaborate equipment to supply a little stream of water to a simple log house! How George Nelson would have laughed at this to-do! Why bother with a well at all? Beautiful water flowed steadily through every season from the dependable old source up the mountain. Reestablishing the unique waterline to the house would be easy and far more appropriate. Constantly running water in the kitchen was in character with the house. But the source lay several hundred feet beyond our property line where we would have no control over it if that acreage were to be developed, nor could we patrol regularly to plug crayfish holes in the earthen section of the line. Our water supply must be more dependable-a well and a pump. The rig crept past the old house. Several weathered young men hopped out, barely touching the ground before they automatically strode forward ahead of the rig, assessing possibilities for maneuvering it to the proposed well site. I studied the route ahead, too, a young world of wild cherry saplings and stray peach, holly, sassafras, and sumac which had grown happily beyond range of the bulldozer but now lay directly in the path of the well rig. Here goes more of the fragile hill, I sighed. The machine struggled upward, maneuvered onto the slope immediately behind the house, and promptly sank into soft ground, 101 �its bulk leaning downhill precariously, appearing as if a touch of breeze or a workman's hand against its side would surely topple it. Visions of its mass wedged against the house rose ominously, but the four workmen stood by unperturbed, joking casually. Apparently this was routine. Suddenly great hydraulic "legs" emerged from the lower side of the machine, settled gently on the soil, and effortlessly pushed the rig to its proper angle. The men filled the deep tire ruts quickly with mimosa logs and dirt, and the machine crawled on toward the well site a few more feet and stopped. "Is something wrong?" I asked a man standing beside me. "Gatta turn around." "Turn around? The whole rig?" Incredible! How could it possibly reverse its position in such a small space at such a drastic angle on such soft ground? But with tremendous skill and guidance the reversal was gradually, meticulously accomplished, with the rig positioned with its back end into the edge of the woods. Drilling began at 11:00 a.m., two hours after arrival. With four men attending it plus JB, Jedd, and Charlie digging trenches, this would be a day of major accomplishment. Charlie studied how old Jedd dug into packed clay soil, slowly lifted and heaved a shovelful out to the side, and dug again. Every few minutes the shoveler rested briefly, leaning on his tool, perspiration beaded beneath his neatly trimmed gray hair. To the watchful young man who would share his job for the morning, Jedd's attitude and effort seemed half-hearted. Charlie picked up his shovel and plunged into the job with gusto, like an energetic worker should dig-sharp, decisive cuts into the soil, hefty swings of dirt, with continued, intent, vigorous effort, and by late morning the hare and the tortoise fable had been reenacted. Charlie Hare was exhausted; Jedd Tortoise dug and rested steadily, well into the afternoon. A teenager had learned a lesson in pacing work, and the steady, experienced, skilled teacher had not even spoken a word above the din of the well driller. The drill bit into soil for a while, then struck solid granite. Hour after hour the monotonous rumbling-grinding shook the world of 102 �worm and mole and dominated all thought. If birds sang, they sang inaudibly. If people talked, they shouted forcefully. The scrape of digging shovels, ordinarily a satisfying, earthy sound, went unheard. I wandered to the rig occasionally to see that welcome flow of water spurting out, but saw only pulverized gray granite. "How far?" I yelled. "One twenty-five." One hundred twenty-five feet at six dollars a foot! Uneasiness about the cost mounted. What folly is this? The old gravity feed water system seemed more and more logical. At 3:30p.m. dark clouds which had menaced all afternoon suddenly dropped a deluge of rain and hail, everyone on the hill welcoming a forced end to this hard work day. Next morning deep grinding sounds reached my ears even before my car rounded the bend near the house-10:00 a.m. and still drilling. "No, ma'am, no water yet." The lone young attendant gave me the answer I knew he must when I greeted him with, ''Any water yet?" "How many feet?" I yelled. "Bit under 200." This was mighty precious granite dust we were accumulating. I stood close, cupped my hands, and shouted toward his ear, separating each word distinctly, "Suppose we get granite on and on. Then what?" "Try another place." "And pay again?" "Yes, ma'am. Dug 400 feet yonder a piece, and the man said to dig another'n, so we dug 400 feet again. Never got no water, so he tapped in on a neighbor's well." Shaken by this unanticipated possibility, I escaped up the back hill to trim shrubs from a neglected trail. Hard pulling and sawing and tough pruning can be excellent therapy for stressful thoughts. As I worked up the trail, trimming began to dominate as drilling for water drifted off into background noise way below, but escape was not complete. Prospects of no water tangled with thoughts 103 �of pruning and snipping. I stopped a while to rest, studying that familiar mountain view which changed its moods so constantly. Foreground hills signaled early spring with delicate pastels, while winter grays still subdued high mountains towering above. What an incredible scene of life spread before me, all poised for the burst of a growing season! What myraids of creatures prepared for that burst, ready to consume and pollinate and hide in the plant world! The grinding drill pulling gray dust from the earth faded into insignificance as a pileated woodpecker's exciting staccato sounded above its dull, constant noise. The wild call and the fresh scene soothed my stressful mood, and thoughts of lunch sent me down hill to the car, where I rolled the windows tight to create a haven from the noise. A tap on the window startled me, and I rolled it down quickly. The rig attendant announced quietly, but with twinkling eyes, "We have water." "Wonderful!" My enthusiasm must have seemed exaggerated as lunch, reading, noise, everything was forgotten. Water was king! "Three gallons a minute at 220 feet," he added, but I had no concern for statistics or whether this was a lot or a little. We hurried up the hill-1 felt the water might get away if I did not rush to see it immediately-and admired that beautiful liquid spilling out. We let it splash over our hands and beamed at each other, this stranger and I, sharing mutual delight over success. As if by magic, another workman arrived in a pickup truck, apparently notified of the success by radio, and for several hours I watched the incredible rig lift, turn, and lower twenty-five foot sections of casing and shaft pipes into the ground, one after another, a totally mechanized procedure. By late afternoon the job was finished. One workman hopped aboard the cab, waved goodbye, and started the engine. The wheels of the versatile machine turned to carry it away from the hill, but made no progress, spinning helplessly in the mud. The driver promptly jumped from the cab and casually assured me, "This often happens; our wreckler'll be by and pull 'er out easily," and both men rode off in the pickup. 104 �The quiet they left behind seemed exaggerated, the sounds interrupting it magnified. A cow mooed impatiently at the farm below the hollow. A gray squirrel scolded in the woods. I paused to listen to the whistle in the wings of a passing pair of doves and soft twitterings of a bluebird. All the clamor and stress of the day suddenly seemed long ago, the peace surrounding me prompting ridiculous questions: was that monster really here? Did all this day of grinding really happen? Am I really here digging a well in North Carolina? But over by the forest edge a well cap jutted. When Tom heard about the well digging at dinner and later witnessed the results of it, he summarized our feelings concisely, "Guess George Nelson really had the right idea." Actually George had been blessed with two sources of water. His descendants delighted in telling us about them. "If you went past the corn crib a little ways, there was the spout-that's what we called it-that was old timey terms. He'd taken a chestnut log and hewed it out, a kinda wood trough, that's what the spout was. The water that come off the branch futher up and through those wood pipes, 'stead of goin' to the house like it was doin' when you bought the place, it came out at the spout." "I've noticed a kinda ditch in the upper bank out there," I commented, "in all that mess of honeysuckle." "That's it! that's the place! That's where the water come through. They kept a big wooden tub under the spout, and we let the cows get a drink before we put 'em in the barn for the night. 'Course, the water cleaned out 'cause there was always new water pourin' in. Got all our water for washin' clothes and ourselves and for the house there at that spout. Carried it in a wood bucket which was heavier 'n the water! George Nelson, he said, 'Carryin' water's good for you; makes you strong.' "That little line comin' into the kitchen sink wasn't 'stablished till years after George Nelson died in 19 and 39, not till Oscar and Deller was gettin' old and couldn't carry water, probably 'bout in the early '60s. "But our drinkin' water we mostly carried from the spring, least in summertime we did. The spring-you know, that's down 105 �on the path that leads to the mailbox out on the road-that spring water's so cold and good it's just perfect. It trinkles right outa the bank there. "We kept milk and butter at the spring-didn't have a icebox. Went down to the spring each mornin'. Why, that was one of my greatest delights when I was a child. I just loved goin' down that path-it was s'peaceful. After we milked and strained the milk, we took it down to get cold in the spring, and at dinnertime we had to go down again to get the milk, and if there was any left over, we had to take it back, and then at suppertime we had to do the same thing, and then take back more when we milked at night." "Not quite like opening the refrigerator to take out milk and butter, was it!" I exclaimed. "And on days we churned, it'd take two or three trips to bring the cream to the house and then carry all that buttermilk and butter down again. You start up that hill with both hands full, and you'll feel it's steep!" The path to the spring drops sharply below the lane now, its entrance obscured by overhanging plum trees. Beside it an ancient post, gray-green with lichens, hides in a tangle of honeysuckle. All around green spikes of iris leaves tell of past flower beds. They grow in deep shade now, never blooming, for the 150 feet of path to the spring is dense woods. The path leads to a mossy, secluded glen, maybe only fifteen or twenty feet across, a private place in the woods where a steep bank curls protectively around a wet area and a dense canopy of rhododendron and laurel holds the glen in constant shade. Liverworts thrive on the wet rocks. An ancient pipe, encrusted with rust wrapped in moss, juts from a rocky hole midway up the bank. When we first saw the pipe, it was clogged with silt. Tom lifted it-it was about one foot long with a one-inch bore- knocked out the debris, and peered back into the deep hole in the bank. A steady trickle of clear, icy water flowed from it and seeped down into mosses and leaves. When the pipe was set back in place, water promptly coursed through it and spilled conveniently away from the bank. I 106 �stepped gently onto the accumulation of unknown years of forest leaves wet and sodden with decomposition, and leaned forward carefully, extending my tongue to capture some liquid refreshment. "Ohhh, have some!" Tom did. "But it's not much of a spring," he commented, having expected, as had I, a stronger flow, bubbling and busy. "Wonder if it used to flow better." We found out one summer evening later when we walked the path with one of George Nelson's granddaughters. She was bursting with memories as she wandered the once-familiar premises. The clear call of a woodthrush drifted to us as we approached the path to the spring. "Oh! the plum trees are still here!" she exclaimed. "We used to get the best plums from them. There was plum trees all along this lane and a gate here at the path." "Might this old fence post be part of it?" Tom asked. "Sure is! Oh, this sure brings back memories! But this woods was all pasture, all open to the sky. Why, look at this! I don't know where I am!" We scuffled through noisy leaves so said little. "Didn't cows get into the spring?" I questioned in a lull. "If this was all open pasture ...." "Oh, my no! The spring was closed off to cows. They got their water down the branch futher. Why, there's some old fence postses there in the woods!" She stepped toward the spring, hesitantly, looking at it intently, trying to recognize an old friend in strange surroundings. She almost whispered, "I'd come down here with Granddaddy, and we'd get a drink with a gourd dipper. He grew gourds, you know, and when they'd get ripe, he'd cut a hole 'bout a third as big as the gourd and scoop out the seeds and dry the gourd. The dipper was always right there," and she pointed. "Did the water ever flow any faster than this?" Tom asked. "Flowed 'bout like now-it wasn't a very bold spring-but underneath all them leaves is a rock like a big bowl, and you'd just take the bucket and scoop up the water outa the pool." A niece added, "There's nuthin' Uncle George or his daddy 107 �did to scoop that rock, neither. They said they found it that way, that Indians scooped it outa the soft rock-hit's kinda gravellylike. You dig down to it sometime, and you'll see. A hayin' fork'd get them leaves outa there fine. Milk and butter kept real cool asettin' in that pool, but he kept his watermelons up at the spout. The melon'd lay there abubblin', and in a summer evening he'd take one and lay it on the porch and sink a knife in it. You could hear it apoppin' s'nice! "Hit was good livin' then." 108 �Three Weeks and Weather What a magnificent day, sunny, warm, with a touch of breeze, absolutely perfect for drying mud, and drying mud was the goal of the day, top priority, number one, first and foremost! The trenches for the footings had to be dry before cement could be poured into them, and torrential rains had filled them, so while JB, Jedd, and Charlie redug them, I bailed. A gallon plastic bleach jug, cut open at the top, made an easy near-gallon bailer. I sat on muddy banks in muddy clothes, balmed by sun, scooping, dumping, scooping, dumping, pondering muddy water, lost in thought. An interesting occupation, this. Wonder what some of my friends are doing now. Not bailing ditches! Shovels scraped and voices jumbled with them in a steady, comfortable sound. Scoop and dump, scoop and dump. The water level lowered, and eventually aching arms and back could relax, letting evaporation finish the job. I was hot, dirty, and intensely weary, but spring covered the hill, and the mud was drying. Happiness pervaded every part of me. That evening Tom and a man from the cement company studied the hill to determine how a cement truck might maneuver to the site. The prospect of the ponderous vehicle struggling up our hill to spit a small portion of its load into our modest trenches seemed ridiculous, but such is the modern way. A little plug-in mixer and wheelbarrow would have been far more appropriate equipment. Weather reports glowed with sunny predictions, so, anticipating a hill dry and solid enough to bear the truck's burdensome weight, the cement man confidently promised, "We'll be here day after tomorrow." "Day after tomorrow" arrived with snow, the first snow of the entire winter, coming when March and early spring colored the land. The mere one and a half inches of miserable, slushy stuff would founder a cement truck attempting our hill; the delivery was cancelled. Days of deluges followed, and one mid-afternoon when rain clouds began dispersing with startling speed, vacationing Anne and I dashed to the cabin to bail, arriving as the sun emerged from 109 �the last overhead clouds into blue-blue sky. It sparkled onto a soaked, dripping, misty spring world of new leaves and blossoms. White clumps of serviceberry glistened on tips of the big tree near the privy. Clouds over the distant mountains heaped upon each other in soft mounds of dark and pale gray and near white, flowing in constant change. The same mountains, the same trees, the same familiar scene spread before us completely new, caught in a mood we had not yet experienced, a fantasyland of glittering, flashing droplets. We bailed trenches until muscles ached, then abandoned the remaining sog to sun power and breeze as we escaped to the woods. Round-leaved violets dotted a brown bank with yellow, and clumps of fragrant arbutus flowers snuggled against last year's evergreen leaves. Shortia dangled white bells from rosy stems, thriving where we had planted it last year. Bloodroot buds pushed through hugging folds of lobed leaves before unfurling pristine petals. At an opening in the honeysuckle thicket where we had seen him often before, the big king snake basked. He eyed us with fear and distrust, but we liked having him around. Jobs at the farm included these fringe benefits, easing bailing woes and sore muscles. Two weeks passed, then a third, each with showers, sog, and laborious bailing. Then one day, without fanfare, carrying its nuisance delivery to a small job out Jones Gap way, a cement truck journeyed to the cabin site, dumped its prescribed load, and departed. JB was the only witness. Several days later a crew of five men swarmed over the site, and when they departed, the foundations were in place. A friend asked brightly, "How is the cabin building going?" Obviously she had visions of a charming log structure nearing completion and asked the question as casually as, "How do you do?" A detailed response was not expected. I controlled an impulse to reply, "Just great!" followed by a lengthy dissertation on the fun of drilling granite, squashing dogwoods, hauling rocks, dragging pine brush, bailing trenches, and regretting ugly cement block foundation walls. 110 �"We're progressing well, thanks, though a bit slower than expected-this unusually wet weather, you know. But little by little ... !' and I faded out with a smile, genuinely appreciating her interest, but avoiding details. Who would understand? We would continue to grope for words to express the impact and nature of our struggles, but would never discover any that were fully satisfactory. 111 �Price of a Bathroom Too often the refinements of a high standard of living are sadly incompatable with the environment. George Nelson dug a pit, built a wooden privy over it, and thus completed the household's "facilities." The only destruction to the environment was the pit and the tree cut for lumber. Modern living, however, calls for more convenient and comfortable equipment. We wanted a tiny bathroom, and a bathroom requires a septic system, and a septic system stirs the environment far more than we ever suspected. The county health department sent a man to inspect the proposed location for the system relative to the well, this inspection required to get a permit, the permit required to have the system installed. The installation company sent a man to estimate costs and time. As a summery sun beamed, I battled spring fever and struggled to grasp meaning from his wordy and totally boring dissertation on the merits or demerits of various tank locations. "Which of those places would you like the tank?" Suddenly aware that he was looking directly at me, awaiting my decision, I escaped with a flash of inspiration, "Well, I'll just have to discuss all this with my husband this evening and call you about it in the morning." "O.K. Now, about the laterals ...." A puff of air stirred yellow arcs of forsythia as a towhee, clinging precariously to one, called his ardent, "Drink-your-tea!" A chickadee poked its head through the entrance hole of the bluebird box and was dive-bombed by the blue tenant which was already busy with housekeeping there. "... and they'll extend about a hundred feet out that way. It seems the only place, and ...." Of course it's the only place, I thought. That's the last undamaged section of the slope, just the place for laterals. "The trench'll be from three-four to maybe six or eight feet deep." "How wide?" I was all attention now. "Several feet." 112 �"That's a lot of dirt!" It would all be dumped onto the lovely vegetation growing there now. "It'll take three loads of gravel for the laterals, and the loader'll need about twenty-five to thirty feet to move around in along the ditch." I'll tie red flags to all the little trees I want spared; maybe a few will survive. How can such apparently simple jobs explode into such complexity? When we agreed, "Let's have a tiny bathroom," it sounded so easy and innocent and non-destructive. Now we were discussing hundreds of feet of massacre. We had been unaware of the many rules and requirements which protect the citizen while wrecking the loveliness surrounding him. I thought back to the 1930s when our small town in Pennsylvania installed a sewer system. Day after day men dug the pipelines by hand until only the blades of their shovels tossing dirt from deep ditches indicated their presence. Terra cotta pipes were laid by hand and dirt shoveled over them, bladeful by bladeful. The work was hard, the pace slow, but the work room required was minimal, the destruction to surroundings almost negligible. Forty years later progress demanded faster, more efficient techniques, and mechanical marvels whizzed through the job in hours, destroying a twenty to thirty foot swath on each side of the ditch. Such is progress. We were eager to get this inevitable massacre behind us soon while the season for recovery was optimum, but Tom and JB had to decide reluctantly that more house construction must be accomplished before the installation. The flowers, shrubs, and young trees in the path of the tank and laterals surged with spring growth and beauty, unaware of the price they would pay for our bathroom. 113 �People "Guess we've reached the stage where we need the post put in;' JB stated. "The post?" I was perplexed. "The 'lectrical post." "We already have one-in front of the old house. There's a big transformer on it." The big telegraph pole stood out conspicuously. He laughed, "No, I mean the pole an electric contractor puts up at a construction site, the service pole. It's the hookup for power tools. You'll have to check with the power company first, then contact an electric contractor to do the job." "Oh." JB was eternally patient with my lack of know-how concerning construction. After all, I had never built a house or been a contractor before. Learning by doing works fast. A prompt visit to both companies enlightened me as we conversed in terms of connections and pole and meters. At the promised time next day, the service post was installed routinely during a hesitant sprinkle, and as we drove out the lane, the clouds unloaded a deluge. I wallowed in success-at least one job at this farm had occurred on time, quickly, smoothly, precisely as planned. "We're all set to charge ahead now," I bubbled to Tom, but first an inspector from the power company had to check the pole and state his approval for hookup. Then a crew from the power company came to execute the hookup. I fully expected the inspector to return to check the hookup or the mayor to visit to admire the pole, but apparently we had reached the end of this series: builder tells owner about pole owner visits power company owner visits electric contractor electric contractor sets pole power company inspects pole power company connects pole to power source. JB could plug in his power saw now. I pictured George Nelson, broadaxe in hand, chuckling at our modern "conven- 114 �. , 1ences. One night I startled Tom with an exclamation, "Impossible! The house is barely started!" I showed him a scrap of paper, and we looked at each other in disbelief of the number thereon, but there it was in exact figures and a list of names, an inescapable, absolute fact. The complexities of acquiring the electrical post had stirred my curiosity: How many people had been involved in the cabin project so far, people who had actually come to the site? We had felt strongly that we wanted as few workers as possible to come in to the farm, yet when I studied the journal I was keeping, tallied the list of advisors, loggers, junk car movers, well diggers, foundation layers, inspectors, and others, the grand total astonished me-thirty-seven. With family and JB added, forty-three people had been involved with this simple project, yet the old log house still stood, while the cabin of our dreams jutted bleakly from a ravaged hillside, a cold, gray wall of foundation blocks. Two of the long three months estimated for reconstruction had hurried by already, and as we battled delays, no one could have convinced us that the multiple irritations and frustrations which plagued our plans would turn out to be blessings. Delays that pulled weeks into months presented us with time to digest and evaluate each experience before plunging ahead, giving meaning and understanding to our work. We realized gradually that our project was evolving into far more than a simple reconstruction job with its array of local workmen. It was drawing us into the lives and history of a mountain family which had lived and loved it here. Several Nelson family members heaped us with generous portions of information about life in and around the old log house. I indulged in uncountable hours with these new friends, questioning, listening, and taping their tales, then transcribing and piecing together the fragments of history. Each part of the house, each tree and shrub and hump and terrace came alive as people became associated with it. "One of Della's sisters-oh, she's long gone now-planted them two spruce-pines there, what you call hemlocks. She was 115 �always plantin' things like that lilac bush and all them irises." Another sister exclaimed with delight, "Why, that's Mama's chicken house door!" She fingered tenderly a little wooden door about lxl 1/z feet, heavily weathered and worn, which I had found lying in deep grass in a field. "After the chickens was in for the night, she'd slip that little door down so nothing could get in or out. To think you found it!" "See that big mimosa tree spreadin' over the garden? Now Deller, she loved that tree when it's all leafied out in the teensiest little leaves-like ferns, they are-and when it's all tassled with its fluffy pink flowers. The hummingbirds can't keep away. They zoom around the flowers just s' busy, atwitterin' and squabblin' and their wings ahummin'. Oh, she did like to watch 'em!" I thought of Della, no longer here to stand beneath the mimosa's delicate, active canopy. She was no botanist, no ornithologist, but flowers and birds and Della were close associates. She understood. "Daddy called that little field where the big pear tree is 'my flaf-said it was the only flat land on the whole farm." George Nelson, cabin builder, farmer, husband, father, and grandfather changed from a name to a personality. "Oh, how he loved this place! He was standin' in the orchard one day, on the hill way back up the mountain a piece, and there wasn't a thing in the world 'tween him and the North Pole. He had a friend standin' with him, and the friend said, 'George, you got you a mighty purty piece of land here,' and George, he said right back, 'I figger I got me a piece of Paradise.' He liked it that much. "He was a real industrious person; always got up early, too," she went on. "They always said, 'The sun never caught him in bed.' He'd shell corn near the crib 'cause the ducks spent the night under it, then shake the chickens outa the trees to get some of corn before the ducks got it all." "Did he grow much corn?" I asked. "Just enough to get 40-50 bushels. That'd do him. Wasn't that much land here to grow more 'cause he had a great big vegetable garden, but mostly what he grew was fruit, and when 116 �the A & P store first come to Hendersonville, he grew onions for that. Oh, he worked hard, but we never had very much money 'cause there was so many of us. We was poor but we didn't know it, and we was happy." A profound silence followed the impact of these last words. They struck hard and have recurred over and over. "The farm was self-sustaining, wasn't it?" I continued. "Oh, yes. We had everything we needed___:cept he'd get coffee and sugar and flour in town. Carried 'em back here on his back, of course. Each year he carried hundreds of dollars worth of fruit and eggs and butter on his back, up across J~~­ tain, all the way into Hendersonville, followin' that old trail right the branch. "He made a carryin' basket outa white oak splits-could put nine quarts of strawberries in the bottom, then set in a little frame and put nine more quarts in, and he'd sell 'em to the summer people he met along the way. Didn't get more'n 10¢ or 15¢ a quart, and it was a lot of work." She laughed. "When radio first come in to the country folks, Mrs. Jenkins up over the mountain, she had a radio in her guest house, one of them tourist homes for summer people. Why, Hendersonville had over a hundred boardin' houses and hotels and roomin' places back before the Depression. Farm people was kept busy sellin' 'em fresh fruits and vegetables. Well, after strawberry time he'd take some paper and make little cups and put plums and grapes and things in 'em and put 'em all in that big basket and carry 'em up the mountain to Mrs. Jenkins' door and set down his basket, and the men and women guests would run to get their pocketbooks to buy the little goodies and eat them right then. "One of the ladies knowed he played the violin and teased him. 'Mr. Nelson, I think I heard you playing your violin on the radio last night.' He didn't understand about radio, that it had to go through a studio, and after that he'd go out in the yard here and try to play his loudest and best. 'Somebody might be listenin' to me,' he said." A niece told more. "He was good with his hands, you know. ilp 117 �When it come to workin' with wood, he could make 'most anything. He was like they say about people then, 'If a man couldn't make somethin', he did without it.' He made chairs and bottomed 'em with oak splits and made a cider mill and even made that violin he played, too. Took him two years. Made it from maple wood, bendin' the wood only just a little at a time, then soakin' it some more, and pullin' some wars tight around it to bend it some more. When he had all the handwork-that fancy work like violins have-finished and got strings on it, he took it to a man that was s'posedly an expert on violins, and this man played it and told him he'd never played one that was any truer to tone. He used to set on the porch and-play it and sing songs-had a good tenor voice. And a whoop! At the houses with summer people he'd show the ladies what strong lungs he had by lettin' out one of his war whoops. They was amazed! He had an awful loud voice for somebody's bein' so small." "Oh, he was little?" I asked, surprised."I've heard so much about his strength and farming skills I've built him up to be a strapping, tall fellow." "Oh, my no! He wasn't much more'n five-two or three. But strong! And broad! And his eyes, they were the bluest, just piercing blue. They was the first thing people noticed about him, and he had curly hair, I'm told, but when I knew him he was bald headed and had a big beard and moustache. And could he imitate birds!" "There sure are lots of birds around here," I noted. "Always has been." She chuckled a moment. "I was just thinkin'. He sometimes wore his shoes on the wrong feet. Wore rubber shoes from Sears Roebuck after we got store bought shoes, and wore 'em a while one way, then backwards. People'd tell him he had 'em on wrong, but that's the way he saw it. Guess he was weann em even. "He'd often set on the porch in summertime aflickin' flies with a swatter he'd made outa a piece of flexible white oak, oak like you'd seat a chair with. On the end of it he 'tached a piece of leather, and he could set there without his glasses on and see the ends of your hair, and he could just flap the end of that leather 0 ' ' 118 �and catch flies every time, and then he'd git the broom, the brush broom-I've still got the old brush broom-and sweep the flies off the porch. And he'd get the Bible out. They didn't each have one of them little Bibles like now. They had one big family Bible. He'd read from it, and I'd set on the floor and put my head against his bony knee, bless his heart. I just wish he could be livin' now so I could do somethin' for him." Contact with townsfolk and summer people encouraged country folk like the Nelsons to be more progressive in their ways than the mountain people of more isolated areas, as in the nearby Great Smoky Mountains, Yl~t much of their everyday living continued remarkably pioneer-like. The taste of earlier times on the Nelson farm served as a tantalizing appetizer for a feast of learning about the southern Appalachian mountain people. I indulged heavily, reading books, attending lectures and special folk events, asking questions. History became an absorbing, wonderful benefit of the delays which had exasperated us. Tom and I felt growing understanding, and with understanding comes appreciation. The mountain culture was no longer a curiosity, something almost foreign. It was real experience with real people, and we liked them. 119 �This page intentionally left blank �Chapter 6 "Take 'Er All Down" Something's Different ..................... 122 Illness ................................. 124 Starting at the Top ....................... 130 Instead of a Privy ........................ 135 The Week the Logs Were Moved ............ 140 121 �Something's Different One lives with scenes framed by the windows of home. Eyes become so familiar with a neighborhood that the slightest change is perceived instantly. A limb is missing from the willow tree; it must have fallen in the storm last night. Mr. Hubb's bedroom curtain is still closed; I hope the old man isn't sick. Frank finally dug his garden; he must be pleased. But change at the cabin caught me by surprise. Charlie, Anne, and I went to the farm to clear invading locust trees from a small field. We parked in front of the house routinely, and as the young folks opened the car trunk to get our tools, I happened to glance at the house. I was startled-something was different, yet everything seemed tidily intact. I was astonished that it took several moments to determine the change, and then I tested Anne and Charlie. "Do you see anything different about the house?" "Hey!" exclaimed Charlie instantly. "The porch bedroom's gone! Looks great, doesn't it!" "Sure does!" agreed Anne. "Those logs showing all the way across the front look really neat. We oughta keep it that way." "We'll have to if we put windows on the front." I wondered why the change had not struck me instantly, then was intrigued to realize that I had pictured the house without that room so often that already it was familiar. Anne continued, "Mom, that missing room is important. You must note the date in your journal-March 24. The official dismantling has begun." "Heavens! We've been taking this old place apart for months! What about all that stuff we stripped off the inside walls and all that asphalt siding?" Removing the five colors of asphalt siding had been a recent, occasional job, a half hour here, an hour there, a tedious labor, for the shingles crumbled and nails snapped, their heads collapsed in a hammer claw. Heaps more scrap had gone off in McCoy's old truck. "But those were all things on the house," Anne persisted. "They don't count. The porch bedroom was part of the basic struc122 �ture, so it's important. We're starting to 'take 'er all down,' like that man said." "That's right!" stated Charlie with a tone of finality. "That's right!" I echoed agreeably, and all laughed in pleased recognition of the big step. "With the logs showing and that room off it looks just like a postcard cabin now,'' Anne pointed out. "But wouldn't you think they'd have wanted even one window on the front? It's so stark!" "When this place was built, windows were a luxury. Conserving heat meant survival. Lots of log houses had only one little window by the fireplace." "Must've been awfully dark inside." "Say! JB'll be taking the logs down one of these days soon. We'd better collect some chunks of mud chinking before it's destroyed." "I'm going to get that floor board where the porch room was," Anne stated, "the one with the hole in it that Mrs. Huggins' sister said they pushed the dust through when they swept the room. Wonder if they plugged the hole in winter. Brrr! It sure must've been cold in there!" "Well, you folks collect your souvenirs. I'm going out to chop locust trees,'' commented Charlie, who spurned our sentimentality. I collected several small pieces of mud chinking in a quart jar and wrapped two larger chunks in newspaper, placing all in the old kitchen, which was excelling more each day in its new role as a storeroom. With that incredible screech of old nails being pulled from an aged wooden bedding, Anne retrieved the floor board with its dust hole and added it carefully to the stored treasure. Chunks of dried mud and a worn floor board with a holecertainly of no value in themselves, but each was a relic of cabin life, so each was important. 123 �Illness "Well, let's see. A few more things have been done." "But what?" I was bursting to know. Sick in bed with flu, I had not been to the farm for several days. Tom had just returned from there, and fully aware how eagerly I awaited his report, was teasing me. "The living room has several changes, and the stairway...." "But what? Tell me!" Both of us laughed, and he began. "Well, Jedd and JB took down the living room ceiling, which must have been one filthy job. JB said you couldn't tell him from Jedd! Must've been a quarter inch layer of dust over that whole ceiling. The partitions around the stairway, including the little jelly closet underneath, are gone, so the stairs are standing out in the middle of one large room now. The front porch floor that was under the bedroom there is off and ..." "I'm sure glad Anne salvaged that board with the dust hole when she did." "... and the little red brick chimney from the living room stove is down." He paused, thinking. "Oh, yes. JB and I had a business conference lying on our backs under the cabin floor." "What on earth were you .... ?" "Yes, we were on earth." "Come on! Why did you confer under the cabin? Let's have it!" "Well, JB made an important discovery there." "Under the cabin?" I envisioned some antique tool or artifact that might be of interest. We were always alert for a special find. "Yep;' said Tom casually, "thirteen hand hewn chestnut logs:' "Logs? You mean under-the-floor logs? Floor beams?" "Yep, thirteen beautiful beams, just the kind we've looked for all over the county, and they're in great shape." "Tremendous!" "JB suggests we put new 2xlO's under the floor of the new cabin and use some of these old logs for ceiling beams, like most old cabins have. The others can replace the several rotten logs." "It'll look terrific! What a find!" My mind whirled with superlatives. 124 �"Guess that covers the changes. Think I'll go out to work in the yard a bit while it's still light. O.K.?" "O.K." Feeling too indisposed to read, I lay with eyes closed and pictured the changes. So history had claimed the jelly closet! Now only its ceiling remained, the back of the stairway, with the attached narrow shelves which had held untold numbers of jelly jars. Two and a half years had passed since Della had introduced us to that closet and given us jelly from it. On subsequent visits I took her a pumpkin pie and cookies, and each time she bubbled with appreciation and delight, dashing straight to the little closet, insisting I choose a goody to take home. Anything I did for her was reciprocated in generous measure. That was Della's way. With the little brick chimney from the living room wood stove gone, the round hole in the north wall must be gaping to the trees and sky. The family in the log house never knew the ease of modern heating. They chopped wood, not a load of wood delivered to their door, but wood they hauled in from the woods where they felled the trees. I wonder who is more fortunate and free, the man who plods into the woods with his axe, chops down a tree, cuts, hauls, splits, and stacks the wood and carries it to the indoor wood stove as needed, or the man who hears the oil burner click on and off, pays the oil bills by mail, and for exercise must jog? The latter seems freer-freer to go to this meeting and that sports club and this program and that conference. He zips from one thing to another in his car, eye on his watch, and though his activities may be optional and satisfying, has he not exchanged one set of chores for another? Which man has the freedom each seeks? Perhaps the freedom lies in his attitude. Tom said the ceiling was down now, too. One of George Nelson's daughters had talked of it as we sat in the living room one afternoon. "I 'member well when m'daddy ceiled this room, back about.. .. well, let's see .... it was about '37 or '38. He cut some trees here and gave 'em to the sawmill to saw the lumber that ceiled this room and that bedroom. Then he did the whole overhead with paint." All the 2x6 beams were exposed, with the loft floor showing 125 �above them as originally. One could now stand beneath and look up through cracks between the boards to the roof. I had heard about those cracks. "Yes, we had to sweep upstairs before sweepin' downstairs 'cause trash fell through, and I can remember m' daddy sayin', 'Now don't go up there and make a mess, you young'uns, 'cause it'll fall through down here,' or, 'Children, be careful up there!' "I can't remember about takin' our shoes up there. In my earliest recollection we'd take our clothes off down by the fire and in winter we heated an iron or rock, a big, beautiful, smooth rock, and put it in bed. Everybody'd have their own iron or rock by the fire to get warm. You'd wrap it up and put it at your feet. It wasn't ceiled up there, just the bare shingles of the roof, but we had quilts and featherbeds. Featherbeds and quilts was big back then-and warm! "I remember one time we was sleepin' up there in the loft with my uncle-it was a houseful here, but there was always room for one more. It was cold up there, and sometime during the night it blowed the shingles kinda to one side and snow filtered in on top of us, and the next morning when we got up, m' uncle was aknockin' the snow off! "Another time we had a real cold night, and we had a great big old cat, a boy cat he was, and a big one. Cats was not allowed in the house at night. That's the last thing to do, you know-put the cat out. But somebody run out, and the old cat run in, and he run upstairs, and of course, there's so much stuff we couldn't find no cat. And Daddy's already gone to bed downstairs, and the old cat got right over top of Daddy's bed and let water come down. Daddy jumped outa bed-1 never will forget that-and came stormin' upstairs, and we were dyin' laughin', and he had a broom or somethin', and that was one cat sure went outdoors fast! "Daddy'd get up first and start the fire in the morning, and everybody'd come down to dress where they'd left their clothes piled around. 'Course, they didn't do that in summertime- had nails to hang 'em on, but we didn't have much clothes anyway. Didn't need 'em." How many years of dust had slipped between those loft floors 126 �and settled in the room below! After the living room ceiling was nailed on to stop the sifting, how many more had collected silently in the dark above it! The dust and lint of accumulated years were particles of history in a family's life, and today they spilled down on Jedd and JB and on to the floor, and they will be swept away. I recalled another tale about the loft's floor cracks. "On a sunny day each springtime they took everything out of this living room and bedroom and set it outdoors and got upstairs and poured boilin' water all over everything and washed what walls there was up there and the floor, all with that boilin' water. It come down through the loft floor-that was before there was ceilin', of course. ''And out there under the spout where the water come in from the branch, that tub they kept under the spout would get full of white sand, washed down silt stuff. They'd take that sand and put it on the floor and put lime on the floor, too, and scrub those old floors with a shuck broom. Ever see a shuck broom? Daddy took a block of wood and bored holes in it and stuck dry corn shucks in the tiny holes and put a handle on it. They would take that broom and make these old floor boards as white as they could be, scrubbin' with that sand and lime. "All the bed things was washed, and everything in the house was scrubbed. We think we have a hard time house cleanin' now. If I had to do all they did, mine'd just have to go! ''And they whitewashed the walls after it was all cleaned, all over the inside walls and the front porch wall, too. They got white lime and put salt in it-that was to make it stick-and poured hot water on it, and it would boil 'n steam up. They'd make it in an old ten quart bucket and buy brushes, something like big paint brushes with a long handle. Then they'd whitewash the overhead and the walls-and talk about a place smellin' good-and clean!" "Didn't the whitewash splatter all over the floor?" I asked. "Didn't matter. The lime would clean the floor, too, and it would wash off. Takin' all the furniture out, that's the best way to clean. "Can you image taking everything out of our houses these days and putting it in the yard so we could clean? If anything would 127 �prove how materialistic we are, that would!" She laughed at the thought. "They done all that cleanin' both spring and fall, but the whitewashin' was only in the spring. And there wasn't much problem washin' winders. There was only one by the chimley and one in the bedroom-and them two little ones upstairs." Reviewing all these thoughts about changes at the cabin and how people lived there helped pass time while I lay abed sick. One thought especially fascinated me: while I grew up in the mid-1920s and early 1930s in southeastern Pennsylvania, we considered innerspring mattresses, electric washing machines, radios in polished wood cabinets, telephones, porcelain bathroom fixtures, gas stoves, automobiles to haul us everywhere, and a ninemonth school year normal, expected necessities of everyday living. Meanwhile many of my contemporaries in the southern Appalachians took for granted straw and feather ticks, cornshuck brooms, black iron wash pots, privies, kerosene lamps, hearth and woodstove cooking, horse and mule-drawn wagons, and a three to six month school year. When Depression days brought work crews of the WPA and CCC to build roads into the hills, this cultural gap began to close, though in some remote places pioneer-type living continued into World War II. We had read of this astonishing situation, but talking with people my own age, some even considerably younger, who had lived this way routinely hit with tremendous impact. With time on my hands, I began to play more seriously with an idea that had occurred one day at the cabin when I was engrossed in some menial, non-thinking chore. The idea evolved into a plan, then a resolution. The way of life in our old log house was special-it was history-and it should be recorded. Already I was jotting down our experiences with the cabin in a detailed journal. I would expand this, including not only details of the day-to-day pleasures and trials of building, but word sketches of the people who helped us and notes on investigations into the history, customs, and dialect of the southern Appalachian mountain folk. Permeating all this would be family tales of old times at the cabin and the impact of the outdoor world which was 128 �continually presenting dramas and displays that enriched our experiences, diverting our attention in wonderful ways and keeping our spirits in a balanced state. I would add personal thoughts and recollections prompted by events at the cabin and try to explain, if possible, the meaning of the whole experience. Some day, I resolved, I would write a book about these things, and though the book may never travel beyond my desk, it must be done. 129 �Starting at the Top Start with the roof? Who ever heard of learning how a log house was put together by starting at the top? But that was precisely what we were about to do, piece by piece. Direct experience would be our teacher. The basic log structure stood exposed and vulnerable, basking in the brilliance of a perfect spring day. Stripped of its camouflage of modernization, with even its porch gone, it stood dignified and handsomely plain, a bit stark and aged, but vital and ready to proceed. "Look at it! Just look at it!" I exulted to Tom who had taken me to see the cabin for the first time since I had been housed with flu. "It's just as I'd pictured it, a beautiful pioneer house!" Astride its roof peak, starting to tug and rip his way down through the layers, sat JB. Chunks and strips and bits of tarpaper roofing and their associated hundreds of nails sailed through the air as JB yanked them loose and flung them to the ground. Then he struggled with stubborn slabs that had lain across the rafters as laths and handed them down carefully to his helper, Taylor Green. I gathered the scattered disarray of roofing into piles. Between slabs Taylor joined me crawling in the grass, collecting nails, nails, and nails. The next day JB handed down the oak rafters to Taylor, who stacked each type material in its special pile for eventual reuse. "Look at them nails!" Taylor exclaimed when he saw the huge near-spikes that had held the rafters in place. "No nails like 'em's used in buildin' houses these days! And they's hammered into oak! Must've used a sledge hammer to sink 'em." "Sure must've," agreed JB. Stripped of rafters, the old log house suddenly resembled a box, a plain, ordinary wooden crate, thoroughly lacking in charm and devoid of identity. It revealed, as if xrayed, how George Nelson had put it together, its construction plan remarkably simple, making modern house plans seem like mazes of complexity. But unlike today, preparation of materials had constituted a major part of the builder's work, requiring a tremendous effort of time and labor. Knowing the ways of wood, George probably chose autumn 130 �or early winter to cut oak, chestnut, and yellow poplar for logs. Farm chores were fewer then, and tree sap was down, assuring logs that would season with less warping. Saying that he squared or hewed these logs is like saying casually, "He scaled a high mountain." It explains none of the skill and ignores the toil. A log to be hewn was fastened firmly so it could not shift position. With felling axe, George scored its sides-chopped deep vertical cuts about three to five inches apart. The more evenly spaced these were, the more expert his job. With his broadaxe, a tool equipped with a heavier, wider head than the felling axe, he hacked diagonally down across the logs, chipping off the chunks of wood between his vertical cuts, taking great care that the side became smooth and square with few axe marks showing. Then he set the logs aside to season. "He drug rocks from all over the land here with a couple of oxens pullin' a drag," his niece described the next step, "and he stacked the rocks to make a wall to set the logs on." When the wood was seasoned for many months, George, undoubtedly with help, maneuvered two thirty-foot logs, the sills, onto the front and back foundation walls, then fit cross logs between them at each end, notching the ends to fit. Probably, like earlier house builders, George had no carpenter's level guiding him to set parts straight or level. If a log pleased his eye, he was satisfied. Next he set the thirteen strong, chestnut floor beams, the sleepers, into notches in the sills. A less fortunate cabin builder would have pegged or nailed a floor of his own hand-split oak lengths, the puncheons, to the beams but George used his brother Tom's nearby mill to saw oak floor boards one inch thick and four to six inches wide. As he added logs to make walls, each corner was fit painstakingly to the log below, shaped with skilled precision into doublelock notches. The quality of the corners a builder constructed was a mark of his skill. George Nelson must have smiled with pleasure as he hauled logs to the mill for sawing into ceiling beams and rafters. Though his home was based on the time-proven plan of the earliest 131 �pioneer cabins, his house would have up-to-date touches. The ceiling beams slipped into notches he had cut in the topmost wall logs. Two more thirty-foot lengths, the plates, were set above the beams, securing them, and he drove in extra stout nails to hold the rafters to these plates. As an elegant flourish, George rounded the rafter ends where they would project at the eaves. Most log house builders hand split laths and spaced them widely across the rafters, but George had mill-cut slabs available and used them generously. Unable to call a building supply company to ask for delivery of so-many squares of wood shingles, he had rived his own from a chestnut trunk cut into two-foot lengths. These he split into two-inch thick boards, called bolts. With a bolt firmly supported on end, he held against it a froe blade and struck this with a wooden mallet, driving the blade into the wood. Skillful twists and prying movements forced the board to split, creating a shingle. Each bolt provided three or four shingles. With this fine supply, he started at the bottom edge of the porch roof, nailing shingles to the slab laths in overlapping rows, hour after hour, across the porch roof, and at a 45° angle, up to the roof peak, where he let the top shingles extend four to six inches above the peak on one side to discourage rains from seeping into the top seam. Eventually the happy moment arrived when the last shingle's nail received its last hammer blow. George must have stood on the peak to overlook his new roof with a warm and wonderful glow of relief. His new house was nearing completion; his dream a reality. The tedious job of chinking spaces between the logs with red clay, dug and hauled from his fields, closed the house, and a central front door with a back door directly opposite, each hand-made of solid oak, secured it. A final job, whitewashing, made the house interior fresh and bright, completely ready for its family, but a modern family would have spurned it as unfinished, unusable, requiring an expenditure of innumerable more work hours selecting and installing carpeting, bathroom fixtures, drapery rods, cabinets, tiles, countertops, lighting fixtures, appliances, and the countless inclusions of a modern 132 �home. Yet the Nelson family's thrill when moving from their tiny house by the branch to their fine new log house must have equaled or even surpassed a modern family's emotions when moving into a new home loaded with its surfeit of conveniences. Between these two life styles, one basic and frugal, the other pampered with convenience and waste, lies an optimum crying for more universal acceptance. At last we understood fully why old timers could or would not give us helpful advice on how to restore or reconstruct a log house. No mountain man who knew the techniques involved could look at us newcomers, ignorant as we were, and hope to explain or advise on all the skills and pitfalls, no matter how articulate he may be. The crate-like cabin was poised for relocation, but one cannot lift a variety of logs from position, set them in a haphazard pile, and put together a house from them. Each log is an individual, compatible only with its proper neighbors, fitting only one certain place, with corners custom cut to match the log below it, so each log required a label to indicate its exact position, its address in the structure. I had often read of this procedure and on several reconstructed cabins had noted numbers on the logs, one even done in Roman numerals, but nowhere had I read an explanation of a recommended numbering system. Tom laughed when I mentioned this, for he had planned his system long ago. The logs on the front would be marked F, the back B, the North end N, the south end S. Following each letter would be the log's number from the cabin base. Hence the thirty-foot logs Fl and Bl would be the first ones placed on the new foundations, followed by end logs Nl and Sl. Next came F2 and 82 and so on. Square cloth labels were stapled to all log ends, totaling eight sets, each set a different color cloth to speed locating the proper log. Tom affixed them and wrote the numbers with indelible felttip markers as I drew diagrams as a double check. The crate looked truly festive with its colorful tags, though it occurred to me that it seemed costumed for its own wake. Then a more positive thought hit-it's decorated for rebirth! 133 ��Instead of a Privy "We'll be there tomorrow afternoon," chirped a cheery voice on the telephone. Soil and weather conditions continued perfect for installing a septic system, but on "tomorrow afternoon" no workmen arrived. "We're sorry," a disinterested voice explained later. "The backhoe broke down." There it was again, that "broken down" answer I had heard numerous times before as we battled delays. A truck broke down, a front-end loader broke down, a this-or-that broke down, and now the back hoe. Do heavy machines break so often, or has "breakdown" become a convenient way of saying, "We won't get around to your job today," or perhaps even, "We said we'd come to make you feel better but really didn't expect to make it?" Either of these two statements spoken to a customer could precipitate an argument, but the "broken down" pronouncement baffles him. What can he do but accept it? The voice continued, "We'll be there tomorrow afternoon." Next day, after a busy morning at the cabin, I briefed JB on some details to tell the workmen if they arrived, and set off to keep a brief appointment. Returning about 3:00 I found a loaded gravel truck hulked in the road by the lane entrance. A dark green pickup truck blocked the lane. "Hello!" I greeted the gravel truck driver. "You just arriving?" "Nope. Been here a while. Tuk a load in a whiles back, but cain't git in with this'n. Lane's blocked." "Whose pickup?" "Don' know." "It doesn't belong to any of your crew." "Nope. Ain't none of 'em here yit. Jus' me." "Did someone just park it there and go off?" "Reckon so." He seemed completely unperturbed, content to sit it out, impressing me once again with a mountain man's unruffled attitude toward the pressure of time. He had no idea when-or even ifsomeone would move the truck, so he would just sit there, patient and unfretting, until something happened. 135 �I was totally exasperated by the circumstances. "That thing has to be moved. It's open. Let's release the brake and push it out onto the roadside. Much to my surprise, we accomplished this easily, enjoying speculation on how the driver would react when he found his vehicle relocated and allowing gravel load number two to be delivered. The co-conspirator of the pickup move waved a friendly farewell and set off for the third and last load but never returned. I learned later that the truck had broken down. I sat on the foundation wall with the great mound of gravel for company, but no workmen. It was 3:30. Not one to sit it out, I wandered down to where JB was working on the old house. "Look what I found inside the steps," JB said, pointing to a jumble of large rocks which had been the two sets of stairs to the front porch. In a hollowed area lay a clutch of black snake eggs, just the shells, for the young had hatched. "There were a couple of big fellows and some lizards in the steps too," he added. "Skinks? With blue lines on them? "Yep. Found something else, too-over there," and he pointed to a scrap of paper lying on a board. A smiling baby greeted me when I looked at the scrap, a snapshot of one of the children who had grown up in the house. Suddenly I heard the excited cries of baby birds, very close, and when I entered the kitchen, a Carolina wren zoomed from over the kitchen doorway. Tucked on the ledge over the door was a scraggly, rambly nest, green with mosses worked into it. "JB, did you know there's a wren's nest in the kitchen?" I called. "I've been hearin' little birds but didn't think they were inside the house. Those wrens'll build in the craziest places." "They must've incubated their eggs amid all this awful demolition, all the banging and clatter and confusion, and yet there's never been any complaint. That's incredible!" "Not like them, is it? I sure hope the little fellows fledge before the logs have to be moved." Another sound diverted us, the noisy arrival of the backhoe. Digging, dumping, backing, pushing, lifting, squashing, the backhoe did its duty, making a great hole for the septic tank and the 136 �hundred foot ditch for the drainage pipes or laterals. Pipes were laid and gravel pushed in, and all the blossoming dogwoods and vegetation for twenty-five feet on one side of the ditch were mashed and remashed and ground into the red clay subsoil which now replaced the topsoil. Several of my little red markers on the trees peeped through churned mud. Since gravel load number three had not arrived, the job had to be continued next day, a Saturday. Tom would be on hand. We arrived early next morning and were pleasantly surprised to have the load delivered promptly. Now only the soil needed to be put back, as much as the trench would hold, the rest spread around. "Dozer'll be by on Monday," the man said. "But what if it rains before then?" I pictured the mess this loose earth washing all around would make. No answer. "Will they bring a little bulldozer?" "We'll try. We have a little'n with a blade that angles. Takes less space to move around." The man in his gravel truck clattered out the lane as we stood dumbly, contemplating piles of dirt. Suddenly the spirited, lusty song of the Carolina wren resounded from inside the old kitchen, and we burst into relaxing, diverting laughter. Such sunny enthusiasm was unavoidably contagious, and our gloom melted quickly in its warmth. Beautiful weather held, but Monday morning a voice reported that all the bulldozers were involved in a more critical job. The message was repeated Tuesday with the addition, "We'll be there tomorrow after 11:00." While JB removed door and window frames and I stacked them, our ears were alert for sounds of the approaching 'dozer. At 11:20 we heard the machine arrive at the lane and left our work to receive it-and waited-and waited. Not a sound more. We wondered -dare I say it?-if it had broken down. Then we concluded the men must be eating lunch, and the beer cans and litter discovered along the lane later verified this. Soon a roaring motor came charging toward us, and two men, riding a veritable behemoth, jumped from their high seat. 137 �"Where's the little bulldozer?" I yelled above the roar after greetings. "Ain't workin' today." "Does this one have a blade that angles?" "No, it don't." I felt beaten. Thunder boomed as a formidable mass of black clouds surged in the northwest. The driver took great care to crush as little as possible, maneuvering with skill and measured haste, but by the time he left the hill was essentially a complete expanse of "disturbed environment." Only a few edge trees remained below the woods. JB left early that afternoon, leaving me alone with the ravaged hill. The thunder rumbled ominously closer, and clouds hung dark and low. In the uneasy stillness all I could see were the mounds of soil piled high around the trunks of those remaining edge trees. The soil was loose now, easy to move, but rain would pack it, the trees suffocating under its bulk. No decision was required for only one choice existed-pull the earth away. I tried a shovel, then a hoe, but both were too slow and taxing. Only one technique seemed to work-the human bulldozer. On my knees I reached forward and embraced a large mound of earth, then "walked" backward, still on my knees, pulling it with me. This, too, was slow, but effective, and I labored until I felt like jelly. Hard showers pelted the nearby valley while great booms echoed among the hills, but not a drop fell on the farm. I glowed with gratitude. En route to the car to go home, I passed the cratelike house and noted the thirteen exposed floor beams, each laden with a thick coating of dust and dirt. If rain fell and the ensuing mud packed and dried on the logs, cleaning them would be a major chore. A broom handle lay nearby, and from its action end protruded about half the expected number of straws, these worn nearly to the stitching. Not optimistic about the effectiveness of such a tool, I tried a hoe first, but it snagged on hew marks and nails. The broom, if it may be labeled that, was put to work. Clouds of dust billowed upward, and I spluttered and blinked and escaped quickly to consider a better approach. Holding 138 �my breath and sweeping a few quick moments at one end of the house, I then beam-hopped to the far end to sweep there while the first dust dissipated, then hopped back again, and so on. As I bounded from beam to beam on one trip, I laughed out loud at the thought of what my family and friends would think of this ridiculous sight, but the job was done. After dinner, Tom and I pulled on rain gear, for a slight sprinkle had begun, and returned to the hill to become earth movers. He tested various techniques, as I had, and agreed the human bulldozer approach required the least effort for most accomplishment. We worked in silence, each deep in musclestraining concentration. Rain increased insidiously until eventully we were trying to move mud and gave up. Rain washed our muddy gear and splattered the raw earth as we watched it in almost morbid fascination. Certainly our dreams for the cabin project had never included a scene like this! But the septic system was in! "A privy would have been a lot simpler," muttered Tom. "Not on a cold winter night!" 139 �The Week the Logs Were Moved The big operation was scheduled for a day in early May. Tom took several days of precious vacation time to be in on it. Broadus Leedom was coming with his front end loader to lift the logs from the old house and carry them up the hill. Cooperating fully, the baby wrens had flown from their kitchen nest. We awoke early, breakfasted early, and received a phone call early. Tom answered, "Hello... good morning!" Aside he whispered, "It's JB." "Yes ...yes ... uh, oh ...yes ...yes ... all right...O.K .... Thanks. Bye." I was nearly exploding with curiosity. "What's happening?" "What's not happening? Leedom called JB and says his machine's broken down. JB won't be at the cabin either-nothing he can do till the logs get moved. They'll come tomorrow!' When the telephone rang early next morning, we suspected its message. The machine was still indisposed. A third morning we prepared for the great event. No calls came until we were stepping into the car. I felt like yanking the telephone from the wall, venting frustration on the innocent instrument. The machine was repaired, but Broadus could not arrive until afternoon, precisely when we expected to join camera club friends for a two and a half day outing. Since we were to put on part of an evening program and a full day photography workshop, we had no choice but to go. Postponing the log moving was unthinkable-it might be weeks before the happy combination of good weather and Leedom's machine coincided-so we brushed aside our deep disappointment and departed. In the next two nights sleep overtook us as white water rushed over a bouldered streambed outside our cottage window and spring peepers by the hundreds peeped musical notes in an adjacent pond. Before yielding to oblivion the first night, I managed to mutter, "We'll need a pond at the farm some day just to encourage peepers." "Mmmmmmm." "Might have to catch some somewhere to get a population started." "Mmmmmmm." 140 �"They're a wonderful sound." No response. Returning from the outing, we stopped to see if anything had happened to the old house. A strange, vast vacancy existed in its place. We approached the site quietly, feeling as if we should talk in subdued voices of respect, stepping carefully, lightly, to hold the impression. The kitchen stood alone, the side where it had been attached to the house gaping forlornly to the elements. George Nelson's neatly piled foundation wall lay sprawled in tumbled rock heaps. Raw earth, churned by the heavy machine's caterpillar treads, replaced the lovely yard of lush clover and grass. Along half the root spread of the fine old dogwood, the ground was compacted six or eight inches. Not a trace showed of the lovely wisteria vine I had laid carefully on the ground after its supporting porch was removed. I had hoped to reestablish it at the corner of the new cabin. We sighed, looking over that small, vacant site, thinking of all the living that had gone on there, a rural, mountain way of life, now whisked away. We accepted the inevitability of the massacre, but felt sad. The new site reversed our feelings for it boasted happy signs of progress. Logs B1 and F1 were already in place on the foundation walls, the other logs neatly stacked with their colorful labels easy to see. Later, JB told an amazing tale about B1, which was rotted over halfway through in the central ten feet of its thirty-foot chestnut length. JB and Broadus fully expected it to collapse in two when lifted in the middle, but it held. It underwent the precarious journey up the hill on the front end loader in full form, like a rugged old man unwilling to admit infirmity. It would undergo the indignity of surgery later on to replace its decayed portions, but for now, it rested proud. "Well, we've 'taken 'er all down,' " I quoted as we walked to the car at dusk, "thanks to JB and Broadus and the children and Taylor and us and ...." "Now all we have to do is 'put er up agin,' " quoted Tom. "Listen!" 141 ��"Hey!" "Peepers! We already have spring peepers!" 143 �This page intentionally left blank �Chapter 7 "Put 'Er All Up Agin" The Logs Go Up Good Figure . Blacksmith . Beating the Heat ..... Garden .. "She's Up!" .... 0 0 0 0 • 0 0 ••••••••••••• 0 0 ••••••• •• o 0 ••••••• 0 • 0 0 ••••• 0 • 0 0 ••••••• •••••••• •••••••••••••• 0 •••• ••••••• 0 0 0 0 0 0 •• •• 0 •• 0 •• •••• 0 •• •••••••••••• •••••••••• 145 0 0 0 •• 0 • 0 0 •• ••• 0 •• 146 150 159 166 169 170 �The Logs Go Up A modern mountain man worked-played?-like an overgrown boy with a set of giant Lincoln logs. He worked alone in deep concentration, picturing, calculating, planning, then heaving, shifting, placing. JB was engrossed in setting wall logs, reading their labels, identifying their positions, and figuring the mechanics of raising each into place. The mid-May day was hot, above 80°, and still, very still. I have always claimed that even on the stillest day one can find motion, the slightest wiggle of a blade or leaf-any nature photographer can support this- but on this day the outdoor world stood immobile. Heat blanketed the hill and hollow, though not oppressive or humid. We did not yearn to collapse into a chair, lemonade in hand. Quiet activity even in direct sun was tolerable. I sat in the grass, denailing and stacking chestnut shingles. When the kitchen room had been added to the old log house, its roof had overlapped a small portion of the main roof, covering the original shingles, and there they were hiding when all the exposed shingles were ripped off and replaced with tarpaper, forgotten until JB removed the roof and discovered them. Each shingle in hand seemed like a treasure, a value created by the magic of scarcity. Little, if any, American chestnut large enough to make shingles now grows, and until science conquers the blight which strikes the species just as it seems to be maturing well, none will. Music-to-work-by entertained me, but heat had subdued the birds to background music-no performance of jubilant, dawntype grand chorus, but single calls-a chip here, a warning note there, a fragment of song on the hill, a brief flurry of chatter by the stream. Each call identified its caller as a voice identifies a friend. A low-key suspense game developed: what bird would be next? Had I heard it yet that afternoon? The mechanical job of nail-pulling and stacking carried on tediously, but my mind jumped happily from shrub to treetop to thicket to sky as callers revealed themselves. A hummingbird's twitter fell from high in the locust, a petite call quite appropriately dimensioned to the bird, unlike the asser- 146 �tive, amplified volume produced by the diminuitive Carolina wren. Comfortable towhee sounds, close to the ground, accompanied scufflings in dry leaves, where the hidden hunter kicked about for tidbits. Irrepressible indigo bunting calls from the top sprig of one tall hemlock blended with soft notes of a bluebird from the other hemlock. I paused to glance up and rejoiced in a wonderful sight of blue against blue-a spot of brilliant blue on each hemlock tip against an expanse of heavenly blue. Crow.. .field sparrow...yellow-throat. A cuckoo! The strange, hollow-block rhythms identified the first cuckoo of the season. Catbird ... thrasher... titmouse. No wonder birds are so loved! Their sounds are companionship and entertainment and news all combined in a beautifully varied vocabulary of musical expression. A sudden buzz close to my face pulled attention to a whirring, irridescent, living jewel of red and green. I was eye-to-eye with a male ruby-throat. What a brilliant moment! The wee hummer hovered only inches away and twittered amicably. Was he reporting to me, about me, or muttering to himself? In a movement scarcely perceptible, he vanished from me and casually sipped nectar nearby, whirring from flower to flower in an iris patch, then from blossom to blossom in a cream and gold tangle of honeysuckle. Delighted with an excuse for a leg stretch and diversion and proceeding slowly, stealthily, I approached the honeysuckle mantle which blanketed an abandoned vegetable garden with dark foliage and sweet fragrance. The hummingbird continued to feed. As in countless times since childhood, I pinched off one of the tubular blossoms and, holding the tube carefully in one hand just behind the backward flare of petals, pulled the tiny, green flower base, the ovary, away from the tube with the thumb and forefinger of the other hand. The attached, threadlike pistil slid from among the stamens and disappeared back into the tube, its enlarged tip, the stigma, collecting nectar behind it. A precious droplet of sweetness soon emerged from the tube's torn end. Gently, carefully, I touched the nectar to the tip of my tongue 147 �and for a tiny moment savored this miniature dessert. Perhaps it was cherished more for its unique method of acquisition than for the wonder of its flavor, but as always, it elicited a demand for more. Other flowers yielded their droplets and soon, scattered on the ground below lay the remains of dozens I had tapped. Thousands more adorned the vine, my moments of indulgence inconsequential to the supply. As I feasted, the hummingbird zoomed back to the iris, disappeared a few moments, then reappeared to share honeysuckle nectar. Here I stood, where only 150 or so years ago virgin forests had stood, where for several generations a family's vegetable garden had grown, where on this perfect day in May I sipped honeysuckle nectar with a ruby-throat. The simplicity and depth of the moment both humbled and awed. JB called, "How 'bout comin' up here a minute?" I had been hearing a hand saw biting through wood occasionally, then a hand axe at times, and another sound that was probably a hammer striking a chisel, and I knew that JB was working on corners. Those points where log ends overlie each other are complex, a major challenge even to the George Nelsons familiar with such things. What must JB have been thinking as he formed new corners on the replacement logs? This quiet, likeable man had a twinkle in his eye. "There's the first log corner I've ever cut and fit," he announced, "and I think it's pretty good." "It's great!" I exclaimed, as delighted with his workmanship as he. "Old George couldn't have done better!" As JB basked in modest pride and eagerness to share his feelings, I heaped genuine praise upon the signficant corner, admiring its impeccable fit and excellent proportions. The challenge had been critical for JB and relief spread across his face. Motivated by success, he labored steadily through the workdays of the next two weeks, determined to set the logs well, proving to himself that he could. When the walls reached ceiling height, he slipped seven chestnut ceiling beams into notches cut in the front and back wall logs. While a small crane attached to JB's tractor lifted the top thirty-foot logs into place, locking the 148 �seven beams into position, we wondered how George Nelson had accomplished this major lifting task. The giant crate stood again, solid and strong, relocated, repaired, but not yet a house. JB sawed holes for two front windows, like two eyes to go with its long nose, the doorway. Cutting through those fine, solid logs seemed cruelly wrong. Even as JB's saw bit deeply, the gnawing conflict between cutting front windows and authenticity persisted, relentless. But was the cabin to be a museum or a family place to enjoy? The splendor of our surroundings demanded attention from indoors as well as out. Two hard-muscled young men, John and Charlie, home for a few days and stripped to the waist for suntanning, helped their builder-supervisor use a winch to pull straight the slightly bowed top logs. The men drilled holes through these into the logs immediately beneath and sank twelve-inch sections of one-inch iron pipe into the holes, giving each log three iron pegs plus the original chestnut pegs at the corners. "Those logs'll never bow now!" exclaimed one of the boys, puffing from the strenuous work. JB chuckled. "Wonder what George'd say if he could see us peggin' his house with iron pipes!" 149 �Good Figure Tom and I arrived at the cabin mid-morning on a cool Saturday, stepped from the car into the lush world, drop-laden from the night's rains, and caught our breaths in exhilaration. What freshness everywhere! The mountains seemed a stone's throw away, the meadow sparkled, brisk air invigorated, even the bird calls seemed more enthusiastic than ever-or was it just that we were? Euphoria can magnify one's sensitivities aurally as well as visually. From his regular, almost monotonous perch on the hemlock tip the indigo bunting's calls spilled out in wispy bits, while over near the pear tree a bobwhite repeated its name. The reed-like song of a wood thrush floated from the woods behind the cabin like an auditory analogy to the day's visual beauty. Tom stated bluntly, "Seventeen." "Did you say, 'Seventeen?' " "Seventeen." "Seventeen what?" "Seconds." "What seventeen seconds?" "Between the indigo bunting's calls. Count and see." I did. "Sixteen. I'm probably counting slower." "This bunting averages seventeen for me. They'll sing on and on and on at regularly-timed intervals." "Mmmmmm." My response seemed listless for I was preoccupied with this detail of information, thinking how trivial and unimportant it was, yet how delightfully interesting. One can count and predict exactly when the bird will next lift its head and open its beak and voice the flurry of notes that identify it as the indigo bunting. "Eighteen." Tom was counting again. "Seventeen." So was I. "Let's go look at the cabin," I stated. "You'll be surprised." Work had kept Tom from visiting the farm for over a week. By framing in the new back room and setting rafters, JB and Clint Dotson, a fellow carpenter JB had asked to help for a few weeks, had transformed the crate into a house again, and we 150 �beamed happily as we agreed that it made a lovely figure, then debated lightly whether it now was a new old house or an old new house. Either way, prospects for happy times in it suddenly became far more real, and we wandered around it admiringly. Then I showed Tom the snake. JB had greeted me the day before with, "Clint just killed one of your pets." Since kill and snakes so often go together, my heart sank. Had he killed the fine king snake we enjoyed seeing? JB and Clint knew how well we liked it. "It's !yin' over there by the woodpile," JB added. Its color and pattern blended with the reddish soil so perfectly that for moments I looked directly at it and failed to see it, an unsettling fact, for my "pet" was a two-foot copperhead. It had been lying harmlessly beneath a board, probably tense with fright from the stirring activity nearby, and when Clint lifted the board, the snake coiled in fear. Clint grabbed a smaller board and smashed its head. "Took five years off me, it did. Didn't have a gray hair on my head till I seen that snake," he teased. I had felt secure while working and walking among the piles of stored materials all about the hill because constantly, unconsciously, my eyes checked for copperheads. Yet there lay one right before me, with colors which had just tricked me, as they were intended to do. My steady sense of security faltered. But how stupid! Della had reported that in all the years the farm family lived here, only once was anyone bitten, and that a careless tot. "It was the only snake bite I ever heard tell of here. One of my sisters was out by the washpot with her brother Henry, and they saw this snake, and it runned and was gittin' away and hid. Henry was huntin' for it, and Momma called my sister to come back into the house, but she didn't come. Then she saw it and poked her foot out toward it and shouted 'There it is!' The snake bit her on the foot. Well, she didn't say nuthin' about the bite till in the night she woke up vomitin'. I s'pose Mamma or Daddy got up and one or the other of 'em asked, 'Did that snake bite you?' And she said, 'Yes.' She hadn't told 'em 'cause she was 'fraid of gettin' a whippin' for not comin' in when Mamma called. I guess 151 �they got a doctor the next day and did whatever they did back then. Course, we had cats and dogs and cows and geese, and animals like that'll chase snakes off." In the three years we had lived in the mountains, only once did we hear of a bite and its consequences were minor. A lone copperhead by the cabin was interesting, yes, but not alarming. I photographed the snake in a "natural" pose, its bashed head mostly hidden in grass. A close-up of its handsome brown and tan skin design was easy to get, but I wondered if I would ever be so close to a wild copperhead again. After careful examination of the dead snake, Tom tossed it into the woods where it would serve as food supply for myriads of tiny organisms, the decomposers. Their silent activity would reduce it to a mere skeleton, and eventually even that would be decomposed into soil minerals. Nature's efficient recycling program would make full use of what appeared to be quite useless. Our plan for the day was to organize the accumulated conglomeration heaped in the "guest house," which served as an invaluable storeroom. Who first labeled the old kitchen with this name no one recalls, but it stuck, and the appealing lines and weathered boards of the old room continued to charm us, placing the "guest house" high in our affection. "Where shall I put this?" someone would ask. "Oh, just stick it in the 'guest house' for a while." It bailed us out of awkward storage situations repeatedly. As we poked around in it, I flipped a chunk of scrap wood into the big tin trash can. A bird darted out almost into my face, and I recoiled with a startled splutter. Only one local species would be hiding in a trash can, that noisy, nervy, appealing Carolina wren, possibly the pair which had nested earlier only a few feet away on the kitchen ledge. Deep in the can, in a discarded metal box half full of rusty nails, lay a nest of pine needles, moss, jersey loopers, and paper scraps. Like pockets of pants hanging on a clothesline, hanging flowerbaskets on a porch, rake tops propped against garage walls, and country mailboxes, a box of rusty nails in a trash can seemed to the wrens absolutely ideal for raising young. Their nest harbored five newly hatched wrens. 152 �As we worked, the parent wrens grew more and more indignant with our presence, scolding us with agitated spurts of fourletter wren words to make absolutely clear that our proximity was intolerable. Our presence was not preventing parental duties, however, for occasionally the birds disappeared silently, sneaked to the trash can with morsels of food for the nestful of noisy, gaping mouths, then reestablished themselves on a conspicuous perch to resume their tirade. Eventually their upset, belligerent attitude began to wear, making us feel uncomfortably guilty that we had so blatantly invaded their premises and pursued our selfish interests at the expense of their domestic tranquility. We escaped the harassment of this vituperative duo by retreating beneath the big maple by the chicken house for lunch. Proped awkwardly against the maple trunk, Tom munched tuna sandwiches and commented, looking up toward the cabin, "Some day soon we're going to settle for lunch in comfortable rocking chairs on that cabin's porch." One day the Carolina wren poked a cutworm into a gaping mouth in its trash can nest and flew off to a grapevine twig by the big hemlock. In a furious instant a miniature jet plane divebombed the startled wren, attacking fiercely, nearly toppling it from its perch. An immediate second swoop discouraged even the plucky wren, which retreated hastily into the dense vine. The attacker hung mid-air on whirring wings, as if to assess the result of its belligerent tactics. Suddenly it zoomed to a perch on the hemlock, arranged its wings several times, poked a feather with its long beak, fluffed vigorously, and rested only seconds before jetting into the woods. JB and Clint, sitting on the porch edge while munching lunch sandwiches, watched the brief drama. "Hummer, wasn't it?" "Yep. Scrappy little feller." "Must have a nest in there." After eating, the men approached the hemlock cautiously and searched gently among head-high branches. Branch after branch revealed nothing but massed twiglets with tiny needles. Then there it was, a nest from a fairy tale, miniature and lichen-green, bound 153 �snuggly to its branch by cobwebs. The men lowered the limb slowly until the nest was at nose level. Two pairs of beady black eyes stared from atop bundles of pinfeathers, two needle-like beaks pointed upward, and two gentle giants stared back at the young hummingbirds, entranced. They smiled, charmed by their discovery, and let the limb lift gradually to its normal position. When I arrived next morning, they were bursting to tell of their discovery, and mid-morning, when the sun had risen from behind the hill, JB with stepladder and I with camera and closeup lens approached the nest. JB set the ladder firmly and steadied it as I climbed. If ever a sense of wonder can awaken in a person, the sight of a ruby-throat's nest should arouse it. A jewel of construction, coated with gray-green foliose lichens and lined with fluffy down from seed parachutes, it is held together with threads of spider and caterpillar silk. A soda pop bottle top can cap its inch-wide cavity before it is stretched by the growing young. One can go a lifetime without seeing a ruby-throated hummingbird's nest, yet we were blessed with the added attraction of two young. Those two pairs of shiny eyes, wondering right back at my peering hulk beside them, and the wee bodies, pinfeathered and pulsing with life and growth, stirred in me an almost overwhelming awe. I was lost to them for a moment, then snapped pictures hastily and left. A week later the young were fully feathered, stretching the elastic nest to capacity, but several more days passed before the nest was empty, a drama ended, but with photographs to revive its delight. Cabin changes came rapidly in the following weeks. Porches added cosiness and charm to the structure's appearance, one on front, facing west for sunsets, one off the back room, facing south for winter sunning, but for weeks the new porches served no useful function, being floorless. One day I weeded the basement, entertained by the thought: how often does one have to weed one's basement? Many seeds and old roots persisted in the soil floor. Locust and sassafras sprigs 154 �shot up. Long strands of blackberry and smilax, so pale green from the semidarkness that they appeared white, reached for the frail light that sneaked through from the open rafters high above. Seedlings of ragweed and grasses sprouted and grew, spindly and surprisingly determined, but soon the light that encouraged their growth would be gone. The roofing job was imminent, making weeding and basement a unique, one-time job. The Fourth of July arrived. Floods of childhood memories engulfed me for a while-of big family reunions at an old family homestead near Carlisle, Pennsylvania, uncles, aunts, hosts of cousins, fishing for minnies with home-made pin hooks, climbing trees, swimming in the creek, daring to swing over the water on the long rope which hung from a huge sycamore limb, dropping into the water with a magnificent splash, seining for crayfish, hunting snail egg masses under rocks, feasting on the pooled food supplies of four families, fireworks at night. The Fourth was anticipated for months beforehand and was indeed glorious. When our children were small, no cousins or relatives lived close enough for reunions, but our holidays always found us with friends at the nearby beach on the New Jersey coast and at neighborhood picnics. This Fourth of July the children were away for the summer, John studying and traveling in Austria, Anne working in additional credits at summer college, and Charlie living with a family in Switzerland. Our dream for their frequent use of our piece of mountain continued to fade as these young people, grown and caught up with education and travel interests, spent fewer and fewer prolonged periods at home. This was a natural course in their developing lives, important, expected, and encouraged. Perhaps our unfulfilled dream of the cabin as a family place should have caused deep disappointment. Not at all, for our pleasure with the interests and objectives and enthusiasm of these three young adults overshadowed any feelings of disappointment. We simply redirected our considerations from family times to times for friends or just ourselves. JB and Clint had requested use of the holiday to start nailing on the sheathing, those slats across the rafters to which shingles 155 �would be applied. Several showers had already sprinkled our Fourth briefly, but drying was quick, allowing Tom to scythe tall weeds around the old plum trees so I could gather a pailful of orange-red fruits, sampling some freely as I worked, later making them into jam, which had such a cheery color it just had to taste extra good. As we were about to leave mid-afternoon, Broadus Leedom breezed in and announced he would be coming tomorrow to move the old foundation stones and finish the grading. "Whar you wantin' them rocks set at?" he asked. "North end of the house, where the chimney will be built with them." "Up the hill there? No problem; no problem 'tall. I can have 'em up there for you in no time." Tom arranged another vacation day, and next morning we were at the cabin before 8:00. The ground was dry, perfect for heavy equipment, and spirits and anticipation rode high. But no Leedom, not all morning. At noon we returned home to call him. "You thought I'd be there after all that rain last night?" "But it didn't rain a drop! It's absolutely perfect out there." The unpredictability of rains in the mountains had fouled our plans. Summer showers can deluge one slope of a mountain while its opposite goes dry. We assumed Broadus knew it was dry; he assumed we knew it was wet. An early phone check should have been made. That night two inches of rain fell, and the following morning, with the soggiest ground we had had in weeks, Broadus appeared with a whole crew. We could hardly turn them away, though we knew the ground damage would be severe. The machine lunged into the scattered piles of old foundation rocks, scooping them noisily into its huge bucket while soft ground squashed and compacted beneath the grinding treads. Load after load rode up the hill, creating an unwanted highway. The massive rocks of the original chimney foundation challenged even the bucket loader, but Broadus, guided by the extra men, maneuvered them skillfully, one great rock per load, and charged up the slippery highway. 156 �By the time the last bucketful departed, the old house site was a desolate morass of deep, muddy ruts, which later the machine attempted to level so we could seed the earth promptly, but each pass only aggravated the ruts. All agreed to stop the massacre and proceed with the second major job, the final grading around the new house, that important job Tom had taken another vacation day to oversee. As if on signal, the skies dropped a deluge, cancelling all work. "You must be having loads of fun working on that cabin!" exclaimed a friend that evening. Early morning several days later, Broadus called to say, "We're movin' the machine out there this mornin' to do your gradin'." Tom would miss the grading job he wanted especially to oversee. In three and a half hours of intense, noisy work, man and machine recontoured the lane for better drainage, filled and graded around the foundations, made a few sweeps at the old site to level the worst ruts, and departed, all quickly and efficiently accomplished. Amid the scooping, shoving turmoil of grading, an unexpected movement caught my eye. I bent down and gently lifted a truly beautiful creature, a tiny king snake no more than just hatched. The striking white chain designs stretching the length of its jet black body contrasted far more handsomely than the duller markings on an adult king snake. This wee fellow was a gem. Were there others like him, pushed around helplessly, possibly covered or crushed in the soil? The bucketloader with its next heaping load was already rumbling toward me, and I was to direct the operator exactly where I wanted it dumped. In the pressure of haste and noise, I searched frantically for something to contain the baby snake until the grading was done, partly for its own sake, partly because I wanted to photograph it, but no box or can or jar lay about, and I had no pocket. I dashed the few feet to the edge of the woods and hastily released my captive, hoping fright would cause it to hide in safety until the machine was gone. How I have regretted that pressured decision! I have photographed the salamanders and toads, lizards and snakes of the farm, creatures easily seen 157 �again, but that newly-hatched king snake, released in confused haste, stands high on my list of lost photographic opportunities. The sun bore down so mercilessly that I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. My emotions should have been rejoicing to have the grading job finished, but I felt miserable, completely wilted and grubby from noise and decisions and tromping up and down hill on loose soil. One all-encompassing thought dominated-get to the meadow stream, that cool, bubbling stream. I plodded and hurried-the weary can do them simultaneously-down to that mecca of refreshment and charged into the few inches of tumbling water with shoes, socks, slacks, and all. A blissful chill penetrated my feet and ankles, bringing a wonderful shiver to my whole frame and an unexpected wave of happiness to my spirit. A chance glance up the hill added a delightful surprise to the sudden euphoria. With grading done, the cabin had become part of the hill, not just a bump sitting up there, but a natural feature, as if it had grown there; it belonged. Another happy thought struck-just think! No more yellow monsters on our hill! 158 �Blacksmith "Just get yourse'f over here, and we'll talk about it. Draw me a sorta picture-like, what you want, and I reckon I can make it for you." "Would it suit to come right now?" I asked hopefully. "Reckon it'd be all right. Sure! C'mon here now. I'm just asettin' here, not fixin' to do nuthin' " Jubilant, I grabbed the pattern I had already made and dashed to the car. This trip was my next hope in a series of so far futile efforts to find a crane for the cabin fireplace. Time was running out, for the crane had to be installed as the fireplace stones were laid, and the chimney-fireplace job was imminent. Months of contact with numerous antique stores had produced nothing. "We don't get a crane very often, lady. You see, they're built into the fireplace and stay with a house. We get them only when a house is torn down or a fireplace ripped out." The dealers had shown me several, but for ugly, miserable corroded old things that must have spent years exposed to weather, they had asked between $45 and $65. No thanks. We were eager for a crane, but would not enjoy that kind. Hearing my laments of failure, JB said, "There used to be an old blacksmith lived on Turley Falls Road. Murphey's the name. If he's still working, maybe he could make you one." Why not? The crane did not have to be an antique, just appropriately old style, and if a mountain blacksmith made it, what did it matter when it was made? Delighted with this new tangent, but disappointed to find no Murphey of that address listed in the telephone directory, I talked Tom into a ride to Turley Falls Road to look for Murpheys on mailboxes. None. We rang a doorbell and asked information. "Nope, no Murpheys livin' in these parts. Must've moved or died." Our hopes died, too. Next day JB said, "I was thinkin' about that blacksmith. His name wasn't Murphey at all. It was Wills, Troy Wills." Now I was on my way to see him, following his directions to a narrow lane. "Hit'll be kinda jouncy, but a car can git through. Just keep agoin' till you come to a gate. That's the startin' of my 159 �place. I'll know you're comin' 'cause the dogs'll yipe." I jounced all right, and bounced and lurched, too, and classified our jiggly road to the cabin as a superhighway in comparison. Weeds and limbs tickled and swiped the car from both sides. Tense uncertainty crept over me. What am I getting into? I crawled on, dodging gullies, wondering if this road led to anywhere, when suddenly there stood the gate, a welcome sight. Apprehension turned into adventure. I squeezed the car between gateposts and whoosh! an explosion in front of the car sent my brake foot to the floor. A huge covey of quail had burst from the lane and scattered to shrubby cover. At that moment two enormous red setters came tearing toward the car, racing each other in keen competition, bounding, and barking, but with tails wagging vigorously. Their noise and formidable size could not hide their obvious delight in welcoming a guest. They escorted me with yelping fanfare to a house, where I stopped the car and waited, both dogs propping their forefeet on the window ledge, eager faces only inches away through smeared glass. Troy Wills' entrance on the scene was announced by the banging of the screen door behind him and a lusty pair of "shut ups" to the dogs, which promptly gave him a you-spoiled-it-all look but obeyed with tails still wagging. He hobbled down the porch stairs of his neat and attractively modest home, and even before greeting me he gave each dog a pat on the head. One could see they were solid friends. Then he approached the car, a broad smile on his face, and I stepped out. "Sorry 'bout them noisy dogs. They gets all stewed up when a car comes in. We can go right over to my shop-over there," and he pointed to a small barn. We walked through high, wet grasses, cool with dew, toward the barn that housed his smithy. A handsome walnut tree arched protectively over the weathered building, and adjacent stretched a meticulous, thriving vegetable garden. I paused to enjoy the scene-a calendar picture of the good old days-but the blacksmith plodded on ahead. The barn door behaved as old barn doors should, screeching and creaking grandly as we entered the cool interior. Forge, 160 �anvil, and assorted trade tools stood at one end, and a delightful array of farm relics filled the other. This gentle man, old beyond his years, simple in his needs and obviously content, glowed with enthusiasm for blacksmithing. "I was borned and raised in a blacksmith shop. Never did nuthin' else for forty years till I tuk up brick-makin', but I got too old for that and retired. Now I just do a bit of smithin' now and then, things like youenses wants, just for fun." We talked at length about his shop and smithing experiences and examined leisurely a veritable museum of farm relics. "Oh!" I exclaimed, delighted with a find. "What's this thing? We found one under the cabin-thought it was a fire poker, but it seems too long." He laughed, an easy, patient laugh. "Why, that thing's a bar for lockin' up a tail gate on a wagon." "I'd never have guessed that one! That's fun to know. I guess we'll be using ours for a fire poker anyway." The crane pattern I showed him brought suprising response. "Why, I got one almost 'zackly like that in my old cabin on the hill up yonder. Wanna see it?" Time was tight on this morning of many errands. If we walked all the way up to that cabin .... He walked so slowly, too. "Gettin' weak in m'hind parts." But here was a man who understood old cabins and old ways, who was eager to talk. Errands could wait. "I'd love to see it!" In the tiny cabin's fireplace hung a crane remarkably similar to my pattern, and by studying its details we were able to decide several small details concerning mine. Beneath the crane stood a trivet-like device, a spiral of iron on three legs with a wooden handle. "That's an interesting thing," I commented. "Is it old?" "Sure is! After you take the arn cookin' pot from hangin' on the pot hook here on the crane-over the far, you see-you set it on this thing. Then you can fill the plates from here and not get burnded." Time was forgotten, and as we meandered back to the car, he was as eager for a listening ear as Della had been, and I was 161 �eager to learn. Suddenly I realized something. "Mr. Wills, I've been having such a good time talking with you that I never even asked how much you'll charge to make the crane. Maybe it'll be more than I want to put into it." "Well, now, it does take a lot of work to git the 'quipment all heated up and workin', and the arn costses more these days than it used. I ain't very fast no more neither, as you can see." He shifted his feet a while, studying them and the ground. My hopes sagged as I thought of those antique shops with their battered old corroded cranes for $65. This crane would be in perfect condition. "Well, I really hate to ask so much, but I'd hafta ask about eight-ten dollars." I stood dumb, then guilt snuffed the initial joy of this pleasant surprise. That was not enough for his labors, so I objected, but he loved his work and was excited by the idea of making a crane for an old log house and stuck with his price, one not hard for me to accept. "You phone me in a few days;' he called as I was leaving, and when I did, he announced, "Yep, hit's ready. Hope you like it!" It was perfect, and when I asked the price, he stated rather apologetically, "I'll hafta charge you $10. I said hit'd be eight-ten dollars, but the arn costed more than I figgered it would." His interest in this seemed incidental, however. Something else was on his mind. "Got sumpin to show you." He went behind the shop door and emerged with an iron trivet like the one by his cabin's fireplace. "Made this'n like the other. Thought mebbe you'd like it." His eyes twinkled, his face radiated delight in his surprise. "I'd love to have it! It's just great! You made it when you made the crane?" "Yep." He beamed. "How good of you! What are you asking for it?" Of course, I would pay him for it. Once again I waited as he shifted about and studied his feet. "I'll hafta ask you $3 for it. See the handle? That's half a handle from an old fashioned lawn mower." He chuckled with satisfaction, then suddenly asked, "Got any far dogs?" "Far dogs?" My reading had covered many things used in 162 �old houses, but this term was new. "Them things you set the logs on for the far." "Oh! Fire dogs!" "Yeah!" "Andirons." "That's it." "No, I don't have any, and I've looked for them in antique shops while looking for the crane, but no luck. Could you make me some?" "You figger out what you want and git it drawed up, and mebbe I might could make 'em for you. I'd like to do that." "Great! Oh, there's something else I need even sooner, some old style door hinges. Maybe you could make them, too." "Jus' draw 'em up." We parted, both feeling the warmth of common interest and a common project, each anticipating the next meeting. A few weeks later I took him a pattern for hinges, designed from ones on an old cabin door pictured in a book. He would make three sets, one for the front door, which JB would construct new out of rough boards, and one for the back door, for which we would use the former front door. The third set would be spare. Soon we would have doors to open and close! "Them's old timey hinges, all right. I've made lots like 'em. I can make 'em for you jus' fine," he stated confidently as he studied the pattern. Within weeks the doors were ready to set, and I was sitting with Mr. Wills and his wife in their modest living room, lending an eager ear as he chatted on and on about old time smithing and the prices of the times. The topic was prompted by his dismay in having to pay $6 for the iron for the hinges. "Hit's a downright sin, downright disheartnin' to pay such prices today. Awful!" He shook his head repeatedly to emphasize the point. Once again I found myself so fascinated by how he was expressing himself that I had difficulty following the meaning. The words and pronunciations of the mountain dialect, still strange to my ears after three years here, were made all the more delightful 163 ��by its inflections, then enhanced yet further by the charm of the person using it. Time should have stopped so we could talk on and on. Once again we walked past the sunny vegetable garden and felt the shade of the high walnut limbs and entered the smithy, where he fingered, then handed me one of the hinges as if it were a fine masterpiece of art. He was pleased with it and conspicuously eager to have me pleased. Fortunately, I was. When I took him a plan for some primitive "far dogs" several weeks later, he shut-upped the noisy dogs as usual but failed to pat them, appearing listless, weary, and discouraged. "I'm sorry, but I just cain't be makin' 'em for a while. Weather's too hot for smithin'. Heat gets me bad." The project was postponed. I will jump ahead here in the cabin's story to round out that of the blacksmith. In the cool of autumn I called to pursue the fire dog job and heard someone say, "Oh, he's not doin' smithin' no more. Been feelin' awful poorly lately." Distressed that the old man was failing and disappointed that our joint project would never be completed, I poked the fire dog plans into my file, and many months passed by, and many more, until one day I had the idea to talk with Troy Wills again, this time to record on tape some of his tales. I called and heard, "Oh, honey, he's been gone for nearly a year now." 165 �Beating the Heat Crossing the meadow stream on a venture to photograph whatever special subject nature might have set out for me this day, I stepped onto the soft bank and sprawled flat, tripped by something hard in the oozy mud. I groped to locate the stumbling block and laughing, lifted a muddy box turtle. A scientist may say that a turtle's facial expression is constant, not subject to his change of moods, but I suggest that his look can be subject to interpretation by a human's whim, and most certainly I felt myself to be the object of an angry glare of indigntion and annoyance. How could I so clumsily disturb his far wiser use of a beastly hot afternoon than mine, his retreat from the sun's heat into a cool haven of mud? As I lowered the turtle gently toward the ground, his legs flailed vigorously and barely missed a beat as they touched soft mud, working the turtle downward into the dark hideaway until only a small oval of topshell was visible. The cool mud at the meadow stream crossing was a favorite haunt for these land turtles when summer's heat drove their body temperature upward. We rarely crossed without automatically pausing to turtle hunt and rarely failed to find at least one wallowing comfortably. Nearby, staring yellow eyes of a big female watched me closely. Only her hind feet hid in the mud; she had just arrived. Beside her a muddy hump revealed the presence of a third turtle, and I yelled to Tom, "There are three turtles here today." "Look again;' he called back, unimpressed. Having crossed here a short time earlier, he had played his own game of Find-the-Turtle. My eyes swept the few feet of open area at the crossing repeatedly, but could find no more, yet Tom's keen eyes must have spotted another. "Keep looking," he called, teasing and encouraging simultaneously. Suddenly in a little side pool, deep among some water weeds several inches below the water's surface, I spotted the unmistakable yellow and black pattern of the head and snout of number four. 166 �"I see him! Four! That's a record!" I stooped to photograph these dour characters, which responded to my close movement by withdrawing their heads. The picture in my camera viewer looked thoroughly unacceptable without heads, so I waited, trying to keep absolutely still. Did you ever try to outwait a turtle? Did you ever try to outwait a turtle in early afternoon of a hot, breezeless day, with grasses and insects tickling your aching, stooping legs and perspiration causing your glasses to slip off gradually? The turtles remained calm and infinitely patient in their pleasant mud bath while I itched and dripped in merciless sun, but the lure of a good picture can be surprisingly strong motivation. I persevered, miserable but determined. The turtles also persevered, immobile and even more determined, and gradually they won the battle. The loser, excessively vigorous with annoyance, splashed face and arms to cool off, and then, in a totally ineffective but satisfying gesture, splashed all four turtles, too, even the one under the water. So there!-and headed off into the cornfield to pursue less exasperating quarry. The following day a sigh of relief fully expressed my sentiments as I looked over the completed job and propped my tools against the house. For over two hours I had labored with mattock and hoe and rake to regrade a small area of south yard compacted by machines and feet. Now it lay properly contoured, its soil loose and receptive for grass seeds, and I set off eagerly for the stream to wash for lunch. A blackberry sprig reaching into the path snagged my bare arm, causing a quick check to note if thorns had broken the skin. No, just superficial scratches, but I was amused to note the caked dirt on my hands and forearms and the dust on my pants and shoes. How wonderfully grubby! Though hot, muscle weary, and thoroughly dirty, I felt completely good, that satisfying contentment and well-being which follows hard physical effort and the accomplishment of a difficult job. I checked my watch. About now some of my friends, 167 �manicured and stylishly coiffed, were dressing for the luncheon and fashion show at the Country Club. I had planned to go, too, and would have enjoyed it thoroughly, but a work day called. The sun bore down, and the sweet scent of grasses hung invisibly in the hollow. A wren uttered three chips of annoyance as I approached the stream, but stayed hidden in the multiflora tangle. As I braced for that first icy splash on hot skin, a few inches of mud suddenly shifted position. A finger poked into the mud struck a hard surface, one of our turtle friends again. I washed in this stream we share with these creatures and moved upstream several feet to take a long drink from cupped hands. The pungent scent of mint drifted up. Several sprigs lay crushed by my shoe, broken from plants when my footing shifted. I nibbled a fresh leaf and wished that everyone in the world could have even a moment of feeling so at peace. Thinking lunch, I plodded back up the hill and at the cabin took my sandwich bag from its shady storage behind a log. JB and Clint were still engrossed in sheathing work on the roof, so I sat on the rim of the porch, legs dangling, and began unfastening the cleat plastic bag. What were those dark green things in the bag? Nothing dark green had been put in the sandwich of sliced meat and cheese and garden lettuce. Garden lettuce! An unpleasant thought occurred. Might there be a little visitor enclosed in my lettuce? Might those dark green objects be his droppings? The lettuce leaves had been washed well, but my sandwich obviously included an unexpected ingredient. I examined its contents thoroughly and found my uninvited guest, a smooth, green caterpillar, innocently camouflaged in a fold of leaf. Now what? I was hungry and this was the only food on hand. To go home and return involved ten miles of travel. The solution was simple-selective trimmings of lettuce and bread were dropped to the ground and strong positive thinking about any subject but green caterpillars accompanied my indulgence in the sandwich. And if anyone is finicky about garden lettuce being inspected with great care, my house is a good place to come now! 168 �Garden The site of the old cabin became a garden, not a garden carefully planted with a fancy variety of seeds and cultivated by the whims of a gardener, but a garden planted and respectfully given its freedom by nature. The bare soil, covered by the log house for so many years, had suddenly been exposed to sun and rain. A bulldozer had stirred the soil, and human muscle power had raked it smooth. Now nature's determined efforts to cover it with green grew more conspicious each day. Hundreds, thousands of tiny seedlings spread their specifically-shaped new leaves in a green film over the redbrown soil. Chickweeds, speedwells, grasses, and smartweed; lambs quarters and pigweed, purslane and galinsoga; oxalis, plantain, and cranes-bill. Later they would be joined by others, all on this small plot, each tiny plant struggling for room and light, each making its way with roots, stem, and leaves so it could flower and produce seeds to assure more of its kind. What a concentration of growth! What a carpet of competition! Amid this green a sprig of a different sort projected, thicker, larger-leaved than its tiny neighbors and adding rapidly to its growth each day. Surely such a surge of growth must come from an already established root system. With sudden excitement I suspected what it was, and a careful check of its compound leaves and exact location confirmed my suspicion. Wisteria! The old wisteria vine which had draped over the whole south end of the porch and then been scraped away by the bulldozer had survived! It's new shoots were already shading hundreds of tiny weed seedlings and depriving them of light. The vine was becoming master of its site again and would someday be moved to climb the porch corner of the new cabin. I had found an old friend, so pounded in a big stake beside it to mark the place. 169 �She's Up! "Put 'er all up agin ... put 'er all up agin ... put 'er..." the words ran through my mind like an endless tape as Tom and I bounced along the familiar road to the cabin. We rode in silence, each busy in thought. Then I thought out loud. "She really is up!" "Who's up?" "The cabin! We were advised to 'put 'er all up agin.' Well, she's up!" "Oh." Tom pondered this long moments before adding quietly, "Now all we have to do is finish the roof, close in the back room, cover the gables, put down the floor, set the windows, hang the doors, do the chinking ..." "... and build the chimney and fireplace." "That's all." He sounded as if weighed down by Atlas' globe. "That's all," I echoed limply, climbing into gloom with him. "And we still have plumbing and electric fixtures ... Do you think we'll ever be finished?" "Maybe." My excitement had been effectively dampened by this listing of tasks still pending. Nearly four months had passed since the footings were poured, and the road ahead curved endlessly. We arrived at the lane and crept quietly along its hardpacked bed, leaving behind the rest of the world. Shafts of sunlight dappled the earth before the wheels of our little VW Beetle. Sprays of bright orange butterfly weed bordered the lane edge where a large break in the leafy canopy let through a mass of light. Suddenly, ahead on its hilly clearing, the cabin stood above us on the left, basking cheerfully and showing off its full height and shapeliness, proclaiming that our hill country cabin was no longer just a dream. Like a child that cries lustily one moment and bursts into hearty laughter the next, our gloom burst into happy, positive thinking. We climbed the hill to this unique little house that had us in its grip. It needed us, and we needed it, and despite the struggles, it was a harJ 1)y union. We busied about with excitement, for a new plywood subfloor 170 �allowed us to wander about the house with no thought of where to put each foot, assessing, enjoying, and working with no need to beam-hop above the basement abyss. But a wee pang persisted-what a pity that the hopping talents we had developed so beautifully through many weeks of practical experience were obsolete now! Initially I had rebelled at the mere thought of plywood in a mountain cabin. No, indeed. I fought a constant battle to keep the house as near to its original form and plan as possible, but once again the men convinced me that a modern construction feature would be useful and easily hidden. Subflooring would assure a much warmer house, and floor boards would cover it completely. At lunch time we were eager to rest. I was so conditioned to sitting on a board or ledge or rock or hump of earth that I was startled when Tom appeared from the car with two folding aluminum chairs. With a grand flourish, he set them on the subfloor before the gaping hole of the living room window and quickly arranged between them two saw horses with a board across, an instant table. Suddenly we were not merely having lunch, we were dining-with a view! No gourmet cuisine in the most elegant of restaurants could have surpassed our enjoyment of peanut butter sandwiches that day. 171 �This page intentionally left blank �Chapter 8 Born Again "Gitlin' Warred" .......................... 174 Pole and Power .......................... 179 Shingling ............................... 181 New Boards, Old Boards .................. 186 Big Little Jobs ........................... 191 173 �Gittin' Warred When I arrived at the farm early, well before the long-awaited electricians were due, JB and Clint were eager to tell what they had seen. "Know that yelpin' we heared yesterday?" A touch of excitement raised Clint's voice. "Sure do! Sounded like a pup." "Yeah! And 'member I pointed out hit sure was a fox pup 'cause the yippin' was just wunst each time." "Yes." "Well, you hadn't no more'n left yesterday when me and JB here heared somethin' in the woods up back of the house, and we saw a half grown fox jump and catch somethin', most likely a mouse, right over yonder by that stack of brush." ''A fox! Great! Hey! That's really exciting! I'll bring some scraps tomorrow to set out up there, and maybe he'll return." "Mighty fine little pup, that. Well, if there's going to be any work gittin' done around here .... ," but Clint's statement needed no final words. All had jobs to accomplish before the electricians arrived. Tom and I had spent long hours determining the electrical needs of our cabin, working to keep the job simple and inexpensive with minimal wiring and only a few inconspicuous outlets. Our penciled diagrams had awaited talks with the electric contractor, and we felt cheery optimism that this might be one job not complicated by the eccentricities of a log house with no standard parts and few squared angles or level lines. Square, level, and even were encountered so seldom that they had become memorable. One day Clint measured the distance from floor to top log in two locations eight or ten feet apart. He looked astonished, glanced up with a twinkle, scratched his head, and exclaimed, "That'll never do! They're the same, 'zackly the same. Somethin's wrong!" The first electric contractor to consider the job had listened to our plans with interest and patience, studying the diagrams carefully. Then he outlined gently the local safety regulations for wiring in new houses, rules painfully incongruous with those plans. 174 �"But this is an old log cabin," I protested, "not a modern new house." "I'm afraid it would be classified a new house, and there must be electrical outlets every twelve feet around the room." He calculated well over double the number we wanted. "Electricity in the kitchen must be on two circuits to divide the load of appliances." "But we're having only a tiny stove and refrigerator and no other appliances. No way can we use all those outlets. The kitchen is just these few feet of wall space in the big room. Two circuits for this? I understood and appreciated the need for standard safety rules, but disappointment encouraged me to protest in a battle that was lost before it began. Comply-or no electricity. "We'll be writing up an estimate and scheduling the job as soon as possible," the electrician stated rather half-heartedly, sounding as if he dreaded the job. "When might that be?" "Oh, in about three weeks." "Three weeks! We can't wait that long!" So I repeated the entire procedure two days later with a second contractor, who confirmed the power company's rules, which I wished desperately would just go away. Suddenly he began penning figures on the palm of his hand, deeply involved with calculating and writing. Then he strode toward me and, with a disarming smile and an outstretched palm, presented me with an estimate for the job, which he could start within a week. He won the job instantly-this man belonged with our project. The figures were transcribed promptly to a contract sheet, the dotted line signed, and the contractor, delighted with the cabin and with my interest in his palm-written estimate, posed his hand happily for a photograph. Two electricians arrived on schedule, one being our palm writer, who stated cheerfully, a broad smile lighting his sincere face, "Mornin! Come to do yer rough warrin'." "Excuse me?" I asked gently, not having the remotest idea what he meant. 175 �"Gonna do yer rough warrin' today. Hit's a hot'n, ain't it!" "Oh, yes," I answered quickly, hoping I sounded more enlightened than I felt. Suddenly lights flashed in my head. "Warrin'." Wiring! Of course! And I glowed with pleasure that we would have around another workman speaking the colorful mountain dialect I had grown to love. Thus began a series of events with electrically-oriented personnel that had this unelectrically-oriented housewife often frantically or prayerfully or hopefully deciding startling things, usually spur-of-the-moment. No telephone line tied me to Tom's office to seek his opinions and wise counsel, and though I often ran to JB for help, mostly I was on my own, for better or for worse. "Where you want the control panel?" or, "Think the meter box'd be best aside the chimley place?'' or, "How high shall I set them receptycles?" Answers emerged from my head somehow, after I asked a few questions myself, like, "What's a control panel?" I learned that outlets and "receptycles" were synonymous. The electricians proceeded with what looked like a bewildering task, and the whirring, penetrating sound of the electric drill joined the banging of hammers and screech of power saws as JB and Clint continued the roofing job. All morning the drill ate its way through old logs, making passages for wires, and the driller puffed and labored and dripped perspiration, angling the drill holes in each log because it was impossible to make them vertical. On into the afternoon the bit whined and gnawed through time-hardened oak and chestnut and yellow poplar, spitting out swirls of fan-shaped borings. Haphazard piles of these accumulated on the floor, and the workmen's feet scuffled through them. The colorings attracted me-the chestnut borings a rich, reddish brown, the oak a soft gray-beige, the poplar a light sandy-beige. I collected a few that had escaped the scufflings. The whorls were giant-size replicas of the shavings from those little hand pencil sharpeners universally used a couple of generations ago, available at two for a nickel or "free" with a box of pencils. You held the tiny sharpener in one hand, poked a pencil point in the hole, turned either box or pencil, and a curly wafer of wood, 176 �edged with a fine line of color from the pencil paint, emerged from a slot in the side of the sharpener. Fascinating! As a child I watched my father sharpening pencils at his desk. His chair pushed back and turned toward me so I could see better, he turned the pencil slowly, carefully, to get a long strip of wood, the longer, the more fun. I would try it, but my strip would crumble. The special touch of experience was required. I noticed when he sharpened pencils for himself, he deftly used a small pen knife. Many years later we gave Dad a wall pencil sharpener for his birthday. It was quicker, easier, but far less interesting and required no skill. Now they have even electrified these so no one need expend the effort to turn the little handle. How utterly boring! With childlike fascination for the strange shapes of log borings but adult appreciation for their sculptured designs and blended colors, I photographed them closeup and wondered-what is the history of these particular logs? They grew on the farm here for perhaps fifty or sixty years before George Nelson felled them in the late 1800s, so their seedlings were pre-Civil War. Surely the seeds which produced them came from virgin trees in the great hardwood forest that once blanketed these mountains. The drilling was finished, and into those holes the "simple" wiring of too many outlets, switches, fixtures, and heating units disappeared, then reappeared to bridge the gaps between the logs. They poked up from the floor and down from the ceiling, and I was prompted to exclaim, "This house looks strung with black spaghetti!" adding, in admiration of the electriciary.s' skill, "I marvel how you ever figure out which wire goes to what!" Our cheery electrician responded, "Waaaal, later on, if you flip a switch and the commode flushes, you'll know we done somethin' wrong." Clint, who had just walked in, doubled up with laughter and added his spontaneous gem, "We won't hafta nail this house t'gither. Hit's warred!" The chief electrician was enormously pleased. The drilling had been a great physical effort and the day's work anything but routine, but he had thoroughly enjoyed it. As he prepared to leave, his eyes swept the room with an all-encompassing look, and he 177 �stated grandly, "I don't care what anybody says, I done it!" What a wonderful statement of accomplishment! It captured the whole spirit of our work and applied to nearly any job we did. Each task presented its atypical, unfamiliar challenge. Each worker started with a touch of apprehension, strange to the techniques required, uncertain of the outcome, and because of this uncertainty, jobs could not be planned ahead. Two sentences found later in an editorial pertinent to restoring old houses might have calmed our frequent frustrations and apprehensions. "Working on an old house to turn it into a place to live is more a matter of experiment and observation than restoration to a set of rules. Most of us find it difficult to visualize a total rebuilding ... job in advance of the actual work." 4 But when each job was completed, a surge of genuine pride swept in. "That job was a tough'n, but I figgered it out. I done it!" When the electrician arrived for the second day's work, he exclaimed in greeting, "I was adrillin' them tough old oak logs all night long in my sleep. Now, where do you want them receptycles in the loft?" We climbed a ladder to this upper domain and beamhopped to a wide board which lay in the middle as an island for standing. I explained that an overhead light and a single outlet at each end of the loft would be adequate and hoped the county electrical inspector, when he came to check the rough wiring, would agree. He didn't. Several days later when the inspector arrived, his delight in the log house nearly eclipsed his duty to inspect. He was bursting with questions, but ultimately turned to business and did it well, heeding my request to be strict on the workmanshipwe wanted the wiring to be absolutely safe. However, he confirmed that the loft, if wired at all, must have the required receptacles every twelve feet, even though four of them would be at the angle of the roof-floor junction, useless, costly, mere dust collectors. The workmen could do this wiring when they returned to install the electric fixtures. But anyway, we were mostly warred! 178 �Pole and Power My advice on telegraph poles had never been sought before, and I almost laughed aloud at my preposterous position, surrounded by serious linesmen looking at me intently, awaiting my mighty decision. We were considering the location for a new telegraph pole, the old one being badly worn and poorly situated. I felt utterly ridiculous, then played with a touch of private whimsy. "Put it there," said the all-powerful Queen to her subjects, and they did, setting it firm and straight by the lane behind the big hemlocks. "You want the electric line from the pole to the house underground?" someone asked. "Oh, yes, please. We don't want wires across that lovely view." "Where'Il we put it?" Where? It had never occurred to us that anyone but the linesmen would decide this. They would point to the best place, and there it would go, automatically. But again they all looked to me for the decision. After full consultation with her surrounding advisors, the Queen said, "Put it there;' and they did, a neat, narrow ditch only inches wide, directly from the pole to the house. It was all too easy. Several days later a deluge washed out the fill of the entire electric line. The mud swooshed merrily down the narrow gully and settled smoothly on the lowest spot, the lane. By chance, only hours before, a new truckload of gravel had been spread on the lane where it now lay under mud. The power company men returned, complete with a yellow monster sporting a five foot blade to fill a ditch several inches wide. "Need it to collect dirt;' they explained. It shoved in soil garnished with day lilies and goosenecks while JB and I tossed in broken bricks, stones, and junk, anything to block the flow of wash in case of another deluge. As a final touch, the machine operator ran his treads directly on the ditch for its entire length, packing it. Late that afternoon I called the telephone company to report we were ready to have the underground telephone line installed. As I whiled away minutes on HOLD, I reviewed my call to this office several weeks previously, I had asked, "Would it be possible 179 �to put the electric and telephone lines in the same ditch to minimize digging and save time!" It seemed an efficient and logical plan. "Oh, no," a voice responded with certainty. "We prefer a separate ditch. Then if trouble arises in either line, the other is not likely to be damaged during repair. Call us after your electric line is in." Well, I was being prompt. I heard a voice and stated my request for the telephone line. What I heard next produced a sudden burst of laughter directly into the startled man's ear. He had just asked, "When will your electric line be going in? It would be a good idea to use that ditch for the telephone line, too." 180 �Shingling A romantic but determined dream persisted. A grizzled old timer would select special logs from trees felled months ago on the farm. In the yard beside the picturesque cabin he would work diligently and happily at an easy, steady pace. Striking his froe with a mallet, he would rive a generous supply of oak shingles for the roof. Surrounded by a mounting pile, he would pause every so often to hold a finished piece for inspection, fingering its grain, assessing its dimensions, priding himself on his skill and high standards. Then he'd toss it lightly onto the pile or reject it loosely at his feet. The dream died only when repeated efforts to locate a man with proper skills and time had failed miserably-and it died hard. Instead, a shiny truck from a local lumber company delivered squares of cedar shingles-mass-produced, foreign, fait accompli-tightly bound with metal strips. With obvious disinterest in his chore, the deliveryman stacked the squares beside the house and departed. I almost resented those squares-they were too easy, too tidy, too ordinary. They lacked any personal touch and care and feeling. They were cold. Yet the roofing job is indelibly associated with heat. JB and Clint spent long hours at a 45° angle under baking sun. Clint called down one day, "JB here's a good Methodist, and I'm an old Presbyterian, but right now we're soaked enough to be Baptists!" Heat slowed efficiency, heat drove us to the meadow stream frequently, but never seemed to undermine the pleasant disposition of both men. Heat inspired Clint to surprise us one day. After a break for lunch, he rummaged in the back of his pickup truck camper and emerged triumphantly with an ice-cold watermelon held high. He loved little touches to break the routine, and no one objected. While the two men worked on the roof, I enjoyed listening to their conversation, not intentionally eavesdropping, but unavoidably within range as I worked below. I could picture JB's gentle smile and weathered face, so consistently calm, as he bantered with the irrepressible chatter of Clint, whose blue eyes twinkled with humor and mischief. A railroadman's hat seemed 181 ��grown to Clint's head, and when he removed it one time to wipe his brow more thoroughly, revealing a head of thick hair beneath, I was astonished at the difference. He had a beautiful, somewhat crooked smile that leapt into existence at the slightest chance, and his bubbly wit and collection of worn jokes exercised it regularly. When I needled him one day for a dreadful pun he had just made, he responded, "But if I didn't have a whole wit, I'd be a half wit." Later he called down from the roof, knowing I was right below, "You know, if they crossed a lightnin' bug with a bee, they'd git a bug that'd work night and day. I would hear the men chuckling up there, and the hammers would pound some more, and once, when they paused a moment, hammering sounds resounded from a nearby tree as if in echo-a pileated woodpecker beating on a dead tree trunk. One day as I arrived Clint hastily set down a saw horse he was carrying, muttering, "Used to ride horses; now I just carry 'em," and turned to find something in his truck. "Brought you a play-purty today." Fortunately, I had heard the term "play-pretty" used locally and had written a mountain man who is an authority on the dialect and asked for further explanation. He replied that "play-pretty" is a catch-all term for little objects with which children play, little boxes, pieces of ribbon, pretty bottles, bits of colored paper, cardboard cutouts, and objects from the kitchen which Mother can spare. He explained that they are sometimes kept in "play houses" which could be stalls in the barn, chimney corners outside the house, rock out-crops close to the house, areas around tree roots, mossy spots, and the like. "Little tads often strewed their playpurties around over the floor till a body couldn't hardly walk fer 'em." Clint brought quite a toy, a metal detector! He was forever optimistic that we would find some ancient tool or artifact as we stirred on the hill. While trying it out, he asked, "Hear them old senators talkin' on TV last night?" The Watergate hearings were in full swing. "You can tell they's old loggers, them senators, all right-talk for fifteen minutes and don't say nuthin." Only junk car parts responded to his sophisticated gadget. 183 �Several days later when JB lifted a pack of shingles from the pile, tiny green fragments fluttered from between it and the next pack. Close examination revealed hornet-like cells, constructed from leaf fragments, and within the cells were cream-colored larvae. "Leaf cutter bees!" I exclaimed, excited. I had read how the female bee cuts a circular piece of leaf, generally of blackberry or rose, pokes it into a hole or burrow or niche she has selected to serve as an end for her cell, and then cuts oblong pieces- how does she know to change the shape?-to line the sides of the cell. She makes a paste of pollen and nectar, lays an egg on a supply of it in the cell, and cuts a second circular piece to plug the entrance. She constructs and supplies a number of cells similarly, then goes on her way. The hatched larvae feed on the paste, having just the proper amount to ensure full development. Now the carpenters and I were witnessing this in real life. Clint noticed a dead bee on the ground and poked it with his foot, stating, "That'ns done dead." A bee flew in with an oblong piece of leaf, found her cells damaged and exposed, and buzzed and darted about in agitated confusion. Unable to cope with the dilemma, she flew off as another zoomed in and continued making a leafy cell as if nothing had happened. When a bottom pack of shingles was lifted, several, shiny black salamanders wiggled away, frantically seeking cover. One was extra large, so I grabbed the opportunity to photograph it, then collected a smaller one to take home for identification, eager to attach a name to this creature on our hill. The guidebook showed row upon row of salamanders of incredibly varying colors and features, some spectacular. Only one plain little fellow, Jordan's salamander, seemed similar to my reluctant captive in a margarine cup, yet the description stated that the animal should have a gray underside. My creature was entirely black. Determination led me into the fine print of subspecies and into success. My somber black salamander suddenly had a common name, the highlands salamander, and a scientific name, Plethodon jordani melaventris, a species endemic to only a small range here in western North Carolina. Some salamanders are limited to even smaller ranges, like one side of a mountain- 184 �nowhere else in the world! Fishermen lift rocks and logs and boards to find various salamanders for fish bait, calling them "lizards", and probably consider them worthless otherwise, but to me the shiny black, living creature in my hand was exciting. It taught a new name and gave a glimpse into the complexity and wonder of the world of speciation. Later I released the captive near a damp log. Unharmed, it wiggled beneath with frantic haste, ready to resume its unobtrusive ways. Three special sounds of the outdoors became permanently associated with those summer weeks when sheathing and shingling dominated. Foremost was the indigo bunting, clinging daily to its flimsy sprig on top the shaggy hemlock, spilling out its intermittent bits of musical miscellany. From early morning until dusk, in midday heat or as thunderheads loomed and rolled, during utter stillness or against blustery puffs, the faithful, determined bunting sang his message and won the affection of our cabin crew. From field level, unseen amid dense grass and weeds, another small bird species imprinted its frequent calls in our summer minds. Seeming similarly unperturbed by midday heat, field sparrows sent friendly messages of three musical dashes followed by a blur of dots, calling and answering each other from many directions. Swooping over the cove with exciting speed or lazily riding thermals above the hills, broadwinged hawks supported our endeavors daily with their frequent company and wild but exhilarating screams from above, adding a third sound. Roofing, heat, buntings, field sparrows, broadwings-they intertwine in memory, bound together by coincidence. My camera was poised, waiting for the final moments. The last shingle of the last row of shingles had been hammered to the roof. That top row projected nearly a foot beyond the roof peak and was about to be trimmed to the traditional and practical four or five-inch extension to keep out rain and snow. An old timer would have trimmed the shingles of his last row individually before nailing, but JB now applied his power saw along the row. The tips dropped rapidly, sliding down the roof; I snapped quick pictures, and the roof was finished. 185 �New Boards, Old Boards It happened so fast! In only hours the back room which had been wide open to the backwoods was closed in. The rough pine boards which covered it now had seasoned gradually through spring and summer. Tom and I carried them one by one up the hill, and JB and Clint fit the random-width lengths to the back room, securing them with three-inch battens nailed over the seams. The two large pines, felled and milled in February, served again on their hill, strong and ready for more years. We should have been excited by this conspicuous progress, but unexpected disappointment struck. We had grown to love and take for granted the back room's fresh, ever-changing view into green leaves and twigs and spent many idle moments watching towhees rustling and kicking leaves in the forest litter, fence lizards scampering through the piles of wood scraps, saplings growing, and colors changing from spring to summer. We had noted the struggles of cinquefoil, cassia, sorrel, and various grasses to clothe the raw back bank. I was setting out daily food scraps on the big pine stump where the men had seen the young fox, hoping it might be enticed to return so I could catch a glimpse, and throughout each day glanced from the open room to the stump dozens of times, each time expectant, but the food lay untouched. Each night it disappeared, and as if to say, "Thank you;' in its animal way, the diner left a dropping in its place. We suspected an opossum. Suddenly a serious mistake in our room plan glared blankly at us. Though the closed in room was cosy and cheery, with light flooding in from the large south window opening, a windowless back wall, practical on paper but sternly opaque, denied us the world of sight and action behind the house. Only a window could salvage the disaster, and heartily agreeing, JB sawed one immediately, a hasty rectangular hole which ever since has framed a constantly changing series of natural paintings and designs, landscapes, portraits, and dramas, depending on the seasons and ones angle of view. Several days later early morning mists hung in the hollow, and hilltops poked above them like dark islands in a white sea 186 �while JB and I loaded the oak floorboards from the old living room onto his pickup truck and hauled them up the hill. The boards were gray and grooved with age and wear, but solid. Not enough had survived the dismantling to cover the living room floor again, but they were perfect for the porches, and JB and I labored diligently through long, absorbing hours to trim, set, and nail them in place. Two boards received special attention. One Anne had rescued because of its hole through which the Nelson children had pushed sweepings from the floor, a tiny human tie with the past. The other I had set aside later. It, too, had a hole, but a black plastic lid with the word JOY from a detergent bottle plugged the opening perfectly. The newly laid porch floor included both, one with a story to tell, the other displaying a touch of whimsical humor. Each time I see JOY in the floor, I cannot suppress a private inner smile. JOY is always an encouraging word to notice unexpectedly. At lunch time, with silly but delightful ceremony and flare, I set the two battered aluminum chairs onto the porch floor, feeling acutely familiar with each board that supported them, and as JB and I ate and surveyed the scene in relaxed comfort, we were kings of the mountain. A porch to sit on opens wide new angles of view, provides a milieu for sociability, and extends a home's living space. As someone had said, ''A porch sees a heap o' livin'." Our enthusiasm for this expanded vantage and new dimension bubbled, but then each confided a sense of disappointment that neither Eula nor Tom could be on hand to share this impressive milestone in the cabin's growth. When Anne arrived home from summer college, she became an eager helper, joining me in a struggle with another set of boards. "They're just not right," I lamented. "We need some wider ones," Anne suggested. "I'll call Virgil Greer tonight and see if he has any at his sawmill." We stood in the living room, peering at the ceiling. After several days of hard work laying long, rough pine ceiling boards above the chestnut beams, we were disappointed with the effect. "Just a couple of lengths of wider boards will do the trick," 187 �Anne repeated to reconvince us. "If the sawmill has some, we could zip down to get them tomorrow." That evening I called Virgil Greer and heard, "Now, we ain't gonna be sawin' tomorrow, but I think thay's a few big'ns settin' 'ere somewhars. Round about late mornin' you come on down and take a look." My first trip to his sawmill had been three years ago when I was hunting slab posts for an electric fence around our two-acre home pasture. Still fresh from New Jersey and new to the mountains, I had charged off as on a routine errand. Taking turns as directed, I eventually entered an inconspicuous dirt road. Shrubs squeaked against both sides of the car, and mudholes, ruts, and puddles of unknown depth unsettled my driving confidence. An abandoned house surrounded by junk cars and trash hardly encouraged my spirits, and nothing but vegetation followed. I had left the hard-surfaced road with its occasional traffic only a mile or two back, but it seemed a hundred miles away now, and forward was the only direction to go. Was this really the road to the sawmill? Where on earth was it taking me? Lurching on at less than ten miles per hour, I sensed a growing fear that was only partially alleviated when I rounded a bend and pulled into a sunlit clearing, complete with sawmill. The several men manning it stopped all activity and stared at me unabashedly, like cattle in a field that stare openly and long as you approach. Sometimes one cow will suddenly swing away and collide with others, and all will shift position, retreating a few steps, then simultaneously turn front again to stare from a more comfortable distance. Sometimes an individual either brave or unusually curious will step forward, possibly followed by one or two more, all with snuffling noses and intent eyes. I stepped from the car, bravely, I thought. Like the cattle, the men shifted position, all looking. Then one ambled forward, tall, lanky, smudged, unsmiling. I was about to flee to my car when he greeted me with a gentle voice, "Mornin', ma'm. You the lady wantin' them fence slabs?" "Yes, I'm the one." His face broke into a lovely smile that transcended his scruffy appearance and obliterated any anxieties. 188 �Two other men approached quietly, and Virgil Greer mumbled their names to me, and each man muttered, "Ma'm," and I shook their resin-stained hands because it gave us something to do with the moment. After they loaded the posts into my station wagon, I lingered several minutes to chat with these interesting people. A cultural gap stretched widely between us, but their friendliness was disarming, their manner the epitome of courtesy, if not refinement, and I journeyed home feeling delightfully adventuresome and rural, pleased with the contact with more mountain people. Now Anne and I squeezed and lurched along that same little road, this time in comfortably familiar territory, for I had visited the mill several times for materials in the past two years. Greer was not at the mill as expected-no one was there. We searched to be sure, called, then felt uneasy in that lonely location, so hopped back into the car, locked the doors, and waited-and waited. Even before we heard the sound of an approaching vehicle, we could feel the ground vibrations. Would it be Greer? A red truck laden with huge logs heaved into view as we strained to identify the driver. The cab door swung open, long legs stepped out, and slow-walking Greer, overalled and smiling, now a friend, was striding our way. We met him halfway, looked over the boards he had available-fourteen-inch beauties-and purchased enough for two full lengths of the main cabin and one length of the back room, jamming them into the station wagon. In the loft again we spent more hours puzzling with and fitting boards and peering through cracks between them to spot the shadowy shape of the handhewn beams below. Nails hammered through the boards must hit the beams, and several times we relaxed our cramped and strained weariness by playing with the corny pun, "Hey! I'm getting off beam!" Hours later, with hammer arms aching, Anne and I stood once again in the living room, peering at the ceiling, but this time we liked what we saw. The temperature read 80° at 9:00 a.m. as Charlie set up the Ski! saw on the back porch and I dumped nearby our collected 189 �tools, measuring devices, and nails. The temperature rose steadily with the sun's arc in the summer sky. "This shouldn't be too much of a job," I stated lightly, trying to inspire enthusiasm. We were ready to install the old loft flooring into the back bedroom. "Just cut, lay in place, and nail. It should go quickly." The first board delivered a strong message-it did not fit evenly against the wall but bowed. "Let's try another." The second fit perfectly, so we ignored the message of the first, unaware that the second's fit was a major exception. From there the project deteriorated with discouraging rapidity. Not only were the boards universally bowed, they varied in thickness and ranged from five to sixteen inches wide. Enthusiasm for matching both width and thickness melted rapidly in the oppressive heat. We looked at each other in dripping misery, each hoping the other would say, "Let's stop," both knowing the job had to be done. Doggedly we worked out a method for laying the boards which made progress possible. While one person knelt, poised with hammer and nail, the other forced the warped board into place with block and crowbar. When effort and straightening reached maximum, the crowbar manipulator gasped, "Now!" and the hammer plunged. The nail was supposed to penetrate the wood in several quick blows and occasionally did, allowing crowbar-holding muscles to relax until the next nail. But as was so evident with the front porch floor boards, old wood and new wood accept nails with differing willingness, and the nails were squared flooring nails with blunt tips. Too often the hammer bounced, flipping the nail into space, the tool striking the board with a denting blow. Sometimes it connected with a human digit, creating spectacular sound effects. In a restrained and polite understatement, the day was not a good one. We snarled and growled in angry frustration, but after bending and standing for the last painful time, had to confess that a glimmer of gratification shone within -we had conquered those stubborn, tough, mean, bent, lopsided, horrible old boards, and the bedroom flooring actually looked great! 190 �Big Little Jobs Compared to fitting flooring, setting the stairs was a breeze. The old stairway had divided the log house in two, but we had decided long ago to have one large room. "The Botanical Club could come here for field trips and use the big room for refreshments or slides or a meeting, too," I had suggested. "So could the Camera Club. A big room would be perfect for programs!' "Or the Garden Club. The ladies'd love it here." ''And the kids could have a bunch of friends here better if it's one large room." "So could we, and maybe the Sunday School class could meet here some spring Sunday." "Not exactly the little shack we originally pictured for our piece of mountain, is it?'' Tom had tossed in. "But isn't it great! I love it! Oh, I wish George Nelson and Della could see it. I know they'd be pleased. It's kindof as if the house were born again." The stairs were relegated to the back wall, JB and Tom setting them into position on a pleasantly cool and cloudy day in August. Quiet fitting, adjusting, measuring, and discussing filled the morning, and by midday the stairs were fastened along the log wall and across the top. No one charged up them yet, however, for a vertical support post for the outside edge was imperative. I rummaged around near the old cabin site, seeking the proper log for this from the piles of materials stored there. To say I stumbled upon it would be no figure of speech, for I literally tripped over a log covered by ivy under the hemlocks and sprawled flat. Without even getting up, I stripped back the summer's growth of ivy vines for a good look-hand hewn, straight, solid, the perfect log. Where had such a fine log been in the old house? The men hauled it up the hill, fastened it in place, and nailed the stairway firmly to it. JB rubbed the beam with an admiring touch and commented, as if fully aware of my question, "This beam supported the porch bedroom in the old house." We promptly paraded up the solidly established stairs as if to assure 191 �ourselves they were really there, that they would really take us to the loft, and all turned and grinned at each other at the top. Tom and JB battled the large, front, double window much of the next day. Their job appeared straight forward enough in the beginning, but neither man suspected the contrariness of a properly squared, inflexible, cumbersome window versus an irregular, inflexible, immoveable log wall. When varied and repeated assaults failed to install the cantankerous thing properly straight, a brilliant, end-of-the-day rationalization developed. Since almost everything else was crooked, what did it matter if the window was, too? One workman had stated, "Hain't nuthin' 'bout a log house gonna be plumb nohow." So the window sits deceptively plumb-like, letting in light and mountains and sunsets and occasional bumblebees, innocent of the crooked but inconspicuous evidence of its victory over two very determined, patient men. What do the cabin's porch posts have to do with an event in New Jersey? Lots! The old wooden borough hall, vintage early 1900s, formerly the school in our New Jersey town, was scheduled for demolition. En route to the grocery store one day for a quick shopping, I noticed several trucks, a bulldozer, and a bucket loader beside the venerable building and concluded casually, "Guess they're going to start the job today." Had I known what was about to happen, I would have moved no further, for the show must have been truly spectacular. Upon emerging from the store minutes later, I gasped in disbelief. An expansive vista gaped where the borough hall had stood, where I had just seen it standing. The machines had pushed, and the three-story structure had collapsed without a struggle. A bucket loader was loading huge trucks with the tangled, impersonal mass of lumber and plaster, all to be hauled to the dump. Were there no dignitaries on hand to witness the significant event and pay respects to the final moments of the old building which had served the community so actively through several 192 �generations? It seemed so ignominous-and wasteful, so terribly wasteful. Tons of still-useful materials were broken and mashed and hauled away as useless junk. Demolition by a different technique is practised commonly in Hendersonville, where buildings are dismantled board by board, brick by brick, pipe by pipe, door by door, with all stacked into organized piles and sold for reuse. One Saturday Tom and I poked among some of them, seeking six rough 4x4s to replace our temporary porch posts. We found exactly what we needed and hauled them to the cabin to be set in place, and at times, when I lean against them, daydreaming lazily, I think of that fine old borough hall decomposing wastefully in a dump. Gratitude for our recycled porch posts and for every piece of material that we have been able to put into service again runs deep. Fog blanketed the farm one morning, creeping into every niche, and when I stepped from the car shortly before 8:00 a.m., gooseflesh arose on my arms. Slipping into a sweater felt good. I looked off to the invisible hollow, a world without detail, an almost mystical scene with mere suggestions of trees. Shuffling noises inside the cabin distracted me, and I almost resented JB's being on hand already, breaking my morning mood, but reluctantly I turned from the misty scene of gray and white and stepped inside to greet him. My job for the morning was cleanup, yet another of countless cleanups I had accomplished in an effort to free workmen for more skilled, productive tasks. Once again assorted scrap from the recent rash of activity lay scattered about the house. The chaos looked overwhelming, but little by little, in only a few sustained hours, I organized piles of like materials and stored or discarded others. Steady, quiet scooping followed by gentle sweeping cleared away the remaining floor covering of sawdust and tracked-in soil. That evening I reported wearily to Tom, "I swept the cabin today." Had anyone overheard that statement, they might have wondered why such a menial, routine job was even mentioned, but Tom and I rejoiced in its full significance. "Hey, great!" he exclaimed. "One of these days we're going 193 �to be staying out there! There might even be an end to this building!" "I can't wait for some of the Nelsons to see it all finished." Impatience ruled our thoughts. 194 �Chapter 9 "Chimley" Secrets of the Rockpile .................... 196 Chimley Week ........................... 198 Locked ................................. 211 195 �Secrets of the Rockpile For seven weeks the pile of mixed rocks and soil brought up hill by the bucket loader had rested essentially undisturbed, quietly harboring secrets, waiting for the chimney builders to arrive. An occasional rock was tossed upon it, settling as it landed or clattering down the side until it stopped against lower rocks. Occasionally a rock was removed for a special purpose. Mostly the pile was forgotten as summer sun baked the rocks and summer rain poured upon them, washing away loose dirt, creating crannies, exposing new surfaces. Seven weeks is a long stretch in the year's prime time of growth and reproduction, and nature had incorporated the idle rockpile into the natural habitat of the hill. Fence lizards sneaked from its dark crannies to bask on sunwarmed stones, lying motionless and patient, moving only to snatch a passing insect or disappear instantly if disturbed. A Carolina wren regularly explored the pile's secret nooks, seizing tiny insects and spiders which resided within, and a song sparrow used the topmost rock as a pedestal for singing. Dragonflies and other insects considered the rockpile a landing strip for rest between flights, while Daddy-long-legs tip-toed in and out on spindly appendages. Some people call these spidery creatures harvestmen, a name I find difficult, for each has eight wonderfully long, slender legs and superb agility in maneuvering them, a talent which should be advertised. A shifted rock might expose the hiding place of a startled toad. Instinctively the toad would freeze, depending on superb camouflage to obscure its presence. A wide assortment of creeping beings from microbes to beetles, slugs to springtails, sowbugs to centipedes and earthworms used the rockpile as home, but home was endangered. Time was running out for nature's secret community in the rockpile. The arrival of the chimney builders was imminent. JB walked by the rockpile one day after a heavy rain. He had passed it countless times before, but this time he stopped suddenly, for something caught his eye. Examining a rain-washed rock, he fingered its irregular surface, tracing strange grooves. Were they 196 �natural or man-made? He stooped for a better lighting angle and with unexpected excitement discerned two unmistakable numbers: one and eight. Might the grooves following these be more numbers? He studied the rock from yet another angle, and the numbers nine and seven leapt out. 1897! Might this be a cabin date? Who chipped them into the rock? Why? "Do you know anything about a rock with a date carved on it?" I casually asked Della's sister a few days later as we sat on the front porch, she reminiscing, I recording on tapes. "Oh, yes! Did you find one?" Eager excitement raised her voice, and she rushed on. "I heard Daddy talk about it many times, about how he put a date on a rock. 'When I'm gone,' he said, 'somebody will find out some day when I built this house.' I bet you found that rock, didn't you?" "We sure did! Or rather, JB did. Where'd your father put the rock?" "He said he put it in the wall under the house somewheres." We practically ran to the rockpile where she, too, made out the date 1897. "That's just right!" she exclaimed jubilantly. "It was built when George, Jr., was crawlin', and he was horned in the year before that. Oh, isn't this excitin'.'' She listened with glowing intensity as I recounted how JB had noticed the rock after rains had washed it, how amid the hundreds of rocks, dumped completely at random, load after load, it had rested with its date side out, as if set up to be noticed. "It seems almost providential to find it," I noted quietly. She responded reverently, "You was meant to find it." 197 �Chimley Week The other end of the telephone wire rang and rang. I was about to hang up when a man's voice suddenly mumbled, "Yup?" "Is this Mr. Vallie King?" "Reckon so." "I hear you make good stone chimneys." His smile almost flowed through the wire. "Why, I've made dozens of rock chimleys in my time. M'chimleys draws real good, they do. You needin' one?" I explained our chimney and fireplace requirements and from his response concluded two things: 1) he had no teeth, and 2) this chimney project might prove far more interesting than anticipated. "How long might it take to make a chimney and fireplace?" I asked. "Oh, mebbe four-five-six days, mebbe more, 'pendin' on weather. How fur's yournses place?" "Just five miles on the far side of town from you." He lived about a half hour from town. "That's purty far fer goin' back and forth. Mebbe I might could stay there." "Oh, but there's no place to stay. The house isn't even closed in yet, and there's no water in it and ...." "Got a branch nearby?" "Yes." "Then I could camp." Somehow I had never pictured our construction personnel camping on the premises. My baffled silence must have been interpreted as acquiescence. "Hit'll take some weeks afore I kin git up that way to look it over." Intrigued by this developing situation, I blurted, "I look forward to meeting you." "When you see me you'll want yer sunglasses!" he laughed and hung up, business accomplished. Several weeks later a wiry, little man of indeterminate age stood looking at the gaping hole in the north wall of our log house. A week's gray stubble covered his weathered face, and a fleeting 198 �smile confirmed my suspicion about an absence of teeth. "You gotta git youenses a good drawin' chimley now. Hit'll smoke y'out like bees if'n hit ain't made right. Y'all'd pitch a fit! Reckon I kin make it for you fine. M'chimleys allus works good." "And we want it good. When can you start?" On August 20 King and a young helper appeared, and I burned with curiosity to know if they had camping gear stowed within the old pickup truck, but I had learned not to ask too many questions. Things would evolve in their own way, in their own time. For nearly an hour the pair alternately strolled around or squatted on haunches, conversing in low tones. Any real action involved the struggle to inspire a small, battered, obviously reluctant cement mixer to stir together their concoction of mortar, sand, and cement, conveniently called "mud." Only a generation or two before, their counterparts had used real mud, smooth, red, mountain clay, to hold together chimney and wall and fireplace stones. The carryover of this simple, useful term seemed natural and inevitable and in the next few days delighted me each time I heard the men's oft-repeated, "Gotta mix me s'more mud." Understanding and accepting and by now almost enjoying the mountain people's unconcern for time, I felt more interested than impatient with the lack of productive activity, but almost yelled a cheer of celebration when the two figures arose from a final squat and deliberately stepped toward the waiting rockpile. Work on the chimney had begun officially. With silent strength the younger man lifted rocks from the pile and handed them down to kneeling King who, after solemn study of each space, set them in place. Occasionally a heavy mallet, swung confidently by the helper, broke large rocks into smaller ones. A stone hammer, skillfully wielded by King onto the proper spot on rocks, shaped them to fit together properly. Devoid of hurry, with sure, measured movements, the team placed rock by rock, and the chimney base became a reality, then rock upon rock, and the chimney was no longer an air castle or a picture from a book or news clipping or postcard drawn from my file on log house chimneys. Assisted by skilled hands, it was growing before my eyes, forming gradually in stone and mortar. 199 �I sensed George Nelson smiling as he saw a rock chimney rising again against the log walls he had so painstakingly hewn with his broad axe. History was repeating, in a way, and as I hoed to loosen more hardpacked yard soil for seeding, the solid rings of mallet and hammer on stone and the wet scrapings of trowel and mud entwined in mind with words spoken to me by former dwellers in the cabin, telling me about its fireplace and chimley. By now, I was unconsciously calling it a chimley, too. "Yes, that fireplace was all field rock, and big! It'd take fivesix-foot logs easy. I've seen George Nelson bring in backlogs so big he couldn't carry 'em. He'd roll 'em acrost that old wood floor. And it went futher back in than most fireplaces." Someone added, "And the hearthstone was his pride and joy, just as white as white, and it went all the way across, one solid rock. He said several people told him when he found that rock back on the mountain that he'd never be able to get it to the house, but he did. I've heard tell 'bout him and his son, Will, and some others skiddin' that stone down the mountain. They put a roller log under the front end of the rock and rolled it a piece and put another roller under it and rolled some more. That's called skiddin'. Then they rolled it into the house with crowbars. "I don't now how thick it was, but you'd scrub it, and it'd be so perfect white and as smooth as can be. Wear smoothed it down some more. It nearly broke my heart when they took that old chimley down. Guess the hearthstone could've broke up when they did that. Guess we'll never know what become of it 'cause those that'd know are gone. Deller woulda knowed. Maybe they got rid of it with the old chimley rocks. The rocks was all taken away, you know, all but those big base ones you found. I've played at the base of that old chimley many times. He proudly dragged them big rocks in with a yoke of oxens." "What was the mantel like?" I asked. "Oh, they had a hand-hewn log for a mantlepiece-called it a fireboard-maybe four-five inches thick, and it was high. Thay was a mantel clock up there, and when I was little and wanted to see, I had to stand way back and look up. Never did know why the mantel was so high. George, he had his own notions 'bout 200 �how he wanted things, and I didn't dare touch anything up there. He used to keep camphorated ice up there, and at night he'd sit and rub that camphor on his poor old rough hands. All that was forbidden was on that mantel. I think it was his secret hiding place. You gotta have some place to put things outa reach." King appeared in the doorway. "Gotta pick you out some rocks fer the hearth," he announced. We had decided that three large stones would be required to fill the space that George Nelson's single white stone had occupied. The hearth would be prominent, so the stones must be selected with care, an easy task, for beside the tumbled rockpile sprawled two square rocks, from the old chimney base, perfect in size and shape. JB and the insulation work crew diverted me from choosing a third stone. The men stomped in, laden with huge rolls of pink fluff which ultimately padded the loft, above and underfoot, until it seemed like some clouded, soundless dreamland. "To walk on pink clouds" is to be filled with joy, but little joy flowed among the workers as they stapled and stepped among pink clouds in that miserably hot, stuffy loft. Returning to Vollie King, I was astonished by his progress. The men had rolled and maneuvered the two huge stones into position, and King had set them beautifully. But to my dismay, three small stones lay where the third large one was planned. Had King been impatient that I was delayed so long, or had he chosen to avoid the struggle of a third huge rock? Painfully weary from a long day of hoeing-digging-raking-seeding, I desperately wanted to avoid an unpleasant confrontation at a late hour, so chose the easy route-commended the large stones, ignored the small, and procrastinated. Tomorrow morning would be soon enough. The mortar would not harden that quickly, and I needed to lean on Tom's opinion for support. The men packed work equipment as I watched for signs of camping equipment with amused interest. They rummaged in the depths of the truck, muttering words unintelligible to me, as I envisioned bedrolls or blankets popping into sight within seconds. But suddenly they heaved into the cab. The engine struggled, then hummed, hands waved, voices called, "Bye, see you," and off 201 �they went. In the August dusk towhees and cardinals called and chipped from shrubby seclusion while Tom studied the chimney and hearth work and expressed his opinion-chimney looking great and the two large hearthstones perfect, but the three small ones must go. Next morning, sweatered against an early chill that warned of autumn, JB and I clambered over the rockpile, tugging, struggling to find a third hearth rock. The outermost, rainwashed layers now lay structured into the chimney base and early chimney. With our fingers gloved for protection against abrasions and pinches, we strained to loosen lower rocks which lay solidly in the dirt which had been dumped with them, making sizes difficult to assess. Repeated efforts had uncovered only rocks with odd shapes or grossly uneven surfaces. "Got to be one here somewhere;' I mutterd as I pulled on a rock which refused to budge, then abandoned it to join JB in unwedging his, determined that his promising rock should be right. Impatience and the stone's availability drove us to agree that this was it, though the surface was decidedly rough. King arrived with an enlarged crew. Two helpers quietly set to work on the chimney while he came inside to continue the fireplace. He was openly disgruntled to learn of our dissatisfaction with the three small stones and grumbled about the third rock's rough surface. "Should be smooth," he mutterd repeatedly as all struggled to move the rock into the house and hearth. "Should be smooth," he continued as he laid it. "Should be smooth," he persisted as I expressed delight with the completed hearth. I think he shared my opinion but worked hard to cover it. I praised the work generously, trying to smooth his ruffled feathers, but King had arrived grumpy that morning and apparently wished to remain grumpy, so grumpy he stayed, all day. Through the next several days the chimney rose slowly and solidly, right out of my dreams. King's two helpers teamed well. Occasionally chimney construction stopped while a new batch of mud was stirred in the balky mixer, and always the men squatted beside it on haunches, chatting, joking quietly. They were a 202 �happy team. But indoors King battled the fireplace stone as his work progressed toward disaster. Though insisting that he wanted to make it as I wanted it, he brushed aside any diplomatic suggestions as impossible and sulked in grumpiness. "Oh, it was a handsome thing!" These words describing the original fireplace rushed into mind. "Why, just everything centered around that fireplace in wintertime. The churn was set there, too, and they kept aturnin' it for the cream to turn. They put potatoes in the ashes. You've never eaten Arsh potatoes till you have 'em baked that way, and they'd put coals out on the hearth and put this little Dutch oven thing on there and grease it with a little meat skin and set the cornbread in there in two patties, and they'd put the lid on-the lid was kinda scooped out-and put coals up on that and coals around it, and that's cornbread! "We'd set there beside the fire and listen to 'em read outa the agriculture journals- The Progressive Farmer and Southern Agriculture-and the Bible, which was mostly the only readin' we got. Didn't have no other books. We didn't have much, you know." The words rang in my mind again, recalling the earlier statement. "We didn't have much, but we didn't know it, and we were happy." What food for thought in our materialistic times! Commercialism bombards us, exhorts us to buy more, more, more, brainwashing us that more means happier, but happiness runs deeper than things. Perhaps some of my mountain friends, though less educated, less traveled, less experienced in worldly things, are far wiser and more mature than many "fortunate" people coddled with goods and easy living. And here was I, thoroughly upset over the arrangement of rocks in a fireplace. It suddenly seemed so unimportant. But the fireplace had been a focus of activity and, renewed, it would once again become central, dominating the most important part of the house. We wanted to enjoy its appearance as well as its light and heat, and the way it was growing was ugly. "It looks dreadful!" I lamented to JB. "I want to tear it all down and start over!" and that is what happened. Tom, Anne, and I went to the cabin that evening, and none 203 �liked the fireplace. Their support boosted my sagging spirits. Next morning, a Saturday, Tom called King, who stated unexpectedly, "I don't like the dang blasted thing neither!" and suggested we come to his place to see some local stonework he had done and talk it over. We drove a half hour, turned onto a dirt road beside a cascading stream, then onto a one-lane road beside a tumbling tributary. On arrival Tom meeting King for the first time, greeted the little man with, "Well, you must be Mr. King." "Waaal, I don't rightly know. Everybody calls me Pap." He bubbled with high spirits and directed us to follow him along the branch. "C'mon and see some of the purtiest rocks I ever seen." "Any fish in this stream?" Tom asked as we walked along. "Shore is! Good fishin' all 'long 'ere." "You fish much?" "Used to fish a lot, but they got them seasons now and cuss me fer poachin' trouts outa my own branch 'ere. Why, one day me and my friend was afishin' up yonder in the branch, and the warden, he come by and saw three nice fish I had alyin' on m' jacket. We c'menced talkin' 'bout the best ways to ketch them things, and he axed me how I done it. 'C'mon futher up, and I'll show you,' I says, and we walked a ways, and then I c'menced fishin', ashowin' him. We was atalkin' along, and he watched me bring in eight nice trouts, atellin' him just how to do it. Then he up and fines me fer takin' too many. Law said ten, but eight'n three, that makes eleven. Boy! was I mad! Dag blame feller was just waitin' fer me to do that. I don't have nuthin' to do with wardens no more." We looked over a variety of stonework techniques in some nearby houses, "rockwork" he called it, and in no time the plan evolved that he would revise parts of the fireplace "first thing Monday morning." Smiles and good will prevailed. Tom took a vacation day to be on hand for the grand revision. With Charlie, we arrived at the cabin before 8:00 a.m., full steam ahead. JB was delighted to hear of the plan, admitting he disliked the stonework, too. All worked lightly at odd jobs, ears 204 �alert for car sounds. Eight thirty rolled by and 9:00 and 9:30, and still no King and crew. Deeply disappointed, we talked of plunging into bigger tasks for the day. Tom toyed with the idea of going to his office, but toward 10:30 the lovely sound of approaching vehicles stopped us to watch in suspense, and it was King who waved greetings. He studied the fireplace a hasty moment from across the room and stated bluntly, "Hit's no good, no good atall," then suddenly strode to the fireplace and ripped rocks off forcefully, dropping them with their partially-dried mortar to the floor in thudding heaps. In moments all the stone he had laid so laborously piled at his feet. We stood stunned by the speed and vigor and completeness of his demolition. "Well, there it is, men," I stated gaily to break the ensuing silence. "Grit your teeth and go to it!" "Cain't," replied King. ''Ain't got mine today. Left 'em home." Positive spirits filled the house, and the fireplace was rebuilt in a day, still not quite as I had dreamed of it, but an acceptable alternate. About halfway up the right side George Nelson's 1897 stone was set conspicuously, perpetuating his message that those who followed would know when he built his log house. King set the iron crane inside the right front edge of the fireplace. "Hit's gotta set at the edge here. Put futher in, you cain't swing it all out and around, and you cain't put no wood on neither, 'thout hittin' the thing. If you got any bad things to say, they'll come out then!" Days before, Anne, with her knack for denailing that none of us matched, had struggled for hours to clean one of the remaining chestnut beams. Now JB and Tom carried it in and set it atop the fireplace as a mantlepiece, a fireboard. Broad smiles revealed universal approval, King exclaiming with genuine pleasure, "Hit's shore old timey, hain't it!" Everyone was engrossed in various jobs when King lit his paper lunch bag in the fireplace. Smoke rose through the flue for the first time, and as it emerged unexpectedly into the snorting faces of the team working on the chimney top, my attention was 205 ��caught by the commotion up there. Standing outdoors, seeing the smoke, I felt as if this were the first chimney ever to spew forth smoke. Cabin pictures I had collected through many years that showed smoke curling lazily from stone chimneys paraded in mind, and now I watched that whispy blue curl rising from the real stone chimney of our own log cabin. To King, the smoke was routine verification that his chimney worked. To the men on top, it was eye-stinging annoyance. To me, it signified the warmth of habitation; the house was coming alive. The last rock was laid atop the chimney. I dashed to get a picture of the important event and befuddled by haste, overexposed the shot badly, but the tremendous relief and pleasure in having the chimney job completed remains vividly, thoroughly memorable, even if no fine pictorial souvenir exists. Chimley Week was over. Not all of that week, however, was devoted to the chimney. JB was engrossed in paneling. Paneling? In a log cabin? Earlier I would have abhorred the idea, rejected it absolutely, but many months of search for old, weathered boards to serve as interior wall for the back bedroom and bathroom had produced nothing. Abandoned sheds and barns with beautiful wood teased us as we rode the countryside, but they were unavailable or required removing and hauling the boards ourselves, which we could not do. Resigned to paneling, Anne and I reluctantly drove to Greenville, S.C., where a large supply of samples could be viewed in a warehouse. Nearly instant success smiled warmly, for leaning against a wall in the first room stood a panel that resembled grayed, weathered boards with incredible likeness. Now when people ask, "Where did you find all those lovely old boards?" we reply casually, "Oh, in a warehouse in Greenville." They look perplexed, probably picturing our tearing down an old warehouse, until we explain that it is paneling. Most reach out to touch it to be sure we are not teasing. A fine, flat rock, just the sort needed for facing the foundation walls, lay in my path as I wandered the woods one afternoon while the chimney men worked. I lifted it and jumped in surprise, though which was more startled, I do not know, the tiny ringneck 207 �snake that had been spending a quiet day beneath the rock or the giant who lifted the rock. The snake froze in its coiled position and stared at me intently, helpless but defensive. Most snakes, with their lidless eyes, stare with a fierce and angry look-it's the only expression they have-but the face of the little ringneck is gentle, almost friendly, and surely innocent. Perhaps I am prejudiced by the ringneck's utter harmlessness, its diminuitive size, its secretive ways-or perhaps by a reminiscence of a magical moment in childhood. Then, too, I had lifted a rock in a mountain woods and was thrilled to discover a tiny ringneck for the first time. I had set the stone aside and stooped to study this sleek little creature with the golden ring around its neck. We studied one another in fascination, and then, in a frantic move, it fled into nearby leaves on the forest floor. Suddenly there was magic in lifting forest stones, each being a private game of suspense. Not until this day near the cabin did I find another ringneck, but the delight of its discovery was diminished slightly by the need to make a decision. Should I collect this fine rock, or should it be replaced gently to provide the snake with shelter? I replaced it. Collecting it another day when the snake had gone would be easy. Strangely, it was only several days later that I heard the chimney men's voices raised in excitement and saw one raise his arms high above his head. His muscles bulged, hardened by years of rock handling, and his massive hands grasped a large rock. He flung it to the ground vigorously. "You got 'im!" exclaimed the helper in triumph, but the rock was lifted high a second time and slammed to the ground. I rushed up the hill from the old site where I had been hunting a board and panted, "What are you killing?" "That there snake," the big man announced with pride and satisfaction, confident that he would receive my praise. I looked at the crushed creature. "But that's just a little ringneck snake! It couldn't possibly hurt you. It's completely harmless. What good does it do to kill it?" "Only good snake's a dead'n;' the man shot back, and the other 208 �laughed in agreement. Here were men brought up in rattlesnake-copperhead country, taught since boyhood that all snakes are bad, absolutely sure they were right. How could I, an outsider, in a few excited moments, hope to penetrate the solid shield of a lifetime conviction? I expressed disappointment, even sadness, and requested that if another snake of any kind were found, they call me, please. One more harmless wild creature had succumbed to man's misunderstanding and ignorance. Within days, a prime opportunity arose. The floor boards of the corncrib, solid, wide, and well-preserved, had rested in a stack beside the old crib foundations for eight months. Anticipating that some would be useful soon, Anne and I were carrying a few to the new site. As one board was raised, a large snake beneath it reared back, coiled ominously, eyes glistening. We knew instantly it was neither of our two local poisonous snakes, the copperhead or timber rattler, so set the board aside and quietly approached the fine creature. Utterly motionless except for the flicking tongue which tested the air, sensing us, it was a textbook picture of a kingsnake, creamy white chain markings contrasting beautifully with the gleaming dark scales around them. Kingsnakes are usually friendly, so I slowly, gently lifted the big fellow, who seemed unperturbed by the maneuver, and carried it up to the house. JB started in surprise, but then, ever calm, helped me measure it at slightly over four feet. Exact straight line measurement was impossible due to the strong body muscles. The snake is an aggressive constrictor when feeding, and these strong muscles held it in curving position. I carried it out to show the chimney men, hoping that actions with both the ringneck and kingsnake would speak more strongly than words. The men stood like unsmiling statues, astonished as I approached with the large snake wrapped around my arms and hands. They remained stiffly, solemnly attentive as I mentioned briefly how gentle and useful kingsnakes are, not only for controlling rodents but for eating other snakes, even young copperheads, being immune to the poison. We studied the 209 �handsome marking, the flicking tongue, the lidless eyes, no one saying much, and then I walked away. Anne took the snake and let it slip silently beneath the remaining corn crib boards, back to its rightful habitat and useful ways. What would have been the use, the sense, in killing it? Did the men mutter afterward, "Crazy woman!" or did some tiny bit of understanding of snakes, those dreadfully maligned creatures, seep through? One afternoon, after all the workmen had left, a strong hissing sound approached rapidly from high in the wooded hill behind the cabin. Alarmed and perplexed, I dashed from my reading chair on the front porch and peered around the corner toward the magnifying noise. Almost instantly I was engulfed in a deluge of mammoth raindrops that splattered leaves and drenched air and earth with noise and water, but lasted only a few wild seconds. Wondering, amazed, I glanced at the blue sky above, but the true wonder was yet to be seen. The dense curtain of drops, perhaps only fifteen or twenty feet in depth, swept downhill and across the meadow below. In a magnificent display, it caught the sun's rays and transformed into a flowing veil of diamonds that glitterd above the green for a few wonderful seconds, then passed into oblivion in the far woods. Squinting toward the sun, I leaned against the porch post, listening to the soft splats of drippings from leaves and roof, pondering this brief but spectacular moment of storm. What strange conditions had produced this once-in-a-lifetime phenomenon? Only one whisp of cloud hung overhead. Was I the only one to witness the sparkling curtain? How could I hope to describe its beauty to others? Simultaneously alarming and entrancing, it had arrived and departed in a few breath's time. 210 �Locked Little did I suspect that JB would have a surprise waiting for me on that chilly, mid-September day, but I missed seeing it immediately. Goldenrod caught my attention instead as flower heads peeked over my VW Beetle where I parked below the cabin. Each strong, green stalk had climaxed its summer efforts with a brilliant display of gold, but nature has a wonderful way of topping even her best. Dozens of monarch butterflies, driven by their amazing seasonal urge to fly southward to Mexico, fluttered over the flowers, feeding on nectar in the florets. I paused to watch a monarch at close range-surely this orange and black beauty is far too frail for so strenuous a trip. It probed for nectar intently with its long, strawlike proboscis, trying this floret and that amid the available masses, lingering only quick seconds before moving on. Suddenly it sailed upward and zig-zagged in a seemingly aimless fashion, but the net direction was south. Several more floated from the air and settled effortlessly on the flower head. Engrossed in butterflies, I'd not yet glanced at the cabin, but when I did, JB's surprise jumped out to greet me-a closed front door! Customarily one does not consider a closed door a greeting, but where there has been no door and one has been anticipating having a door and has helped plan it, select boards for it, and design hinges for it, the installation is significant, an event to be noticed. Enhancing the effect, smoke lifted from the chimney in vertical blue wisps against the motionless, autumn-touched woods behind. I took a moment to grasp and savor it all. Inside JB had built a small fire to warm cold hands and had settled beside it for lunch. At first thought, a fire seemed ridiculous-the cabin interior was still only a partially-sheltered extension of the outdoors, equipped with efficient, between-the-logs, full-time air conditioning, but surprisingly, the fire overcame this with a cosy touch. On summer days I had studied those door openings and thought, what a shame we must block off the outdoors! Today's fall chill changed my attitude-covered doorways are just right. Late September had come, and as if to signal and celebrate 211 �the end of the summer segment of cabin work, Tom and I were set for vacation. We would visit John at college in Ohio, then journey northward to visit relatives in Michigan. While Tom had an extra-busy last day at his job and I hastily wound up many small cleaning tasks at the cabin, JB put locks onto cabin doors and windows. Suddenly our chores were finished. JB and I locked the doors and windows and walked to our cars. Each unexpectedly stopped and turned to look back, as if needing to be convinced of this novel situation-the cabin was actually locked! It seemed downright unfriendly and coldly impersonal, but in fact its locked status was a kindness to us. All had worked hard and needed a change and rest. A peculiar, even absurd feeling persisted though - how can the cabin possibly get along without us? After I had tended the final touch, locking the lane cable, and waved goodbye to JB and started home to meet Tom, I toyed with a question several people had asked recently, "What do you do out there at your cabin?" How should I answer-haul rocks, identify salamanders, admire twigs against the sky, stand in the rain, denail boards, drink from the stream, learn about old wood, listen for owls, watch storms, think about people who lived in the cabin? Perhaps I should answer less specifically-we listen and hear, seek and discover, sense excitement and peace, see beauty and drama; we revel in the satisfaction of learning and hard work. Putting muscles as well as heart into a project deepens its impact. We come alive. Many people would find it boring here; it is not for everyone. Some people come alive on the golf course, relishing the friendly competition and fellowship and exercise. The delight of the TV ball game enthusiast who watches game after game, the enthusiasm of the bridge player who recounts a memorable hand play by play, the optimism of the hunter who sits within the cramped dark quarters of a duck blind, the emotion of the dancer in a music-filled dance hall-all mean something special to the participant. Oddly, being a golfer, hunter, French horn player, bottle collector, or exotic vegetable gardener requires no explanation, 212 �but a nature lover-what does a nature lover do? Perhaps what perplexes is the simplicity of it. People work diligently to fill their leisure with complexities, with stimulation requiring extra equipment or extra effort to get to distant places. Skiers load themselves with expensive gear and ride miles to the slopes. Fishermen lighten their wallets in sporting goods stores while music lovers acquire sophisticated recording and amplification equipment. Campers stock an appalling array of material goods to make camping seem less like camping. Photographers are addicted to adding new devices to expand their camera's potential. Tom and I are not innocent of these indulgences. Nature lovers need only themselves and the outdoors, which is free and accessible. They need only look out the window or walk out the door. Travel to far places is an extension, not a necessity. Even teeming cities have birds and insects, clouds and shadows, weed flowers in pavement cracks and shrubs in vacant lots. Taking oneself outdoors does not make a naturalist, however; intangible "equipment" is required -curiosity, patience, alert sensesand these, too, are free. How beautifully the cabin's surroundings permit exercise of these intangibles! As the car took me home, jiggling and bouncing along that familiar road, thoughts jumped to months, the months since we started the cabin project. I counted them out loud-eight-eight incredible months of growth and change in the cabin itself, in the living things around it, but most impressively, in ourselves. Yet, after all this, the cabin was still a mere shell, still not ready for us to test the feel of living in it. How could this project possibly drag on so endlessly? How much longer would we have to wait? 213 �This page intentionally left blank �Chapter 10 Closing the Gaps .216 .224 .227 Chinking Plumbin' Light ... 215 �Chinking "What's that?" I said as much in exclamation as question. "A road?" Tom hoped he was wrong, for a road is too permanent. A raw scar curled around the low mountain near Etowah, several miles away, and when Tom studied it through binoculars, our fears were confirmed. While we had been away on vacation, a roadway had been gouged on the mountain, opening it for development. Our pristine view, previously unmarred by man's touch, except when the Blue Ridge Parkway twenty miles away was viewed through binoculars, was permanently changed. I resented this encroachment, then looked at our own hill, scarified by a homesite and gouged by a lane, and thought of Priscilla who admonished John Alden, "Speak for thyself, John." We are all in this process of "progress" together; few are innocent. October was in full swing, treating us to a cloudless autumn day. Leaves from the walnut tree were gone, exposing green globes on its twigs, and young tree's first crop of nuts. Smilax leaves, previously inconspicuous among grasses and weeds, flamboyantly advertised their presence with flashy red. Dogwoods, maples, and Virginia creeper had joined the crimson bandwagon. But October created panic. With cold weather's imminence looming, the cabin stood frightfully unprepared for winter. Chinking became urgent. Never dreaming we would be pressured by winter's approach, we had anticipated chinking as a leisurely job, tedious, but enjoyable enough. We would use clay from the fields, chinking the old way, as George Nelson had done, pressing the soft clay between the logs at a relaxed pace. But prospects for using clay collapsed beneath the pressure of time and practicality. Collecting clay from the fields would involve endless digging in the hard, heavy stuff, loading it into buckets and hauling these up to the cabin for unknown dozens of time-consuming trips. Vollie King, our chimley man, had recommended a speedy substitute. "You just mix four parts sand to one part cement and one part mortar." "How much water do we mix with it?" Tom inquired. 216 �"Oh, till it gits to feelin' right." "But how will we know?" "Oh, you'll know!" Our literature on old log houses and the various old timers we questioned had equally sparse and foggy advice on how to apply chinking material. "You just kinda hafta work it out on yer own." If a friend or two or three stood by, they would exchange glances, hunch shoulders, hands in pockets, and nod, "Yeah." Naively, we interpreted this as making light of the job, but, in retrospect, conclude they were either politely reluctant to squelch our enthusiasm with the facts or smugly delighted with the prospect of these neophytes tackling such a job, a cat-playing-with-mouse tactic. This summarized the technical and professional advice we acquired about chinking, except for one other bit we had read: stuff wire lath in the interlog spaces so the chinking mixture will adhere to it. Even though we had expected to use the old method of laying wood strips in the larger interlog spaces for this purpose and had stacked George Nelson's old hand-axed strips neatly for reuse, again we were forced away from authenticity in favor of speeding and easing labor. The wire lath would be covered by mud anyway, we rationalized. On the first morning of the vacation week we had allotted for chinking, JB poked and nailed wire lath between some logs, then left on other business. Tom and I stood in the side yard, looked at the suddenly gigantic form of the cabin, looked at the several small bags of mortar and cement beside the sand pile, and looked at each other. "Gotta mix me some mud," announced Tom, and vye laughed and pushed the wheelbarrow to the sand pile. "Whafll we use for a measure?" Both paused to consider what container might be around. "Would the pan do?" "Sure!" "The pan" was an old friend. First found on the old back porch amid a clutter of flower pots, it had contained a tin can planted 217 �with a leafy pineapple top. Who knows in what varied ways it had been used before that, for it was already battered and worn. It served as a nail container as we pried the corn crib floor boards from their log base, and someone had pressed it into service for helping bail rain-filled foundation trenches until it was replaced by the bleach jug. During the warmth of spring and heat of summer, before the water supply became available at the cabin, it was our tray for carrying cupfuls of water from the meadow stream to thirsty workers momentarily too involved to walk that far and was used as a dipper to fill a bucket or jug when a larger amount of water was needed. It held old nails again when the loft flooring was denailed and new nails as those boards were relaid in the bedroom. Its handy size was perfect for holding grass seed as I sowed bare spots and for fertilizer later. Set outdoors, it carried out the function of a rain gauge, and a concoction of sawdust and white glue mixed in it was poked into holes carved into new boards by carpenter bees. We had grown attached to this indispensible item among our crude supplies. Now Tom measured dry ingredients into the wheelbarrow with it, and I measured water from a new spigot by the back step with a mayonnaise jar salvaged from the woods. A hoe mixed all together; the first batch of mud was ready. Gradually, the advice, "You kinda hafta work it out on yer own;' was understood. No one can say, "Do it this way;' for each chink is an individual, presenting its own peculiarities. It may gape four inches at one location, reduce to an inch at another, and stretch paper thin at still another. As the space varied, so did the technique for filling it, and Tom's and my techniques varied, too. Tom found a tiny dust pan and scooped mud from the supply bucket hanging on his tall ladder, plopping it onto the back surface of the pan. He held this close to the chink and poked blobs into the space with a small, blunt piece of wood. A few feet away I scooped mud from the supply bucket on my step ladder onto a small piece of roofing shingle. With this held at chink level, my other hand, rubber-gloved against the abrasive, limey material which irritated my skin, pushed the chinking into place and pressed it. Hopefully it held until another blob could be added. Little by 218 �little the spaces filled. Both of us agreed that a scrap of shingle was the best tool for scraping the outer surface of the filled chink so its angle would prevent rain from gathering on the edge. The day worn on, the work slow and tedious, giving the mind plenty of time to roam. "Wonder how George Nelson did this." My thought popped out in words, expected no comment, received none. In the silence the thought expanded. Wonder where he dug the mud he used. Was mud easier to work with than this gritty stuff? I hope so! Did he chink alone? Maybe his kin helped-he had plenty around. Wonder what he thought as the hours passed by. He must have felt deeply his responsibility to have this house extra airtight and strong for his family. Tom broke the thought. "We belong to the National Mud Dauber's Union!' We laughed and talked of the mud dauber wasps we had watched during an hour in spring. They held us spellbound while they plastered mud against an old log with incredible architectural skill, creating strange rows of tubular cells resembling organ pipes. Even more fascinating was learning that they stuff each cell with eight or ten spiders which have been paralyzed by stings, and in each cell the female deposits an egg. Later the hatched larva feeds on the living spiders, pupates, and emerges through a hole in the mud cell. Now we, too, daubed mud. All the next day, with JB working with us, we seemed almost on non-speaking terms, each thoroughly engrossed in his own world of work and thought. As I scooped once, the gritting sound in the pail coincided with a clear call from the forsythia bush. I paused and listened. The call repeated. "The white-throats are back!" I exclaimed. "Great!" The return of the white-throated sparrows from their season of nesting in the north always heralded mid-autumn, a time of spectacular color and crisp, invigorating air, and this year it also warned us to hurry on with the job, for winter would follow soon. Our ears caught the lovely, clear notes repeatedly, an annual delight for all bird lovers. While I had a turn at mixing mud in the wheelbarrow, words from over forty years ago popped into mind, "We stir the drys 219 �with the wets, a little at a time, just like this, a little bit and stir, then another little bit and stir." Auntie Martin pronounced these patient directions as she stirred dry ingredients into wet for a cake and explained each move to the child who watched. The same words directed the same individual, now grown, as she mixed water into cement, mortar, and sand. I could hear the sound of the wooden mixing spoon against the sides of her cavernous earthenware bowl as I hoed to mix the mud. Auntie Martin was an ageless, gentle lady with gray hair, generous girth, and an all-encompassing flower-print apron. To this day I do not know her first name-she was Auntie Martin to everyone and emanated love for children in a quiet, patient way by giving us time, letting us participate, and listening to our questions and chatter and responding to them. She held court in the kitchen of her spacious home across the street from my childhood home, talking to neighbor children who came regularly to watch her make cookies or cakes or pies, stirring or rolling as she described what and why. She let us enter her dark, gingersmelling pantry where a yellow box of sugar lumps awaited on a high shelf. Having to stand on tiptoes and stretch to grasp with fingertips the precious "sugar plums," as we called them, added an exciting element of challenge to the treat. When a cake was set into the oven depths of her woodburning cookstove, we ran to a familar drawer to get teaspoons and scraped batter from the sides of the mixing bowl, licking the spoons with noises of obvious pleasure. If a few bits of pie dough were left over, we were allowed to sprinkle cinnamon-sugar on them and roll them jelly-roll fashion. Cut into small sections and set on a special small pan in the oven, they were ready to eat in minutesbut what long minutes! "Stir the drys with the wets, a little at a time, a little bit and stir." The mud was mixing gradually, mixing well, as I followed Auntie Martin's cake directions. Day after day we stuck with the chinking, almost obsessively, but when Tom's vacation week had vanished, the job remained less than half finished. 220 �Relaxing a few moments in the log room during a break, Tom started to halve an apple. "Found this under that old apple tree Nelsons called Shockleys, that gnarly old half-dead tree down by the honey locust. Most of the apples lying around are swarming with yellow jackets, feasting away, but this one looked pretty good." He trimmed a half and handed it to me. One taste of its tangy autumn flavor brought an enthusiastic response. "I'm sure going to beat the yellow jackets to these next fall! This is how an apple should taste! I ought to try drying some like they used to here." "How was that?" "They put four stakes in the ground and put poles across them and set a big piece of tin roofing on there and laid the apples on the tin. They said if the sun got really hot, it'd take only two days to dry the apples, bushels of them, and then they'd pack 'em in cloth flour bags to keep the bugs out." "Wouldn't flies get all over them while they're drying?" "That bothered me, too. I asked about it. Della's sister said, 'Honey, that's the only way you can dry them!' But they had more trouble with yellow jackets and bees. They'd have to wait till dark to bring the apples in.' " "We're closing the gaps now," Tom remarked unexpectedly. He'd been studying the chinking as I'd talked. "First these interlog spaces, next the gaps between the rough wiring and the electrical fixtures, then the gaps between the rough plumbing and the plumbing fixtures.'' "But I almost hate to close it all in;' I lamented. Earlier when those roofless bare logs were open to the sky and we stood inside, a circling hawk or drifting cloud seemed part of the house. Then roofing blocked out the sky, but outdoor sights and sounds still seemed part of the house through the holes for doors and windows and the interlog spaces. Next each door and window took away more direct contact with the outdoors, but the spaces still made the cabin like a giant blind. We could peer between the logs to keep abreast of things. "Now we're blocking our last direct contact. It has to be, of course, but I'm torn.'' "Just think," Tom added, "When we've finished pokin' mud 221 ��in the outside chinks, the whole inside has to be done. Wonder how many weeks it's going to take?" "Think this place'll ever be ready for us to live here a few days?" Gloom silenced us a moment, until Tom's, "Back to the chinking!" startled me out of deep thought. "I'm going to the stream for a drink first." As I walked through the grass, waves of grasshoppers and crickets-large, small, brown, green, long-horned, short-horned, so many kinds-flowed before my footsteps, tiny bodies all leaping one direction -away, their chitinous body parts clicking and snapping. Untold thousands populate this small field, and there are thousands more in the next field and the next. I have often noted the din of crickets and grasshoppers constantly for mile after countryside mile. Numbers in the insect world are beyond comprehension. A lone monarch butterfly, a straggler from the spectacular parade which migrated through in late September, headed directly toward me as I stood beside goldenrods with fluffy seed heads. I reached up to touch it as it passed, but it skillfully dodged my brash interference and proceeded southward. From above me, on a monster stalk, a massive dried inflorescence of Joe-Pye-weed peered down. I am five feet four inches tall, but where my nose reached on the stalk was less than half way to the top. I was dwarfed by a weed! Thirst quenched, I turned back to the cabin and paused to consider it a moment. How tidy and humble it looked! Set against sourwood and sumac reds, it made a classic postcard picture. It even appeared finished-but I knew better. The chips of whitethroats, reminders of approaching winter, urged me to hurry, hurry along with that endless chinking. Get back to your work. The pressure was not welcome. 223 �Plumb in' "Where's the dishwasher goin'?" "It's standing right here," I answered, pointing to myself. "What room you puttin' the washer'n dryer in?" "We aren't having any." This exchange had occurred back in mid-July when a plumber came to assess the nature of the job we would undertake. "Havin' a garbage disposal?" he continued, by now anticipating my answer. Tom, JB, and I burst into laughter-the thought had never even occurred. Even at home we composted our garbage. The plumber looked perplexed, but only for a moment. Suddenly his blue eyes twinkled. He had gotten the message, laughed heartily, and fell under the spell of the cabin. In late July, fully enjoying the project, he installed the "rough plumbing," pipes but not fixtures, including the outdoor spigot by the back steps. The sudden presense of this simple source of water may seem insignificant, but it revolutionized life for those of us who worked at the cabin regularly. A choice now existed between a meadow stream and a gray spigot. Through the seasons we had occasionally carried water from the stream, but usually something soul satisfying had encouraged walks to the meadow. Quenched thirst and cooled skin were an obvious reward, but a feeling all found hard to put into words made the break from work and the walk in solitude, with the vast sky above and beyond, with field and forest surrounding, worth every step of the long path. Now we could go to the back step, turn a knob on a pipe there, and watch delicious water pour out, pure, cold, clear. Nice, yes; convenient yes; but aesthetic? I would like to say that aesthetics won more often than convenience, but human nature led us to the latter regularly. One day the hole for the south bedroom window, which gaped like a giant mouth, swallowed the bulky fiberglass showerstall JB shoved through. He maneuvered the stall into place in a corner of the bedroom and framed a tiny bathroom to include it. A privy would have seemed quaintly appropriate "facilities" for an old log house, requiring no water supply, no septic system 224 �with its lengthy laterals, no space in the house, and no concern for stuck flush tank handles, but even such rosy assets could not obscure its negative aspects. The abandoned privy on the farm was faltering under a tangled burden of honeysuckle vine, though even it was not the original structure. I calculated the first one was set up in the late 1920s. A Nelson had said, "For a long time we didn't even have a johnny house. We just used the woods. I was a big girl before we had one. But though prudent use of the woods was nothing new, we eagerly anticipated more modern facilities. I ventured to a plumbing supply store to purchase a kitchen sink, shower fixtures, a lavatory sink, and a toilet-or commode, as it is discreetly termed in contemporary plumbing circles and polite society. Ever since, I have held in great admiration the patience of the kind man who waited on me. The variety of features available for each of these apparently simple fixtures bewildered me. By the time I departed, my head was spinning from all the minute but essential decisions, but I journeyed home proudly with four neatly-boxed purchases stowed in the back of the station wagon. Out of corn crib floor boards, JB built a bathroom washstand and a kitchen counter, setting a sink in each, and during a busy day of chinking in October, our cheery plumber returned, grinning and eager to continue work on this project he found so entertaining. He labored diligently to install the fixtures, and in his final victorious moment, water pressure leaped, water shot from the spigots, rose in the commode, and sprayed from the shower head. Versailles had nothing on us! Our plumber glowed, his mission completed and hugely successful. Perhaps his most memorable contribution to the cabin was not in the plumbing line, however. It was a simple remark. "I've done lots of chinkin' in my time, with real mud, too, and I can tell you that's a mighty fine job yer doin'. Looks good, it does. But hit's sure slow workin', hain't it?" Confidence soared, morale zoomed, motivation leaped to new highs. On with the job! The bathroom facilities stood ready for use. Found atop the 225 �commode lid, awaiting the first user, was found a sign in Tom's unmistakable hand. "Welcome to the premiere performance!" 226 �Light "We need a front porch light," Tom announced. "Moonlight'll do." "Not if it's raining or the moon's not up. I'm serious. When we have guests, we'll need a light." "O.K., but what do you get for an old cabin? Not one of those colonial lamps you see everywhere. There's nothing authentic 'cause they didn't have porch lights. I suppose we could get an old lantern of some sort, though." "Maybe an old railway lantern." I poked in junk and antique shops, intrigued with the variety of lanterns but horrified by their prices, and then one day, contributing its wornness to a jumbled clutter of odds and ends, there it was, a most miserable contraption. Its dark green paint was chipping off, its metal oil box was filled with dirty plaster. Raised letters on its grimy glass stated proudly, "Southern Railway." Someone had attempted to electrify it with a socket in the plaster and a wire through a hole in the side. The socket was broken, the wire worn, the entire lantern a near-disaster, just what I was looking for! I gave a few dollars for the thing, took it home, and proudly showed it to Tom, quoting, "You gotta have vision!" Tom responded with his best what-have-you-done-now look, and I elaborated quickly, "It's really a fine lantern. It just needs some work, and well, some TLC. And it was cheap." Steel wool, a paring knife, and muscle power removed the remaining paint. Then for weeks the lantern sat around the cabin, pushed aside dozens of times to be out of the way for various jobs, but ever-present so that in occasional spare moments I could chisel more plaster from its oil box with a screw driver and hammer. Soaking had had no effect. Eventually the last chips fell, new wire was threaded through the hole, and a new socket for the bulb attached to this. Rather than use plaster to reset the socket, I searched for another means of support, something malleable, easy to fit into the oil box, something that would harden well, but what? Mud! Why not mud, real mud, the red clay all around us? 227 �Our pan-of-many-uses took on a new role as it held clay stirred with water. Little by little the clay became more workable until several handfuls were smooth and remarkably malleable. I poked the mud into the lamp base, adjusted the socket upright in it, propped it with wood blocks and a rock, and pencilled a large sign: PLEASE DO NOT TOUCH OR BUMP! Intrigued with the texture of the clay, I mixed more and tried some chinking with it and immediately learned something it would have been beneficial not to know-it was easy, incredibly easy, far easier than using our cement-mortar-sand recipe. And so quick! I wrestled with regrets until Tom reviewed again what a tremendous job digging, hauling, and preparing clay would have been, work far outweighing the advantages of clay. "We did the right thing;' he assured me, but that picture of our cabin chinked with real mud persists. The electrician connected the lantern to the house wiring and hung it on a branch of dogwood Tom had nailed beside the front door. Two assistant electricians watched closely, smiling with absorbed fascination, modern technicians unfamiliar with lamp sockets set in mud. It amused me that we "outsiders" were getting more and more experienced in making do with what materials were on hand. Later the electrician scratched his head and studied the log wall bases, then stated, "Waaal, we'll need four eight'ns and two four'ns. O.K.?" "Excuse me?" "Figger an eight'n'll go under the big winder and another eight'n'll go in the back room and two eight'ns upstairs." I felt no more enlightened. "An eight what?" " 'Lectric heatin' unit. You see, the eight'n'll just fit..." "Oh!" Apparently the electrician was reviewing the size heating units he would bring for installation. This fellow and his crew had filled the log house with delightful banter as they installed our new light fixtures. Now, with gear packed, the assistants stood quietly on the front porch as we settled on unit sizes. When we saunterd out to join them, a relaxed silence accompanied our inevitable scan of the view. 228 �"Mighty fine place you got here;' one said. "Sure is!" agreed the other. "I'd sure like to have a place like this." "Me, too." "Thank you!" I watched them drive off, waving. A crow flapped silently against the sky. "Mighty fine place you got here;' I repeated aloud to no one. The newly installed electric heating units looked great, not conspicuously modern as we had feared. Their beige gray matched the logs, their width and length were surprisingly logproportioned. Though fully exposed, they hid, neatly camouflaged. The log house was a catalyst for reminiscence. Whether people came to deliver materials or to work, invariably they browsed, openly curious, genuinely interested, soon indulging happily in memories. Two teen-agers delivered our little stove and refrigerator, and one nearly had to be dragged away by the other. "I 'member visitin' my grandmother. She cooked with a crane-thing a lot like that'n. Didn't have no stove nor nuthin'. Wouldn't have knowed how to use one nohow. This is a place like I dream about!' A delivery man unloaded some materials in the side yard, started to climb back into his truck, then hesitated, looked at me a long moment, and asked shyly, "Would y'all mind if I took a look around yer log house? I growed up in one alot like this. Somebody tored it down and used it fer farwood." The expression of genuine delight enveloping his face as he explored caused us to glow, too. "Hit shor brings back memories!" The inspector who had enjoyed the cabin so genuinely in July when he checked the rough wiring returned to inspect the latest electrical work and was so taken with the cabin again that I was downright relieved when he found two receptacles not acting correctly. He was paying attention to electricity after all. The surprising fact was not that people were interested, but that so many had had direct experience with log cabin living. Experiences were being described to us first hand. The electricians breezed in one day to correct the defective receptacles, and the power company rumbled in to connect us to their main power lines. Suddenly a flick of the switch did it all229 �water pump, light, heat, stove, and refrigerator, plus a lantern on the front porch to light the way for visitors. We were nearly ready! 230 �."-.. ____ ~· ~-~~--- - Chapter 11 Weekend Firsts .................................. 232 Frills .................................. 236 The First Day ........................... 239 The Second Day ......................... 243 The Third Day .......................... 248 Dusk .................................. 252 231 �Firsts Exciting? Can vacuuming a floor be exciting? Of course! Such a significant vacuuming as the first in the new cabin whipped up a mood of gay festivity that made all jobs seem wonderful, absolutely # 1! The noisy machine rolled busily back and forth across the cabin floor, sucking up the final minute debris and dust in seconds, transforming the log room from workshop to living quarters. The room stood barren, lacking even the simplest furnishing, but it gleamed with readiness for celebration. Set up those old folding chairs! Whisk out the lunch from the oak-split picnic basket! Let the celebration start! Guests arrived, our first official guests, not ones merely stopping by to check on progress, but invited friends, come to the cabin to hike the woods and fields and share some lunch and a few November hours with us. Their bubbling enthusiasm and barrage of questions kept conversation flowing pleasantly and steadily, until, as we relaxed on the porch after our hikes, someone asked, "When will the cabin be finished?" Conversation stopped dead. "Finished?" I repeated, stalling for time. "Finished?" Tom echoed. Each hoped for some brilliant answer from the other, for we had often wondered if such an elusive condition as finished would ever happen. We began to laugh. "It'll be years before we're really finished, I suppose," said Tom. "Just facing the foundation blocks with rocks will be a tremendous job." The questioner compounded the query with, "Do you really want it to be finished? Isn't half the fun in working on it?" I had a ready answer for this one. "No! I sure want it finished, once and for all, so we can use it and enjoy the other activities out here more often;' and fortunately, though our limping answers merely grazed the surface of this simple but penetrating question, the subject was not pursued. As we basked in unseasonable heat that late November afternoon, winter seemed years away, but within weeks Christmas came and went, and winter's raw cold took hold. Tom and I puttered 232 �all one January day at odd jobs while sleet tinkled on the cedar roof and clattered daintily down its angled shingles onto our carpet of tender new grass. By evening the chilling but gentle storm had abated, and I glanced fleetingly at a rose and orange sunset while fluttering about the several feet of kitchen as if preparing a feast for a king. Another first was making cabin history, the first dinner cooked in the new cabin. The humble, one-pot concoction of rice, onions, ground beef, and peas in thick tomato sauce remains significant not because of its recipe but its timing. Relaxed in comfortable rockers, we dined by lively hearthfire and the glow of a single candle, unwittingly setting a precedent. Ever since, only fire and one candle have provided light for indoor dinners. The aroma of wood smoke blended freely and naturally with the cabin's unique scent of old logs and new boards. Comfortably fed, we set our dishes aside, snuffed the candle, and studied the fire. Its coals mesmerized us with their ripplings. A tiny spurt of flame suddenly burst and flared noisily for a brief moment from a small stick. Some unseen fragment had ignited and vigorously released its energy and been consumed. "Look at that nail!' Tom pointed. Glowing red hot, the straight lines of its manmade form seemed oddly out of place among the irregular lines of the coals. "Wonder where it was in the old house," I mused. "In one of those white boards inside the kitchen." "Wonder who hammered it in. He probably felt good as he sank that nail and firmed yet another board to that strong kitchen wall." "Interesting how some materials here get reused and others get junked or burned. Some pieces are versatile, some serve only once and are gone." "Kinda like some people!' "The nail's fading." The coals had dimmed, too. Tom's face was barely discernible in the darkness, but his presence was very real as we shared a few thoughts about a nail. Suddenly he leaned forward toward the fire, studied his watch intently, and jumped to his feet. "Let's go out back. The time's 233 �perfect." Though we had often stayed at the cabin into sunset and dusk, this was our first experience in full night. A cold stillness overhung the invisible acres, a black emptiness canopied with star dots, but a faint glow began to silhouette trees on the hill behind and brightened rapidly. Within minutes a magnificent orange moon beamed behind the silhouettes as forms and humps emerged across the acreage until the scene was bathed in light as if in early dawn. We chatted in low voices, hesitant to interfere with the eerie beauty, agreeing that to fully understand any place, one should experience it outdoors during both of those superb periods of transition, nightfall and dawn. "Say! Do you know what anniversary we've nearly reached?" Tom asked suddenly. "Something to do with the cabin?" "Yep." "Important?" "Yep." I projected back a year. "Oh! JB, I'll bet. We took him on to help us in late January, didn't we?" "Right!" "Nearly a year ago!" What a blessing he had been! Patient, thoughtful, dependable, and interested, he had grown quietly and steadily with the cabin as we had. Now he came only occasionally to do some small jobs. "We sure were naive to think only JB and just a few others would be helping us. Tom, I forgot to tell you the other day that I totaled the number of people we have had here, either actually working or delivering or inspecting. You'll be astonished. It's seventy-nine!" "Wow!" The list of firsts enlarged. A paintless broom handle found under the old house became the shower curtain rod, and with a spare plastic curtain attached, confined spray from the first shower in the cabin, a hot shower! It wasn't the first shower on the premises, however. We had 234 �been told, "Henry-he was one of George's sons-made hisself a shower to wash off in after a day in the fields. It was a tall tablefour posts with a high tub on top made outa a barrel. He made a little spout leadin' from the water line from the branch to fill the barrel tub with water in the mornin'. The sun, it heated the water up durin' the heat of the day. "He fixed burlap bags on the sides to be private, and he'd get some soap and a towel and go in from the back side. The barrel had a plug in it, and he'd pull a string to let the water out, whishhhhh! and plug the stopper back in to stop it. "If somebody else come along for a shower, he got cold water. Wintertime, the family used a big wash tub in the house. After a person bathed, he added a kettle of hot water for the next." Our plain little showerstall seemed sheer elegance in comparison. For the first time, too, we put to use five nail kegs and a broad sheet of plywood, for this was our first overnight. A nail keg supported each corner of the plywood. Keg #5 propped the center to prevent it from sagging. Atop the plywood stretched an old queen-size mattress from home. No bed in the most opulent of suites could have felt more comfortable than this improvised composite of unlikely parts. When the complete darkness of a country night enveloped our room, we slipped into weary oblivion in absolute luxury. 235 �Frills My armload of assorted corncrib slats seemed determined to collapse into an unmanageable jumble as I trudged up the hill on the first of many trips from crib to porch. Each awkward load clattered onto the front porch floor as aching arms experienced sudden relief. The weathered gray slats, retrieved from over a year of storage, became frames of a different sort than predicted, frames cut and carefully fit to form handsome casings around each window. Frills, little and big, were bringing hominess to the otherwise bare cabin. Hours with a sewing machine produced red calico cushions for four old mountain-style rocking chairs. More calico and unbleached muslin became tab curtains. Unable to find properly straight twigs for curtain rods, we substituted dowels "weathered" with stain. Each rod holder had to be cut individually to fit the particular log behind it, a tedious job John and Charlie, home from summer adventures in Europe, accomplished with surprisingly few grumbles. Nails hammered half-way into wall logs served for hanging toothbrushes, hand mirror, towels, clothing, fly swatter, broom, apron, and various tools. A branched twig, nailed to the bathroom wall, held a shower cap, and a stouter branched twig held the roll of bathroom tissue. With saw and pen knife, I cut and whittled sticks from seasoned dogwood branches into pegs. Tom found a weathered board, bored holes in it, and poked the pegs in, creating a coat rack to nail to the wall. A primitive art print, thumb tacked onto the tiny chicken house door I'd found in the field, added a decorative touch for the wall above the stove. Tom nailed a wide, unused end of plywood subflooring to a spare sawhorse and flung a home-woven type cloth over it, giving us a table, and on the mantel I set an antique earthenware jar with sprays of field flowers, adding later a hand-woven basket and an old wooden candlestick. In town Charlie and I rummaged through the storeyard for used building materials and drove home jubilantly with our purchase, a flight of stairs, squeezed into the station wagon. For several 236 �weeks it weathered in the side yard before its badly worn carpeting of yellow-green~'bilious green" we named the hue-was ripped off. On a bright day when moving cloud-shadows patched the mountains with lights and darks like shifting camouflage fabric designs, JB sawed the stairway in half. Tom and Charlie helped set one half against the front porch opposite the front door, the other half at the porch's south end. Each stair base rested on a huge stone from the old chimney base. Suddenly the faithful little wood scrap ladder which had supported the footsteps of hundreds of human trips to and from the porch was obsolete and unwanted. After sturdy, dependable service, it was shoved aside abruptly. I carried it to the woodpile, placing it neatly on top, thinking about the innumerable other creatures which had found it a convenient, direct path to the porch-ants and mice, beetles and lizards, slugs and daddy-long-legs. We would revel in the ease and luxury of stairs now, but next summer they would have to navigate a far more challenging course. Early one morning, en route to a lumber pile to locate some special boards for another frill, I tapped my toes on the fragile ice covering a lane puddle, enjoying the hollow sound, then the glassy tinkle of thin ice fragments. Moments later, while sorting boards, I glanced back at the puddle. Two song sparrows were bathing vigorously in its icy water, splashing merrily in obvious comfort and harmony, fluttering and rotating in a veritable deluge of droplets and ice particles. Suddenly an inconspicuous something went wrong. One lunged fiercely at the other, driving it away viciously, then resumed the splattery bath with all nonchalance and innocence before slipping furtively into a boxwood. Only a few days later, February daffodils yellowed the bank near the old house site as I loaded into the station wagon the boards I had selected that morning. Three had been the vertical strips which covered log ends on the old cabin. Several had been flooring in the corn crib. I delivered them to a cabinet shop accompanied by scale drawings of cupboards and drawers to be set beneath the kitchen counter. The cupboard would resemble an old fashioned dry sink, the drawers a simple chest. 237 �When this kitchen frill of jumbo-sized bulk and importance was snugged into place, housekeeping was instantly revolutionized. Suddenly we had places for utensils and dishes, napkins and pans, stored foods and cleaning equipment. The time had arrived for dinner company, and who could be more appropriate as our first dinner guests than two couples who had played tremendously vital roles in the cabin project-JB, our steadfast builder, and Eula, whom I knew more by telephone than by direct acquaintance, and Zeb Collins, who suggested JB to help us, and Lora. The Collins' old cabin had charmed and inspired us when we desperately needed a boost. We ate by fire and candlelight and chatted on and on, three diverse couples brought together by an old log house. Now the long-anticipated climax to our building efforts seemed imminent-not just one-day visits or quick overnights, but real, settled-in, cabin living through several consecutive days. How we dreamed of it! But incredibly, another whole season was to pass before we could experience it. 238 �The First Day Early spring had slipped into early summer, and not until late May did the long weekend we had awaited for endless months begin. In the fields and along the edges, yellow patches of mustard and ragwort had come and gone, replaced by white patches of daisies and honeysuckle. The varied pastels of early tree foliage had blended into monochromatic deep green. On a hot afternoon, while storms rumbled and clouds hung low, we emptied our loaded car and settled happily into the cheerful, refreshing cabin, interested then and ever since how pleasantly cool it remains even on the hottest days. A totally new and unexpected feeling accompanied this arrival. We sensed that we had driven hundreds, even thousands, of miles and were settling into some fine vacation resort, blissfully remote from the tugs and pulls of home. Surely home was greater than five short miles away, in another region even, another state, another country. A holiday mood engulfed and exhilarated us, and we fluttered around with almost childlike excitement. We had come to the cabin to play, not work. The little refrigerator bulged with food, and cartons with books and camera equipment awaited our leisurely attention. Our only regret was that John, Anne, and Charlie could not be here to share this event. John and Anne were winding up another year in college, and Charlie was completing a pre-college study term in France. Bustling about, Tom and I suddenly collided on the front porch, nursed our bumps amid laughter, and inevitably looked toward the mountains. Showers were crossing the distant ridges and deluging nearby valleys, and the hills were thriving in the wet and warmth of the growing season. "Look how the hill is greening!" We reveled in the spreading lushness on the once-bare hill. Areas of bad erosion were yielding to control, welcome reward for laborious hours. "We'd better put a railing on this porch soon before someone not used to it here falls off," I suggested, but in delightfully irresponsible holiday lethargy, we avoided both discussion and decision on it. Instead, Tom went in for a nap, weary from heavy responsi239 �bilities with the building project at work. I spotted an orange-red object at the old cabin site, slipped my camera strap over my shoulder, and sauntered down to investigate and wander a while. A brilliant single poppy shone amid the weeds, surrounded by gray-green buds which promised more poppies within days. The old house had been whisked away, but its garden flowers seemed determined to carry on. Cream colored violets had pushed up amid the piles of old rafters and roofing slab as if to say, "We're still here!" and a handsome yellow iris bloomed beside the old kitchen door. The wisteria vine reached out with long streamers, and if its several straggly blossom clusters could have spoken, they might have said, "We had a bit of a setback last year, but give us time." Sweet Williams blossomed, pink yarrow budded, and garden daisies flourished. The lush weed garden, thriving where the old cabin had stood, needed mowing; it was growing too well! At dinnertime, in an otherwise cloudless sky, one massive cloud hovered over the distant mountains, gold-edged from the sun dropping behind it. The farthest range glowed while the closest lay in deep evening shadow. Gradations of shadow intensity on intervening ranges set each layer apart from others with startling clarity. On clear days the mountains seem so close we can reach out and pluck a tree, but the layers of ridges blend together as one. On hazy days the mountains seem a hundred miles away, blurred, barely real, yet, as on clear days, a unified mass. But when the far ridges glow in the last sun and the close ones are nearly into night, the layers contrast, each set apart distinctly, with depths magnified. The beauty is stark and rare, creating this mountain mood we love most. Dinner on the front porch at dusk was now routine, and always after eating, we "set a spell." No better "settin' cheer" exists than an old wooden rocker, and we rocked gently, absorbed in the serenity of the summer evening. The comfortable, rhythmic creak-squeak, creak-squeak of Tom's rocker moving to and fro over a slightly loose floor board contributed the only close sound for long moments. At length I commented, "I was just thinking that it's been three 240 �years since we bought this property and we still don't know its exact boundaries. Think we ever will?" "Nope." "It's kinda nice not to know, isn't it," I expressed it as a statement, not a question, and though it could have led to a stimulating exchange, we lapsed into relaxed silence again. Then I broke it, "When I sit here like this with all that beauty and peace out there, I wish the whole world could share the experience. What if everyone everywhere could concentrate on integrity and generousity and love and beauty!" A cardinal's chip notes distracted us from this idealistic remark, and within moments we were absorbed in our first game of "Who's Last?" The only equipment required was ears, listening ears to determine which bird sang last before darkness silenced the songbirds. Wood thrushes, jays, cardinals, field sparrows, titmice, towhees-these and many others kept our ears busy. Buzzing carpenter bees distracted us as they poked about under the rafters. One by one the voices dropped out, and at near-dark, only occasional sounds came our way: several scolding notes of a wren, a single series from a scarlet tanager, short call notes of a cardinal, and half-hearted twitterings from an indigo bunting. The bees disappeared, their noise replaced by a cricket's intermittent chirpings by the stairs. Then silence. A catbird scolded with several "meows". Silence. More cardinal chips. Suddenly a song sparrow rose straight from the forsythia bush into the air for fifteen or twenty feet, emitting a flurry of garbled notes, and as suddenly, plummeted into the depths of the shrub again and was silent. The first peeper called, and another, progressively joined by others until a chorus entertained us. Lightning bugs began to flicker as a toad trilled. The rich afterglow which had silhouetted foreground branches faded to purple gray. Day was slipping into night, but the scene before us was not going to sleep. Only the diurnal parts of it were, for the world of night was awakening. I murmured to Tom, "Wouldn't the call of an owl make this evening truly complete!" "Mmmmmm," he agreed, and as if on direct cue, so perfectly timed that we still talk of it, a faint, wavering call floated across 241 �the hollow and up to the porch. Our heads turned to that direction. The call repeated, closer, and we looked at each other and grinned, faces barely visible. Then closer, plaintive, mysterious, the call of the little screech owl. An answering call drifted from the woods upstream. "The evening exceeds completeness!" I whispered quickly. Our breaths in tight control so very sound of night could be fully experienced, we shared in the exchange of owl messages for nearly five minutes. Then silence again. Even the peepers had stopped. Neither of us stirred, hoping the calls would resume. Three penetrating notes of a late peeper close by pierced the stillness, but that was all. The expanse of night sparkled with stars, and we rocked on, peacefully engrossed in the depths of a country night. A chilling breeze stirred and sent us indoors to read. From back of the sawhorse table a nibbling sound distracted me. A look under the tablecloth edge revealed the bottom of a length of wall paneling we had stored there temporarily. A flashlight from above, however, spotlit a lone white-footed mouse, which paused in his munchings and looked up as if to say, "I'm busy. Leave me alone." I took a yardstick and tried to nudge him gently from behind the paneling, but he simply hopped aboard, and as I lifted the stick, he sat jauntily on the opposite end, appearing less surprised than we. He even washed his face and ears casually and groomed his flanks, then looked directly at us, awaiting the next move with open curiosity. Tom carried him to the front porch and let him scurry off into night, but the next day, when we found our kitchen cake of soap gnawed by tiny teeth and surrounded by tell-tale droppings, we wondered if our same little friend had simply turned around and hurried back in. 242 �The Second Day The hearty, rollicking call of a Carolina wren, only feet away on the side porch, woke us suddenly and enthusiastically for our second day, allowing breakfast before sun-up on the front porch, where we joined the waking world when all was dewy and vocal and eager. The natural alarm clock seemed highly appropriate, for this was a day without clocks, with the hours ignored and cabin folks free to eat or play or work or nap purely on wish and whim. We discovered quickly that a day without a timepiece reveals with startling speed and clarity how incredibly directed and influenced we are by the hour and minute, caught in the grip of two tiny mechanical hands positioned on a numbered face. Without time, one initially feels frustrated, astonished at how often reference to a non-existent watch is made, then unsettled, even awkward. As the day progresses, however, and accommodation to the absence of a timepiece develops, feelings change to being favorably impressed, then downright delighted. "These folks who are carefree about time have a good thing going," Tom observed. The day also passed without radio or TV, so we carried on pleasantly ignorant not only of news but of weather expectations, building respect for old timers whose alert observations and sensory signals often resulted in skilled predictions. Balmy spring sun alternated with warm, frequent showers as we reveled in the ease and charm of cabin living, and watching from the porch as the showers played up and over hills and in and around valleys filled a generous portion of the lazy day. Occasionally a shower would head directly toward us, with mountain layers disappearing one by one as it approached. Finally only the closest hump would be visible, and then the rain would splatter on leaves in the hollow with a soft shhhh sound, then splatter us. One shower struck with exceptional vigor and gusts, and we hastened indoors, temporarily caged. Rain poured down in sheets, a wonderful deluge, its noise on the roof filling the room. Without gutters, the roof edges dropped waterfalls to the ground, making the scene seem even more drenched. "Remember, the weather always looks worse ..." 243 �"...from inside the window!" I finished Tom's quote of a saying our family frequently tosses when someone complains about the weather. Then an idea hit each almost simultaneously, "Let's go out!" What an exhilarating sensation to stand within a deluge, water pelting, the sound all-encompassing! Surely one should feel soaked, but inside the rain gear all stays dry. We stood still in the side yard to adjust to the feel and sound, then squished across the grass to investigate how our seemingly endless struggles with erosion control were holding up. Rushing water urged us along, pointing out how most of the grounded rain was flowing exactly as we hoped. The heaps of grass clippings I had rescued from an astonished man and stuffed into spots of bad wash were controlling flow especially well. Only recently I drove past his small, grassy field and noticed that he had mowed it and raked the clippings into tidy piles. To my horror, he was setting fire to a pile. Burning! Burning that wonderful hay which could do such marvels in holding soil on our eroding banks! Several charred piles smoldered nearby. I braked my car abruptly in the middle of the infrequently traveled road, stepped out, and called, "Are you planning to burn all those piles?" "Why, yes," the man answered, his face openly revealing his astonishment in having a strange woman stop to ask such a question. "May I have them, please?" "Have them? Well, ah, well-well, yes!" I yanked the back seat of the station wagon to its flat position, filled the entire back section to the roof with sweet-smelling hay, jamming it in tightly, gave a brief explanation of my intent and profuse thanks, and drove away from my wondering new acquintance. Had I been driving home from the fur shop with a new mink stole, I would have been far less pleased. In the lower lane a fine mud puddle invited us to wade, and we indulged without hesitation, but warm, muddy puddles require bare feet, and suddenly I sensed my age when I found myself too lazy to take boots off. In younger years, wearing boots in a summer 244 �puddle would have been unthinkable-my parents delighted in letting us children dash out barefoot after showers to splash in puddles still warm from sun-heated ground. Such moments remained so precious in memory that Tom and I made sure our children grew up with full knowledge of mud puddles, of squishing warm mud between the toes, that delicious sensation, that undeniably superb summer fun. The rains slackened, the mountains reappeared, and a noisy pileated woodpecker flew from the meadow locust tree to an old fence post, where it hammered and ripped, sending wood bits flying. In the evening another storm passed through boisterously with daylight flashes and window-rattling booms, leaving behind a still and sodden landscape. As we sat on the porch afterward, topping the day with blueberry pie and milk, only the occasional splat of a falling drop broke the silence. Complete blackness enveloped the fields and hollow and woods beyond. In the warmth one could almost feel the tremendous surge of plant growth that was taking place out there. The sky flickered, then flashed brilliantly, but no sound followed. The lightning's thunderous boom was startling ears many miles from here, so far away that even its spreading rumblings could not be detected by us. Another tremendous flash lit half the sky dome, silhouetting trees, advertising natural might, but though each ensuing second brimmed with anticipation of sound, again none came. Only one very tiny light made any change in the expectant scene, the light of a lone firefly. Then, for long moments, nothing. At least, it seemed nothing, but there was beauty in knowing that out there in the quiet, wet depths night creatures were busily carrying out their routine activities. Four-footed animals-mice, flying squirrels, opposums, and their associates-were foraging and stalking, perhaps shaking droplets from their fur and paws. The world of decomposers, so vital in nature's massive recycling of materials, was proceeding with its incessant breakdown of fallen leaves and twigs and spent blossoms, of droppings and leftovers and creatures that had finished their life span. Night insects which 245 ��had retreated from the deluge were venturing forth again, but the firefly was the only visible one. Almost instantly after the next spectacular sky flash, the firefly flashed again like a speck of miniature lightning. It seems ridiculous to consider a follow-up boom after a firefly's light, but so conspicuous was this one tiny light in the vast valley of darkness that the ridiculous seemed possible. The magnificent and the miniature, so contrasting in proportion and physics and reception, yet each pierced that valley with light of brilliant similarity. The firefly stopped. The lightning diminished to nothing. Any anticipation of more light continued unfulfilled, and the unseen world of night proceeded as usual. 247 �The Third Day The third day started lazily as we lolled in bed, idly studying knot designs and wood grains in the ceiling boards overhead. It progressed more solidly after dawn with chipped beef and gravy on corn muffins, accented with the fragrance of honeysuckle which wafted across the porch. As we relaxed after breakfast, I wrote in my journal: We are a million miles from anywhere. There is no tennis court or golf course or swimming pool at this resort, no game table or TV or Hi-Fi, no movie house or bar or partying, yet the sensation of even a moment of boredom is utterly inconceivable. I doubt if the words bored or boredom even exist in the vocabulary of those who delight in nature. Our surroundings constantly entertain and surprise and teach. As a recent visitor was departing, she exclaimed, "You surely are blessed to have this place!" It struck me that the blessing is not the possession but the gift of being able to appreciate the wonder of our surroundings. A decision about the front porch railing came easily in our fresh and rested state, and as I set off for the woods to plant some young ferns I had propagated from spores, Tom was already at work on it, firmly established on a derelict crate on the porch and rounding the sharp edges of a long 2x6 with an antique drawing knife. This wide board and others like it would lie across posts from the old cabin and constitute our railing. How often we have praised this decision· for a wide-top railing, this shelf of many uses-from photographing katydids to drying clothes, from holding dinner plates to propping feet, from supporting books to preventing falls from the porch. Late morning, huffing and puffing, we dragged from the car an old black washpot I had found on the cluttered porch of an antique shop, heaved it into place beside the hearth, and promptly dashed to the woodpile for firewood to stuff in it. In less than an hour a visitor was admiring it. In the middle of a sentence, Della's sister suddenly spotted the washpot and clapped her hands in delighted surprise. "Why, we had a iron pot just like that out here! Out near the spout, it was. Mamma made lard in it and lye soap, too. Didn't have 'lectric washer here till after 248 �World War II." She was bursting with talk. "When we wanted to do the washin', we'd go to the woodpile and get baskets of chips from choppin' wood and go to the woods and get brush, too. Never used stove wood to put around the washpot. We'd fill that old black pot with water from the spout and start the fire under it-it was settin' up on rocks-and the water'd start aboilin'." "You dumped the clothes right into the pot?" I asked eagerly. "Oh, my, no! Daddy took one of those big sixty gallon barrels-he was great for collectin' barrels-and cut it in two-it had a top at both ends-and made two tubs outa it. Across from the washpot was a big apple tree with a wash bench he'd made up against it. He'd split a long wide log and made four holes in it and put four legs on it. The barrel tubs was set up on that, and we did the battlin' on it, too. "The way we washed, when I tell you, you won't wonder at my back's bein' outa joint. We filled the barrel tubs with cold water, put the clothes in that and renshed 'em out and then put 'em in hot water. We had lye soap and a rub board-a scrub board-and scrubbed the clothes on that. Then we put 'em in the big washpot and boiled 'em. Then we renshed 'em a number of times in the tubs or sometimes stood in the branch water flowin' from the spout to rensh 'em. Those was white, clean clothes! We put 'em all out on the bushes to dry." "What about the battlin'?" asked Tom. "We batted just the dirty field clothes. Daddy carved a battlin' stick for us to bat the clothes with. We'd wet and soap the clothes and then put 'em on the battlin' block-that's one end of the wash bench-and battle 'em, hit em with the battlin' stick, you know, and then boil 'em. We batted 'em several times. I don't see how those clothes lasted. They would fade everytime we washed 'em." She paused, and Tom and I looked at our black washpot with greater understanding. Then she added, "Now we just throw 'em into a machine and put in some store-bought detergent and push a button." 249 �We shook our heads in quiet amazement and admiration for the fortitude which enabled families to live routinely in a way we would find intolerable now. I continued the subject. "And nowadays people are concerned whether the laundered clothes are properly soft and anti-static and whether the traffic pattern in laundry and kitchen is efficient and whether the appliances are color-coordinated." "Makes you think, don't it?" she responded quietly. "Really, even though things like doin' the washin' was hard, livin' was so much simpler then in many ways, and people was happy, maybe even happier." "Affluence doesn't always beget happiness, does it?" "It's so complicated now, and most people's still wantin' more stuff. 'Course, havin' 'lectricity and piped water like you have here now, that's nice, but simple livin' is good. My husband says he'd rather have a place like this than the finest house in the world. My own little house is more to me than a castle in England. You know, we all love our homes. Now Della, she loved it here! Oh! I brought somethin' special for you." She hesitated, and we sensed a touch of poignancy for her in the moment. She reached into a paper bag and slowly withdrew two wooden paddles, one surface of each covered with fine wire projections. "These are Grandma's cards. She used 'em for cardin' wool, like this," and she stroked imaginary wool as if pulling its tangled fibers into strands for spinning yarn. "Mama always kept these on the fireboard there." She stopped; we waited. "I think they belong there;' she continued quietly, but with firm conviction. "They should go right back where Mama kept 'em in her own house." I set the pair of cards upright on the mantelpiece as all watched intently. She brushed aside our ensuing thanks and instead thanked us for returning them to their historic location, adding, "We all feel s' good about the way you've saved our old house and fixed it all up s' nice. It's like I've dreamed of its bein'. You've sure given a lot to the place!" We pondered her statement long after she left. "You've sure given a lot':_yes, time far beyond expectation, effort to the point 250 �of exhaustion, and inevitably, money; but hasn't the cabin given us even more-knowledge far beyond expectation, satisfaction to the point of warm contentment, and inevitably, perhaps most important of all, understanding and friendship? 251 �Dusk Deep red, the sun slipped behind the mountains, signaling the end of our long weekend. That fiery ball of energy would continue to shine across towns and forests and fields and cities to the west, but on our piece of mountain, it was gone. Dusk was closing in. Tom and I rocked on the porch, reluctant to leave our haven during the fullness and beauty of a country evening. Two jet trails stretched across the vast sky, bright stripes above the darkening land. Each was preceded by a glint of light which sparkled and disappeared erratically but steadily added length to a glowing tail. Within each glint sat people in the sky, people headed toward a distant destination, each for a special reason. Were any of them looking down on the final stages of daylight from up there, wondering if someone below was watching, too? A cow at the farm below the hollow bellowed repeatedly, impatiently, and a song sparrow chipped briefly. The fluttering silhouette of a bat crossed the sky. A bullfrog croaked deeply at a neighbor's pond at the base of the mountain. As sky glow faded from subtle peach to thin tan to blue black, tree silhouettes faded. Then that magical sound of dusk called across the woodland and hollow, first hesitantly, then insistently-the screech owl again. On the wooden porch of a modest log cabin snugged on the side of a mountain in western North Carolina, two shadowed forms sat on and on. "Wish the youngsters could be here now," I murmured. "Wouldn't it be great!" "I was just thinking-this cabin's story stretches into the past with one family, and into the future with another, but our time with it is really just beginning." "And remember what one of the workmen said? 'Abuildin' a cabin ain't easy, but hit shore pleasures one t' have it!' " 252 �Footnotes 1. Thay is from an Old English word tha, which means there. Some authorities spell the word t-h-e-y, others prefer t-h-a-y. "Thay was a big ol' robin arunnin' on the grass." 2. Creesies (creasies) -winter cress, Barbarea verna and Barbarea vulgaris Poke-pokeweed, Phytolacca americana Branch lettuce-mountain saxifrage, Saxifraga micranthidifolia 3. Technically, the machine was a front end or bucket loader. 4. Miner, Robert G. in Early American Life editorial, Aprill976. 253 �Advisors 40, 50, 52-54, 65-66, 75-76 Andirons 162-163, Alder 26, 71, 95 Apples 27, 34, 67, 221 Architect 65-68, 77-78 Auntie Martin 220 Authenticity 66, 68, 217 Back room, new 150, 186, 190, 207 Bathroom 112, 224-225 Battling stick 249 Bed 235 Bedroom, porch 25, 122 Bees 184, 218, 241 Bird call games 146, 150, 241 Blacksmith 152-164 Bluebird 52, 65, 105, 112, 147 Board with hole 123, 187 Board with JOY 187 Books 203 Borough hall 192 Boundaries 30-31, 44, 241 Boxwoods 15, 50, 98 Branch lettuce 35 Breakdowns 135, 138, 140 Brush, dragging 88, 91, 96 Bulldozer 96-97, 137, 156-157, 169, 179 Bunting, indigo 60, 147, 150, 185, 241 Butterfly, monarch 211, 222 Cabin, building old 130-132 Cabin, dismantling old 122-125, 130, 140-141 Cabin, in its grip 64, 170 Cabin, model of 78-79 Cabin, use by family 9-10, 66, 155 Cabin, use generally 191, 212 Cable 42 Candler, Eula 75, 80, 187, 238 Candler, JB, getting 75-76, 79-81 Cards, wool 250 Cat 126 Ceiling 124-126, 187, 189 Chestnut 18, 28, 30, 87, 105, 124, 13~132, 149 Chestnut shingles 18, 131-132, 146 Chicken house 25, 116, 236 Chimney, brick 23, 124-125 Chimney, new 196, 198-206 Chimney, old 22-23 Chinking 123, 132, 217-223 Chinking techniques 217-219 Cleaning, spring 6 7, 127-128 Clearing site 6 7, 97 Clock, without 243 Closing gaps 221 Collins, Lora 240 Collins, Zeb 75, 78, 240 Corn, Arlie 85-88 Corn crib 18, 25, 50, 69, 73, 210, 225, 236-237 Corners 131, 148 Crane, fireplace 159, 161-162, 205 Crate 130, 133, 149-150 Crawford, Jedd 101-102, 109, 124, 127 �Date stone 191-197, 205 Dawn 89 Delays 115 Dock, Homer 65-68, 77 Dogwood 28, 86, 87, 96, 98, 141 Doors 163, 211-212 Dotson, Clint 150-151, 153, 155, 168, 174, 176-177, 181-184, 186 Drawings, architect's 77-78 Dusk 252 Electrical needs 68, 174-177 Electrical work 114-115, 174-178, 227-229, 248 Featherbed 126 Ferns 29, 46, 250 Fire dogs 162-163 Fireboard 200-201, 205 Fireplace, new 203-205 Fireplace, old 200-203 Fishing 204 Floors 131, 138, 170, 187, 190 Foundations 100, 110, 131, 141, 156 Fox 172, 186 Froe 132, 181 Furnishings 236 Garden, natural 169, 240 Goldenrod 25, 211 Grading 157, 167 Grasshoppers 223 Greer, Virgil 187-188 Guest house 63, 152 Guests 232, 238 Hawk, broadwinged 185 Hearthstones 62, 200-202 Heating 23, 125, 228-229 Hemlocks, two 15, 71, 92, 96, 115, 147, 150, 153, 179, 185, 191 Hendersonville 5-7, 117 Hinges 163 Honeysuckle 67, 97, 105-106, 110, 147-148, 225, 239, 248 Huggins, Della 16-17, 21-25, 27, 34-35, 50, 62, 67, 84, 105, 116, 125, 151, 161, 191, 200, 250 Huggins, Oscar 16-21, 23-27, 38, 4 7' 50, 62, 84, 105 Hummingbirds 116, 146-148, 153-154 JB, See Candler, JB Jelly closet 23, 124-125 Junk 15, 38, 40 Junk cars 15, 33, 55 Kitchen, new 68, 175, 237-238 Kitchen, old 24, 60-63 King, Vollie 198-199, 201-206 Labeling logs 133 Lantern 227-228 Leedom, Broadus R. 96, 140, 156-157 Lightning 245-246 Lightning bug 241, 245-246 Lizard, fence 186, 196 Loft 24, 125-127 Log houses 5, 51-52, 75, 131-132 Log moving 140-141 �Logs, hand-hewn 21, 51, 57, 64-65, 124, 130-133, 146-149, 176-177 Logs reset 141, 146, 148-149 Lumber rack 90, 92-93 Lumber unloading 91-92 Lunch, first in cabin 171 Lunch, caterpillar in 168 Map, relief 48 Mantel 200, 205 Martin, Auntie 220 Materialism 128, 203, 250 McCartle, Coy 86-88, 90-92 McCoy, Vern 39-40, 50, 72, 98-99 Mighty fine place 229 Mimosa 87, 116 Misgivings 63-64 Mud 199, 216, 220 Mud daubers 219 Nature lovers 214, 248 Nelson, George 17-18, 21-22, 33, 52, 67-68, 87-88, 100-101, 105, 107, 112, 114, 116-119, 125-126, 130-133, 141, 148-149, 177, 191, 197, 200, 205, 216-217, 219, 249 Nelson, Green Berry 21 Nelson family 33, 40, 115, 119, 133, 194 Opossum 2, 186 Owl, screech 2, 241-242, 250 Oxen 131, 200 Paneling 206 Pear tree 34, 116 Peepers, spring 140-141, 241-242 Pegging logs 149 Pennsylvania 5-6, 113, 128 People in project 115, 234 Piece of mountain 6, 9, 66, 81, 155, 191, 252 Pines, two 84-94, 186 Plans, cabin 10, 66, 77-78 Play pretty 183 Plumbing 224-225 Plum trees 106-107 Poor but happy 117, 203 Porch bedroom 25, 64, 122, 191 Porch, back 53, 56, 154 Porch, new front 154, 187, 193 Porch, old front 25, 124, 130 Porch posts 192-193 Privy 25, 112, 139, 224-225 Puddles, mud 244-245 Purchase 31-33 Put 'er up 54, 141, 170 Rafters 65, 130-132, 150 Rain 210, 243-245 Realtors 14-15 Refrigeration 62, 68, 106, 175, 229 Requirements for NC house 4-5 Rhododendron 28, 30, 44-46, 71, 85, 106 Rockpile 196-197 Rock moving 156-15 7 Roofing, see Shingling Roof, old 17-18, 130, 132, 146 �Salamanders 184 Sawmill 188-189 Septic system 112-113, 135-139 Serviceberry 53, 110 Shavings 176-177 Sheathing 155, 168, 176 Shingles, making 132, 181 Shingling 132, 181-182, 185 Shower 224-225, 234-235 Shortia 110 Siding, asphalt 17, 122 Simplicity 213, 250 Site, new 95-98 Snakes 110, 136, 151-152, 157, 206-210 Sparrow, field 53, 60, 185 Sparrow, song 95, 237, 241, 252 Sparrow, white throat 25, 219, 223 Spout 105, 127 Spring 105-108 Stairs 22-23, 124, 191-192 Stairs, porch 136, 236-237 Stream, meadow 17, 26, 71, 85, 158, 166, 168, 181, 223 Stripping walls 40, 56 Surveying 66-68 Take 'er down 54, 123, 141 Telephone line 179-180 Tires 26, 71-74 Title problems 32-33 Toads 97, 196, 241 Tour of house 22-24 Trenches 101-102, 109-110 Turkey chase 34 Turtle, box 46, 166-167 Understanding 4 7, 91, 101, 115, 119, 133, 199, 209, 218, 229, 243 Vandals 42 View 18, 71, 76, 104, 110, 150, 228, 239-240, 252 Violin 117-118 Washing 246-250 Water supply 18, 24, 88, 101-108 Well 101-104 Wets and drys 219-220 Whitewash 40, 56, 127-128, 132 Wills, Troy 159-165 Windows 23, 64, 123, 128, 149, 170-171, 186 Wisteria 27, 141, 169 Woodpecker, pileated 85, 104, 182, 245 Wren, Carolina 136-137, 140, 152-153, 168, 196, 241, 243 �about the author barbara hallowell was born on Oct. 13, 1924, in Kennett Square, Pennsylvania. She attended Swarthmore College from 1942 until 1946, receiving a Bachelor of Science in Biology. Hallowell went on to teach biology at a number of private schools in southeastern Pennsylvania until the birth of her children. Speaking of her many achievements, Hallowell has stated, “I am most proud of my children and their accomplishments.” Her eagerness to share her experiences led to the writing of Cabin, A Mountain Adventure, as well as, Fern Finder: A Guide to Native Ferns of Central and Northeastern United States and Eastern Canada with her daughter, Anne Reich. She traveled widely with her husband Alban “Tom” Hallowell, most notably, making multiple trips to the arctic. The husband and wife team produced a very popular natural history and adventure travel lecture series based on their travels. Hallowell resides in Kennett Square, Pennsylvania. �APPALACHIAN CONSORTIUM PRESS Boone, North Carolina The Appalachian Consortium Press is a division of the Appalachian Consortium Incorporated, specializing in the publication of carefully produced books of particular interest to Southern Appalachia. The Press is controlled by the Publications Committee and the Board of Directors, the members of which are appointed by the Chief Administrative Officers of the member institutions and agencies of the corporation. Appalachian State University Copyright © 1986 by the Appalachian Consortium, Inc. all rights reserved. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Appalachian Consortium Press Publications Description An account of the resource This collection contains digitized monographs and collections from the Appalachian Consortium Press. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Appalachian Consortium Press Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Appalachian Consortium Press Date Issued Date of formal issuance (e.g., publication) of the resource. June 1, 2017 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource <a title="Digital Scholarship and Initiatives" href="http://library.appstate.edu/services/digital-scholarship-and-initiatives" target="_blank">Digital Scholarship and Initiatives</a> Publication Digital Publisher Digital Republication Appalachian State University Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Cabin: A Mountain Adventure Description An account of the resource This is the story of the Hallowell family's years in Western North Carolina as related by Barbara Hallowell. She and her family were northeasterners from New Jersey and Pennsylvania and experienced life as an "outsider" when they moved to Hendersonville, North Carolina in the Southern Appalachian region in the early 1970s. Illustrations are by Aline Hansens.<br /><br /><a href="https://drive.google.com/open?id=1XicLsRq18TOQGQjTwVBCzvSVoY8Bdwdz" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Download EPub<br /></a><br /><a title="UNC Press Link" href="https://www.uncpress.org/book/9781469636566/cabin/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">UNC Press Print on Demand</a> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Hallowell, Barbara G. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Appalachia Consortium Press Subject The topic of the resource Mountain life--Appalachian Region, Southern Appalachian Region, Southern--Social life and customs Hallowell, Barbara G., 1924- North Carolina--Biography Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1986 Language A language of the resource English Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant ||||osm Hendersonville (N.C.) Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource PDF Biographies E-books Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed</a> Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. https://www.geonames.org/4470592/hendersonville.html Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a title="UA 76 Appalachian Consortium records" href="https://appstate-speccoll.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/9" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"> UA 76 Appalachian Consortium records </a> Is Part Of A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included. <a title="Appalachian Consortium Press Publications" href="https://omeka.library.appstate.edu/collections/show/82" target="_blank" rel="noopener"> Appalachian Consortium Press Publications</a> Temporal Coverage Temporal characteristics of the resource. 1980s Appalachia autobiography idyllic outsiders rural https://omeka-test.library.appstate.edu/files/original/db5bcaf0924d87be27234850012891d3.pdf eb9707e3cdc523327667d791b59c2c5f PDF Text Text In Nineteen Five I became alive and what I found around this town Was joy and tears for 50 years. I. Origins1 In 1799, my great-great grandfather [surname?] was a chicken farmer in the town of Pushalot, in the state of Lithuania, in the Soviet Union. It was a hard life in the town of Pushalot. The winters were nine months long and unendurably cold. The summers were hot and rainy. There were occasional pogroms or Russian Cossaks rampaging through the streets terrorizing the countryside, gypsies stealing everything in sight, including sometimes even children, and always there was the threat of Siberia. My ancestors, like most Jews, were very poor, hard working and suffering. My greatgreat grandfather bought eggs from all the chicken farmers, packed them carefully on a wagon, covered them with straw to keep them cool and fresh and rode many miles to Kovna, Vilna and Riga to sell the eggs at the big city markets. In 1825, my great grandfather served as a rabbi in Pushalot. In 1872, my grandfather opened a kretchma in Pushalot. A kretchma is a Russian inn somewhat like out modern motels, only they didn’t have swimming pools or air conditioning. It was a place travelers could stop for food or drink or spend the night. One day a Bolshevik on horseback stopped at the Inn and drank a lot of vodka. He got fresh with my grandmother, who I understand was a good looking girl in those days. My father, a teenage boy, picked up a piece of stove wood, hit him on the head and knocked him out. That was an awful crime in Russia for a Jewish boy. My grandfather made a temporary settlement with the Russian and gave him 50 rubles. My father thought that they may send him to jail or Siberia, so he stole his way across the border into Germany. He didn’t like Germany, so he left Germany and made his way to South Africa. He went to work as a house painter in Johannesburg. He became ill from the lead poisoning in the paint. There were no United Way or Federate Jewish Charities down there, but someone took pity on him and nursed him back to health. He sold cigarettes and sandwiches at a stock exchange and he finally opened a resturant. 1 Cite reference �In 1898, right before the English-Boer War, my father sold his resturant for gold coins, got a money belt, and went down to Cape Town. He had a cousin in Australia and a brother in Jacksonville, Florida. By a flip of a coin he came over to Jacksonville, Florida. In Jacksonville, Florida, he went to night school to learn to read and write English. Just Think . . . “Just think,” said Leo Finkelstein, pawnbroker extraordinary, to the writer yesterday, “but for the fall of a coin ‘heads up’ in South Africa nearly fifty years ago, I would be selling kangaroos today in Australia.” We looked at Leo, who was giving such a strange answer to an ordinary question as to the state of business, but he seemed to be in good health and there was nothing in his manner to indicate a sudden stroke or something. Then he continued: “yessir, when my father (Harry L. Finkelstein) was a young man, and many years before I was born, he was in business at Johannesburg, South Africa. He had been in England and was getting tired of South Africa, so when an Englishman came along and gave him (my father) the choice of going to Australia with him, or of visiting the United States, my father tossed up an English shilling: ‘heads for America, tails for Australia’. It came down with heads up, and that is why I am running a poor man’s bank in Asheville, instead of being a kangaroo millionaire in Australia”. Then Leo added the information that his father never regretted the fact that the coin fell for America. “He often told me as a boy”, said the young man, “that he would rather live in Asheville than any place on earth”. -from unknown newspaper dated 1935 The History of Macy Meisal Slott’s Family As Told By The Patriarch Himself Just in case you don’t recognize me, I am your grandfather patriarch, Zaida Macy Meisal. Some of you are named after me: all the Miltons, Michaels, Morrises, Mays, Michels, Melvins and Matthews . . . All named after me, and I am flattered that your parents held my memory in such high regard. My wife was named Faga and all of you Fannies, Fagas, Florences, Frances were named after her. Our parents made the Chiddach between Faga and me before we ever met each other. Boy, were we scared! But, little by little we became acquainted and we had eight children, four boys and four girls. Our first born was a girl. We named her Michla. She married a man named Itzic Schemer and they had eight children, four boys and four girls, Michla and Itzic did not leave Pushalot, our home shtetl. But many of their children did go to America. I am flattered and delighted to see here tonight descendents of their sons, Berra Hirsha, Fivah, Helman, and Velval, and their daughters, Faga Cohen and Malcha Rose. . . Many of Michla’s family live in Jacksonville and are well known to each other. It is especially wonderful to see so many from out-of-town: form Texas, Faga’s children- Ben Cohen and his wife Marjorie, Ely Cohen and his daughter Sandra, Frank Cohen (Fort Worth’s 1975 Physician of the Year) and his wife Sara, daughters, Ann Prenovitz and husband Jacob of Boston, Sary Zimmerman and husband Raymond of Texas. . . Will you all stand so the eyes of Jacksonville can gaze into the eyes of Texas. More of Michla’s out of town family through son Helman, Ben Schemer and his wife Helen, Ft. Lauderdale, FL Willaim Schemer and his wife Val, �Miami. Through son Fivah, all from Miami, all from Miami, Maurice Schemer and his wife Dorothy, Stephen Schemer and his wife Esther, Isadore Schemer and his wife Laura, Fannie Siegel and her husband Irvin. Through son Berra Hirsha Dorothy Legum and husband Irving and son Terry, Richmond, VA. Lynn Legum from Philadelphia, PA, Cheryl Lebeau and husband Jerry, Atlanta, GA, Lee Shemer and wife Lil, Newport News, VA. Through son Helman, Barbara Zwerin and husband Harley, Clearwater, FL. Through daughter Malcha Rose, Etta Drashin and husband Bob, St. Augustine, FL. The oldest descendant here tonight is Minnie Morgenstern, 86, who just beat Max Rose, 85. Our second child was also a girl and we named her Etta. She married Yudi Carmel. They brought their three boys and three girls to America in 1899. All of my children were wonderful but my Etta was an exceptional person. She was the most unselfish, charitable, kindliest, energetic person of her time. She brought many of our family to America. She provided for them in every way until they could help themselves. She shared her worldly goods and love with everyone. She was a regular saint, you should pardon the expression. Children of her daughter, Esther who is 94 and living in Baltimore, and daughter Fannie, who just passed away at the age of 96 and children of her son Frank, have come a long way to be with us tonight. From VA, Macy Carmel and his wife Rose, Melvin Carmel and his wife Sylvia, Percy Carmel, Miriam Carmel, Harriet Kirsner, Mildred Fox, Louis Richman and his wife Tznia and their three daughters. Helda Kirsner from Charlotte, NC. From Baltimore, MD, Harriet Hackerman, Dolly Hackerman Asbell, Milton Hackerman and his wife Mildred. We don’t know exactly how Melvin and Kay Zweig of Chevy Chase, MD and Lester and Eileen Gordon of St. Petersburg, FL fit into the family. If they are not Michpaucha, we certainly wish they were. . . .Will all please stand. My next child was Rossa. She was married to Sarya Sherman, and they had five boys and two girls. Rossa’s children came to this country but Rossa passed away in Pushalot as a very young woman. From Hallandale, FL, Ruth (Cissy) Serman Levy who is the daughter of Rossa’s son Harry and Her Husband Sam is here representing that branch of our family..... Please stand. Our fourth child, finally we had an ingelleh and could make a Bris. We called him Itzic. He had two boys and two girls, all of them came to this country and the families of his sons Harry and Abe and daughters Malcha Kramer and Faga Foor are represented here this evening. Irvin Slott and wife Lois from Bethesda, MD. William Foor and wife Carol, Miami, FL. Elise Foor Haas, husband Frank, Boynton Beach, FL, Renee Slott Montaigne, son Jeffrey, Atlanta, GA. Dr. Marvin Slott, Gainesville, FL. Please stand. Our next daughter we named Miriam and she married Mayer David Cohen. My, was I proud to have a Cahan in the family. They had four boys and four girls, and all came to live in America. Some of their family live here in Jacksonville, and others have travelled thousands of miles.. Sadie Cohen and Florence Levin, Baltimore, MD. Dr. Eileen Cohen, PA. Bessie Cohen Eisenstat and husband Berry from Atlanta, GA. Carl Proser and his wife Helen from Greenville, SC. Helen Sloat Samuel, Sacramento, CA. Lisa Sloat, Miami, FL. Please stand. Then we had another boy and we named him Herschel. He called himself Harry, and �Harry was some sport. He took the last name of Goldman when he came to this country. Our name in the old country was Zloty. It is a Lithuanian coin made of gold. All of our family took the name of Slott to make it more acceptable in America, but Harry took the last name of Goldman, represented by the gold coin. He came to Jacksonville, in 1887 because there was another Pushaloter family here named Finkelstein but they are not Mishpocha, just Landsleit. He [Harry Goldman?] built a big business, was a city councilman and very active in the local community. He brought and helped to establish many of our family to Jacksonville. He had two boys and two girls. His reputation and accomplishments earned him recognition and biographical history is on record in the Florida Archives in the History of the State of Florida. Our next child was Lippa. He called himself Lippman Slott in America and had three boys and five girls and lived in Chicago where he established a meat packing business that his descendants still operate. Our last child was also a boy whom we named Shopsal. He was everyone’s favorite. He came to America but returned to Pushlot to be with Faga and me. I needed him in the business. It is touching to think that we perhaps have family who still live in Lithuania now and are not known to you in America or maybe only the ones who have survived are you in America. You must certainly count your blessings and bless the memory of your parents who had the initiative and gedult to leave the tiny, familiar world of Pushalot to risk their lives and future to establish a new life and hope in America. It was a hard life in Mein Shtetle Pushalot, in a country then called Litta or Lithuania to you. The winters were nine months long and unendurably cold. The summers were extremely hot and rainy. The Goyim barely tolerated us and there were occasional pogroms, or Russian Cossaks rampaging through the countryside or Tzygainer, gypsies stealing everything in sight including sometimes even children, and always there was the threat of Siberia. Like most Jews, we were very poor, hard-working and suffering. My business, I bought eggs from the chicken farmers and packed them carefully in my wagon, covered them with straw to keep them cool and fresh and rode many viorts, miles to you, to Kovna, Vilna, Ponivis, and once in a while to Riga, to sell eggs in the big city markets. I hated the long horse drawn wagon ride and hated being away from my Fagalaand Kinderlach all week from Monday to Friday and often what life would be like, if I were a rich man! But we had good times too in Pushalot. We went to schul a lot. The kinder went to Cheder a lot, our wives benched a lot, we blessed after each meal, we sang songs a lot, we had Bar Mitzvahs and we had weddings. I’ll never forget the Chasinah of our first daughter Michla. What a wedding! After that wedding did we have trouble with our next two daughters, Etta and Rossa. They were so jealous that Michlas had a husband, they nagged us to consult the Shotchun to negotiate a Shiddach for them. I immediately had to set aside the Nadan, the dowry for those two and consult with the Yenta. �But my children were restless. . . They had heard geshichtes about in America. The land of milk and honey with streets paved with gold. No risks seemed too great to escape the agony of serving in the army of the Russian Tzar or the pogroms of the Cossaks. They would not be denied. No obstacles were too great to stop them. . not even the forged visas, not leaving home in the night stealing across unpatrolled borders, enduring the forty-five days rough ocean voyage in steerage class, subsisting on salted herring and black bread to arrive in America. Here in the land of milk and honey. This is the land of milk and honey This is the land of sun and song, And this is a world of good and plenty, Humble and proud and young and strong, And, this is the place where the hopes of the homeless, And the dreams of the lost combine. And, this lovely land is yours and mine. So my children and their children came to America, destitute but determined. They tasted and endured the bitterness of poverty, desperation, and disappointment with dignity, spirit, hopefulness and perseverance to seize the opportunities and glory in the freedom of Columbus’ Medina. . .Our America! Not all of my children could have biographical histories of their lives published in the archives of records, but everyone of them, Michla, Etta, Rossa, Itzic, Miriam, Harry, Lippa, and Shopsal have their accomplishments and noble characteristics inscribed in the hearts of the families and friends whose lives they touched. I am going to fade out of your sight. . .and leave you with just your memories. . . Origins of the Pawnshop The Pawnshop was originated in China 3,000 years ago. established in Bavaria in 1557[?] legally adopted by France during the 18th century London became enchanted with the money-making plan a few years later and it wasn’t long before Pope Leo IX publicly expressed his approval. Five Brothers Finkelstein Five brothers came to the United states at the beginning of the 20th Century and opened pawnshops: Louis Finkelstein at Florence, SC Moe Finkelstein at Columbia, SC Chas. Finkelstein at Wilmington, SC Neal Finkelstein at Jacksonville, FL My father, Harry Finkelstein at Asheville, NC. II. The Dawn of the Twentieth Century in Asheville �In 1900, my father became ill and the doctor in Jacksonville told him the only place to go to get cured would be the mountains. He came up to Asheville, and Doctor Smith told him he would die of anything except what they sent him to Asheville for, so that he might as well go back to Jacksonville. He like Asheville so much he decided to stay here. In 1903, he opened a pawn shop at 23 South Main Street (now Biltmore Avenue). He married Fanny Sherman from Newport News, Virginia, and they made their home in an apartment on Ashland Avenue. In 1905, my father became a citizen of the United States. Among the organizations he joined were the Asheville Board of Trade (now The Asheville Chamber of Commerce), the Fraternal Order of Eagles, Suez Temple of the Oramatic Order of Khorosson, Lodge #1401 BPO, Elks, Mt. Herman Masonic Lodge, Scottish Rite Masonic Lodge, Oasis Temple of Shriners, Congregation Bikur Cholim (now Beth Isreal), and Congregation Betha-Ha-Tephila. So, in Asheville, North Carolina, the Twentieth Century began with: -The pawnbroker named Finkelstein. -S. H. Friedman, who operated a furniture store. He came to Asheville from Maryland, where he peddled tinware. His son, Nat Friedman, later operated the Susquehana Antique Co. -A Jewish lawyer by the name of Goldstein. -A Jewish plumber by the name of A.J. Huvard. He married E.C. Goldberg’s sister. E.C. Goldberg ran a news stand next to the Imperial Theater on Patton Avenue for years. -A Jewish dentist by the name of I. Mitchell Mann. -Harry Blomberg’s father who came to Asheville in 1887. He operated the Racket Store on Biltmore Avenue for many years. -The Palais Royal Department Store operated by Morris Meyers for 40 years. He was a charter member of Congregation Beth-Ha-Tephila and he came to Asheville in 1887. -The Bon Marche Department Store operated by Solomon Lipinsky. -A Jewish postman who delivered mail by the name of Barney Seigle. I was particularly interested in Barney because he had a sister by the name of Ester, who was in my class in high school — a beautiful and affectionate student. -An industrialist named Seigfred Sternberg. -Dan Michalove, who worked at the first movie houses in town and finally advanced to Vice-President of Paramount Pictures and was put in charge of all their theaters in Australia. -Lou Pollock, who operated a shoe store at the corner of South Main and Eagle Streets. He once ran a shoe sale for $.98 a pair. -Leo Cadison, who came here for his health, operated a ladies clothing store on Pack Square, finally moved to Washington, D.C., and became an attorney by act of Congress. He was a speech writer for the Attorrney General of the United States. -An orthodox Rabbi by the name of Londow. -Morris Myers served as Exalted Ruler of the Old Elks Lodge #608. �In 1883 Jews were arriving to become pioneers in the Asheville community. Some came to make a better livelihood and for opportunity. The moderate climate and mountain air attracted others to Asheville, a growing medical haven for the sufferers of chronic respiratory diseases. Congregation Beth-Ha-Tephila August 23, 1891, twenty-seven men met in Lyceum Hall and adopted a constitution for Congregation Beth-Ha-Tephila. Among the charter members were the Blomberg, Lipinsky, and Zagier families. It is noted that the dues were $10 a year, payable in advance. Lyceum Hall was the first home of the Congregation. It was rented from a fraternal order for $75 a year. Congregation Bikur Cholim Rabbi Londow became the rabbi for Congregation Bikur Cholim whose articles of incorporation were filed in the Court Clerk’s office in February 1899. The incorporators were J.B. Schwartzberg, A. Blomberg, Sam Feinstein, S.H. Michalove, A. Shenbaum, M. Zuglier, and R.B. Zagier. Since the community could not pay Rabbi Londow a decent wage, he operated a Jewish grocery store on the side. He was a kindly old gentleman with a big beard, wore his hat around the grocery store at all times except when a lady called him on the telephone. He would remove the hat during the conversation and put it back on his head after the phone call. I remember a big barrel of herring in the center of the store. Plain herring were 5 cents each and milk herring ten cents. A newly married lady in the Congregation once called Rabbi Londow and complained that a duck she bought from him was old and too tough to eat. Rabbi Londow asked what she expected him to do --- look down the duck’s mouth and count its teeth! The first religious services of Bikur Cholim I remember attending were on the second floor of a building at the corner of Patton Avenue and Church Street. It was early in the life of Bikur Cholim that the congregation split up due to a big argument. Half of the members formed another congregation and called it Anshei Hashuron. They rented a second floor of an apartment house at the corner of Central Avenue and Woodfin Street. However, through the efforts of the impartial moderates, a compromise was reached and a permanent division averted. Nevertheless, the apartment was kept for a religious school. It was here I received my first Hebrew lesson. Rabbi Fox was teaching us the four questions to ask at our Passover meal. At this time my father would attend all the board meetings of Bikur Cholim. He would come home upset and nervous. Dr. Smith suggested he not attend any more Synagogue meetings due to his high blood pressure. Rabbi Fox was active on the 9th and 10th degrees of Scottish Rite Masonry. After his death I assumed his parts in these degrees and I am still on the degree teams. �Orthodox rules and Hebrew School 75 to 100 years ago there were two synagogues in Asheville. My family belonged to the orthodox. The orthodox had strict rules for obeying the Sabbath which began Friday at sundown and ended Saturday night. The members of Bikur Cholim who owned an automobile would put them in the garage on Friday evening to observe the Sabbath and wouldn’t take them out until Saturday after sun down. Most of the members lived within walking distance of the Synagogue. To obey the Sabbath correctly you were not allowed to operate a business, spend money, smoke, strike a match, work, cook and many other activities were forbidden. Remember this was about 100 years ago. You weren’t supposed to tear paper. Now if you had a bathroom with paper on a roll, you tore the paper off for Friday in case it may be needed for the Sabbath. The same rule applies to outhouses with old Sears Roebuck catalogues. As far as I know none of these rules are observed today. In 1911, erection of a house of worship was started on South Liberty Street for Congregation Bikur Cholin. Although it wasn’t completed until 1916, the Hebrew School moved there in 1912. When I was 11 years old I attended Hebrew school conducted by the rabbi on Saturday morning in the edifice of the synagogue. The sanctuary contained nothing but pews and a coal stove for heat. The basement was used for storage and rest rooms. In the winter time the rabbi fixed the stove for a fire Friday so that it could be lit Saturday morning to produce heat for the Hebrew class. Since the rabbi shouldn’t light a fire or spend money on the Sabbath, he arranged for a boy in the neighborhood to light the fire Saturday morning. He placed a dime under a prayer book Friday and told the boy where to get a dime after lighting the fire on Saturday. Even in those days educational institutions had trouble with rebelling students. One real cold morning the boy didn’t show up to light the fire. We were attending Hebrew class in sweaters, coats and overcoats and it was awful cold. I asked to be excused and coming up from the basement I reported to Rabbi Redunsky that the plumbing must have frozen as there was water leaking in several places. The Rabbi went to see about it. I advised the class that there were no broken pipes and suggested that we leave the building --- which we did --- not to return until warm weather. For your information, there was no water leaking. While my sisters Rosa and Hilda and I were still children and our parents were out of town for health reasons, Doctor Schandler’s father Dave Schandler, would invite us over to his house for meals, especially on Passover and other religious holy days. About this time when our house at 213 Broadway was being built, I was sliding down a �sloping board and got a big splinter in my rear end. My father couldn’t get it out so he took me to Dr. Mann, the dentist, and he got it out --- no charge. The building of the Synagogue was completed in 1916 and the day before the eve of Rosh-Hashonah a fire completely destroyed the building. Mrs. Rosenfeld had a Jewish Boarding House next door and she cried and complained that she had just cleaned her house for Yontiff and smoke had dirtied the place up. The Masonic Temple was offered to us to use for the High Holy Day Services and we accepted. After the fire that destroyed Bikur Cholim Synagogue on South Liberty Street the second floor of the Sondley Building on Broadway was rented for the use of the congregation. A member of the congregation, a young man, forgot he had made a date with a waitress in the Langren Hotel and attended the meeting of the congregation. The lady waited in front of the Masonic Temple with a gun and took a shot at him after the meeting when he was leaving the building. She missed. After going to Hebrew School in the building we would stop and examine the hole the bullet made in the front wall of the building. The Cemetery In those days Asheville was a place that offered a cure for tuberculosis. Many sanatoriums were located in the hills around town. A Jewish man died in one of the sanatoriums and had no money or family. No cemetery in town would bury him unless someone paid $100 for the grave. It was then that nine Jewish men formed the “West Asheville Hebrew Cemetery Association Inc.” My father was the first president. In their bylaws it was stated that anyone of Jewish faith could be buried there. The price of a grave was $100 and if there was no one to pay it there would be no charge. The cemetery changed it’s name some years later to “Mt. Sinai Cemetery” and sometime after to “The Lou Pollock Memorial Park.” After father died, Lou Pollock became president. After his death, I was the vice-president and assumed the duties of the president. I conferred with David Adler and set up a meeting between the directors of the cemetery and members of Beth Israel. The ownership of the cemetery was transferred to Beth Israel. The following names of the nine founders can be seen on a plaque at the entrance to the cemetery bearing the date 1916: Sam Feinstein, Isaac Michalove, Lou Pollock, S.W. Silverman, Sender Argentar, Rabbi Elias Fox, Dave Schundler, Barney Pearlman, Harry Finkelstein. Benevolent Societies Around this time my father felt that some homemade chicken soup would help the Jewish patients in the sanatoriums. A number of Jewish women set up a kitchen and once a week hot chicken soup was made available to the Jewish patients and to others who requested it. Rabbi Fox acquired business interests in Asheville and served as part-time Rabbi. He was associated with a local butcher who made kosher meat available. He would go by the homes of members and kill the chickens. In 1917, some of us young Jewish boys decided that we ought to have a YMHA or a Community Center in Asheville. Rabbi Fox met with us and suggested that we form a YMHA. �He said a community center was for the community only, but a bigger and better organization would be a YMHA because it extended from coast to coast. He told us a story about when he first came to this country and wanted to see the Brooklyn Bridge. He found a man who could talk Yiddish and after looking at the bridge he asked why they built the bridge with a lot of little cables instead of one big cable. The man explained to him that if one or two cables broke it would not harm the bridge, but if there was one big cable and it broke the bridge would fall in. Rabbi Fox said that therefore us boys should be little cables and hold up the YMHA we were going to form. Mr. Sternberg and Mr. Leavitt Seventy-five years ago there was no United Way in Asheville. There were many local charitable organizations sponsored by churches, synagogues, houses of worship, also the YMCA, the Salvation Army, the Elks Lodge and the Jewish Ladies Aid Society. Lion Joe Sternberg’s father was active in civic, religious, fraternal organizations in Asheville. At that time he was collecting donations for the “Ladies Aid Society” of Asheville. He went to see Mr. Leavitt who operated a ladies ready to wear store on South Main St. near Pack Square. He wouldn’t donate more than $5 and this didn’t please Mr. Sternberg. Mr. Sternberg was the owner of the building in which Mr. Leavitt operated his store. He found Mr. Leavitt violated the terms of his lease because he sublet a portion of the store for a shoe department. Mr. Sternberg told Mr. Leavitt that he would have to give the Ladies Aid Society a suitable donation or vacate the building because he had violated the terms of the lease. They selected three men to determine what amount Mr. Leavitt should give the Ladies Aid Society. It was agreed that the amount they decided would be satisfactory to Mr. Sternberg and Mr. Leavitt. Mr. Sternberg selected a man to represent himself. Also Mr. Leavitt picked out the second man. They needed a man to represent both of them and finally selected my father. The committee decided that Mr. Leavitt should donate $500 to the Ladies Aid Society. ------ In 1936, the movements in founding a Jewish Community Center and to organize Federated Jewish Charities in Asheville was started by Julius Levitch through B’nai B’rith. In 1947 a testimonial dinner was held for his outstanding service to the Jewish Community. ----- On July 25, 1923, the Emporium Department Store owned by Jack Blomberg at the corner of Pack Square and South Main Street was destroyed by a major fire. It was feared that the entire block of Eagle Street would be destroyed. Many of the Jewish merchants who operated clothing stores in the block brought their insurance polices and books to the pawnshop across the street and requested that we put them in our safes which were two of the largest moveable safes in town. These two safes are now located at 21 Broadway. My father and the Sheriff’s Department In the early days of the century, my father would give each member of the Buncombe County Sheriff’s department cuff links for a Christmas present. In appreciation, the Sheriff would always send my father a gallon of corn whiskey. We �always thanked the Sheriff for his gift even though none of my family drank corn whiskey. Flanders 20 About 75 years ago the Studebaker Corporation made two automobiles - the Flanders 20, 20 horsepower and the Emf. 30, 30 horsepower. My family owned a Flanders 20. To start the engine you used a hand crank in front of the auto. You lowered the spark control lever because if you didn’t, you might get a kickback on the crank and get your arm broken. If you had a flat tire, you had to raise the wheel with a hand jack, take the tire off and fix the inner tube with patches that you always carried with you. You had a hand pump to inflate the tire again. Some owners of the Flanders 20 bragged that sometimes they could drive up the hill on South Main Street (now Biltmore Ave.) from Depot St. to Pack Square in high gear and they didn’t have to shift to a second gear. There was a dirt road to Hendersonville. Some of it was red clay that would become slick when it rained. One small section of the road became very slick due to its location. There was a man there with a mule. For a small fee he would hitch the mule to the front of the auto and pull you out of the bad place with the help of the engine of the car. We were invited to a wedding in Hendersonville by Mr. Lewis whose sister, Rose, was getting married to a young attorney named Joe Patece. He practiced law in Asheville for many years. We took our Flanders 20 to the wedding with a couple of our friends. We had no trouble as it didn’t rain. Coming back to Asheville we got a flat tire near Skyland and stopped to fix it. We noticed a lot of berries growing near the road and we all began to eat them. A farmer saw us and accused us of stealing his berries. He took out a warrant for my father. The trial was to be heard by a Justice of Peace in Skyland. My father employed a young lawyer by the name of Bob Reynolds. Bob Reynolds in later years became a U.S. Senator. The Justice of Peace office was too small to hold the crowd that came to the trial so it was held under a large oak tree outdoors. I heard that Bob gave a great speech to the crowd and the Justice of the Peace ordered my father just to pay the farmer a small amount for the berries. The moral of this event is: Don’t eat wild berries beside an old road. You are liable to have more troubles than a stomach ache. Beginning to work When I was eight years old, I started selling newspapers. I wasn’t doing very good so my father gave me job in the pawnshop at 50 cents per week. I had to save 25 cents of it. I was to work when there was no school activity or important events pertaining to my education. I was given Saturday afternoon off to go fishing and Saturday morning to see a serial movie at the �Galaxy movie house on pack square. Many people left their musical instruments as collateral for loans I tried out my musical ability on a guitar, a ukulele, a violin and a saxophone. I took violin lessons from Mr. Popatards, piano lessons from Mrs. Cliphant. My mother insisted that I practice on the piano one hour a day. School In 1911, I started school at Montford Avenue Grammar School. In 1922, I went to UNC-Chapel Hill for 2 days, and had to come home to run the pawnshop. In the February 1922 graduating class in Asheville High School, there were 5 boys and 14 girls. Therefore, each boy was expected to take 3 girls to the Senior Class Dance of February 1922. Things were better when we had a dance for the entire school. There were three Jewish girls in the total 1922 class — Madeline Blomberg, Eva Sternberg, and Ester Seigle. I was the only student to take an automobile to school in 1922. It was a Paige make with a “bathtub back” model. I was the business manager of the “Hillbilly,” the school monthly magazine. I was given any study hall period off that I wanted to collect for ads that appeared in the magazine, so I would take my auto and a girl to help me from the study hall. After collecting for one ad we would ride over to the Charlotte Street Drug Store and participate in ice cream sodas for the balance of the study hall period. Asheville Dixie Jazz Band In 1921, Jr and a violin player from Lewis Funeral Home, Frank McCormiak, formed the first musical outfit Asheville High School ever had. Below is a poem from an issue of the 1921 school paper, “The Hillbilly.” The Dixie Jazz Band Boys and girls, have you heard the news, A new way to get lively without any booze, Just come around and give us your hand, We’re the members of the “Dixie Jazz Band.” We play and play and never get weary, We’ll jazz you up and make you cherry, We’ll make you dance and never set still You’ll have to shimmy, against your will The drummer is a drummer by trade, The fiddler is a musician, self-made, The flute is the best you’ve ever heard, The mandolin sounds like a mocking bird. Leo Finkelstein �Pisgah 1922 In reporting from my historical records on Lion Joe Sternberg, president of our club in 1960-61, I’ve talked about his father, old man Sternberg and Joe’s sister, Eva. I reported that Lion Joe and I were seniors in the 1922 class of Asheville High School. Now, Lion Joe’s mother, Mrs. Sternberg, phoned me and advised me that she was entertaining Joe and three other members of the 1922 class with a trip to the top of Mt. Pisgah. Eva graduated in 1921 but wanted to go with them. Her mother asked if I would like to go and look after Eva if she went, and I told her that I would be delighted. They all picked me up the next morning and Mrs. Sternberg drove us to the home of Mr. & Mrs. Rufus O’Kelly who lived at the base of Mt. Pisgah in her 7 passenger Mormon automobile. We had lunch of possum and sweet potatoes. There was one dirt road (one way) to the top of Mt. Pisgah, 5 miles long. An auto had to go up in the morning at daylight and was allowed to come down after 1 PM until dark. We hiked to a cleared section. Mr. O’Kelly chaperoned the trip and built us a large bonfire and was fixing something to eat. Eva was unpacking some things and I noticed a large bottle of Bromo-Seltzer. I asked if she expected someone to have a headache. She said, “No, I opened a pint bottle of father’s bottled whiskey, took half of it and filled the Bromo-Seltzer bottle. Now you and I can have a drink before we eat.” “That’s a good idea,” I said, “but what is your father going to say when he finds out?” She said, “no problem. I filled the empty half of the whiskey bottle with water.” At nighttime she and I sat around the fire drinking a few drinks of Bromo-Seltzer. ----- On Sundays in 1925, the Jewish crowd of teenagers and somewhat older boys and girls would gather at the home of the Sternbergs on Victoria Road. The Sternbergs had four children: Eva, Joe, Johanna, and Rose. One of the older girls in the crowd was named Jennie. One day I asked her how she managed to be so popular among the boys, and her answer was, “Well, I’m not so pretty, but I’m catchie”. ----- I dated Eva and one night I called at the house to take her out and her father yelled to us from the second floor of the house “Don’t you go to no road houses,” and Eva replied “What’s the matter papa --- you afraid we are going to find you there!” William Jennings Bryan On July 7, 1896, William Jennings Bryan delivered the “Cross of Gold” speech and won the Democratic party nomination for Vice President of the United States. In 1900 he was nominated again for Vice President. In 1908 he was nominated for President of the United States. Later in life he moved to Asheville and his home was at the corner of Evelyn place and Kimberly Avenue--just a few houses away from where Lion Jack Cole now lives. �Mr. Bryan asked by father to order him a special made double barrel Parker shot gun with 28" barrels modified and choke bores, and a 23/4 inch drop. After receiving the gun he wrote my father a letter of thanks. I had this letter in my historical files and it disappeared. Now I don’t know whether to blame it on the Democrats or Republicans. The Emporium Fire of 1923 On July 25, 1923, the Emporium Department store owned by Jack Blomberg at the corner of Pack Square and South Main Street was destroyed by a major fire. It was feared that the entire block of South Main Street (Biltmore Avenue) would be destroyed Many of the merchants who operated clothing stores in the block brought their insurance policies and books to Finkelstein ‘s pawnshop across the street and requested that we put them in our safes which were two of the largest moveable safes in town. The two safes are now located at 21 Broadway. Sewing Machine Mystery A sewing machine was brought in for a loan. The next day some ladies from a church walked in from a church society identified the machine and claimed it had been stolen from the church. The pawn ticket was hunted. “What’s the name on the record?” one of the women inquired. It was read off. “What!” Shrieked the group in unison. “That’s the name of our pastor!” And, the mystery was cleared up. The fact that someone else had pawned the machine giving the reverend’s name. III. Asheville in the 1930's Lions Club I remember when I became a member of the Asheville Lions Club in 1930. The club had 16 members and I was the 17th. Our meetings were held at the S.W. Cafeteria on Patton Ave. In a meeting room on the second floor. A good meal could be had at a cost of less than one dollar. I remember when the club’s membership reached 100 held a stag party at the ski club on top of Beaucatcher Mountain. Out of 100 members we had 97 attend. Three were absent on account of being out of town The club was operated by Boyd and Albertine Maxwell and their daughter was the hostess Albertine was a professional dancer and she did a ‘snake dance’ to entertain the party. Lion Dan Furr fixed us a special drink consisting of a assortment of fluids that we called “Scrape the bottom.” We had a big spaghetti dinner. The cast of the evening was $1.50 per member. The young lady who was hostess, in appreciation of me bringing the Lions Club there for a party, taught me to dance the “Charleston,” a new dance that had just started. I remember when I drove my new automobile to the Stag Party with Lion John Thayer. The automobile was an Terraplane Sedan that Lion Johnnie Groome sold me. It had an electric �gear shift controlled by buttons on the steering wheel. It also had a stick shift in front of the center of the front seat that could be used when the electric shift failed to work. Going down Beaucater Mountain in the Terraplain, Lion John Thayer who had drank a substantial amount of Scrape the bottom,” acted funny, yanked the gear shift stick loose and threw it out of the car into the woods of Beaucatcher mountain. The next day Lion John and I searched the woods, found the stick shift and replaced it. I remember when the club held a “womanless wedding” at a Ladies Night Banquet March 14, 1939 and Lion Dan Furr was the flower girl. I remember when in 1939 the club presented a pair of lions to the city zoo and a few weeks later a baby lion was born. It was named “Leo.” I remember when an alarm clock was placed at the speaker’s table at the club meetings set to alarm at 2 o’clock with a sign: OUR MEETING CLOSES A 2 O’CLOCK AND WE DO NOT APPRECIATE DIRTY JOKES. I remember when Jack Cole was president of the Asheville Lions Club. We held a ladies night banquet at the Battery Park Hotel. Lion Jack invited a U.S. Congressman, Lion Roy Taylor, to make a talk for the gathering. It took Lion Jack 20 minutes to introduce Congressman Taylor. Roy Taylor in response said that there must be a mistake. “It looks like Lion Jack Cole was to give the address and I should have introduced him.” I remember when City Manager Burdette announced to City Council that the police department’s new traffic bureau will begin operating and that ordinances will be strictly enforced. Mr. Burdette left no doubt in the minds of a Lion’s Club committee who called to complain about the parking problem. I remember when Lion Joe Dave announced that the club delivered five pigs to the Candler Pig Club in connection with the Chamber of Commerce’s plan for improvement of water in North Carolina’s livestock through cooperation of civic clubs. I remember when in 1938 at a Lions Club golf Tournament I promised to give a prize for the winner of the first flight. I wrote a check for $1,000 and since I won the first flight, I presented the check to myself. I remember when Lion Roy Phillips, advertising director of the Asheville Citizen-Times talked to me as President of the Lion’s Club and wanted the Club to sponsor a Turtle Race and buy a page ad in the newspaper. I told him to present it to the board of directors that I wouldn’t take the responsibility of investing in a turtle race. He told me I couldn’t be a good president of the club and let grass grow under my feet. I told him that he wasn’t talking to one of his advertising salesman that he was talking to me as President of the club and if he wanted a turtle race to present it to the board of directors at their regular meeting. There was no turtle race. I remember when I was dating a nice young lady in Asheville by the name of Pearl. Pearl was hostess in a restaurant I used to eat at. The Lions Club was giving a Ladies Night �dinner and Governor Hoey was to be our speaker. I was told that I couldn’t bring Pearl. Governor Hoey’s daughter was coming to the dinner and I’d have to set with her at the speaker’s table. It was an uneventful monotonous dinner and when it was over I told the governor’s daughter good night and I went to see Pearl. I remember when a member missed over two meetings Lion Charles Berryman who operated a funeral home would send his ambulance to bring the member to the meeting. I remember when a member missed over three meetings without an excuse. Lion Judge Sam Cathey would send a police car to present the member with the following summons: [City of Asheville etc etc] I remember when I had a phone call from my golf caddie named “Cris” on a Saturday and advised me that Lion Judge Cathey had given him 30 days in jail for fighting and that he wouldn’t be able to caddie for me Sunday. That was a disaster for without “Cris” I just couldn’t play a good game of golf. I called Lion Judge Cathey and advised him of the situation and he told me he would reduce Cris’s sentence from 30 days to one day and for me to go down to the jail and get him. I remember when I was invited to Lioness Hudson’s house for Thanksgiving dinner. She called me the day before and said that Lion Judge Cathey had put her cook in jail and she had no one to cook the dinner. I called Lion Judge Cathey again and told him about it. He arranged for Lion Hudson’s cook to cook over Thanksgiving dinner. I remember when Lion Judge Cathey was named the National Handicap Man of the Year and several of us Lions went to Washington with him receive the award from President Eisenhower. I remember when mimic political campaign speeches by members of the Lions Club were featured at the S.W. Cafeteria during their meeting. In the comic program, four members representing four political parties made “pleas” for support of their candidates for president. Lion Schorr urged the club to vote for Herbert Hoover, Lion Roy Phillips upheld Franklin D. Roosevelt, Lion Nat Friedman asked that William D. Upshaw be given the club’s support and I talked at length on Norman Thomas, socialist candidate. I remember when Lion Dan Stewart, Lion Charlie Miller and I went to Havana, Cuba for an International Convention. We drove to Miami and took the boat to Havana. After the convention - trying to get back to Miami we found it was going to be three days before we could get passage on the boat. I didn’t want to wait three days in Havana so I phoned my girl friend Reggie who was secretary to the Mayor of Miami Beach. She told me she would take care of the situation and for me to go down to the boat office and they would give me passage on the next boat to Miami. She told the boat office they needed me as a witness in a court case, so I spent the night in a big chair in the lounge of the boat that night going to Miami. Reggie and I met Lion Stewart and Lion Ch. Miller in a couple of days and took them fishing. �I remember when on July 10, 1940 the Lions club held a meeting which was described by Lion C.E. Hudson as “in truth the most gratifying gathering of all times in Asheville, of its kind.” It was described by the Asheville Citizen as the largest and most representative civic organization gathering in Asheville in recent years. It was an inter-club banquet and first annual award of the Asheville Lions Club to the most useful civic club member in the city of Asheville, 1939-1940. The idea of this banquet was presented to the Civic Club Union by Lion Jim Divelbiss and myself. They assisted the Lions Club and picked Robert Lee Ellis of the Coca-Cola bottling Company as Asheville’s most useful civic club member in the 1939-40 year. He received a bronze plaque from the Lions Club which he said he would cherish as long as he lived. More than 300 persons representing every civic organization in the city attended the banquet at the Battery Park Hotel. I got Gov. Sholtz of Flirda to make the principal address . Prohibition’s Waning Days It was in 1933, after Franklin Roosevelt was elected president of the United States, that the Volstead Act was repealed and it became legal to sell beer with an alcoholic content on October 1st. I was president of a mens social club, and it became my duty to get beer to serve to the members. This was a difficult job as none was available from distributors around Asheville. 1933 was the year of the Great Depression and Rabbi Goodkowitz bought a second hand truck from Harry Blomberg and was doing some hauling on the side to supplement his income from Bikur - Cholim. Rabbi Goodkowitz said he would go to Baltimore and get us a load of beer as he personally knew the owner of the Valley Forge Beer Company there. I gave him six hundred dollars of the club’s money and he left on a Monday to be back on Thursday. He didn’t show up, but came in the following Monday. The delay was due to the truck breaking down on the trip. Of course I was somewhat concerned but the club had a truck load of Valley Forge Beer available. Leo Cadison saw me and advised that he had talked to the United States Senator Robert R. Reynolds, and the members were starting a campaign to sell the beer before October lst. Captain Fred Jones of the Asheville Police Department and a member of the house committee said he would not recommend selling it before the legal date. At the club that week, I noted about 150 members were present instead of the usual 40. Under “good and welfare” Senator Reynolds, a great orator, spoke in favor of selling the beer and said that we were all brothers in a non-profit and charitable organization, and it would be legal to sell it. Others who spoke in favor of selling the beer were Judge Philip Cocke, State Senator; A. Hall Johnson, Superior Court Judge; Dan Hill, Postmaster; Marcus Erwin, U.S.Attorney; Zeb Mettles, Superior Court Judge; Charles McRae, local attorney; and Leo Cadison. Leo Cadison made a motion that we advise the House Manager to put the beer on ice so that we could drink it after the meting. I advised Mr. Cadison that I could not accept a motion �of an illegal nature but under Robert’s Rules of Parliamentary procedure he could appeal my decision. He appealed and I advised that the question to be voted on would be “Shall the decision of the chair stand” and there would be no discussion. The vote was unanimous against my decision (which suited me) and I instructed the secretary to take everything out of the minutes pertaining to beer, also to advise the house manager to put the beer on ice so we could have it after the meeting. He said that it was too late to advise him because the beer had been on ice for the past two hours. How to Finance a Pawnshop in a Depression It was the Depression of the 1930's. Our loans averaged $10 and we made them as low as 50 cents. The demand was great on loans on diamonds and jewelry. The top loan on a ½ carat diamond was $50 and $200 on a good grade carat. I was running out of money. I saw Perry at the Morris Plan Bank and we agreed to rent a lock box at the Wachovia Bank. Both of us would have a key to it. I would hypothecate the large size diamond and jewelry loans. The ways that worked is I would make the loan, get the cash from Perry on a 90 day note, and put the jewelry in the lock box as security. If the customer came to redeem his jewelry I advised him that jewelry was at the vault at the Wachovia for safekeeping and I would get it for him. This was working very well as the bank was making the legal rate of 6% on 90 day notes which were paid in 30 to 40 days with no refund for unearned interest. I was doing OK also. I charged interest at legal rates plus other expenses incident to the negotiations of the transactions. Then Mr. Wolcott comes to town. He took over the Morris Plan Bank and organized the Bank of Asheville. Perry, the new cashier at the Bank of Asheville, came to see me and said, “Mr. Wolcott advised that the bank wasn’t a pawnshop and to tell Finkelstein to pay off those 90 day notes.” It looked like I was going to have to stop making large jewelry loans and try to meet the 90 day note. But a miracle happened. A girlfriend of mine in the 1922 class of Asheville High School married a man from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, who later committed suicide. She came back to Asheville to live. She saw me and wanted to know if I could help her out. She said she was left a sizeable amount of life insurance and did I know of a safe place where she could invest some of it and get a decent return. I helped her out. Police Chief Beavers On the program of the Asheville Lions Club on July 8, 1992, Chief of Police Beavers talked about prostitution in Asheville and how the APD was trying to cut the activity down. I believe there may be a better way to cut the activity down. In the year 1900 Asheville had a population of 14,694. My historical records indicate at that time the red light district was known as the Eagle Terrace and was operated by a lady known �as “Queen Elizabeth.” There were no problems. The Banov family in Charleston, SC, are part of my kin folks. Doctor Banov was a health physician for Charleston County, SC for 35 years. That was the longest any county health physician stayed in office. In talking to him I found out that the red light district in Charleston, SC, was a large house known as the “Red Brick” on Bensford St. The prostitutes had to have a health certificate from a local doctor renewed every 90 days, frame it, and hang it on the wall by her bed. They had Police Protection. In 1933 I was president of a fraternal order in Asheville. I had a good friend, Lt. Frank Hagan of the local police dept. who was also a member. We decided to drive down to Charleston, SC, for a convention. While in Charleston he said that he would like to go to the “Red Brick” on Bensford Street and get information for the Asheville Police Dept. on how they operated. I asked him how he expected to get in the place. He said “Don’t worry, I’ll get us admitted.” We went down to the “Red Brick” and Frank knocked on the front door. A lady opened a peephole in the door to look at us and Frank said “Back again.” We were then admitted to a large living room with red curtains. We picked out two of the girls in the living room and invited them to have a seat with us and have a drink. The only drink available was a coca-cola and the cost was 25 cents per drink. We asked them if their services would be available to members of a convention and they said that they were. The cost of a short stay would be $3 and for $5 a client could spend the night. I gave the girls $3 each and advised them that all we wanted to do was talk and get information for the convention - they were completely satisfied. Now why don’t we get Chief Beavers to get someone like “Queen Elizabeth” to rent a place like a small hotel, or a large home with red curtains, or a place suitable for a whorehouse like the “Red Brick” in Charleston, SC. Serve soft drinks and ice cream at reasonable prices and furnish police protection. He might even get Lion Penland and me to open a pawnshop next door so that if a man didn’t have enough money to finance his trip to the place, he could pawn his watch or his gun. Don’t think all this would be legal, but its a thought anyway. Streetwalking A young lady friend of my family would pawn a diamond pen for $50.00. She was always months past due on the redemption of it. I felt sorry for her and I didn’t let her pay any interest or charges on any loan after her first loan. After pawning it several times, she came in for a loan on the pen. She asked for one hundred dollars. I told her that a hundred dollars was more than we could loan on it, that I would loan her $50.00 again. She said that she needed a hundred dollars and what was I trying to do, make a “street walker” out of her! �The Preacher and the Bible I helped a preacher financially conduct his Sunday’s services. Back in the depression days of the 1930s there was a preacher who pawned his Bible every Monday morning after Sunday’s services and redeemed it on the following Friday or Saturday for the next service on Sunday. I made the original loan of $10 and advised the preacher that he could get it out at a charge of $1 anytime in 30 days or if needed he could wait three months at no additional charge. In checking the records I found that he had pawned the Bible weekly on many occasions. On the next Friday morning when he came after his Bible I told him he didn’t owe anything on it that he had paid more carrying charges that the original loan. I told him to put that $10 bill he had next to the Ten Commandments in the Bible and the next time he needed $10 to take it out and put it back in the Bible after Sunday’s service. Just don’t bring the Bible back here for a loan. He didn’t. John I had a black man working for me by the name of “John”. There were street cars available to ride from his home to work. I was a law in Asheville that blacks had to ride in the back seats of the street car and the whites rode in the front seats. One day “John”n was riding in a front seat and wouldn’t move to the back of the bus. He was arrested by the Asheville Police Department. I sent my lawyer, Mr. Fortune, to the police court with him and he was fined the costs of the case. A man redeemed a large size radio he pawned. After taking it home he advised us that three of the tubes were missing. “John” kept the storage room where radio pledges were stored. I sent a police detective to John’s home advising him of the situation. He checked the numbers on John’s radio tubes and told “John” that the numbers on his radio tubes were the same as the numbers that were on the missing tubes of our customer’s radio. John admitted stealing the tubes. We supplied new tubes for our customer’s radio. “John was fired from his job at the pawnshop. I understood that he kept his usual custom of delivering sermons at his church on Sundays. I wanted to replace “John” so an employment agency sent me a young man named “George”. I put George in the storage area for guns that were left as collateral on loans. He stole a pistol and after an investigation, he returned it and I fired him. Overcoats During the depression of 1933 the pawnshop had 800 overcoats left at the beginning of the summer. The loans were from $3 to $7 each, and 80% of the loans were past due. There was a problem of moths. We put mothballs in the pockets of all overcoats and sprayed them with DDT. After the overcoats became more than 3 months past due we had them dry cleaned. We made a contract with the cleaners to pick up and return lots of twenty at 50 cents each. The owner of the cleaning company came in the shop and said that he wanted to buy an overcoat for his chauffeur. He tried on one and liked it so much that he said he would keep it for himself and give his to his chauffeur. �It was during 1933 that we had only male clerks working in the pawnshop. There were days when my father and I were both absent from the pawnshop due to health and other reasons. When the overcoat pledges were past due and ready for the cleaners they were hung in a room on the second floor of the pawnshop. Sometimes I would notice a couple of overcoats on the floor of the pawnshop. The electric lights went out on the second floor where the overcoats were. An electrician was called to correct the trouble. It was found that the clerks would invite street walkers to come up to the room at times when my father and I were absent. The electrician found a hole in the floor where the wires were broken. In fixing the broken wires, he pulled about 50 dirty handkerchiefs and other items that caused the trouble. Murders in Pawnshops and Helping Sheriff L. Brown You have probably read in the Citizen-Times about Mark Lane who was killed in a shooting during an armed robbery. His father, Ronald Lane, and he were co-owners of the Leicester Pawn Shop. In a former historical report I talked about Reggie, secretary to the Mayor of Miami Beach, who helped our delegation get faster transportation back to Florida from the International Lions Convention in Havana, Cuba. Lion C.A. Miller was on that trip. Later Reggie’s brother was killed in a holdup in his pawnshop on Flager Street in Miami. A lot of people classify a pawnbroker as a shylock. Those pawnbrokers I have known are kind people and are a asset to any community they operate in. Of course you can exclude me. In November 1934 Sheriff Lawrence Brown of Buncombe County came to see me and said that he needed help. Beacon Manufacturing Company at Swannanoa was having labor trouble and a group from South Carolina was coming up to prevent the employees from going to work. He wanted to rent twenty 12 gauge shotguns to be used by special deputies to guard the entrance to the plant. I rented him twenty 12 gauge Harrington, Richardson shotguns for $1 each. He was successful in guarding the plant and they never fired a shot. The sheriff phoned me and said that he wanted to bestow upon me the honor of being a deputy sheriff and to come over and bring a photo for an identification card. I told him I didn’t know anything about enforcing the law. He said that was okay, to come over and he would swear me in and take out insurance on me. I asked him if it was life insurance. He said, “No, it was liability insurance and if I did anything wrong as a deputy sheriff that they would furnish me legal assistance in court.” I was sworn in November 15, 1934. I got a phone call the next morning from Mr. Seely, Manager of the Grove Park Inn. He said that he needed a gun for his watchman, a 38 Saturday Night Special with a 4" barrel. Sheriff Brown told him I could supply what he wanted. I told him I had it in stock and he asked me to bring it out to the Inn. I got in my dilapidated Ford touring car, drove to the front entrance �of the Inn and started to go in, when the Bell Captain stopped me. He asked “What are you doing here?” I replied “I have a gun for your watchman and Mr. Seely asked me to bring it out to him.” “Well,” he said, “you take that gun to the back door. They have a barrel of money back there and they will pay you for it.” This was during the depression of the 30's and I had quoted Mr. Seely top price, and I was going to do anything legal to complete the sale so I went to the back door. Now I am happy to announce that at the present time I am allowed to go in the front entrance to the Inn. Guns and a Grandfather Clock A friend of mine had a valuable antique clock about 6 feet tall. He said that he was leaving home for a month and there was a lot of larceny going on. He would like to leave it with me for safekeeping. I told him to put it in the storage area on the second floor of the shop. A couple of days later a customer comes in and wants to buy a shotgun. It was summer time and since hunting season didn’t open until fall I wondered why he wanted a shotgun. My salesman said all the shotguns and shells were stored on the second floor and he would take the customer up there. A little later I heard a big loud bang from the second floor. The salesman came running down and said that the customer had committed suicide with a shotgun. I called the Police Department and Dr. Baer, the coroner. Will Hampton, solicitor of police court and the chief came over. I went to the second floor with them and we found the customer passed out on the floor. I didn’t see any blood and upon examination we found part of his clothing blown away under one arm and he wasn’t injured. It’s almost impossible to reach the trigger of a 31" barrel shotgun when you have the muzzle at your chest. Evidently the customer must have tried to reach the trigger and the muzzle slipped under his arm when the gun fired. I remembered the grandfather clock and found that the discharge from the gun blew some of the plaster out of the wall about a foot from the clock. The clock was okay. Dr. Baer asked for a pen. He said that he wanted to find out if the man really passed out. He jabbed him several times with a pen and the man didn’t move. He really passed out. The chief said that the man had violated a law and he would take charge of him. The lesson from this event is: Don’t try to commit suicide - if you do you are liable to get arrested. A secretary’s thoughts My name was Margaret Owen in 1936, when I was Leo Finkelstein’s secretary. It was �the first job I ever had and he really taught me how to be office help. It was an exciting time to work on Pack Square, which was the hub of Asheville’s business world at that time. I remember that Mr. Finkelstein would lend me out to do typing for some of the Jewish organizations he was participating with at that time. I worked for Lou Pollock when he was head of the Jewish Cemetery, and Mr. Gustav Lichtenfeld and Sigred Sternberg when they were working on getting Jewish people out of Germany. I wrote some of the letters which were instrumental in bringing some of the early German Jews to Asheville, who then went on to become very valuable citizens of Asheville, I know of Herbert Schiftan and his family, and Alfred and Irmgard Lichtenfels. There were probably others that Mr. Finkelstein was responsible for that he remembers, but I have forgotten. I was in the store when the internees of Germany and Japan who were billeted at Grove Park Inn came in, and Tom Wolfe came in to visit his friend, Bob Bunn. I was standing out front one day when General George Marshall walked by on is way to the City Hall which was the Air Force Headquarters as that time during World War II. We all were out front one day when President Franklin D. Roosevelt visited Asheville to dedicate the Great Smoky National Park. Mr. Finkelstein was more than a friend to many of the ethnic community of that time. I believe that he was the contact for visiting rabbis, Jewish transient people who needed help and communicated with them in Hebrew. All the employees learned to understand and communicate (somewhat) by talking to each other in Yiddish. Mr. Finkelstein played at least ten or twelve instruments, demonstrating in order to make a sale or loan. The Silver Shirts In the 1930's William Dudley Pelly operated the “Silver Shirts,” a Nazi like organization in a building across the street from the Jewish Community Center on Charlotte Street. He published the “Liberation Weekly,” anti-Semitic literature with a circulation of eight thousand. In a parade, I was playing the saxophone with the Asheville Shrine Club Marching Band, and William Rosenfelt was carrying the American Flag. Pelly in his “Liberation Weekly” published a story that we were disgraced by a Jew with a big nose carrying the American Flag. Pelly was arrested by the Buncombe County Sheriff’s Department in 1941 for selling unregistered stock. He was found guilty through the efforts of Julius Levitch, a young Jewish lawyer by the name of Alvin Kurtus, and a local attorney named R.R. Williams. Unnamed William Rothenberg was a patient at the V.A. Hospital in Oteen. He moved to Asheville to live, married Freda Gross. I gave him a job as salesman in the pawnshop. He would go back to Oteen for treatments but was asked to stop. He got to drinking and was separated from his wife. A railroad watch from our display board was missing. A Taxi driver told me that William Rothenberg went the watch to the other pawnshop in town by him and he pawned it there for $20.00. I checked the serial numbers on the watch and they were the same as the ones on our watch. I asked Rothenberg about it and he said that he won it in a poker game the night before �at the Langren Hotel. I checked with Fred Bradley, the night manager of the hotel and he advised me that there was no poker game in the hotel that night. Rothenberg got the drinking and Judge Cathey put him in jail with a sentence of 30 days. Judge Cathey released him from jail after I promised to send him to Miami, FL where his ex-wife was living. I bought him a bus ticket and told him not to return to Asheville. He did not return. IV. I Am A Dime I was born in the early part of the twentieth century at the United States Mint in Philadelphia, put in a roll with forty-nine other dimes and shipped to the Southern State Bank on Depot Street in Asheville, North Carolina, of which Mr. S. Sternberg was president. Mr. Sternberg had a son, Joseph, who later became president of the Asheville Lions Club. Mr. Sternberg took me and the forty-nine other dimes to his beautiful estate on Victoria Road in order to participate in a ten cent limit poker game with some of his friends. Someone tipped off the police that a game was going on. The home was raided and Mr. Sternberg gave the names of the players as Mr. Aleph, Mr. Baze, Mr. Gimmel, Mr. Dolad, Mr. Hay, Mr. Vove, Mr. Zion and Mr. Hess. The “Asheville Citizen” carried a story after the trial that an attorney appeared in Police Court for Mr. Aleph, Mr. Baze, Mr. Gimmel, Mr. Dolad, Mr. Hay, Mr. Vove, Mr. Zion and Mr. Hess and paid their fines. Very few people knew that Aleph, Baze, Gimmel, Dolad, Hay, Vove, Zion, and Hess are the first eight letters of the Hebrew Alphabet. I got separated from the other dimes that came to Asheville with me. I found myself in the pocket of Chief Bernard of the Asheville Police Department. It was in November, 1906, that the Chief phoned Uncle Harry, the pawnbroker, and said that ne needed firearms and ammunition to equip a posse of fifty men in order to hunt Will Harris, a desperado. Will Harris had shot and killed five men, of whom two were city policemen. Uncle Harry furnished the posse with guns and ammunition, taking only the names of those receiving firearms. It was reported that Will Harris spent the night in a barn in Buena Vista. The posse surrounded him in a field near Fletcher and killed him. His body was brought to an undertaking establishment at 21 South Main Street, and hung out of the second story window in the building in order to show the people that he had been killed and quieten them down. The next day, the Chief called Uncle Harry and asked if all the firearms had been returned. Uncle Harry said they had and commented that the people of Asheville were honest and good citizens. (Now, Thomas Wolfe, famous author and native of Asheville used this event for a story published in the Saturday Evening Post September 7, 1937. He also used it in a chapter in his book “The Child by Tiger.” 2 Bob Terrell, writer for the Citizen-Times talked about this event at one of our meetings. In 1968 the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms in Washington required a record of every pistol, rifle, revolver that we received and disposed of, as well as the model, caliber, serial number and manufacturer. I recently checked the shop that I retired from 25 years ago and they have records of 2 Move note here on Thomas Wolfe etc. �33,000 transactions since 1968 on hand.) The Chief took me to Mr. Pappa’s Cafe on South Main Street, bought his lunch which consisted of a ten cent bowl of soup, a good supply of free crackers and catsup. Mr. Pappa’s brother operated the “Candy Kitchen” on Haywood Street. They were making a lot of stick candy in the shape of walking sticks, colored red and white. The cafe owner bought a half dozen walking sticks from his brother, using me as part payment. He said that he was going to put the candy on his Christmas tree. The next day Mr. Pappas, who lived on North Main Street, was coming to town in a rain storm. North Main Street was paved but all side streets were not. They had stepping stones in order to get across. Mr. Pappas slipped on a stepping stone, getting his shoes all muddy. He stopped at the Pack Square Shoe Shine Parlor, got a shoe shine for five cents and gave the shine boy a five cent tip. The next thing I knew I was placed in a deposit for the Wachovia Bank and I stayed in their vault until the year 1913. Uncle Harry picked me up to use in his petty cash. His son asked for his weekly allowance and I was given to him with four other dimes. The son boarded a South Main Street streetcar on Pack Square with a fishing pole and a can of worms. He got off at the Swannanoa River and walked a hundred yards toward the French Broad. In a couple of house, he caught a nice string of hog suckers, horney heads and perch out of the beautiful clear waters of the Swannanoa River. On his way home, he gave me to the conductor, received five cents change and a transfer to the North Main streetcar in order to go home. The Conductor carried me around a few days and then gave me to a lady on the Riverside “open air” streetcar that ran to Riverside Park. Riverside Park was owned an operated by the Asheville Power and Light Co., the same people who owned the street car company that was finally gobbled up by Lion Smith’s Carolina Power and Light Co. This lady gave me to her husband who went down to the Elk’s Club and lost me in a rummy game to a distinguished looking attorney they called “Judge Cocke.” After the card game the “judge” sat around talking to brother Elks and drinking beer. He was famous for his knowledge of North Carolina, its people and places. He even talked about the house of ill repute in Asheville at the turn of the century known as the “Eagle Terrace” run by a lady called “Queen Elizabeth.” The next morning, Attorney Cocke defended a man in Police Court who was charged with stealing a pair of shoes and pawning them because he couldn’t wear them on account of being too small. The court ordered the man to leave town that day. The man said he was hungry and didn’t have any money. So Attorney Cocke gave me with other change to him. The man went down to the Asheville and East Tennessee Railway Company station at the corner of North Main and College Streets. They operated an electric vehicle between Asheville and Weaverville. The man smelled hot dogs cooking at D. Gross’s Hot Dog Stand next door, so he spent me for a hot dog and a coca-cola. Mr. Gross raised and educated a family of thirteen children from the money he earned at his hot dog stand. Mr. Gross carried me around until Saturday night when he went to Liggett’s Drug Store for some headache powders. He stopped in front of the drug store to listen to the Salvation Army band while they were having a preaching and musical session. He put me in a pot they were using to get donations for their annual Christmas party. �The Salvation Army bought a second-hand truck from Lion Fred Brown to be used in delivering food and clothing to the poor people in town. I was used in this transaction. Lion Brown took me to a Lions Club meeting, where he used me to pay the dime he was fined by the “Tail Twister” for falling asleep during the program. The Tail Twister’s wife took possession of me and bought some ribbon at the Palais Royal, a large department store on South Main Street, operated by Mr. Morris Myers. I circulated around Asheville until 1918, and again, found myself in possession of Mr. Sternberg. He had a large junk yard and warehouse on Depot Street that bought and sold hundreds of cowhides. On all of his advertisements he carried the slogan “We buy anything and sell everything.” A circus came to town and didn’t have enough money to leave. They applied to Mr. Sternberg who was president of the Southern States Bank on Depot Street for a loan of $200. Mr. Sternberg made the loan and took the elephant as collateral. He complained he was losing money on account of the elephant eating so much. Otto Buseck who owned Middlemont Gardens at that time raised his own flowers at a hot house in Candler. He helped Mr. Sternberg out with the elephant - he bought the manure from him. The next thing I recall was four o’clock on the morning of November 11, 1918. The fire bell started to ring at the firehouse. The Armistice of World War I had been signed. People gathered on Pack Square and built a huge bonfire. A fire truck came out of the firehouse to shine its spot light on the American flag flying at the top of the Pack Square flag pole. People were bringing their guns from home to the Square and shooting live ammunition into the air in celebration. The fellow who owned me brought a double-barrel shotgun to town and bought some black powder shells from Otis Green Hardware Store. (Mr. Green years later became Mayor of Asheville). The Chief of Police soon asked all stores selling ammunition to quit selling it as he was afraid someone would accidentally get shot. Mr. Green took me to the Southern Railway passenger station and bought a ticket to New York from Pat Mulvaney, ticket agent. Frank Mulvaney, a brother to Pat, was a chief clerk for the railroad. He later became councilman for the City of Asheville. Pat took me to the Union News Company’s news stand in the station and bought two five cent cigars. Later an engineer from the railroad bought a “Billboard” magazine, and I was given to him in change for a dollar. He took me to the Glen Rock Hotel across the street, and I was used in paying his bill. The clerk at the hotel bought some ice cream at Finley’s Drug Store next door. Mr. Finley gave me to his son, Bob, who took me to Montford Avenue School. Bob in later years became the Supreme Court Justice for the State of Washington. Bob, on leaving Montford Avenue School one day, took me to Mr. Book’s Grocery Store on Cherry Street and bought some cookies. The people across the street from Mr. Book’s Grocery Store had a lot of cherry trees on their land and they would pay boys from the school ten cents a quart to pick cherries. Lion Carol Rhinehart picked a quart of cherries and received me in payment. Lion Carl Rhinehart lost me in a marble game at school to Jack Roberts, who took me home to 219 North Main Street. A creek ran parallel to North Main Street and emptied into the French Broad. Jack found muskrats were running up and down the creek, so he recruited some of the neighborhood boys who acquired steel traps and caught and sold the muskrat hides to St. �Penick and Company, at the corner of North Main and Lexington. The next thing I recall I was in the pants pocket of Lion Bill Michalove, who took me to the Galaxy Theater on Pack Square in order to see a serial movie called “The Black Hand.” Bill’s brother, Dan, was manager of the Asheville Theaters, and he finally became Vice President of Paramount Pictures, with headquarters in Australia. Since Bill had an “in” at the theaters in town, he would, on occasion, take his teen-age boy friends back stage at the Majestic Theater, located at the corner of College and Market Streets, to view the chorus girls at close range. Tommy Elkins, the stage manager, would keep a close watch on the boys in order to see that they behaved themselves. It was in 1922 when I was used as part payment for a second hand Jeffery automobile bought by Harry Blomberg. Harry took his Jeffery Auto to Asheville High School on Oak Street. Someone dropped me on Market Street and I rolled down a storm sewer. I stayed there for a long time and one day a man from the city’s water department found me and used me in a donation to the Democratic Party of Buncombe County. The chairman of the Party put me in a 10 cents slot machine at a social club. The player who won me at the slot machine would always put me back, hoping to win more. I circulated in and out of the slot machine until 1950, when Lion Dr. Feldman won me. Dr. Feldman had a reputation of never buying anything unless he could get it wholesale. Dr. Feldman put me in the zipper change section of his pocketbook, and now I haven’t seen the light of day for twenty years. V. Jewish Jitter Bugs3 A bug is an insect. A Jitter Bug is an insect that jumps from place to place. A Jewish Jitter Bug is a professional bum, claiming Jewish faith— jumping around from city to city — living off the sympathy of his misinformed brothers - other Jews. For twenty years, I have seen this bunch of crooks take from $300 to $400 a year out of my community. I have learned their stories, their approach, their methods, and in fact, I can tell one just by the sight of him. I have seem them go north in the summer-time, and south in the wintertime. I have been awakened at all hours of the night by them, tracked down on Sundays and holidays. I have to put up with them coming in my place of business, with no courtesy to me, or respect for my customers. I have to watch them go away most always with a dissatisfied growl for what help they get, and seldom do I hear a “Thank You”. I have to battle their high-powered maneuvers of artistic chiseling without the help or appreciation of the Jewish Community in which I live. Who are these people? Why, they are Jews — sure, they are a bunch of professional racketeers that cost the Jewish public about one million dollars per year. If a Jew gets to a city and is broke - why, the other Jews are supposed to help him out. What he is or what he does or where he comes from - don’t make any difference - as long as he is a Jew that is all that is necessary. That is what you might think — but I don’t! There is not one Jewish transient in five hundred worthy of any help at all. They travel from place to place using the fact that they are Jews to prey upon other Jews. Many of them are ex-convicts, 3 Cite reference �some just ordinary bums, and all of them liars. In this army of rogues, you will not find one who has a friend or relative who they could obtain help from. I have offered to wire to any person for hundreds of them, but they will tell ;you that all their friends or relatives are broke, or that they wouldn’t think of asking any of them for money. Common sense will tell you that, if a transient is worthy, there must be someone in this world who will help him to some extent. I am sure if any of you gentlemen were to find yourself broke in some far off place, that you would have at least one friend or relative to whom you could wire for help. These swindlers don’t want to get help from friends or relatives. They are just traveling around, enjoying life in a peculiar way, and living on the Jewish public, their so-called brothers. So, when these Jewish Brothers of ours come to town, what are we supposed to do with them? The only sensible thing we can do is to get rid of them as quickly and as cheaply as possible. The most common type of transient is the ordinary bum who claims that he has a job in a nearby city. All he wants from you is a couple of meals in a good restaurant, a room with a bath in a clean hotel, transportation to the place he is going, and maybe a pair of shoes, a couple of shirts and an overcoat. In order to get rid of this man quickly you must start talking before he does. So when I spot one, I start talking first. I ask him if he wants some help, and as soon as he says “Yes” I hand him a half-dollar, a meal ticket to a nearby restaurant, and tell him to get the hell out of town as fast as he can. Most of them will take this and leave because they know, through their grapevine system, that this is all they can get. This system even informs them where to go to when you get to a town, and that is why nobody see the majority of these people, except myself. Some of them insist that they have a special story to tell you about their hard luck, and that they re different from the rest. These stories would make some of you break down and weep, but to me these stories are just a bunch of fabricated lies. Then, we have the group of transients who are physically disabled. Some are partially blind and crippled. They will claim to have tuberculosis, nervous indigestion, high blood pressure or what-not. Some will claim to have a combination or complication of diseases, or an assortment of ailments. If I am convinced that the transient is really ill, then I buy him transportation to the nearest point, and get him out of town as fast as I can. These people are never given cash for their transportation. A check is written to the Bus Station for their ticket, and the Bus Station has instructions to issue a ticket stamped “No Refund”. This method was adopted after I found out some cashed their tickets back in, in order to get cash, and bummed rides out on the highway to get to where they were going. A decent looking, elderly lady once appealed to me for help. She stated that she was almost blind, and was traveling with her son who was so crippled he couldn’t walk. She told me that she and her son had come in on a bus late the night before, and were at a small hotel near the bus station. She advised me that her son was ill in bed, that she was out of funds, could not pay her hotel bill, had nothing to eat, and no way to get to a nearby city where her son was going to enter a hospital. “A worthy case, at last!” I thought. I took her name, and ask her to come back in an hour, and I would see what I could do for her. I inquired at the hotel, and found that nobody by the name she gave me was there. I asked her about this when she returned, and she said that she did not use her real name since it was Jewish, and she didn’t want people to think she was Jewish. I called the hotel again and inquired about the new name she had given me, and the hotel informed me that the two of there were register there, but that her son seemed healthy, and was in and out of the hotel all day long. Asking her about this, she explained that her son went out only when he had to go to the drug store for medicine. It was cold and raining outside, so I called the hotel, and told them I would pay their bill, gave her enough for food, bought her two bus tickets, and gave her instructions to get out of town, by night without fail. It wasn’t long before I received a phone call from a Jewish person in town stating that this old lady had called on him, and pe proceeded to cuss me out for not giving her any help. To make a long story short--she called on three more persons in the city with the same story - that I would not help her. A couple of hours later I went by the hotel where she was staying and found that she had checked out and left in her room many pieces of clothing that had been given to her by these people she had called on in the city. �Then we have the rabbis. They are a wonderful type of transient to deal with. They usually get to town on Friday, so you have to keep them over “shabbos”. That means an expense of two nights lodging and meals for a whole day. In fact, all the transients who arrive on Friday are “very religious” and won’t travel on Friday night or Saturday. I’ve had many rabbis promise to send me back the money I gave them, and never yet has one of them sent back a penny. In fact, of the hundreds of promises that I’ve had from all kinds of transients to return money given them, never has one kept his promise. The president of the orthodox congregation once phoned me, and told me that a rabbi was at this house m and that this rabbi was a very fine person, a scholar, and a gentleman, a man is in need, and suggested that I give him $5. I was just ready to leave my house, and I informed the president that I did not have time to interview the rabbi myself, but that if he thought the man was worthy, to give him $5, and I would return that amount to him later. I happened to pass by the president’s house just as the rabbi was leaving there, and I took a good look at him. The next morning, the same rabbi was at my place of business, wanting to know if I took care of the Jewish transients. He wasn’t a rabbi anymore, and he had changed his name. I told him to come along with me, and I would take him to the man who could help him. He got into the front seat of my automobile, and wanted to know where we were going, and when I told him we were going to see the president of the orthodox congregation, he jumped out and ran. I ran after him, and caught him on Patton Avenue. He started yelling like I was going to murder him, and a crowd started to gather, so I let him go, and he ran away again. I haven’t seen him since. Another Rabbi once appealed to me for help, and he claimed to be a brother-in-law of the rabbi in Greenville, SC. Knowing the rabbi in Greenville personally, I didn’t believe he would send a brother-inlaw of his out of the state to chisel the public, so I phoned long distance to inquire about the man. The rabbi in Greenville informed me that this transient had worried the community there a couple of days before, that he was no relation of his, but claimed to be a brother-in-law of the rabbi in Columbia. This man’s system was to claim relationship to a rabbi in a nearby city, in order to get help. I gave him $.50 and a meal ticket, and told him to get out of town before dark. He didn’t leave, instead he called on other Jews in the city with the same story, and collected around $5 by noon the next day. I finally contacted him, and told him again to get out of town, which he refused to do. So, I had the police department pick him up, and put him in jail. In about an hour, I went over, and talked to him in jail, and he changed his tune quite a bit. He was ready to leave town, so we let him out and this time I gave him fifteen minutes to disappear--and he did! Another rabbi once called on me, and stated that he was a representative of a Jewish institution somewhere in Europe, and wanted a donation for it. I explained to him that we had a Federated Jewish charities here to help him, and he would have to make his request through them. He kept insisting that I give him a donation personally, and I kept refusing him. He finally gave up, proceeded to cut me out in Yiddish, in a extremely loud voice — and this wasn’t all — he spit on the floor, slammed the door as hard as he could as he went out. I felt like killing him, and I think it would have been justifiable homicide. I could tell you many tales of my experiences with these human vultures, but one I remember in particular, was the time when a local judge phoned me, and told me that he would have to try a young boy by the name of Goldberg for vagrancy. He asked me to recommend to him what to do with the boy. I went over to see the defendant, and he happened to be one of the transients I had helped a few days before. He had ordered a sandwich at a small restaurant on the outskirts of town, refused to pay for it, so the restaurant man had him arrested. I told the judge of my experiences with the Jewish transients and asked him to make an example out of this boy, so he gave him thirty days on the road. In sentencing the boy, the judge told him that from now on every Jewish transient that was brought before him would get a road sentence. Then I really got criticized by the Jewish community for putting Jewish Boys on the Chain-gang. I was shown a copy of his criminal record from the FBI a few days later. He had been convicted of all kinds of offenses from stealing a bicycle to highway robbery. After the boy got out, he came to see me again, and feeling sorry for him, I bought him a ticket to Charlotte, and informed him that I would see that every transient from now on coming into Asheville would get a road sentence. Before that time, we had from ten to thirty transients per month appealing for help. It was interesting to note that �we didn’t have another transient come into Asheville, for six weeks after the boy left, and for a long time after that, appeals for help were 50% of what they had been before that. It is my sincere recommendation that every Jewish transient, coming into Asheville, be put in jail for a certain length of time. This is the only way to cure this evil. Of course, the Jewish community wouldn’t stand for anything like that, they would rather give these damned hoodlums a few hundred dollars every year. Then, we have the transients coming through in family groups. These groups consist of a mother and father, with one or more children. They usually arrive in a dilapidated old automobile. Most of the time, the automobile needs some repairs before they can leave town in it; it never has any gasoline and usually needs a couple of quarts of oil. These parties are expensive and hard to handle, because you can hardly send small children on their way without a night’s sleep and proper food. Of course, I have some deserving cases, but I don’t class these with the transients. For instance, a man once came in to see me, with the story that he had tuberculosis, and he had come down here from Detroit as his doctor had recommended this climate to him. He expected to get a job as an elevator boy, or something of the sort, and he was under the impression that the climate here would cure him while he worked. Well, the man was broke, and was waiting for some financial help from his brother whom he had written a few days before. I gave the man $4 and he promised to pay me back as soon as he heard from his brother. He came back the next day. He had heard from his brother. He showed me the letter and his brother enclosed $10 which was all that he could send. He told me that he was unable to find work, and was going to start back for Detroit. He offered me the $4 I had given him. I asked him how he expected to get back to Detroit on $7, and he told me that he would have to hitch-hike. I told him to keep the $4, and wish him the best of luck, and while I am not a doctor, I was under the opinion from his looks that his health would never permit him to hitch-hike back home and get there alive. So for twenty years, I have dealt with the bunch of beggars, coming from North, South, East, and West. They have become a part of my life, and if I could get out of this job right now, I am sure I would miss this horde of gangsters that hop around from place to place like a bunch of grasshoppers in a clover patch. VI. War Years4 Pilot on 023 On admission to the Air Force in 1943 I was interviewed as to what activity I had in a business or profession, also what experience I had in religious, fraternal or civic affairs. I told them I was just a clerk in a pawnshop. I didn’t tell them that I once: was president of a cemetery. was an owner of a company that built floats and decorated the town for the first Rhododendron Festival in Asheville. supplied the Asheville Police Dept. and the Sheriff’s Dept. with guns and ammunition. 4 . A more complete account of Leo Finkelstein’s experiences during World War II is found in his Letters from Leo: Letters to the Asheville Lion’s Club (Center for Appalachian Studies: Appalachian State University, Boone, NC, 1996) �I didn’t tell them anything about my civic, fraternal, religious or social activities. I was sent to Tishomingo, Oklahoma for training in the Oklahoma State College for Agriculture to be an air force clerk in engineering. After graduating from the clerk’s school in Tishomingo, I felt I would have an easy life in the Air Force being an engineering clerk. But my duties from Tishomingo to the islands in the South Pacific were: kitchen police mess hall fireman mess hall garbage director cleaning chickens policing grounds digging ditches hauling poles hauling fire wood hauling coal fighting forest fires assorting merchandise at warehouse assorting salvage merchandise smashing tin cans hauling water finance clerk detail clerk runner for headquarters stacking lumber cleaning rifles and machine guns building roads repairing bridges laying concrete operating gasoline pump telephone operator making inventories of supplies acting C. Q. pulling weeds and grass watering trees loading and unloading trucks loading and unloading freight cars loading barracks bags on boats and trucks cleaning hatches on boats latrine orderly painting machinery communications clerk and finally engineering clerk for the 394th Squadron, 5th bomb group of the 13th Air Force. Getting a good grade on my education at Tishomingo and experience in travel to the South Pacific I thought I was ready to do my job. �My first difficulty was when A pilot comes in to see me after a combat mission on a B-24 Bomber number 023 and said that he failed to put on his reporting form #Y that the tachometer indicator occilates excessively, would I please write it in the form for him. I told him I would. You know, I didn’t know what the h--- he was talking about and I couldn’t even spell it. Tokyo Rose Tokyo Rose was an American girl broadcasting from a radio station in Japan during World War II. Her broadcast was received by the 13th Air Force in the Admiralty Islands located in the South Pacific area. She played recorded American music in her broadcast. She advised us that our wives and sweethearts were dating the 4 F’s - the men who stayed out of military service and they would go to drive inns for hamburgers and coca-colas. She also said that the Japanese would be waiting for our B-24 bombers scheduled for a mission in the morning with anti-aircraft guns and fighter planes. Radios were scarce on the island. I wanted to listen to Tokyo Rose so I wrote home and requested a small radio to be shipped to me. They advised that the smallest radio weighed too much to be shipped overseas by parcel post but they would take it apart and ship it in two packages which was acceptable at the post office. The radio department of the 5th Bomb Group said they would be glad to put the radio together for me. When I received the shipment in two packages I gave it to them. They repaired it the best they could. I found that when I turned it on it would work for about a minute and then quit receiving. They couldn’t find the trouble. One day I took a screw driver, tightened all the screws and thought I found the trouble. I put the radio on the table in the tent, started it receiving and in one minute it stopped. I was disgusted - I hit the radio, knocked it off the table. It hit the floor, bounced about 2 feet and started playing. It was okay from then on. In about a week Captain Gardner in the engineering department sent word that he wanted to see me as soon as possible. I thought I had fouled up on keeping his engineering records but he had this to say: Corporal Finkelstein we are having trouble repairing the radio on airplane No. 022 and we understand that you are the only one in the 394th Squadron that can solve our problem. Will you help us? I forgot what I said, but I couldn’t figure out how to knock an airplane off the table. Topless Women �Now if you read the morning paper, you noticed headlines on the front page: “Topless Night Club Opens in Asheville.” Well, you didn’t need a night club to see topless women on those South Pacific Islands during WWII. The trouble was they would move all the women to another island close by the island we occupied. We built a motor boat made of two airplane belly tanks and a small power unit so that we could go over and see the women at another island. I didn’t go over to see the women. I wasn’t afraid of them, but I was afraid the boat might sink. Sergeant Joe In 1944, Sergeant Joe, the mess sergeant in my outfit in the 13th Air Force located in the South Pacific during World War II, received a shipment of canned corn. Instead of using it for chow, he built a still in a fox hole and made corn whiskey out of it. Joe ran a road house in Greenville, South Carolina before the war and in a neighborly spirit he invited me to drink what I wanted of the corn whiskey and he helped me trade watch bands for coca-cola syrup and ice cream from a Navy C.B. outfit located near by. After the war, he operated his road house in Greenville again. He came to see me and advised that they had arrested his partner for hauling whiskey in Buncombe County and wanted to know if I could help him. I told him that I knew the Chief of Police and Sheriff Brown and I would be glad to see what the situation was. He told me they couldn’t help as it was the Federal authorities that arrested his partner. Thinking of how to get him a light sentence I asked Joe if his partner was in the armed forces and he said that they had turned him down because he has a heart murmur. I told Joe to send him to Dr. Feldman and I’d get the report from him as to his heart murmur. Dr. Feldman told me he had a heart murmur and as Federal Physician he would advise Judge Warlick about in federal court. At the trial Joe’s partner went scott free. Later he came to see me with a roll of hundred dollar bills and wanted to pay me for getting him off. I refused the money and told him that Joe had helped me out during the war and what I did was a favor to Joe. Later he brought me six fifths of Scotch for a present, which I kept. While overseas, besides having corn whiskey made by Joe and medical alcohol diluted 50% by water and flavored with burnt sugar, we were able to buy bonded whiskey from the flying personnel who didn’t drink their ration. Price was $60 per fifth. They were looking for souvenirs so I wrote Lion Nat Friedman to send me a Japanese hare-kari knife from his antique store. He sent me a similar one. It was a circular shape Turkish knife with Turkish letters on it. My cost was $4. It looked like a hare-kari knife. I gave it to Sergeant Joe and asked him to see if he could trade for a Fifth of bonded whiskey. He reported later that he couldn’t get a fifth of whiskey for it but he did get two fifths for it. Sgt. Smokey Joe’s home is just a little bit south of Asheville, NC. He was mess sergeant for the 394th squadron, a good guy, and a GI who could sympathize with all the other GI’s who had to eat the food he prepared. �Before the war Smokey Joe owned a road house on the highway going south from Asheville and after talking to him I found that I had patronized his institution on numerous occasions during my younger years. Since we were practically neighbors in civilian life, we felt that we should continue over there as good neighbors and so we were. There is no better friend in the army than a cook because when you get hungry, he is the only man who can help you out. In passing I might mention that Smokey Joe, Starvin Marvin and I have on numerous instances enjoyed eating surplus stocks of food from the Mess Hall. Smokey Joe told me about Sheriff Brown, in Asheville, taking his automobile away from him once because the sheriff had found some whiskey in it that he was transporting to his road house. Now Smokey is fighting to get his freedom - his freedom to go home and dodge Sheriff Brown some more, and there is Starvin Marvin who wants to go home and see his wife and two year old boy, a child that he has never seen, and so it is with me - I want to go home - I just want to go home. WWII Diary I had nothing to do while recovering from a recent surgery so I found my WWII diary and read the following: Before the war, I thought being the army would be a thrilling adventure - but now I know Sherman was right. Before the war, I thought the Air Force was a mechanized force - but now I wonder what the Hell I’m marching for. Before the war, I thought the Asheville Citizen was a volten newspaper - but now I enjoy reading one four days old. Before the war, I would drink a cocktail before dinner but now I drink milk with my dinner. Before the war, I would sometimes go to be at 4 am but now I get up at 4 am. Before the war, I was particular about what girl I took out - but now I’m not so particular. Before the war I struggled over a golf course - but now I struggle over an obsticle course. Before the war, I used to shine at a dance - but now I shine my shoes. Before the war, I cussed at a golf ball - but now a sergeant cusses at me for not being on the ball. �Before the war, I didn’t have much religion - but now I pray for a furlough. ... Soon after a prayer for a furlough, the Red Cross advised me that a business associate of mine had committed suicide and I had been granted a two weeks emergency furlough for a trip home. VII. After the War Sgt. Smokey Joe After the war Smokey Joe opened his road house again near Greenville, SC. He came to see me and advised that they had arrested his partner for hauling whiskey in Buncombe County and wanted to know if I could help him out. I told him I knew the Chief of Police and Sheriff Brown and I would be glad to see what the situation was. He told me they couldn’t help as it was the Federal Authorities that arrested his partner. Thinking of how to get him a light sentence, I asked Joe if his partner was in the armed forces and he said that they had turned him down because he had a heart murmur. I told Joe to send his partner to Lion Dr. Feldman who was Federal Physician and I would get a report from him as to his heart murmur. Lion Dr. Feldman told me he had a heart murmur and as a Federal Physician he would advise Judge Warlick about it in Federal Court. At the trial, Joe’s partner got a suspended sentence. Later he came to see me with a roll of hundred dollar bills and wanted to pay me for getting him off. I refused the money and told him that Joe had helped me out during the war and what I did was a favor to Joe. Later he brought me six fifths of scotch for a present which I kept. Corn Whiskey at Road House Before the war, road houses would hide the corn whiskey they served their guests in a container under a bed. When the sheriff’s dept. would raid the joint, they usually wouldn’t look for it there. One night they found it and an article appeared in the Asheville Citizen that the sheriff’s dept. confiscated a gallon of whiskey hid in a container at a road house. J im Dwelbiss and Beaver Lake Returning home from World War II, I was interested in building a house to live in. Jim Dwelbiss, president of the Asheville Lions Club 1941-1942, said that he had a lot across the street from his home on Westwood Road in Lakeview Park and if I would build a one story house so he could see Beaver Lake over the roof of my house, he would give me a good deal. I acquired the lot and built the house. He told me that as a resident of Lakeview Park I should take on some activity for the benefit of the park. He took me to the annual meeting of the property owners and I was elected as one of the three commissioners - no salary. When I met with the other two commissioners they told me I �had charge of the lake and fishing and they would back me up in anything I wanted to do. I got phone calls. I got a phone call from a resident and he says “Stop the fishing, the fish are diseased.” I contacted the game warden from the NC Wildlife Resources Commission and we found a service station by the creek that furnished the lake with water that had put old oil from automobiles in it and it had killed a few fish. I get a phone call from a lady that an awful looking man wearing overalls was fishing. I asked her did she expect him to wear a tuxedo. I get a call advising that two women indecently dressed were near the dam of the lake. I found them to be the wives of the two commissioners sun bathing. I found two men swimming in the lake, which was against the rules. They told me they would swim and that I couldn’t stop them. I told them to swim if they wanted to and that a sewer line had broken and was emptying in the lake and would probably get typhoid fever - they stopped swimming. I found a group of women in bathing suits at the lake near Glenn Falls Road with a photographer. I found them to be local beauticians getting their picture with the lake in the background. They were using the picture on a cover of a program for a State Convention of Beauticians in Asheville. Fishing in the lake was allowed for licensed property owners only. I saw a man standing at the edge of the lake for 30 minutes just looking. On investigation I found he had a line tied to his belt that ran down the inside of his pants leg over his shoe into the lake. On the line he had a float and a baited hook. When the fish would bite and pull the float under he would kick his leg, hang the fish, pull it in and nobody would know he was fishing. I appreciated what Lion Dwelbiss had done by getting me elected to be fish commissioner of Beaver Lake. But I got a call that I was going to be elected president of Congregation Beth-Ha-Tephila and that construction would be started soon on a temple at Liberty and Broad Streets. I thought I could use some religion so I didn’t run again for commissioner of Lakeview Park and I took up my duties as president of Beth-Ha-Tephila. I completed the building of financing of the new temple in two years. I was tired out and hoped that maybe I could get some rest by being fish commissioner again at Beaver Lake. Sternberg Hunting Rats �Joe Sternberg was president of the Lion’s Club in 1960-61. His father Seigfred Sternberg, came over to the U.S. at the turn of the century, procured a horse and wagon, drove around western North Carolina buying cowhides and junk. He finally opened a junk yard on Depot Street and became one of the largest cowhide dealers in the United States. Lion Joe was my classmate in the A.H.S. class of 1922. He would rent a freight car on the local freight train to Murphy and buy cowhides at the stations where the train stopped. I was watch inspector for the Southern Railway and would travel on the same train, give the employees a certificate that in my opinion the watch they had wouldn’t vary over 30 seconds a week. Going west you could go as far as Waynesville by auto and then by train to Murphy. Lion Joe Dave, president of the club in 1932, was construction engineer for the Sternberg Co. who supplied steel for the construction of buildings. Later he organized the Dave Steel Co. Old man Sternberg did well financially and became president of the Southern State Bank on Depot St. He became active in civic, religious and fraternal affairs in Asheville. He built a big home on Victoria Drive. He didn’t like the help he was getting in Asheville so he imported a young beautiful maid from Germany. The maid went down to get an item at the garage and found Mr. Sternberg there. Mr. Sternberg got fresh with the maid, the maid picked up a 22 caliber rifle that I sold him and shot him. The wound wasn’t serious. The next morning a news item appeared in the Asheville Citizen with the head line: “Sternberg Wounded While Hunting Rats in the Garage.” Irving S. Cobb and Grove Park Inn About sixty years ago my friend Fred Bradley was night clerk at Grove Park Inn. He would tell me about the operation of the Inn. A guest would find his home town newspaper at his breakfast table. If he paid for anything, what change, if needed, would be given to him in uncirculated money. The only entrance to the Inn’s grounds was a large gate off of Macon Ave. The gate was closed at 10 PM as the noise from any automobile going in and out would disturb the guests. Irving S. Cobb, famous humorist, was spending a couple of days at the Inn. A little after ten o’clock one night he tried to get his auto into the Inn’s grounds. He found the gate locked. He had to park his car on Macon Avenue. He walked to the Inn and complained loudly about it. He was advised that the Inn didn’t welcome any unusual noises after 10 PM. In a little while he came down to the lobby from his room carrying his shoes, nothing on his feet but his socks, walked very quietly to Fred Bradley, the night clerk, and whispered to him “I want to check out.” �In a couple of days a news item appeared in the Asheville Citizen written by Irving Cobb with the headline: “The Bunk of Buncombe.” Read news article from Citizen-Times on suicide This reminded me of a historical event years ago when I was selling guns. A customer said he wanted an inexpensive pistol to keep in his home and he just obtained a permit to buy it. I sold him a 22 cal. Iver Johnson pistol. This type gun was later known as a “Saturday Night Special.” When I completed the sale I said “Thank you mister.” He said “Don’t call me mister, I’m a doctor. You call me doctor.” I said, “Thank you doctor.” He took the gun home and committed suicide with it. Now: I got to thinking if he bought the gun today he would have to make application to get a permit and wait two or three days for the permit to be issued. Maybe if he had to wait that long for a permit, he might have changed his mind about the suicide. Then: As a doctor I wondered why he didn’t write a prescription for some high powered sleeping pills, take several of them and just go to sleep and not wake up. I think I got an explanation. If any of you had to buy prescription drugs today, you know now expensive they are. And if they were that expensive back then when this happened, I guess the doctor felt he could save money by committing suicide with a “Saturday Night Special.” Problems in Water and Sewer Systems If you’ve read the newspapers lately, you know that the city of Asheville has problems in their water and sewer systems. I had some personal problems, so I phoned doctor #1. The lady answering the phone said that she would advise his nurse. His nurse was busy with a patient and the nurse would phone me later. The nurse phones me in about an hour. I asked the nurse if I was supposed to talk to her in a dignified way or call everything by its right name. She said to do what I think best, so I tell her what’s troubling me and that it had the color of Coca-Cola or Pepsi-Cola, I don’t know which. She said she would talk to the doctor and call me back. She calls back and says I ought to see doctor #2 who is a specialist with my troubles. He has a Rotto Rutter. I found out a Rotto Rutter is a gadget used by plumbers on home work. I see doctor #2 and he advises that he can’t find anything of a serious nature wrong. I go back to doctor #1. He makes several tests. He tells me to go back to doctor #2, that he is going to advise him of what he found and would ask him to make a complete examination. Back in doctor #2's office, an assistant brings in a machine for examination. He tells me that this machine is a new one, and it don’t hurt like the old one. After the examination, the �doctor makes an appointment for me to go to the hospital for a I.V.P. examination and bring the x-rays back to him. I take the x-rays back to doctor #2's office and the doctor says that they look pretty good, that all I need would be surgery and a 2 to 3 days stay in the hospital or it may be 6 days. I go back to the hospital for pre-admission tests and they do all the same tests that were done two or three times before and the nurse asked me a lot of personal questions. She asked if I had a BM. I knew that AM meant from midnight to noon and PM meant the time from noon to midnight. So I figured out the BM meant a BAD MORNING, so I told the nurse that I had a BM for about a week. I was told to report for surgery the next Wednesday at 6:30 AM, somewhat earlier than I usually get up. I get a phone call from doctor #2's nurse Tuesday night advising that the doctor is ill and would be unable to do the surgery and it would be postponed. Later I get a phone call that the surgery had been rescheduled for March 2nd at 1 PM. I had 5 days to review the situation and I think I was mentally, physically, and maybe financially ready for surgery. End of Report. I now feel good. SINS OF THE SANCTIMONOUS SUMMIT, OR Shall I live and laugh or cry and die with a prayer, or Laugh and live or cry and die Sylvia dn I decided to go into the Summit, a retirement home, for our golden years of life. We soon found out that the golden years of life are just gold plated- the gold wears off and you find yourself in a situation of assorted problems. I was in the WWII battle in the South Pacific but I found that it was a cinch compared to the “old age” battle in the Summit. Some of the residents here are physically disabled and some are mentally disabled. I am 92 years old and I find that all the residents over 90 years of age are both mentally and physically disabled. In moving to apartment #108, I asked if I could bring my piano. I was advised that my apartment had sound proof walls and it would be OK. A femal resident in an apartment near me said that she enjoyed listening to me practising but please don’t play before eight o’clock in the morning-- “it’s liable to disturb my sleeping.” The Summit was described to me as a “country club” retirement home with beautiful grounds, good entertainment and delicious food. In the so-called “country club retirement home,” I am still looking for the golf course and a swimming pool. �The department serving food is the best outfit here. The meals are delicious but I’ve never been offered a cocktail before dnner. The strongest drink I’ve ever had here has been ice tea. Some day maybe we will have an entree of a Maine Lobster or a wild duck on toast. I couldn’t figure out my monthly bill. I was told that the adding machine I had was an antique and what I needed was a calculator and computer to get the correct amount. I was advised that the easiest thing for me to do was to write a check for the amount listed as BALANCE on my statement. That would be satisfactory with the Summit. I never worry about paying my bills to the Summit-I’ll let them worry. If I go broke, I’ll just go next door to the Veteran’s Hospital where I can get in any time since I have a disability discharge from WWII. The 1997 elections are over and I’m glad I’m a Democrat because I don’t like what the Republicans will do with my benefits I get form Medicare and other government agencies to help pay the Summit. The Democrats are not so hot either. They lowered interest rates so much on my government bonds so now I have to cash them in order to have enough money to buy drugs. Memory My memory is getting worse. In leaving, my apartment I find the following has happened: #1 I forgot to turn the water off in the kitchen and the floor was flooded with water. #2 I forgot to turn the stove off and the coffee pot was melted. #3 I forgot to turn the lights off. #4 I forgot to take my hearing aid with me. #5 I forgot to take my walking cane with me. #6 I forgot to take my reading glasses with me. #7 I forgot to take my teeth. #8 I forgot to go to the bathroom--for my pills. I put a sign by the door where I leave the apartment listing the eight things I am supposed to do before leaving. Most times, I forget to look at the sign. Surgery payment My doctor advised me that I needed major surgery and that he would like to talk to me in his office. He wanted to know how I was going to pay my bill. I told him that a former doctor in his establishment would accept Medicare, also other Insurance benefits and send me a bill for what he didn’t collect. I would then send him a check. �He advised that there were deductions on my insurance during the first part of the year and wanted to know if I had considered them. I told him I didn’t know, but I would write him a check now if he wanted it. “Oh no,” he said. “I’ll take the check after the surgery.” I answered, “I think you are making a mistake. If you take my insurance payments you will get paid in thirty days. If you wait??? take my check and I die, it will take you a year to collect from my estate. He said, “You are wrong. I’m not going to let you die.” So now, I’m looking forward to the future with many years of fears and tears. Suffering from: Memory loss, over-reacting, trouble with eating, sleeping and weeping, co-ordination, irritation, and constipation. Prayer, or Humor, or What? I wondered what the most beneficial to me - PRAYER, or HUMOR, or WHAT? Is it time for me to laugh, cry or die? I sent copies of my WWII Diary [page ???] to two preachers that responded as follows: From preacher #1: Dear Leo: Thanks for the great piece. I enjoyed it! My best to you and Sylvia. From preacher #2: Thank you so much for that great “letter home from WWII.” It’s very funny! Actually it really made my day after shoveling snow. I too could use a furlough. All my best to you and Sylvia. Later both preachers asked for permission to use my thoughts in sermons. Maybe I should have been a preacher instead of a pawnbroker. Finis I had the honor of serving as president of Beth-Ha-Temphila in 1948 and 1949 during the building and financing of the new temple at Liberty and Broad Streets. I was Master of Ceremonies for the 50th Anniversary Banquet program of Beth-HaTehphila in 1941. I also presided at the 75th Anniversary Banquet in 1966. I have put in my application to preside at the 100th in 1991. Unless we are Indians, our ancestors came from Foreign Lands. I am thankful they did �what they did so that I could have the privilege of growing up in a city like Asheville, enjoy this great country of ours---a land of religious freedom and opportunity. GLOSSARY FOR THE GOYIM brisgoyim- � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Leo Finkelstein Papers Description An account of the resource This collection contains materials relating to Leo Finkelstein, resident of Asheville, North Carolina, the Asheville Lions Club, and the Beth Ha-Tephila Cemetery in Asheville. It contains computer discs, notes, scrapbooks, book drafts, correspondence, photographs, programs, fliers, and other materials related Leo Finkelstein, his wife Sylvia, and the Lions Club, Elks Club, and Jewish Community in Asheville, North Carolina. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Finkelstein, Leo, 1905-1998 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Leo Finkelstein: Personal History Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1998-01-30 Language A language of the resource English Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 107_01_LeoKathy Subject The topic of the resource Finkelstein, Leo, 1905-1998--Family Finkelstein, Leo, 1905-1998--Anecdotes Jews--North Carolina--Asheville--History Description An account of the resource Leo Finkelstein provides an account of his family's past, starting in 1799 in Lithuania and ending with his life in Asheville. Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a title=" In Copyright - Rights-holder(s) Unlocatable or Unidentifiable" href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC-RUU/1.0//" target="_blank"> In Copyright - Rights-holder(s) Unlocatable or Unidentifiable </a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource PDF Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a title="AC.107 Leo Finkelstein Papers" href="https://appstate-speccoll.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/192" target="_blank"> AC.107 Leo Finkelstein Papers </a> Is Part Of A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included. <a title=" Leo Finkelstein Papers" href="https://omeka.library.appstate.edu/collections/show/27" target="_blank"> Leo Finkelstein Papers </a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Extent The size or duration of the resource. 42 pages Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Asheville (N.C.) Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. https://www.geonames.org/4453066/asheville.html Temporal Coverage Temporal characteristics of the resource. 1990s America ancestors Asheville autobiography Depression Flanders goyim Jews Lithuania pawn shop Pisgah Prohibition World War II https://omeka-test.library.appstate.edu/files/original/d7c7ac7c778387364efa612ed109077e.pdf 5461277badfa5745b489f3e66b9782bc PDF Text Text In Nineteen Five I became alive and what I found around this town Was joy and tears for 50 years. I.Origins1 In 1799, my great-great grandfather was a chicken farmer in the town of Pushalot, in the state of Lithuania, in the Soviet Union. It was a hard life in the town of Pushalot. The winters were nine months long and unendurably cold. The summers were hot and rainy. There were occasional pogroms or Russian Cossaks rampaging through the streets terrorizing the countryside, gypsies stealing everything in sight, including sometimes even children, and always there was the threat of Siberia. My ancestors, like most Jews, were very poor, hard working and suffering. My greatgreat grandfather bought eggs from all the chicken farmers, packed them carefully on a wagon, covered them with straw to keep them cool and fresh and rode many miles to Kovna, Vilna and Riga to sell the eggs at the big city markets. In 1825, my great grandfather served as a rabbi in Pushalot. In 1872, my grandfather opened a kretchma in Pushalot. A kretchma is a Russian inn somewhat like out modern motels, only they didn’t have swimming pools or air conditioning. It was a place travelers could stop for food or drink or spend the night. One day a Bolshevik on horseback stopped at the Inn and drank a lot of vodka. He got fresh with my grandmother, who I understand was a good looking girl in those days. My father, a teenage boy, picked up a piece of stove wood, hit him on the head and knocked him out. That was an awful crime in Russia for a Jewish boy. My grandfather made a temporary settlement with the Russian and gave him 50 rubles. My father thought that they may send him to jail or Siberia, so he stole his way across the border into Germany. He didn’t like Germany, so he left Germany and made his way to South Africa. He went to work as a house painter in Johannesburg. He became ill from the lead poisoning in the paint. There were no United Way or Federate Jewish Charities down there, but someone took pity on him and nursed him back to health. He sold cigarettes and sandwiches at a 1 Cite reference �stock exchange and he finally opened a resturant. In 1898, right before the English-Boer War, my father sold his resturant for gold coins, got a money belt, and went down to Cape Town. He had a cousin in Australia and a brother in Jacksonville, Florida. By a flip of a coin he came over to Jacksonville, Florida. In Jacksonville, Florida, he went to night school to learn to read and write English. II. The Dawn of the Twnetieth Century in Asheville In 1900, my father became ill and the doctor in Jacksonville told him the only place to go to get cured would be the mountains. He came up to Asheville, and Doctor Smith told him he would die of anything except what they sent him to Asheville for, so that he might as well go back to Jacksonville. He like Asheville so much he decided to stay here. In 1903, he opened a pawn shop at 23 South Main Street (now Biltmore Avenue). He married Fanny Sherman from Newport News, Virginia, and they made their home in an apartment on Ashland Avenue. In 1905, my father became a citizen of the United States. Among the organizations he joined were the Asheville Board of Trade (now The Asheville Chamber of Commerce), the Fraternal Order of Eagles, Suez Temple of the Oramatic Order of Khorosson, Lodge #1401 BPO, Elks, Mt. Herman Masonic Lodge, Scottish Rite Masonic Lodge, Oasis Temple of Shriners, Congregation Bikur Cholim (now Beth Isreal), and Congregation Betha-Ha-Tephila. So, in Asheville, North Carolina, the Twentieth Century began with: -The pawnbroker named Finkelstein. -S.H. Friedman, who operated a furniture store. He came to Asheville from Maryland, where he peddled tinware. His son, Nat Friedman, later operated the Susquehana Antique Co. -A Jewish lawyer by the name of Goldstein. -A Jewish plumber by the name of A.J. Huvard. He married E.C. Goldberg’s sister. E.C. Goldberg ran a news stand next to the Imperial Theater on Patton Avenue for years. -A Jewish dentist by the name of I. Mitchell Mann. -Harry Blomberg’s father who came to Asheville in 1887. He operated the Racket Store on Biltmore Avenue for many years. -The Palais Royal Department Store operated by Morris Meyers for 40 years. He was a charter member of Congregation Beth-Ha-Tephila and he came to Asheville in 1887. -The Bon Marche Department Store operated by Solomon Lipinsky. -A Jewish postman who delivered mail by the name of Barney Seigle. I was particularly interested in Barney because he had a sister by the name of Ester, who was in my class in �high school — a beautiful and affectionate student. -An industrialist named Seigfred Sternberg. -Dan Michalove, who worked at the first movie houses in town and finally advanced to Vice-President of Paramount Pictures and was put in charge of all their theaters in Australia. -Lou Pollock, who operated a shoe store at the corner of South Main and Eagle Streets. He once ran a shoe sale for $.98 a pair. -Leo Cadison, who came here for his health, operated a ladies clothing store on Pack Square, finally moved to Washington, D.C., and became an attorney by act of Congress. He was a speech writer for the Attorrney General of the United States. -An orthodox Rabbi by the name of Londow. -Morris Myers served as Exalted Ruler of the Old Elks Lodge #608. In 1883 Jews were arriving to become pioneers in the Asheville community. Some came to make a better livelihood and for opportunity. The moderate climate and mountain air attracted others to Asheville, a growing medical haven for the sufferers of chronic respiratory diseases. Congregation Beth-Ha-Tephila August 23, 1891, twenty-seven men met in Lyceum Hall and adopted a constitution for Congregation Beth-Ha-Tephila. Among the charter members were the Blomberg, Lipinsky, and Zagier families. It is noted that the dues were $10 a year, payable in advance. Lyceum Hall was the first home of the Congregation. It was rented from a fraternal order for $75 a year. Congregation Bikur Cholim Rabbi Londow became the rabbi for Congregation Bikur Cholim whose articles of incorporation were filed in the Court Clerk’s office in February 1899. The incorporators were J.B. Schwartzberg, A. Blomberg, Sam Feinstein, S.H. Michalove, A. Shenbaum, M. Zuglier, and R.B. Zagier. Since the community could not pay Rabbi Londow a decent wage, he operated a Jewish grocery store on the side. He was a kindly old gentleman with a big beard, wore his hat around the grocery store at all times except when a lady called him on the telephone. He would remove the hat during the conversation and put it back on his head after the phone call. I remember a big barrel of herring in the center of the store. Plain herring were 5 cents each and milk herring ten cents. A newly married lady in the Congregation once called Rabbi Londow and complained that a duck she bought from him was old and too tough to eat. Rabbi Londow asked what she expected him to do --- look down the duck’s mouth and count its teeth! The first religious services of Bikur Cholim I remember attending were on the second floor of a building at the corner of Patton Avenue and Church Street. It was early in the life of Bikur Cholim that the congregation split up due to a big argument. Half of the members formed another congregation and called it Anshei Hashuron. They rented a second floor of an apartment �house at the corner of Central Avenue and Woodfin Street. However, through the efforts of the impartial moderates, a compromise was reached and a permanent division averted. Nevertheless, the apartment was kept for a religious school. It was here I received my first Hebrew lesson. Rabbi Fox was teaching us the four questions to ask at our Passover meal. At this time my father would attend all the board meetings of Bikur Cholim. He would come home upset and nervous. Dr. Smith suggested he not attend any more Synagogue meetings due to his high blood pressure. Rabbi Fox was active on the 9th and 10th degrees of Scottish Rite Masonry. After his death I assumed his parts in these degrees and I am still on the degree teams. Orthodox rules and Hebrew School 75 to 100 years ago there were two synagogues in Asheville. My family belonged to the orthodox. The orthodox had strict rules for obeying the Sabbath which began Friday at sundown and ended Saturday night. The members of Bikur Cholim who owned an automobile would put them in the garage on Friday evening to observe the Sabbath and wouldn’t take them out until Saturday after sun down. Most of the members lived within walking distance of the Synagogue. To obey the Sabbath correctly you were not allowed to operate a business, spend money, smoke, strike a match, work, cook and many other activities were forbidden. Remember this was about 100 years ago. You weren’t supposed to tear paper. Now if you had a bathroom with paper on a roll, you tore the paper off for Friday in case it may be needed for the Sabbath. The same rule applies to outhouses with old Sears Roebuck catalogues. As far as I know none of these rules are observed today. In 1911, erection of a house of worship was started on South Liberty Street for Congregation Bikur Cholin. Although it wasn’t completed until 1916, the Hebrew School moved there in 1912. When I was 11 years old I attended Hebrew school conducted by the rabbi on Saturday morning in the edifice of the synagogue. The sanctuary contained nothing but pews and a coal stove for heat. The basement was used for storage and rest rooms. In the winter time the rabbi fixed the stove for a fire Friday so that it could be lit Saturday morning to produce heat for the Hebrew class. Since the rabbi shouldn’t light a fire or spend money on the Sabbath, he arranged for a boy in the neighborhood to light the fire Saturday morning. He placed a dime under a prayer book Friday and told the boy where to get a dime after lighting the fire on Saturday. Even in those days educational institutions had trouble with rebelling students. One real �cold morning the boy didn’t show up to light the fire. We were attending Hebrew class in sweaters, coats and overcoats and it was awful cold. I asked to be excused and coming up from the basement I reported to Rabbi Redunsky that the plumbing must have frozen as there was water leaking in several places. The Rabbi went to see about it. I advised the class that there were no broken pipes and suggested that we leave the building --- which we did --- not to return until warm weather. For your information, there was no water leaking. While my sisters Rosa and Hilda and I were still children and our parents were out of town for health reasons, Doctor Schandler’s father Dave Schandler, would invite us over to his house for meals, especially on Passover and other religious holy days. About this time when our house at 213 Broadway was being built, I was sliding down a sloping board and got a big splinter in my rear end. My father couldn’t get it out so he took me to Dr. Mann, the dentist, and he got it out --- no charge. The building of the Synagogue was completed in 1916 and the day before the eve of Rosh-Hashonah a fire completely destroyed the building. Mrs. Rosenfeld had a Jewish Boarding House next door and she cried and complained that she had just cleaned her house for Yontiff and smoke had dirtied the place up. The Masonic Temple was offered to us to use for the High Holy Day Services and we accepted. After the fire that destroyed Bikur Cholim Synagogue on South Liberty Street the second floor of the Sondley Building on Broadway was rented for the use of the congregation. A member of the congregation, a young man, forgot he had made a date with a waitress in the Langren Hotel and attended the meeting of the congregation. The lady waited in front of the Masonic Temple with a gun and took a shot at him after the meeting when he was leaving the building. She missed. After going to Hebrew School in the building we would stop and examine the hole the bullet made in the front wall of the building. The Cemetery In those days Asheville was a place that offered a cure for tuberculosis. Many sanatoriums were located in the hills around town. A Jewish man died in one of the sanatoriums and had no money or family. No cemetery in town would bury him unless someone paid $100 for the grave. It was then that nine Jewish men formed the “West Asheville Hebrew Cemetery Association Inc.” My father was the first president. In their bylaws it was stated that anyone of Jewish faith could be buried there. The price of a grave was $100 and if there was no one to pay it there would be no charge. The cemetery changed it’s name some years later to “Mt. Sinai Cemetery” and sometime after to “The Lou Pollock Memorial Park.” After father died, Lou Pollock became president. After his death, I was the vice-president and assumed the duties of the president. I conferred with David Adler and set up a meeting between the directors of the cemetery and members of Beth Israel. The ownership of the cemetery was transferred to Beth Israel. �The following names of the nine founders can be seen on a plaque at the entrance to the cemetery bearing the date 1916: Sam Feinstein, Isaac Michalove, Lou Pollock, S.W. Silverman, Sender Argentar, Rabbi Elias Fox, Dave Schundler, Barney Pearlman, Harry Finkelstein. Benevolent Societies Around this time my father felt that some homemade chicken soup would help the Jewish patients in the sanatoriums. A number of Jewish women set up a kitchen and once a week hot chicken soup was made available to the Jewish patients and to others who requested it. Rabbi Fox acquired business interests in Asheville and served as part-time Rabbi. He was associated with a local butcher who made kosher meat available. He would go by the homes of members and kill the chickens. In 1917, some of us young Jewish boys decided that we ought to have a YMHA or a Community Center in Asheville. Rabbi Fox met with us and suggested that we form a YMHA. He said a community center was for the community only, but a bigger and better organization would be a YMHA because it extended from coast to coast. He told us a story about when he first came to this country and wanted to see the Brooklyn Bridge. He found a man who could talk Yiddish and after looking at the bridge he asked why they built the bridge with a lot of little cables instead of one big cable. The man explained to him that if one or two cables broke it would not harm the bridge, but if there was one big cable and it broke the bridge would fall in. Rabbi Fox said that therefore us boys should be little cables and hold up the YMHA we were going to form. Mr. Sternberg and Mr. Leavitt Seventy-five years ago there was no United Way in Asheville. There were many local charitable organizations sponsored by churches, synagogues, houses of worship, also the YMCA, the Salvation Army, the Elks Lodge and the Jewish Ladies Aid Society. Lion Joe Sternberg’s father was active in civic, religious, fraternal organizations in Asheville. At that time he was collecting donations for the “Ladies Aid Society” of Asheville. He went to see Mr. Leavitt who operated a ladies ready to wear store on South Main St. near Pack Square. He wouldn’t donate more than $5 and this didn’t please Mr. Sternberg. Mr. Sternberg was the owner of the building in which Mr. Leavitt operated his store. He found Mr. Leavitt violated the terms of his lease because he sublet a portion of the store for a shoe department. Mr. Sternberg told Mr. Leavitt that he would have to give the Ladies Aid Society a suitable donation or vacate the building because he had violated the terms of the lease. They selected three men to determine what amount Mr. Leavitt should give the Ladies Aid Society. It was agreed that the amount they decided would be satisfactory to Mr. Sternberg and Mr. Leavitt. Mr. Sternberg selected a man to represent himself. Also Mr. Leavitt picked out the second man. They needed a man to represent both of them and finally selected my father. The committee decided that Mr. Leavitt should donate $500 to the Ladies Aid Society. �------ In 1936, the movements in founding a Jewish Community Center and to organize Federated Jewish Charities in Asheville was started by Julius Levitch through B’nai B’rith. In 1947 a testimonial dinner was held for his outstanding service to the Jewish Community. ----- On July 25, 1923, the Emporium Department Store owned by Jack Blomberg at the corner of Pack Square and South Main Street was destroyed by a major fire. It was feared that the entire block of Eagle Street would be destroyed. Many of the Jewish merchants who operated clothing stores in the block brought their insurance polices and books to the pawnshop across the street and requested that we put them in our safes which were two of the largest moveable safes in town. These two safes are now located at 21 Broadway. Flanders 20 About 75 years ago the Studebaker Corporation made two automobiles - the Flanders 20, 20 horsepower and the Emf. 30, 30 horsepower. My family owned a Flanders 20. To start the engine you used a hand crank in front of the auto. You lowered the spark control lever because if you didn’t, you might get a kickback on the crank and get your arm broken. If you had a flat tire, you had to raise the wheel with a hand jack, take the tire off and fix the inner tube with patches that you always carried with you. You had a hand pump to inflate the tire again. Some owners of the Flanders 20 bragged that sometimes they could drive up the hill on South Main Street (now Biltmore Ave.) from Depot St. to Pack Square in high gear and they didn’t have to shift to a second gear. There was a dirt road to Hendersonville. Some of it was red clay that would become slick when it rained. One small section of the road became very slick due to its location. There was a man there with a mule. For a small fee he would hitch the mule to the front of the auto and pull you out of the bad place with the help of the engine of the car. We were invited to a wedding in Hendersonville by Mr. Lewis whose sister, Rose, was getting married to a young attorney named Joe Patece. He practiced law in Asheville for many years. We took our Flanders 20 to the wedding with a couple of our friends. We had no trouble as it didn’t rain. Coming back to Asheville we got a flat tire near Skyland and stopped to fix it. We noticed a lot of berries growing near the road and we all began to eat them. A farmer saw us and accused us of stealing his berries. He took out a warrant for my father. The trial was to be heard by a Justice of Peace in Skyland. My father employed a young lawyer by the name of Bob Reynolds. Bob Reynolds in later years became a U.S. Senator. The Justice of Peace office was too small to hold the crowd that came to the trial so it was held under a large oak tree outdoors. I heard that Bob gave a great speech to the crowd and the Justice of the Peace ordered my father just to pay the farmer a small amount for the berries. �The moral of this event is: Don’t eat wild berries beside an old road. You are liable to have more troubles than a stomach ache. School In 1911, I started school at Montford Avenue Grammar School. In 1922, I went to UNC-Chapel Hill for 2 days, and had to come home to run the pawnshop. In the February 1922 graduating class in Asheville High School, there were 5 boys and 14 girls. Therefore, each boy was expected to take 3 girls to the Senior Class Dance of February 1922. Things were better when we had a dance for the entire school. There were three Jewish girls in the total 1922 class — Madeline Blomberg, Eva Sternberg, and Ester Seigle. I was the only student to take an automobile to school in 1922. It was a Paige make with a “bathtub back” model. I was the business manager of the “Hillbilly,” the school monthly magazine. I was given any study hall period off that I wanted to collect for ads that appeared in the magazine, so I would take my auto and a girl to help me from the study hall. After collecting for one ad we would ride over to the Charlotte Street Drug Store and participate in ice cream sodas for the balance of the study hall period. Pisgah 1922 In reporting from my historical records on Lion Joe Sternberg, president of our club in 1960-61, I’ve talked about his father, old man Sternberg and Joe’s sister, Eva. I reported that Lion Joe and I were seniors in the 1922 class of Asheville High School. Now, Lion Joe’s mother, Mrs. Sternberg, phoned me and advised me that she was entertaining Joe and three other members of the 1922 class with a trip to the top of Mt. Pisgah. Eva graduated in 1921 but wanted to go with them. Her mother asked if I would like to go and look after Eva if she went, and I told her that I would be delighted. They all picked me up the next morning and Mrs. Sternberg drove us to the home of Mr. & Mrs. Rufus O’Kelly who lived at the base of Mt. Pisgah in her 7 passenger Mormon automobile. We had lunch of possum and sweet potatoes. There was one dirt road (one way) to the top of Mt. Pisgah, 5 miles long. An auto had to go up in the morning at daylight and was allowed to come down after 1 PM until dark. We hiked to a cleared section. Mr. O’Kelly chaperoned the trip and built us a large bonfire and was fixing something to eat. Eva was unpacking some things and I noticed a large bottle of Bromo-Seltzer. I asked if she expected someone to have a headache. She said, “No, I opened a pint bottle of father’s bottled whiskey, took half of it and filled the Bromo-Seltzer bottle. Now you and I can have a drink before we eat.” �“That’s a good idea,” I said, “but what is your father going to say when he finds out?” She said, “no problem. I filled the empty half of the whiskey bottle with water.” At nighttime she and I sat around the fire drinking a few drinks of Bromo-Seltzer. ----- On Sundays in 1925, the Jewish crowd of teenagers and somewhat older boys and girls would gather at the home of the Sternbergs on Victoria Road. The Sternbergs had four children: Eva, Joe, Johanna, and Rose. One of the older girls in the crowd was named Jennie. One day I asked her how she managed to be so popular among the boys, and her answer was, “Well, I’m not so pretty, but I’m catchie”. ----- I dated Eva and one night I called at the house to take her out and her father yelled to us from the second floor of the house “Don’t you go to no road houses,” and Eva replied “What’s the matter papa --- you afraid we are going to find you there!” William Jennings Bryan On July 7, 1896, William Jennings Bryan delivered the “Cross of Gold” speech and won the Democratic party nomination for Vice President of the United States. In 1900 he was nominated again for Vice President. In 1908 he was nominated for President of the United States. Later in life he moved to Asheville and his home was at the corner of Evelyn place and Kimberly Avenue--just a few houses away from where Lion Jack Cole now lives. Mr. Bryan asked by father to order him a special made double barrel Parker shot gun with 28" barrels modified and choke bores, and a 23/4 inch drop. After receiving the gun he wrote my father a letter of thanks. I had this letter in my historical files and it disappeared. Now I don’t know whether to blame it on the Democrats or Republicans. III. Asheville in the 1930's Prohibition’s Waning Days It was in 1933, after Franklin Roosevelt was elected president of the United States, that the Volstead Act was repealed and it became legal to sell beer with an alcoholic content on October 1st. I was president of a mens social club, and it became my duty to get beer to serve to the members. This was a difficult job as none was available from distributors around Asheville. 1933 was the year of the Great Depression and Rabbi Goodkowitz bought a second hand truck from Harry Blomberg and was doing some hauling on the side to supplement his income from Bikur - Cholim. Rabbi Goodkowitz said he would go to Baltimore and get us a load of beer as he personally knew the owner of the Valley Forge Beer Company there. I gave him six hundred dollars of the club’s money and he left on a Monday to be back on Thursday. He didn’t show up, but came in the following Monday. The delay was due to the truck breaking down on the trip. Of course I was somewhat concerned but the club had a truck load of Valley Forge Beer �available. Leo Cadison saw me and advised that he had talked to the United States Senator Robert R. Reynolds, and the members were starting a campaign to sell the beer before October lst. Captain Fred Jones of the Asheville Police Department and a member of the house committee said he would not recommend selling it before the legal date. At the club that week, I noted about 150 members were present instead of the usual 40. Under “good and welfare” Senator Reynolds, a great orator, spoke in favor of selling the beer and said that we were all brothers in a non-profit and charitable organization, and it would be legal to sell it. Others who spoke in favor of selling the beer were Judge Philip Cocke, State Senator; A. Hall Johnson, Superior Court Judge; Dan Hill, Postmaster; Marcus Erwin, U.S.Attorney; Zeb Mettles, Superior Court Judge; Charles McRae, local attorney; and Leo Cadison. Leo Cadison made a motion that we advise the House Manager to put the beer on ice so that we could drink it after the meting. I advised Mr. Cadison that I could not accept a motion of an illegal nature but under Robert’s Rules of Parliamentary procedure he could appeal my decision. He appealed and I advised that the question to be voted on would be “Shall the decision of the chair stand” and there would be no discussion. The vote was unanimous against my decision (which suited me) and I instructed the secretary to take everything out of the minutes pertaining to beer, also to advise the house manager to put the beer on ice so we could have it after the meeting. He said that it was too late to advise him because the beer had been on ice for the past two hours. How to Finance a Pawnshop in a Depression It was the Depression of the 1930's. Our loans averaged $10 and we made them as low as 50 cents. The demand was great on loans on diamonds and jewelry. The top loan on a ½ carat diamond was $50 and $200 on a good grade carat. I was running out of money. I saw Perry at the Morris Plan Bank and we agreed to rent a lock box at the Wachovia Bank. Both of us would have a key to it. I would hypothecate the large size diamond and jewelry loans. The ways that worked is I would make the loan, get the cash from Perry on a 90 day note, and put the jewelry in the lock box as security. If the customer came to redeem his jewelry I advised him that jewelry was at the vault at the Wachovia for safekeeping and I would get it for him. This was working very well as the bank was making the legal rate of 6% on 90 day notes which were paid in 30 to 40 days with no refund for unearned interest. I was doing OK also. I charged interest at legal rates plus other expenses incident to the negotiations of the transactions. Then Mr. Wolcott comes to town. He took over the Morris Plan Bank and organized the Bank of Asheville. Perry, the new cashier at the Bank of Asheville, came to see me and said, “Mr. Wolcott advised that the bank wasn’t a pawnshop and to tell Finkelstein to pay off those 90 day notes.” It ooked like I was going to have to stop making large jewelry loans and try to meet the 90 day note. �But a miracle happened. A girlfriend of mine in the 1922 class of Asheville High School married a man from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, who later committed suicide. She came back to Asheville to live. She saw me and wanted to know if I could help her out. She said she was left a sizeable amount of life insurance and did I know of a safe place where she could invest some of it and get a decent return. I helped her out. Police Chief Beavers On the program of the Asheville Lions Club on July 8, 1992, Chief of Police Beavers talked about prostitution in Asheville and how the APD was trying to cut the activity down. I believe there may be a better way to cut the activity down. In the year 1900 Asheville had a population of 14,694. My historical records indicate at that time the red light district was known as the Eagle Terrace and was operated by a lady known as “Queen Elizabeth.” There were no problems. The Banov family in Charleston, SC, are part of my kin folks. Doctor Banov was a health physician for Charleston County, SC for 35 years. That was the longest any county health physician stayed in office. In talking to him I found out that the red light district in Charleston, SC, was a large house known as the “Red Brick” on Bensford St. The prostitutes had to have a health certificate from a local doctor renewed every 90 days, frame it, and hang it on the wall by her bed. They had Police Protection. In 1933 I was president of a fraternal order in Asheville. I had a good friend, Lt. Frank Hagan of the local police dept. who was also a member. We decided to drive down to Charleston, SC, for a convention. While in Charleston he said that he would like to go to the “Red Brick” on Bensford Street and get information for the Asheville Police Dept. on how they operated. I asked him how he expected to get in the place. He said “Don’t worry, I’ll get us admitted.” We went down to the “Red Brick” and Frank knocked on the front door. A lady opened a peephole in the door to look at us and Frank said “Back again.” We were then admitted to a large living room with red curtains. We picked out two of the girls in the living room and invited them to have a seat with us and have a drink. The only drink available was a coca-cola and the cost was 25 cents per drink. We asked them if their services would be available to members of a convention and they said that they were. The cost of a short stay would be $3 and for $5 a client could spend the night. I gave the girls $3 each and advised them that all we wanted to do was talk and get information for the convention - they were completely satisfied. �Now why don’t we get Chief Beavers to get someone like “Queen Elizabeth” to rent a place like a small hotel, or a large home with red curtains, or a place suitable for a whorehouse like the “Red Brick” in Charleston, SC. Serve soft drinks and ice cream at reasonable prices and furnish police protection. He might even get Lion Penland and me to open a pawnshop next door so that if a man didn’t have enough money to finance his trip to the place, he could pawn his watch or his gun. Don’t think all this would be legal, but its a thought anyway. The Preacher and the Bible Back in the depression days of the 1930s there was a preacher who pawned his Bible every Monday morning after Sunday’s services and redeemed it on the following Friday or Saturday for the next service on Sunday. I made the original loan of $10 and advised the preacher that he could get it out at a charge of $1 anytime in 30 days or if needed he could wait three months at no additional charge. In checking the records I found that he had pawned the Bible weekly on many occasions. On the next Friday morning when he came after his Bible I told him he didn’t owe anything on it that he had paid more carrying charges that the original loan. I told him to put that $10 bill he had next to the Ten Commandments in the Bible and the next time he needed $10 to take it out and put it back in the Bible after Sunday’s service. Just don’t bring the Bible back here for a loan. He didn’t. Overcoats During the depression of 1933 the pawnshop had 800 overcoats left at the beginning of the summer. The loans were from $3 to $7 each, and 80% of the loans were past due. There was a problem of moths. We put mothballs in the pockets of all overcoats and sprayed them with DDT. After the overcoats became more than 3 months past due we had them dry cleaned. We made a contract with the cleaners to pick up and return lots of twenty at 50 cents each. The owner of the cleaning company came in the shop and said that he wanted to buy an overcoat for his chauffeur. He tried on one and liked it so much that he said he would keep it for himself and give his to his chauffeur. Murders in Pawnshops and Helping Sheriff L. Brown You have probably read in the Citizen-Times about Mark Lane who was killed in a shooting during an armed robbery. His father, Ronald Lane, and he were co-owners of the Leicester Pawn Shop. In a former historical report I talked about Reggie, secretary to the Mayor of Miami Beach, who helped our delegation get faster transportation back to Florida from the International Lions Convention in Havana, Cuba. Lion C.A. Miller was on that trip. Later Reggie’s brother was killed in a holdup in his pawnshop on Flager Street in Miami. A lot of people classify a pawnbroker as a shylock. Those pawnbrokers I have known are kind people and are a asset to �any community they operate in. Of course you can exclude me. In November 1934 Sheriff Lawrence Brown of Buncombe County came to see me and said that he needed help. Beacon Manufacturing Company at Swannanoa was having labor trouble and a group from South Carolina was coming up to prevent the employees from going to work. He wanted to rent twenty 12 gauge shotguns to be used by special deputies to guard the entrance to the plant. I rented him twenty 12 gauge Harrington, Richardson shotguns for $1 each. He was successful in guarding the plant and they never fired a shot. The sheriff phoned me and said that he wanted to bestow upon me the honor of being a deputy sheriff and to come over and bring a photo for an identification card. I told him I didn’t know anything about enforcing the law. He said that was okay, to come over and he would swear me in and take out insurance on me. I asked him if it was life insurance. He said, “No, it was liability insurance and if I did anything wrong as a deputy sheriff that they would furnish me legal assistance in court.” I was sworn in November 15, 1934. I got a phone call the next morning from Mr. Seely, Manager of the Grove Park Inn. He said that he needed a gun for his watchman, a 38 Saturday Night Special with a 4" barrel. Sheriff Brown told him I could supply what he wanted. I told him I had it in stock and he asked me to bring it out to the Inn. I got in my dilapidated Ford touring car, drove to the front entrance of the Inn and started to go in, when the Bell Captain stopped me. He asked “What are you doing here?” I replied “I have a gun for your watchman and Mr. Seely asked me to bring it out to him.” “Well,” he said, “you take that gun to the back door. They have a barrel of money back there and they will pay you for it.” This was during the depression of the 30's and I had quoted Mr. Seely top price, and I was going to do anything legal to complete the sale so I went to the back door. Now I am happy to announce that at the present time I am allowed to go in the front entrance to the Inn. Guns and a Grandfather Clock A friend of mine had a valuable antique clock about 6 feet tall. He said that he was leaving home for a month and there was a lot of larceny going on. He would like to leave it with me for safekeeping. I told him to put it in the storage area on the second floor of the shop. A couple of days later a customer comes in and wants to buy a shotgun. It was summer �time and since hunting season didn’t open until fall I wondered why he wanted a shotgun. My salesman said all the shotguns and shells were stored on the second floor and he would take the customer up there. A little later I heard a big loud bang from the second floor. The salesman came running down and said that the customer had committed suicide with a shotgun. I called the Police Department and Dr. Baer, the coroner. Will Hampton, solicitor of police court and the chief came over. I went to the second floor with them and we found the customer passed out on the floor. I didn’t see any blood and upon examination we found part of his clothing blown away under one arm and he wasn’t injured. It’s almost impossible to reach the trigger of a 31" barrel shotgun when you have the muzzle at your chest. Evidently the customer must have tried to reach the trigger and the muzzle slipped under his arm when the gun fired. I remembered the grandfather clock and found that the discharge from the gun blew some of the plaster out of the wall about a foot from the clock. The clock was okay. Dr. Baer asked for a pen. He said that he wanted to find out if the man really passed out. He jabbed him several times with a pen and the man didn’t move. He really passed out. The chief said that the man had violated a law and he would take charge of him. The lesson from this event is: Don’t try to commit suicide - if you do you are liable to get arrested. The Silver Shirts In the 1930's William Dudley Pelly operated the “Silver Shirts,” a Nazi like organization in a building across the street from the Jewish Community Center on Charlotte Street. He published the “Liberation Weekly,” anti-Semitic literature with a circulation of eight thousand. In a parade, I was playing the saxaphone with the Asheville Shrine Club Marching Band, and William Rosenfelt was carrying the American Flag. Pelly in his “Liberation Weekly” published a story that we were disgraced by a Jew with a big nose carrying the American Flag. Pelly was arrested by the Buncombe County Sheriff’s Department in 1941 for selling unregistered stock. He was found guilty through the efforts of Julius Levitch, a young Jewish lawyer by the name of Alvin Kurtus, and a local attorney named R.R. Williams. IV. I Am A Dime I was born in the early part of the twentieth century at the United States Mint in Philadelphia, put in a roll with forty-nine other dimes and shipped to the Southern State Bank on Depot Street in Asheville, North Carolina, of which Mr. S. Sternberg was president. Mr. Sternberg had a son, Joseph, who later became president of the Asheville Lions Club. Mr. Sternberg took me and the forty-nine other dimes to his beautiful estate on Victoria Road in order to participate in a ten cent limit poker game with some of his friends. Someone �tipped off the police that a game was going on. The home was raided and Mr. Sternberg gave the names of the players as Mr. Aleph, Mr. Baze, Mr. Gimmel, Mr. Dolad, Mr. Hay, Mr. Vove, Mr. Zion and Mr. Hess. The “Asheville Citizen” carried a story after the trial that an attorney appeared in Police Court for Mr. Aleph, Mr. Baze, Mr. Gimmel, Mr. Dolad, Mr. Hay, Mr. Vove, Mr. Zion and Mr. Hess and paid their fines. Very few people knew that Aleph, Baze, Gimmel, Dolad, Hay, Vove, Zion, and Hess are the first eight letters of the Hebrew Alphabet. I got separated from the other dimes that came to Asheville with me. I found myself in the pocket of Chief Bernard of the Asheville Police Department. It was in November, 1906, that the Chief phoned Uncle Harry, the pawnbroker, and said that ne needed firearms and ammunition to equip a posse of fifty men in order to hunt Will Harris, a desperado. Will Harris had shot and killed five men, of whom two were city policemen. Uncle Harry furnished the posse with guns and ammunition, taking only the names of those receiving firearms. It was reported that Will Harris spent the night in a barn in Buena Vista. The posse surrounded him in a field near Fletcher and killed him. His body was brought to an undertaking establishment at 21 South Main Street, and hung out of the second story window in the building in order to show the people that he had been killed and quieten them down. The next day, the Chief called Uncle Harry and asked if all the firearms had been returned. Uncle Harry said they had and commented that the people of Asheville were honest and good citizens. (Now, Thomas Wolfe, famous author and native of Asheville used this event for a story published in the Saturday Evening Post September 7, 1937. He also used it in a chapter in his book “The Child by Tiger.” 2 Bob Terrell, writer for the Citizen-Times talked about this event at one of our meetings. In 1968 the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms in Washington required a record of every pistol, rifle, revolver that we received and disposed of, as well as the model, caliber, serial number and manufacturer. I recently checked the shop that I retired from 25 years ago and they have records of 33,000 transactions since 1968 on hand.) The Chief took me to Mr. Pappa’s Cafe on South Main Street, bought his lunch which consisted of a ten cent bowl of soup, a good supply of free crackers and catsup. Mr. Pappa’s brother operated the “Candy Kitchen” on Haywood Street. They were making a lot of stick candy in the shape of walking sticks, colored red and white. The cafe owner bought a half dozen walking sticks from his brother, using me as part payment. He said that he was going to put the candy on his Christmas tree. The next day Mr. Pappas, who lived on North Main Street, was coming to town in a rain storm. North Main Street was paved but all side streets were not. They had stepping stones in order to get across. Mr. Pappas slipped on a stepping stone, getting his shoes all muddy. He stopped at the Pack Square Shoe Shine Parlor, got a shoe shine for five cents and gave the shine boy a five cent tip. The next thing I knew I was placed in a deposit for the Wachovia Bank and I stayed in their vault until the year 1913. Uncle Harry picked me up to use in his petty cash. His son asked for his weekly allowance and I was given to him with four other dimes. The son boarded a South Main Street streetcar on Pack Square with a fishing pole and a can of worms. He got off 2 Move note here on Thomas Wolfe etc. �at the Swannanoa River and walked a hundred yards toward the French Broad. In a couple of house, he caught a nice string of hog suckers, horney heads and perch out of the beautiful clear waters of the Swannanoa River. On his way home, he gave me to the conductor, received five cents change and a transfer to the North Main streetcar in order to go home. The Conductor carried me around a few days and then gave me to a lady on the Riverside “open air” streetcar that ran to Riverside Park. Riverside Park was owned an operated by the Asheville Power and Light Co., the same people who owned the street car company that was finally gobbled up by Lion Smith’s Carolina Power and Light Co. This lady gave me to her husband who went down to the Elk’s Club and lost me in a rummy game to a distinguished looking attorney they called “Judge Cocke.” After the card game the “judge” sat around talking to brother Elks and drinking beer. He was famous for his knowledge of North Carolina, its people and places. He even talked about the house of ill repute in Asheville at the turn of the century known as the “Eagle Terrace” run by a lady called “Queen Elizabeth.” The next morning, Attorney Cocke defended a man in Police Court who was charged with stealing a pair of shoes and pawning them because he couldn’t wear them on account of being too small. The court ordered the man to leave town that day. The man said he was hungry and didn’t have any money. So Attorney Cocke gave me with other change to him. The man went down to the Asheville and East Tennessee Railway Company station at the corner of North Main and College Streets. They operated an electric vehicle between Asheville and Weaverville. The man smelled hot dogs cooking at D. Gross’s Hot Dog Stand next door, so he spent me for a hot dog and a coca-cola. Mr. Gross raised and educated a family of thirteen children from the money he earned at his hot dog stand. Mr. Gross carried me around until Saturday night when he went to Liggett’s Drug Store for some headache powders. He stopped in front of the drug store to listen to the Salvation Army band while they were having a preaching and musical session. He put me in a pot they were using to get donations for their annual Christmas party. The Salvation Army bought a second-hand truck from Lion Fred Brown to be used in delivering food and clothing to the poor people in town. I was used in this transaction. Lion Brown took me to a Lions Club meeting, where he used me to pay the dime he was fined by the “Tail Twister” for falling asleep during the program. The Tail Twister’s wife took possession of me and bought some ribbon at the Palais Royal, a large department store on South Main Street, operated by Mr. Morris Myers. I circulated around Asheville until 1918, and again, found myself in possession of Mr. Sternberg. He had a large junk yard and warehouse on Depot Street that bought and sold hundreds of cowhides. On all of his advertisements he carried the slogan “We buy anything and sell everything.” A circus came to town and didn’t have enough money to leave. They applied to Mr. Sternberg who was president of the Southern States Bank on Depot Street for a loan of $200. Mr. Sternberg made the loan and took the elephant as collateral. He complained he was losing money on account of the elephant eating so much. Otto Buseck who owned Middlemont Gardens at that time raised his own flowers at a hot house in Candler. He helped Mr. Sternberg out with the elephant - he bought the manure from him. The next thing I recall was four o’clock on the morning of November 11, 1918. The fire bell started to ring at the firehouse. The Armistice of World War I had been signed. People �gathered on Pack Square and built a huge bonfire. A fire truck came out of the firehouse to shine its spot light on the American flag flying at the top of the Pack Square flag pole. People were bringing their guns from home to the Square and shooting live ammunition into the air in celebration. The fellow who owned me brought a double-barrel shotgun to town and bought some black powder shells from Otis Green Hardware Store. (Mr. Green years later became Mayor of Asheville). The Chief of Police soon asked all stores selling ammunition to quit selling it as he was afraid someone would accidentally get shot. Mr. Green took me to the Southern Railway passenger station and bought a ticket to New York from Pat Mulvaney, ticket agent. Frank Mulvaney, a brother to Pat, was a chief clerk for the railroad. He later became councilman for the City of Asheville. Pat took me to the Union News Company’s news stand in the station and bought two five cent cigars. Later an engineer from the railroad bought a “Billboard” magazine, and I was given to him in change for a dollar. He took me to the Glen Rock Hotel across the street, and I was used in paying his bill. The clerk at the hotel bought some ice cream at Finley’s Drug Store next door. Mr. Finley gave me to his son, Bob, who took me to Montford Avenue School. Bob in later years became the Supreme Court Justice for the State of Washington. Bob, on leaving Montford Avenue School one day, took me to Mr. Book’s Grocery Store on Cherry Street and bought some cookies. The people across the street from Mr. Book’s Grocery Store had a lot of cherry trees on their land and they would pay boys from the school ten cents a quart to pick cherries. Lion Carol Rhinehart picked a quart of cherries and received me in payment. Lion Carl Rhinehart lost me in a marble game at school to Jack Roberts, who took me home to 219 North Main Street. A creek ran parallel to North Main Street and emptied into the French Broad. Jack found muskrats were running up and down the creek, so he recruited some of the neighborhood boys who acquired steel traps and caught and sold the muskrat hides to St. Penick and Company, at the corner of North Main and Lexington. The next thing I recall I was in the pants pocket of Lion Bill Michalove, who took me to the Galaxy Theater on Pack Square in order to see a serial movie called “The Black Hand.” Bill’s brother, Dan, was manager of the Asheville Theaters, and he finally became Vice President of Paramount Pictures, with headquarters in Australia. Since Bill had an “in” at the theaters in town, he would, on occasion, take his teen-age boy friends back stage at the Majestic Theater, located at the corner of College and Market Streets, to view the chorus girls at close range. Tommy Elkins, the stage manager, would keep a close watch on the boys in order to see that they behaved themselves. It was in 1922 when I was used as part payment for a second hand Jeffery automobile bought by Harry Blomberg. Harry took his Jeffery Auto to Asheville High School on Oak Street. Someone dropped me on Market Street and I rolled down a storm sewer. I stayed there for a long time and one day a man from the city’s water department found me and used me in a donation to the Democratic Party of Buncombe County. The chairman of the Party put me in a 10 cents slot machine at a social club. �The player who won me at the slot machine would always put me back, hoping to win more. I circulated in and out of the slot machine until 1950, when Lion Dr. Feldman won me. Dr. Feldman had a reputation of never buying anything unless he could get it wholesale. Dr. Feldman put me in the zipper change section of his pocketbook, and now I haven’t seen the light of day for twenty years. V. Jewish Jitter Bugs3 A bug is an insect. A Jitter Bug is an insect that jumps from place to place. A Jewish Jitter Bug is a professional bum, claiming Jewish faith— jumping around from city to city — living off the sympathy of his misinformed brothers - other Jews. For twenty years, I have seen this bunch of crooks take from $300 to $400 a year out of my community. I have learned their stories, their approach, their methods, and in fact, I can tell one just by the sight of him. I have seem them go north in the summer-time, and south in the wintertime. I have been awakened at all hours of the night by them, tracked down on Sundays and holidays. I have to put up with them coming in my place of business, with no courtesy to me, or respect for my customers. I have to watch them go away most always with a dissatisfied growl for what help they get, and seldom do I hear a “Thank You”. I have to battle their high-powered maneuvers of artistic chiseling without the help or appreciation of the Jewish Community in which I live. Who are these people? Why, they are Jews — sure, they are a bunch of professional racketeers that cost the Jewish public about one million dollars per year. If a Jew gets to a city and is broke - why, the other Jews are supposed to help him out. What he is or what he does or where he comes from - don’t make any difference - as long as he is a Jew that is all that is necessary. That is what you might think — but I don’t! There is not one Jewish transient in five hundred worthy of any help at all. They travel from place to place using the fact that they are Jews to prey upon other Jews. Many of them are ex-convicts, some just ordinary bums, and all of them liars. In this army of rogues, you will not find one who has a friend or relative who they could obtain help from. I have offered to wire to any person for hundreds of them, but they will tell ;you that all their friends or relatives are broke, or that they wouldn’t think of asking any of them for money. Common sense will tell you that, if a transient is worthy, there must be someone in this world who will help him to some extent. I am sure if any of you gentlemen were to find yourself broke in some far off place, that you would have at least one friend or relative to whom you could wire for help. These swindlers don’t want to get help from friends or relatives. They are just traveling around, enjoying life in a peculiar way, and living on the Jewish public, their so-called brothers. So, when these Jewish Brothers of ours come to town, what are we supposed to do with them? The only sensible thing we can do is to get rid of them as quickly and as cheaply as possible. The most common type of transient is the ordinary bum who claims that he has a job in a nearby city. All he wants from you is a couple of meals in a good restaurant, a room with a bath in a clean hotel, transportation to the place he is going, and maybe a pair of shoes, a couple of shirts and an overcoat. In order to get rid of this man quickly you must start talking before he does. So when I spot one, I start talking first. I ask him if he wants some help, and as soon as he says “Yes” I hand him a half-dollar, a meal ticket to a nearby restaurant, and tell him to get the hell out of town as fast as he can. Most of them will take this and leave because they know, through their grapevine system, that this is all they can get. 3 Cite reference �This system even informs them where to go to when you get to a town, and that is why nobody see the majority of these people, except myself. Some of them insist that they have a special story to tell you about their hard luck, and that they re different from the rest. These stories would make some of you break down and weep, but to me these stories are just a bunch of fabricated lies. Then, we have the group of transients who are physically disabled. Some are partially blind and crippled. They will claim to have tuberculosis, nervous indigestion, high blood pressure or what-not. Some will claim to have a combination or complication of diseases, or an assortment of ailments. If I am convinced that the transient is really ill, then I buy him transportation to the nearest point, and get him out of town as fast as I can. These people are never given cash for their transportation. A check is written to the Bus Station for their ticket, and the Bus Station has instructions to issue a ticket stamped “No Refund”. This method was adopted after I found out some cashed their tickets back in, in order to get cash, and bummed rides out on the highway to get to where they were going. A decent looking, elderly lady once appealed to me for help. She stated that she was almost blind, and was traveling with her son who was so crippled he couldn’t walk. She told me that she and her son had come in on a bus late the night before, and were at a small hotel near the bus station. She advised me that her son was ill in bed, that she was out of funds, could not pay her hotel bill, had nothing to eat, and no way to get to a nearby city where her son was going to enter a hospital. “A worthy case, at last!” I thought. I took her name, and ask her to come back in an hour, and I would see what I could do for her. I inquired at the hotel, and found that nobody by the name she gave me was there. I asked her about this when she returned, and she said that she did not use her real name since it was Jewish, and she didn’t want people to think she was Jewish. I called the hotel again and inquired about the new name she had given me, and the hotel informed me that the two of there were register there, but that her son seemed healthy, and was in and out of the hotel all day long. Asking her about this, she explained that her son went out only when he had to go to the drug store for medicine. It was cold and raining outside, so I called the hotel, and told them I would pay their bill, gave her enough for food, bought her two bus tickets, and gave her instructions to get out of town, by night without fail. It wasn’t long before I received a phone call from a Jewish person in town stating that this old lady had called on him, and pe proceeded to cuss me out for not giving her any help. To make a long story short--she called on three more persons in the city with the same story - that I would not help her. A couple of hours later I went by the hotel where she was staying and found that she had checked out and left in her room many pieces of clothing that had been given to her by these people she had called on in the city. Then we have the rabbis. They are a wonderful type of transient to deal with. They usually get to town on Friday, so you have to keep them over “shabbos”. That means an expense of two nights lodging and meals for a whole day. In fact, all the transients who arrive on Friday are “very religious” and won’t travel on Friday night or Saturday. I’ve had many rabbis promise to send me back the money I gave them, and never yet has one of them sent back a penny. In fact, of the hundreds of promises that I’ve had from all kinds of transients to return money given them, never has one kept his promise. The president of the orthodox congregation once phoned me, and told me that a rabbi was at this house m and that this rabbi was a very fine person, a scholar, and a gentleman, a man is in need, and suggested that I give him $5. I was just ready to leave my house, and I informed the president that I did not have time to interview the rabbi myself, but that if he thought the man was worthy, to give him $5, and I would return that amount to him later. I happened to pass by the president’s house just as the rabbi was leaving there, and I took a good look at him. The next morning, the same rabbi was at my place of business, wanting to know if I took care of the Jewish transients. He wasn’t a rabbi anymore, and he had changed his name. I told him to come along with me, and I would take him to the man who could help him. He got into the front seat of my automobile, and wanted to know where we were going, and when I told him we were going to see the president of the orthodox congregation, he jumped out and ran. I ran after him, and caught him on Patton Avenue. He started yelling like I was going to murder him, and a crowd started to gather, so I let him go, and he ran away again. I haven’t seen him since. �Another Rabbi once appealed to me for help, and he claimed to be a brother-in-law of the rabbi in Greenville, SC. Knowing the rabbi in Greenville personally, I didn’t believe he would send a brotherin-law of his out of the state to chisel the public, so I phoned long distance to inquire about the man. The rabbi in Greenville informed me that this transient had worried the community there a couple of days before, that he was no relation of his, but claimed to be a brother-in-law of the rabbi in Columbia. This man’s system was to claim relationship to a rabbi in a nearby city, in order to get help. I gave him $.50 and a meal ticket, and told him to get out of town before dark. He didn’t leave, instead he called on other Jews in the city with the same story, and collected around $5 by noon the next day. I finally contacted him, and told him again to get out of town, which he refused to do. So, I had the police department pick him up, and put him in jail. In about an hour, I went over, and talked to him in jail, and he changed his tune quite a bit. He was ready to leave town, so we let him out and this time I gave him fifteen minutes to disappear--and he did! Another rabbi once called on me, and stated that he was a representative of a Jewish institution somewhere in Europe, and wanted a donation for it. I explained to him that we had a Federated Jewish charities here to help him, and he would have to make his request through them. He kept insisting that I give him a donation personally, and I kept refusing him. He finally gave up, proceeded to cut me out in Yiddish, in a extremely loud voice — and this wasn’t all — he spit on the floor, slammed the door as hard as he could as he went out. I felt like killing him, and I think it would have been justifiable homicide. I could tell you many tales of my experiences with these human vultures, but one I remember in particular, was the time when a local judge phoned me, and told me that he would have to try a young boy by the name of Goldberg for vagrancy. He asked me to recommend to him what to do with the boy. I went over to see the defendant, and he happened to be one of the transients I had helped a few days before. He had ordered a sandwich at a small restaurant on the outskirts of town, refused to pay for it, so the restaurant man had him arrested. I told the judge of my experiences with the Jewish transients and asked him to make an example out of this boy, so he gave him thirty days on the road. In sentencing the boy, the judge told him that from now on every Jewish transient that was brought before him would get a road sentence. Then I really got criticized by the Jewish community for putting Jewish Boys on the Chain-gang. I was shown a copy of his criminal record from the FBI a few days later. He had been convicted of all kinds of offenses from stealing a bicycle to highway robbery. After the boy got out, he came to see me again, and feeling sorry for him, I bought him a ticket to Charlotte, and informed him that I would see that every transient from now on coming into Asheville would get a road sentence. Before that time, we had from ten to thirty transients per month appealing for help. It was interesting to note that we didn’t have another transient come into Asheville, for six weeks after the boy left, and for a long time after that, appeals for help were 50% of what they had been before that. It is my sincere recommendation that every Jewish transient, coming into Asheville, be put in jail for a certain length of time. This is the only way to cure this evil. Of course, the Jewish community wouldn’t stand for anything like that, they would rather give these damned hoodlums a few hundred dollars every year. Then, we have the transients coming through in family groups. These groups consist of a mother and father, with one or more children. They usually arrive in a dilapidated old automobile. Most of the time, the automobile needs some repairs before they can leave town in it; it never has any gasoline and usually needs a couple of quarts of oil. These parties are expensive and hard to handle, because you can hardly send small children on their way without a night’s sleep and proper food. Of course, I have some deserving cases, but I don’t class these with the transients. For instance, a man once came in to see me, with the story that he had tuberculosis, and he had come down here from Detroit as his doctor had recommended this climate to him. He expected to get a job as an elevator boy, or something of the sort, and he was under the impression that the climate here would cure him while he worked. Well, the man was broke, and was waiting for some financial help from his brother whom he had written a few days before. I gave the man $4 and he promised to pay me back as soon as he heard �from his brother. He came back the next day. He had heard from his brother. He showed me the letter and his brother enclosed $10 which was all that he could send. He told me that he was unable to find work, and was going to start back for Detroit. He offered me the $4 I had given him. I asked him how he expected to get back to Detroit on $7, and he told me that he would have to hitch-hike. I told him to keep the $4, and wish him the best of luck, and while I am not a doctor, I was under the opinion from his looks that his health would never permit him to hitch-hike back home and get there alive. So for twenty years, I have dealt with the bunch of beggars, coming from North, South, East, and West. They have become a part of my life, and if I could get out of this job right now, I am sure I would miss this horde of gangsters that hop around from place to place like a bunch of grasshoppers in a clover patch. VI. War Years4 Pilot on 023 On admission to the Air Force in 1943 I was interviewed as to what activity I had in a business or profession, also what experience I had in religious, fraternal or civic affairs. I told them I was just a clerk in a pawnshop. I didn’t tell them that I once: was president of a cemetery. was an owner of a company that built floats and decorated the town for the first Rhododendron Festival in Asheville. supplied the Asheville Police Dept. and the Sheriff’s Dept. with guns and ammunition. I didn’t tell them anything about my civic, fraternal, religious or social activities. I was sent to Tishomingo, Oklahoma for training in the Oklahoma State College for Agriculture to be an air force clerk in engineering. After graduating from the clerk’s school in Tishomingo, I felt I would have an easy life in the Air Force being an engineering clerk. But my duties from Tishomingo to the islands in the South Pacific were: kitchen police mess hall fireman mess hall garbage director cleaning chickens policing grounds digging ditches hauling poles hauling fire wood hauling coal fighting forest fires 4 . A more complete account of Leo Finkelstein’s experiences during World War II is found in his Letters from Leo: Letters to the Asheivlle Lion’s Club (Center for Appalachian Studies: Appalachian State University, Boone, NC, 1996) �assorting merchandise at warehouse assorting salvage merchandise smashing tin cans hauling water finance clerk detail clerk runner for headquarters stacking lumber cleaning rifles and machine guns building roads repairing bridges laying concrete operating gasoline pump telephone operator making inventories of supplies acting C.Q. pulling weeds and grass watering trees loading and unloading trucks loading and unloading freight cars loading barracks bags on boats and trucks cleaning hatches on boats latrine orderly painting machinery communications clerk and finally engineering clerk for the 394th Squadron, 5th bomb group of the 13th Air Force. Getting a good grade on my education at Tishomingo and experience in travel to the South Pacific I thought I was ready to do my job. My first difficulty was when A pilot comes in to see me after a combat mission on a B-24 Bomber number 023 and said that he failed to put on his reporting form #Y that the tachometer indicator occilates excessively, would I please write it in the form for him. I told him I would. You know, I didn’t know what the h--- he was talking about and I couldn’t even spell it. Tokyo Rose Tokyo Rose was an American girl broadcasting from a radio station in Japan during World War II. Her broadcast was received by the 13th Air Force in the Admiralty Islands located �in the South Pacific area. She played recorded American music in her broadcast. She advised us that our wives and sweethearts were dating the 4 F’s - the men who stayed out of military service and they would go to drive inns for hamburgers and coca-colas. She also said that the Japanese would be waiting for our B-24 bombers scheduled for a mission in the morning with anti-aircraft guns and fighter planes. Radios were scarce on the island. I wanted to listen to Tokyo Rose so I wrote home and requested a small radio to be shipped to me. They advised that the smallest radio weighed too much to be shipped overseas by parcel post but they would take it apart and ship it in two packages which was acceptable at the post office. The radio department of the 5th Bomb Group said they would be glad to put the radio together for me. When I received the shipment in two packages I gave it to them. They repaired it the best they could. I found that when I turned it on it would work for about a minute and then quit receiving. They couldn’t find the trouble. One day I took a screw driver, tightened all the screws and thought I found the trouble. I put the radio on the table in the tent, started it receiving and in one minute it stopped. I was disgusted - I hit the radio, knocked it off the table. It hit the floor, bounced about 2 feet and started playing. It was okay from then on. In about a week Captain Gardner in the engineering department sent word that he wanted to see me as soon as possible. I thought I had fouled up on keeping his engineering records but he had this to say: Corporal Finkelstein we are having trouble repairing the radio on airplane No. 022 and we understand that you are the only one in the 394th Squadron that can solve our problem. Will you help us? I forgot what I said, but I couldn’t figure out how to knock an airplane off the table. Topless Women Now if you read the morning paper, you noticed headlines on the front page: “Topless Night Club Opens in Asheville.” Well, you didn’t need a night club to see topless women on those South Pacific Islands during WWII. The trouble was they would move all the women to another island close by the island we occupied. We built a motor boat made of two airplane belly tanks and a small power unit so that we could go over and see the women at another island. I didn’t go over to see the women. I wasn’t afraid of them, but I was afraid the boat might sink. �Sergeant Joe In 1944, Sergeant Joe, the mess sergeant in my outfit in the 13th Air Force located in the South Pacific during World War II, received a shipment of canned corn. Instead of using it for chow, he built a still in a fox hole and made corn whiskey out of it. Joe ran a road house in Greenville, South Carolina before the war and in a neighborly spirit he invited me to drink what I wanted of the corn whiskey and he helped me trade watch bands for coca-cola syrup and ice cream from a Navy C.B. outfit located near by. After the war, he operated his road house in Greenville again. He came to see me and advised that they had arrested his partner for hauling whiskey in Buncombe County and wanted to know if I could help him. I told him that I knew the Chief of Police and Sheriff Brown and I would be glad to see what the situation was. He told me they couldn’t help as it was the Federal authorities that arrested his partner. Thinking of how to get him a light sentence I asked Joe if his partner was in the armed forces and he said that they had turned him down because he has a heart murmur. I told Joe to send him to Dr. Feldman and I’d get the report from him as to his heart murmur. Dr. Feldman told me he had a heart murmur and as Federal Physician he would advise Judge Warlick about in federal court. At the trial Joe’s partner went scott free. Later he came to see me with a roll of hundred dollar bills and wanted to pay me for getting him off. I refused the money and told him that Joe had helped me out during the war and what I did was a favor to Joe. Later he brought me six fifths of Scotch for a present, which I kept. While overseas, besides having corn whiskey made by Joe and medical alcohol diluted 50% by water and flavored with burnt sugar, we were able to buy bonded whiskey from the flying personnel who didn’t drink their ration. Price was $60 per fifth. They were looking for souvenirs so I wrote Nat Friedman to send me a Japanese hare-kari knife from his antique store. He sent me a similar one. It was a circular shape Turkish knife with Turkish letters on it. My cost was $4. It looked like a hare-kari knife. I gave it to Sergeant Joe and asked him to see if he could trade for a Fifth of bonded whiskey. He reported later that he got two fifths for it. Sgt. Smokey Joe’s home is just a little bit south of Asheville, NC. He was mess sergeant for the 394th squadron, a good guy, and a GI who could sympathize with all the other GI’s who had to eat the food he prepared. Before the war Smokey Joe owned a road house on the highway going south from Asheville and after talking to him I found that I had patronized his institution on numerous occasions during my younger years. Since we were practically neighbors in civilian life, we felt that we should continue over there as good neighbors and so we were. There is no better friend in the army than a cook because when you get hungry, he is the only man who can help you out. In passing I might mention that Smokey Joe, Starvin Marvin and I have on numerous instances enjoyed eating surplus stocks of food from the Mess Hall. Smokey Joe told me about Sheriff Brown, in Asheville, taking his automobile away from him once because the sheriff had found some whiskey in it that he was transporting to his road house. �Now Smokey is fighting to get his freedom - his freedom to go home and dodge Sheriff Brown some more, and there is Starvin Marvin who wants to go home and see his wife and two year old boy, a child that he has never seen, and so it is with me - I want to go home - I just want to go home. VII. After the War Sgt. Smokey Joe After the war Smokey Joe opened his road house again near Greenville, SC. He came to see me and advised that they had arrested his partner for hauling whiskey in Buncombe County and wanted to know if I could help him out. I told him I knew the Chief of Police and Sheriff Brown and I would be glad to see what the situation was. He told me they couldn’t help as it was the Federal Authorities that arrested his partner. Thinking of how to get him a light sentence, I asked Joe if his partner was in the armed forces and he said that they had turned him down because he had a heart murmur. I told Joe to send his partner to Lion Dr. Feldman who was Federal Physician and I would get a report from him as to his heart murmur. Lion Dr. Feldman told me he had a heart murmur and as a Federal Physician he would advise Judge Warlick about it in Federal Court. At the trial, Joe’s partner got a suspended sentence. Later he came to see me with a roll of hundred dollar bills and wanted to pay me for getting him off. I refused the money and told him that Joe had helped me out during the war and what I did was a favor to Joe. Later he brought me six fifths of scotch for a present which I kept. Corn Whiskey at Road House Before the war, road houses would hide the corn whiskey they served their guests in a container under a bed. When the sheriff’s dept. would raid the joint, they usually wouldn’t look for it there. One night they found it and an article appeared in the Asheville Citizen that the sheriff’s dept. confiscated a gallon of whiskey hid in a container at a road house. J im Dwelbiss and Beaver Lake Returning home from World War II, I was interested in building a house to live in. Jim Dwelbiss, president of the Asheville Lions Club 1941-1942, said that he had a lot across the street from his home on Westwood Road in Lakeview Park and if I would build a one story house so he could see Beaver Lake over the roof of my house, he would give me a good deal. I acquired the lot and built the house. He told me that as a resident of Lakeview Park I should take on some activity for the benefit of the park. He took me to the annual meeting of the property owners and I was elected as one of the three commissioners - no salary. When I met with the other two commissioners they told me I �had charge of the lake and fishing and they would back me up in anything I wanted to do. I got phone calls. I got a phone call from a resident and he says “Stop the fishing, the fish are diseased.” I contacted the game warden from the NC Wildlife Resources Commission and we found a service station by the creek that furnished the lake with water that had put old oil from automobiles in it and it had killed a few fish. I get a phone call from a lady that an awful looking man wearing overalls was fishing. I asked her did she expect him to wear a tuxedo. I get a call advising that two women indecently dressed were near the dam of the lake. I found them to be the wives of the two commissioners sun bathing. I found two men swimming in the lake, which was against the rules. They told me they would swim and that I couldn’t stop them. I told them to swim if they wanted to and that a sewer line had broken and was emptying in the lake and would probably get typhoid fever - they stopped swimming. I found a group of women in bathing suits at the lake near Glenn Falls Road with a photographer. I found them to be local beauticians getting their picture with the lake in the background. They were using the picture on a cover of a program for a State Convention of Beauticians in Asheville. Fishing in the lake was allowed for licensed property owners only. I saw a man standing at the edge of the lake for 30 minutes just looking. On investigation I found he had a line tied to his belt that ran down the inside of his pants leg over his shoe into the lake. On the line he had a float and a baited hook. When the fish would bite and pull the float under he would kick his leg, hang the fish, pull it in and nobody would know he was fishing. I appreciated what Lion Dwelbiss had done by getting me elected to be fish commissioner of Beaver Lake. But I got a call that I was going to be elected president of Congregation Beth-Ha-Tephila and that construction would be started soon on a temple at Liberty and Broad Sts. I thought I could use some religion so I didn’t run again for commissioner of Lakeview Park and I took up my duties as president of Beth-Ha-Tephila. I completed the building of financing of the new temple in two years. I was tired out and hoped that maybe I could get some rest by being fish commissioner again at Beaver Lake. Sternberg Hunting Rats �Joe Sternberg was president of the Lion’s Club in 1960-61. His father Seigfred Sternberg, came over to the U.S. at the turn of the century, procured a horse and wagon, drove around western North Carolina buying cowhides and junk. He finally opened a junk yard on Depot Street and became one of the largest cowhide dealers in the United States. Lion Joe was my classmate in the A.H.S. class of 1922. He would rent a freight car on the local freight train to Murphy and buy cowhides at the stations where the train stopped. I was watch inspector for the Southern Railway and would travel on the same train, give the employees a certificate that in my opinion the watch they had wouldn’t vary over 30 seconds a week. Going west you could go as far as Waynesville by auto and then by train to Murphy. Lion Joe Dave, president of the club in 1932, was construction engineer for the Sternberg Co. who supplied steel for the construction of buildings. Later he organized the Dave Steel Co. Old man Sternberg did well financially and became president of the Southern State Bank on Depot St. He became active in religious and fraternal affairs in Asheville. He built a big home on Victoria Drive. He didn’t like the help he was getting in Asheville so he imported a young beautiful maid from Germany. The maid went down to get an item at the garage and found Mr. Sternberg there. Mr. Sternberg got fresh with the maid, the maid picked up a 22 caliber rifle and shot him. The wound wasn’t serious. The next morning a news item appeared in the Asheville Citizen with the head line: “Sternberg Hunting Rats in the Garage.” Irving S. Cobb and Grove Park Inn About sixty years ago my friend Fred Bradley was night clerk at Grove Park Inn. He would tell me about the operation of the Inn. A guest would find his home town newspaper at his breakfast table. If he paid for anything, what change, if needed, would be given to him in uncirculated money. The only entrance to the Inn’s grounds was a large gate off of Macon Ave. The gate was closed at 10 PM as the noise from any automobile going in and out would disturb the guests. Irving S. Cobb, famous humorist, was spending a couple of days at the Inn. A little after ten o’clock one night he tried to get his auto into the Inn’s grounds. He found the gate locked. He had to park his car on Macon Avenue. He walked to the Inn and complained loudly about it. He was advised that the Inn didn’t welcome any unusual noises after 10 PM. In a little while he came down to the lobby from his �room carrying his shoes, nothing on his feet but his socks, walked very quietly to Fred Bradley, the night clerk, and whispered to him “I want to check out.” In a couple of days a news item appeared in the Asheville Citizen written by Irving Cobb with the headline: “The Bunk of Buncombe.” Read news article from Citizen-Times on suicide This reminded me of a historical event years ago when I was selling guns. A customer said he wanted an inexpensive pistol to keep in his home and he just obtained a permit to buy it. I sold him a 22 cal. Iver Johnson pistol. This type gun was later known as a “Saturday Night Special.” When I completed the sale I said “Thank you mister.” He said “Don’t call me mister, I’m a doctor. You call me doctor.” I said, “Thank you doctor.” He took the gun home and committed suicide with it. Now: I got to thinking if he bought the gun today he would have to make application to get a permit and wait two or three days for the permit to be issued. Maybe if he had to wait that long for a permit, he might have changed his mind about the suicide. Then: As a doctor I wondered why he didn’t write a prescription for some high powered sleeping pills, take several of them and just go to sleep and not wake up. I think I got an explanation. If any of you had to buy prescription drugs today, you know now expensive they are. And if they were that expensive back then when this happened, I guess the doctor felt he could save money by committing suicide with a “Saturday Night Special.” Problems in Water and Sewer Systems If you’ve read the newspapers lately, you know that the city of Asheville has problems in their water and sewer systems. I had some personal problems, so I phoned doctor #1. The lady answering the phone said that she would advise his nurse. His nurse was busy with a patient and the nurse would phone me later. The nurse phones me in about an hour. I asked the nurse if I was supposed to talk to her in a dignified way or call everything by its right name. She said to do what I think best, so I tell her what’s troubling me and that it had the color of Coca-Cola or Pepsi-Cola, I don’t know which. She said she would talk to the doctor and call me back. She calls back and says I ought to see doctor #2 who is a specialist with my troubles. He has a Rotto Rutter. I found out a Rotto Rutter is a gadget used by plumbers on home work. I see doctor #2 and he advises that he can’t find anything of a serious nature wrong. I go back to doctor #1. He makes several tests. He tells me to go back to doctor #2, that he is going to advise him of what he found and would ask him to make a complete examination. �Back in doctor #2's office, an assistant brings in a machine for examination. He tells me that this machine is a new one, and it don’t hurt like the old one. After the examination, the doctor makes an appointment for me to go to the hospital for a I.V.P. examination and bring the x-rays back to him. I take the x-rays back to doctor #2's office and the doctor says that they look pretty good, that all I need would be surgery and a 2 to 3 days stay in the hospital or it may be 6 days. I go back to the hospital for pre-admission tests and they do all the same tests that were done two or three times before and the nurse asked me a lot of personal questions. She asked if I had a BM. I knew that AM meant from midnight to noon and PM meant the time from noon to midnight. So I figured out the BM meant a BAD MORNING, so I told the nurse that I had a BM for about a week. I was told to report for surgery the next Wednesday at 6:30 AM, somewhat earlier than I usually get up. I get a phone call from doctor #2's nurse Tuesday night advising that the doctor is ill and would be unable to do the surgery and it would be postponed. Later I get a phone call that the surgery had been rescheduled for March 2nd at 1 PM. I had 5 days to review the situation and I think I was mentally, physically, and maybe financially ready for surgery. End of Report. I now feel good. Finis I had the honor of serving as president of Beth-Ha-Temphila in 1948 and 1949 during the building and financing of the new temple at Liberty and Broad Streets. I was Master of Ceremonies for the 50th Anniversary Banquet program of Beth-HaTehphila in 1941. I also presided at the 75th Anniversary Banquet in 1966. I have put in my application to preside at the 100th in 1991. Unless we are Indians, our ancestors came from Foreign Lands. I am thankful they did what they did so that I could have the privilege of growing up in a city like Asheville, enjoy this great country of ours---a land of religious freedom and opportunity. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Leo Finkelstein Papers Description An account of the resource This collection contains materials relating to Leo Finkelstein, resident of Asheville, North Carolina, the Asheville Lions Club, and the Beth Ha-Tephila Cemetery in Asheville. It contains computer discs, notes, scrapbooks, book drafts, correspondence, photographs, programs, fliers, and other materials related Leo Finkelstein, his wife Sylvia, and the Lions Club, Elks Club, and Jewish Community in Asheville, North Carolina. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Finkelstein, Leo, 1905-1998 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Leo Finkelstein: Personal History (draft) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1997-10-16 Language A language of the resource English Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 107_01_LeoAsheville Subject The topic of the resource Finkelstein, Leo, 1905-1998 Jews--North Carolina--Asheville--History Asheville (N.C.)--History Description An account of the resource Finkelstein explains his family's past, beginning in Lithuania and ending in Asheville, North Carolina. Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a title=" In Copyright - Rights-holder(s) Unlocatable or Unidentifiable" href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC-RUU/1.0//" target="_blank"> In Copyright - Rights-holder(s) Unlocatable or Unidentifiable </a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource PDF Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a title="AC.107 Leo Finkelstein Papers" href="https://appstate-speccoll.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/192" target="_blank"> AC.107 Leo Finkelstein Papers </a> Is Part Of A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included. <a title=" Leo Finkelstein Papers" href="https://omeka.library.appstate.edu/collections/show/27" target="_blank"> Leo Finkelstein Papers </a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Extent The size or duration of the resource. 29 pages Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Asheville (N.C.) Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. https://www.geonames.org/4453066/asheville.html Temporal Coverage Temporal characteristics of the resource. 1990s America ancestors Asheville autobiography Depression Flanders goyim Jews Lithuania pawn shop Pisgah Prohibition World War II https://omeka-test.library.appstate.edu/files/original/d084059d6c9829c71043ed306c3ee95f.pdf 5f53148a42e7bc5f8de3ac437eb88ac7 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Subject The topic of the resource Finkelstein, Leo, 1905-1998--Family Jews--North Carolina--Asheville--History PDF Text Text In Nineteen Five I became alive and what I found around this town Was joy and tears for 50 years. Origins In 1799, my great-great grandfather was a chicken farmer in the town of Pushalot, in the state of Lithuania, in the Soviet Union. It was a hard life in the town of Pushalot. The winters were nine months long and unendurably cold. The summers were hot and rainy. There were occasional pogroms or Russian Cossaks rampaging through the streets terrorizing the countryside, gypsies stealing everything in sight, including sometimes even children, and always there was the threat of Siberia. My ancestors, like most Jews, were very poor, hard working and suffering. My greatgreat grandfather bought eggs from all the chicken farmers, packed them carefully on a wagon, covered them with straw to keep them cool and fresh and rode many miles to Kovna, Vilna and Riga to sell the eggs at the big city markets. In 1825, my great grandfather served as a rabbi in Pushalot. In 1872, my grandfather opened a kretchma in Pushalot. A kretchma is a Russian inn somewhat like out modern motels, only they didn’t have swimming pools or air conditioning. It was a place travelers could stop for food or drink or spend the night. One day a Bolshevik on horseback stopped at the Inn and drank a lot of vodka. He got fresh with my grandmother, who I understand was a good looking girl in those days. My father, a teenage boy, picked up a piece of stove wood, hit him on the head and knocked him out. That was an awful crime in Russia for a Jewish boy. My grandfather made a temporary settlement with the Russian and gave him 50 rubles. My father thought that they may send him to jail or Siberia, so he stole his way across the border into Germany. He didn’t like Germany, so he left Germany and made his way to South Africa. He went to work as a house painter in Johannesburg. He became ill from the lead poisoning in the paint. There were no United Way or Federate Jewish Charities down there, but someone took pity on him and nursed him back to health. He sold cigarettes and sandwiches at a stock exchange and he finally opened a resturant. �In 1898, right before the English-Boer War, my father sold his resturant for gold coins, got a money belt, and went down to Cape Town. He had a cousin in Australia and a brother in Jacksonville, Florida. By a flip of a coin he came over to Jacksonville, Florida. In Jacksonville, Florida, he went to night school to learn to read and write English. In 1900, he became ill and the doctor in Jacksonville told him the only place to go to get cured would be the mountains. He came up to Asheville, and Doctor Smith told him he would die of anything except what they sent him to Asheville for, so that he might as well go back to Jacksonville. He like Asheville so much he decided to stay here. In 1903, he opened a pawn shop at 23 South Main Street (now Biltmore Avenue). He married Fanny Sherman from Newport News, Virginia, and made their home in an apartment on Ashland Avenue. In 1905, my father became a citizen of the United States. Among the organizations he joined were the Asheville Board of Trade (now The Asheville Chamber of Commerce), the Fraternal Order of Eagles, Suez Temple of the Oramatic Order of Khorosson, Lodge #1401 BPO, Elks, Mt. Herman Masonic Lodge, Scottish Rite Masonic Lodge, Oasis Temple of Shriners, Congregation Bikur Cholim (now Beth Isreal), and Congregation Betha-Ha-Tephila. So, the Twentieth Century began with: 1. The pawnbroker named Finkelstein. 2. S.H. Friedman, who operated a furniture store. He came to Asheville from Maryland, where he peddled tinware. His son, Nat Friedman, later operated the Susquehana Antique Co. 3. A Jewish lawyer by the name of Goldstein. 4. A Jewish plumber by the name of A.J. Huvard. He married E.C. Goldberg’s sister. E.C. Goldberg ran a news stand next to the Imperial aTheater on Patton Avenue for years. 5. A Jewish dentist by the name of I. Mitchell Mann. 6. Harry Blomberg’s father who came to Asheville in 1887. He operated the Racket Store on Biltmore Avenue for many years. 7. The Palais Royal Department Store operated by Morris Meyers for 40 years. He was a charter member of Congregation Beth-Ha-Tephila and he came to Asheville in 1887. 8. The Bon Marche Department Store operated by Solomon Lipinsky. 9. A Jewish postman who delivered mail by the name of Barney Seigle. I was particularly interested in Barney because he had a sister by the name of Ester, who was in my class in high school — a beautiful and affectionate student. 10. An industrialist named Seigfred Sternberg. 11. Dan Michalove, who worked at the first movie houses in town and finally advanced to Vice-President of Paramount Pictures and was put in charge of all �12. 13. 14. their theaters in Australia. Lou Pollock, who operate a shoe store at the corner of South Main and Eagle Streets. He once ran a shoe sale for $.98 a pair. Leo Cadison, who came here for his health, operated a ladies clothing store on Pack Square, finally moved to Washington, D.C., and became an attorney by act of Congress. He was a speech writer for the Attorrney General of the United States. An orthodox Rabbi by the name of Londow. It was in 1883 Jews were arriving to become pioneers in the Asheville community. Some came to make a better livelihood and for opportunity. Morris Myers served as Exalted Ruler of the Old Elks Lodge #608. The moderate climate and mountain air attracted others to Asheville, a growing medical haven for the sufferers of chronic respiratory diseases. Congregation Beth-ha-Tephila It was on August 23, 1891, twenty-seven men met in Lyceum Hall and adopted a constitution for Congregation Beth-Ha-Temphila. Among the charter members were the Blomberg, Lipinsky, and Zagier families. It is noted that the dues were $10 a year, payable in advance. Lyceum Hall was the first home of the Congregation. It was rented from a fraternal order for $75 a year. Congregation Bikur Cholim Rabbi Londow became the rabbi for Congregation Bikur Cholim whose articles of incorporation were filed in the Court Clerk’s office in February 1899. The incorporators were J.B. Schwartzberg, A. Blomberg, Sam Feinstein, S.H. Michalove, A. Shenbaum, M. Zuglier, and R.B. Zagier. Since the community could not pay Rabbi Londow a decent wage, he operated a Jewish grocery store on the side. He was a kindly old gentleman with a big beard, wore his hat around the grocery store at all times except when a lady called him on the telephone. He would remove the hat during the conversation and put it back on his head after the phone call. I remember a big barrel of herring in the center of the store. Plain herring were 5 cents each and milk herring ten cents. A newly married lady in the Congregation once called Rabbi Londow and complained that a duck she bought from him was old and too tough to eat. Rabbi Londow asked what she expected him to do --- look down the duck’s mouth and count its teeth! The first religious services of Bikur Cholim I remember attending was on the second floor of a building at the corner of Patton Avenue and Church Street. It was early in the life of Bikur Cholim that the congregation split up due to a big argument. Half of the members formed another congregation and called it Anshei Hashuron. They rented a second floor of an apartment house at the corner of Central Avenue and Woodfin Street. However, through the efforts of the impartial moderates, a compromise was reached and a permanent division averted. �Nevertheless, the apartment was kept for a religious school. It was here I received my first Hebrew lesson. Rabbi Fox was teaching us the four questions to ask at our Passover meal. At this time my father would attend all the board meetings of Bikur Cholim. He would come home upset and nervous. Dr. Smith suggested he not attend any more Synagogue meetings due to his high blood pressure. Rabbi Fox was active on the 9th and 10th degrees of Scottish Rite Masonry. After his death I assumed his parts in these degrees and I am still on the degree teams. Hebrew School In 1911, erection of a house of worship was started on South Liberty Street for Congregation Bikur Cholin. Although it wasn’t completed until 1916, the Hebrew School moved there in 1912. Hebrew classes were scheduled every Saturday through the winter. The only heat we had was from a large coal stove in the center of the sanctuary. The stove was prepared for a fire to be lit on Saturday morning before the Hebrew class met. Since the Rabbi wouldn’t light a fire on the Sabbath he arranged for a neighborhood boy to come in and light it. He would place a dime under a prayer book and after the boy had lit the fire he would tell the boy to get the dime 75 to 100 years ago in Asheville. Now about that time there were two synagoges in Asheville. My family belongs to the orthodox. from under the prayer book. The orthodox had strict rules for obeying the sabbath which began Friday at sundown and ended Saturday night. So if you owned an automobile you put it in your garage Friday evening and took it out Saturday night after sundown. You walked to religious services at the synagogue on the sabbath. To obey the sabbath correctly you were not allowed to operate a business, spend money, smoke, strike a match, work, cook and many other activities were forbidden. Remember this was about 100 years ago. You weren’t supposed to tear paper. Now if you had a bathroom with paper on a roll, you tore the paper off for Friday in case it may be needed for the sabbath. The same rule applies to outhouses with old Sears Roebuck catalogues. As far as I know none of these rules are observed today. When I was 11 years old I attended Hebrew school conducted by the rabbi on Saturday morning in the edifice of the synagogue. The sanctuary contained nothing but pews and a coal stove for heat. The basement was used for storage and rest rooms. In the winter time the rabbi fixed the stove for a fire Friday so that it could be lit Saturday morning to produce heat for the Hebrew class. Since the rabbi shouldn’t light a fire or spend money on the sabbath, he arranged for a boy in the neighborhood to light the fire Saturday morning. He placed a dime under a prayer book Friday and told the boy where to get a dime after lighting the fire on Saturday. One real cold morning the boy didn’t show up to light the fire. We were attending Hebrew class �in sweaters, coats and overcoats and it was awful cold. I asked to be excused and coming up from the basement I reported to the rabbi that the plumbing must have frozen as there was water leaking in several places. The rabbi rushed downstairs to investigate the troubles and the Hebrew class rushed out of the synagogue not to return until warm weather. For your information, there was no water leaking. Even in those days educational institutions had trouble with rebelling students. The boy that was to light the fire didn’t show up. It was very cold that day. I asked to be excused and went downstairs. When I came back I reported to Rabbi Redunsky that the pipes had froze and broke. The Rabbi went to see about it. I advised the class that there were no broken pipes and suggested that we leave the building --- which we did --- not to return until warm weather. The member of Bikur Cholim who owned an automobile would put them up Friday afternoon to observe the Sabbath and wouldn’t take them out until Saturday after sun down. Most of the members lived within walking distance of the Synagogue. The building of the Synagogue was completed in 1916 and the day before the eve of Rosh-Hashonah a fire completely destroyed the building. Mrs. Rosenfeld had a Jewish Boarding House next door and she cried and complained that she had just cleaned her house for Yontiff and smoke had dirtied the place up. The Masonic Temple was offered to us to use for the High Holy Day Services and we accepted. The Cemetary In those days Asheville was a place thar offered a cure for Tuberculosis. Many sanatoriums were located in the hills around town. A Jewish man died in one of the sanatoriums and had no money or family. No cemetery in town would bury him unless someone paid $100 for the grave. It was then that nine Jewish men formed the “West Asheville Hebrew Cemetery Association Inc”. My father was the first president. In their Bi-Laws it was stated that anyone of Jewish Faith could be buried there. The price of a grave was $100 and if there was no one to pay it there would be no charge. The cemetery changed it’s name some years later to “Mt. Sinai Cemetery” and sometime after to “The Lou Pollock Memorial Park”. After father died, Lou Pollock became president. After his death, I was the vice-president and assumed the duties of the president. I conferred with David Adler and set up a meeting between the directors of the cemetery and members of Beth Israel. The ownership of the cemetery was transferred to Beth Israel. The following names of the nine founders can be seen on a plaque at the entrance to the cemetery bearing the date 1916: Sam Feinstein Isaac Michalove Lou Pollock �S.W. Silverman Sender Argentar Rabbi Elias Fox Dave Schundler Barney Pearlman Harry Finkelstein Benevolent Societies Around this time my father felt that some home-made chicken soup would help the Jewish patients in the sanatoriums. A number of Jewish women set up a kitchen and once a week hot chicken soup was made available tot he Jewish patients and to others who requested it. Rabbi Fox acquired business interests in Asheville and served as part-time Rabbi. He was associated with a local butcher who made Kosher meat available. He would go by the homes of members and kill the chickens. In 1917, some of us young Jewish boys decided that we ought to have Y.M.H.A. or a Community Center in Asheville. Rabbi Fox met with us and suggested that we form a Y.M.H.A. He said a community center was for the community only, but a bigger and better organization would be a Y.M.H.A. because it extended from coast to coast. He told us a story about when he first came to this country and wanted to see the Brooklyn Bridge. He found a man who could talk Yiddish and after looking at the bridge he asked why they built the bridge with a lot of little cables instead of one big cable. The man explained to him that if one or two cables broke it would not harm the bridge, but if there was one big cable and it broke the bridge would fall in. Mr. Sternberg and Mr. Leavitt Seventy-five years ago there was no United Way in Asheville. There were many local charitable organizations sponsored by churches, synagoges, houses of worship, also the YMCA, the Salvation Army, the Elks Lodge and the Jewish Ladies Aid Society. Lion Joe Sternberg’s father was active in civic, religious, fraternal organizations in Asheville. At that time he was collecting donations for the “Ladies Aid Society” of Asheville. He went to see Mr. Leavitt who operated a ladies ready to wear store on South Main St. near Pack Square. He wouldn’t donate more than $5 and this didn’t please Mr. Sternberg. Mr. Sternberg was the owner of the building Mr. Leavitt operated his store in. He found Mr. Leavitt violated the terms of his lease because he subletted a portion of the store for a shoe department. Mr. Sternberg told Mr. Leavitt that he would have to give the Ladies Aid Society a suitable donation or vacate the building his store was in because he had violated the terms of the lease. They selected three �men to determine what amount Mr. Leavitt should give the Ladies Aid Society. It was agreed that the amount they decided on would be satisfactory to Mr. Sternberg and Mr. Leavitt. Mr. Sternberg selected a man to represent himself. Also Mr. Leavitt picked out the second man. They needed a man to represent both of them and they finally selected my father. The committee decided that Mr. Leavitt should donate $500 to the Ladies Aid Society. Rabbi Fox said that therefore us boys should be little cables and hold up the Y.M.H.A. we were going to form. After the fire that destroyed Birur Cholim Synagogue on South Liberty Street the second floor of the Sondley Building on Broadway was rented for the use of the congregation. A member of the congregation, a young man, forgot he had made a date with a waitress in the Langren Hotel and attended the meeting of the congregation. The lady waited in front of the Masonic Temple with a gun and took a shot at him after the meeting when was leaving the building. She missed. After going to Hebrew School in the building we would stop and examine the hole the bullet made in the front wall of the building. In 1911, I started school at Montford Avenue Grammar School. In 1918, I went to U.N.C. for 2 days, and had to come home to run the paawnshop. In the February 1922 graduating class in Asheville High School, there were 5 boys and 14 girls. Therefore, each boy was expected to take 3 girls to the Senior Class Dance of February 1922. Things were better when we had a dance for the entire year. There were three Jewish girls in the total 1922 class — Madeline Blomberg, Eva Sternberg, and Ester Seigle. I was the only student to take an automobile to school in 1922. It was a Paige make with a “bathtub black” model. I was the business manager of the “Hill Billy”, the school monthly magazine. I was given any study hall period off that I wanted to collect for ads that appeared in the magazine, so I would take my auto and a girl to help me from the study hall. After collecting for one ad we would ride over to the Charlotte Street Drug Store and participate in Ice Cream Sodas for the balance of the study hall period. Around this time Mr. Sternberg had a large junk yard and warehouse on Depot Street. He bought and sold hundreds of cow hides. On all his advertisements he carried the slogan “We buy anything and sell everything”. A circus came to town and didn’t have enough money to leave. They applied to Mr. Sternberg who was president of the Southern State Bank on Depot Street for a loan of $200. Mr. Sternberg made the loan and took the elephant as collateral. He complained he was losing money on account of the elephant eating so much, but was helped out when Mr. Buseck, who owned Middlemont Gardens bout the manure from him. On Sundays in 1925, the Jewish crowd of teenagers and somewhat older boys and girls would gather at the home of the Sternbergs on Victoria Road. The Sternbergs had four children: Eva, Joe, Johanna, and Rose. One of the older girls in the crowd was named Jennie. One day I asked her how she managed to be so popular among the boys, and her answer was, “Well, I’m not so pretty, but I’m catchie”. �I dated Eva and one night I called at the house to take her out and her father yelled to us from the second floor of the house “Don’t you go me no road houses”, and Eva replied “What’s the matter papa --- you afraid we are going to find you there!” One night Mr. Sternberg invited some of his men friends over to his home to participate in a small limit poker game. Sone one tipped off the police that a game was going on. The home was raided and Mr. Sternberg gave the names of the players as Mr. Aleph, Mr. Baze, Mr. Gimmel, Mr. Dolad, Mr. Hay, Mr. Vove, Mr. Zion, and Mr. Hess. The Asheville Citizen carried a story that an attorney appeared in police court for Mr. Aleph, Mr. Baze, Mr. Vove, Mr. Zion, and Mr. Hess and paid their fines. Very few people knew that their names were the first eight letters of the Hebrew Alphabet. It was in 1933, after Franklin Roosevelt was elected president of the United States, that the Volstead Act was repealed and it became legal to sell beer with an alcoholic content on October 1st. I was president of a mens social club, and it became my duty to get beer to serve to the members. This was a difficult job as none was available from distributors around Asheville. 1933 was the year of the Great Depression and Rabbi Goodcowitz bought a second hand truck from Harry Blomberg and was doing some hauling on the side to supplement his income from Bikur - Cholim. Rabbi Goodcowitz said he would go to Baltimore and get us a load of beer as he personally knew the owner of the Valley Forge Beer co. There. I gave him six hundred dollars of the clubs money and he left on a Monday to be back on Thursday. He didn’t show up, but came in the following Monday. The delay was due to the truck breaking down on the trip. Of course I was somewhat concerned but the club had a truck load of Valley Forge Beer available. Leo Cadison saw me and advised that he had talked to the United States Senator Robert R. Reynolds, and the members were starting a campaign to sell the beer before October lst. Captain Fred Jones of the Asheville Police Department, and a member of the house committee said he would not recommend selling it before the legal date. At the club that week, I noted about 150 members were present instead of the usual 40. Under “good and welfare” Senator Reynolds, a great oriator, spoke in favor of selling the beer and said that we were all brothers in a non-profit and charitable organization, and it would be legal to sell it. Others spoke in favor of selling the beer were Judge Philip Cocke, State Senator, A. Hall Johnson Superior Court Judge, Dan Hill, Postmaster, Marcus Erwin U.S.Attorney, Zeb Mettles Superior Court Judge, Charles McRae local attorney, and Leo Cadison. Leo Cadison made a motion that we advise the House Manager to put the beer on ice so that we could drink it after the meting. I advised Mr. Cadison that I could not accept a motion of an illegal nature but under Robert’s Rules of Palamentry procedure he could appeal from my decision. He appeared and I advised the question be voted don would be “Shall the decision of the chair stand” and there would be no discussion. The vote was unanimous against my decision (which suited me) and I instructed the secretary to take everything out of the minutes pertaining to beer, also to advise the house manager to put the beer on ice so we could have it after the meeting. He said that it was to late to advise him because the beer had been on ice for the past two hours. �In the 1930's William Dudley Pelly operated the “Silver Shirts”, a Nazi like organization in a building across the street from the Jewish Community Center on Charlotte Street. He published the Liberation Weekly, anti-semetic literature with a circulation of eight thousand. In a parade, I was playing th esaxaphone with the Asheville Shrine Club Marching Band, and William Rosenfelt was carrying the American Flag. Pelly in his “Liberation Weekly” published a story that we were disgraced by a Jew with a big nose carrying the American Flag. Pelly was arrested by the Buncombe County Sheriffs Department in 1941 for selling unregistered stock. He was found guilty through the efforts of Julius Levitch, a young Jewish lawyer by the name of Alvin Kurtus, and a local attorney named R.R. Williams. On July 25, 1923, the Emporium Department Store owned by Jack Blomberg at the corner of Pack Square and South Main Street was destroyed by a major fire. It was feared that the entire block of Eagle Street would be destroyed. Many of the Jewish merchants who operated clothing stores in the block brought their insurance polices and books to the pawnshop across the street and requested that we put them in our safes which were two of the largest moveable safes in town. These two safes are now located at 21 Broadway While my sisters Rosa and Hilda and I were still children and our parents were out of twon for health reasons, Doctor Schanddler’s father Dave Schandler, would invite us over to his house for meals, especially on Passover and other religious holy days. About this time when our house at 213 Broadway was being built, I was sliding down a sloping board and got a big splinter in my rear end. My father couldn’t get it out so he took me to Dr. Mann, the dentist, and he got it out --- no charge. In 1936, the movements in founding a Jewish Community Center and to organize Federated Jewish Charities in Asheville was started by Julius Levitch through B’Nai B’Rith. In 1947 a testimonial dinner was held for his outstanding service to the Jewish Community. In 1944, Sergeant Joe, the mess sergeant in my outfit in the 13th Air Force located in the South Pacific during World War II, received a shipment of canned corn. Instead of using it for chow, he built a still in a fox hole and made corn whiskey out of it. Joe ran a road house in Greenville, South Carolina before the war and in a neighborly spirit he invited me to drink what I wanted of the corn whiskey and he helped me trade watch bands for coca-cola syrup and ice cream from a Navy C.B. outfit located near by. After the war, he operated his road house in Greenville again. He came to see me and advised that they had arrested his partner for hauling whiskey in Buncombe County and wanted to know if I could help him. I told him that I knew the Chief of Police and Sheriff Brown and I would be glad to see what the situation was. He told me they couldn’t help as it was the Federal Authorities that arrested his partner. . Thinking of how to get him a light sentence I asked Joe if his partner was in the armed forces and he said that they had turned him down because he has a heart murmur. I told Joe to send him to Dr. Feldman and I’d get the report from him as to his heart murmur. Dr. Feldman told me he had a heart murmur and as Federal Physician he would �advise Judge Warlick about in Federal court. At the trial Joe’s prtner went Scott Free. Later he came to see me with a roll of hundred dollar bills and wanted to pay me for getting him off. I refused the money and told him that Joe had helped me out during the war an d what I did was a favor to Joe. Later he brought me six fifths of Scotch for a present, which I kept. While overseas besides having corn whiskey made by Joe and medical alcohol diluted 50% by water and flavored with burnt sugar, we were able to buy bonded whiskey from the flying personnel who didn’t drink their ration. Price was $60 per fifth. They were looking for souvenirs so I wrote Nat Friedman to send me a Japanese hare-kari knife from his antique store. He sent me a similar one. It was a circular shape Turkish knife with Turkish letters on it. My cost was $4. It looked like a Hare-Kari knife. I gave it to Sergeant Joe and asked him to see if he could trade for a Fifth of bonded whiskey. He reported later that he got two fifths for it. I had the honor of serving as president of Beth-Ha-Temphila in 1948 and 1949 during the building and financing of the new temple at Liberty and Broad Streets. I was Master of Ceremonies for th e50th Anniversary Banquet program of Beth-HaTehphila in 1941. I also presided at the 75th Anniversary Banquet in 1966. I have put in my application to preside at the 100th in 1991. Unless we are Indians, our ancestors came from Foreign Lands. I am thankful they did what they did so that I could have the privilege of growing up in a city like Asheville, enjoy this great country of ours---a land of religious freedom and opportunity. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Leo Finkelstein Papers Description An account of the resource This collection contains materials relating to Leo Finkelstein, resident of Asheville, North Carolina, the Asheville Lions Club, and the Beth Ha-Tephila Cemetery in Asheville. It contains computer discs, notes, scrapbooks, book drafts, correspondence, photographs, programs, fliers, and other materials related Leo Finkelstein, his wife Sylvia, and the Lions Club, Elks Club, and Jewish Community in Asheville, North Carolina. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Finkelstein, Leo, 1905-1998 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Leo Finkelstein: Personal History and Asheville Jewish Community History Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1997-09-14 Language A language of the resource English Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 107_01_Fam Subject The topic of the resource Finkelstein, Leo, 1905-1998--Family Jews--North Carolina--Asheville--History Asheville (N.C.)--Anecdotes Description An account of the resource Finkelstein describes his family's past, beginning in 1799 in Lithuania and ending with his life in Asheville, North Carolina, as well as some of the history of the Jewish community in Asheville. Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a title=" In Copyright - Rights-holder(s) Unlocatable or Unidentifiable" href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC-RUU/1.0//" target="_blank" rel="noopener"> In Copyright - Rights-holder(s) Unlocatable or Unidentifiable </a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource PDF Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a title="AC.107 Leo Finkelstein Papers" href="https://appstate-speccoll.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/192" target="_blank" rel="noopener"> AC.107 Leo Finkelstein Papers </a> Is Part Of A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included. <a title=" Leo Finkelstein Papers" href="https://omeka.library.appstate.edu/collections/show/27" target="_blank" rel="noopener"> Leo Finkelstein Papers </a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Extent The size or duration of the resource. 10 pages Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. https://www.geonames.org/4453066/asheville.html https://www.geonames.org/595513/pusalotas.html Temporal Coverage Temporal characteristics of the resource. 1990s 18th century 19th century 20th century America ancestors Asheville autobiography Depression Flanders goyim Jews Leo Finkelstein Lithuania pawn shop Pisgah Prohibition World War II