Everywhere, Everywhere Christmas Tonight!

What a rare privilege to be writing a column for Christmas Day, 2008, one to be published on that very day. Thank you, Mr. Frank Bradley, for allowing me the delight of writing for The Union Sentinel since July, 2003. To all my faithful readers and the staff at The Union Sentinel—a joyous Christmas and bright hope for the New Year.

Here are words of a poem, turned into a Christmas carol, by the Rev. Phillips Brooks:

Everywhere, everywhere, Christmas tonight!
Christmas in lands of the fir-tree and pine,
Christmas in lands of the palm tree and vine,
Christmas where snow peaks stand solemn and white,
Christmas where cornfields stand sunny and bright;
Everywhere, everywhere, Christmas tonight.
Christmas where children are hopeful and gay,
Christmas where old men are patient and gray,
Christmas where peace, like a dove in his flight,
Broods o'er brave men in the thick of the fight;
Everywhere, everywhere, Christmas tonight.
For the Christ-child who comes is the Master of all,
No place too great and no cottage too small;
The Angels who welcome Him sing from the height,
"In the city of David, a King in His might."
Everywhere, everywhere, Christmas tonight.
Then let every heart keep its Christmas within:
Christ's pity for sorrow, Christ's hatred for sin.
Christ's care for the weakest, Christ's courage for right,
Christ's dread of the darkness, Christ's love for the light.
Everywhere, everywhere, Christmas tonight.
So the stars of the midnight which compass us round
Shall see a strange glory, and hear a sweet sound,
And cry, "Look! the earth is aflame with delight,
O sons of the morning, rejoice at the sight!"
Everywhere, everywhere, Christmas tonight!

Dr. Brooks also wrote a better known Christmas carol, "O Little Town of Bethlehem." We sing it every year in our churches and in community concerts. He wrote the words of that carol in 1867 after spending a sabbatical visiting the Holy Land. He rode horseback from Jerusalem to Bethlehem, and assisted with the midnight Christmas Eve service in the Church of the Nativity in 1865. Dr. Brooks wrote of that experience:

"I remember standing in the old church in Bethlehem, close to the spot where Jesus was born, when the whole church was ringing hour after hour with splendid hymns of praise to God, how again and again, it seemed as if I could hear voices I knew well, telling each other of the wonderful night of the Savior's birth."

And so was born, two years later, in recollection of his experiences in the Holy Land, the words of "O Little Town of Bethlehem" which Lewis Henry Redner set to music. Redner was organist at Holy Trinity Episcopal Church in Philadelphia where Dr. Phillips Brooks was pastor.

The same musician, Lewis Henry Redner, set to music Dr. Brooks' words entitled "Everywhere, Everywhere, Christmas Tonight." This Christmas carol has not had the widespread appeal of "O Little Town of Bethlehem," but the poignancy of its words encompass the whole world with the author's desire that everyone, everywhere celebrate Christ's birth. This poem has a buoyancy and excitement that bespeaks the Christmas spirit.

It is notable that Bishop Phillips Brooks (born December 13, 1835 in Boston, Massachusetts, died January 23, 1893 in Boston) has been termed the "greatest American preacher of the 19th Century." During the Civil War, he was pastor of the Episcopal Church of the Advent in Philadelphia. His loyalties were with the Union and he supported President Abraham Lincoln in his Emancipation Proclamation. Dr. Brooks delivered one of the funeral sermons at the death of Lincoln. In 1869 he became rector of Trinity Episcopal Church in Boston where he remained until he was made Episcopal Bishop of Massachusetts in 1891 until his death.

Were that the words of his poem/song could be true on this Christmas, 2008: "Everywhere, everywhere, Christmas tonight!" But Christmas is everywhere that loving hearts remember the meaning of Christmas and why we celebrate. It may be in the midst of war or in a poverty-laden household, as Brooks wrote in part of a stanza sometimes omitted from "O Little Town of Bethlehem": "Where charity stands watching and faith holds wide the door, The dark night wakes, the glory breaks, and Christmas comes once more!"

c 2008 by Ethelene Dyer Jones; published Dec. 25, 2008 in The Union Sentinel, Blairsville, GA. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Reid chairs bring Christmas memories

Sarah Souther Dyer is shown at age 100. Her favorite chair (not this one in which she sat for her 100th birthday picture in 1957) was a Jason Reid-made straight chair which she sat in by the window of her living room and looked out toward New Liberty Baptist Church. From the Reid-made straight chair, she also entertained children, grandchildren and great grandchildren with stories of "the old times" which she remembered so well.

The old Reid-made chairs were utilitarian pieces, bought from Jason Reid or his sons who were the chair makers of "Upper" Choestoe region of North Georgia.

My grandmother, Sarah Evaline Souther Dyer (1857-1959) had her favorite chair. It was always beside the fireplace, positioned so that she could be warmed by the fire and at the same time look out the small window to the right of her fireplace in the 1850 house built by her father and occupied by Sarah herself and her husband, Bluford Elisha Dyer (1855-1926), the house where they reared their fifteen children—that is, those thirteen who made it to adulthood.

But back to the Reid-made chairs and how people came to own them and how the chairs bring back Christmas memories.

Jason Reid (20 Sept. 1851 - 27 April 1934) knew the chair-making trade from the inside out. He had a workshop at his farm in the vicinity of Union Baptist Church in the Choestoe District of Union County. He would select the best of the wood from the forest from which to make the chairs, have it sawed and let it cure. He fashioned the posts and framework of the chairs by hand, deftly making the parts in his workshop.

He made the seats of the chairs by weaving them from white oak strips soaked in tubs of water to make them pliable. He taught his sons how to make chairs. Later, the boys had the advantage of a lathe and other more modern tools as they continued the work of chair-making. Helping Jason by taking care of the house and children was his loving wife, Martha J. Reid (24 March 1857 - 14 March 1919).

The Reid family made chairs long before their products were considered craft items. Sales of the chairs did not bring in lucrative money to the Reid business. The straight chairs, and maybe sometimes rocking chairs, made to order, were produced in the Reid wood-working shop. People came to the Reid house from nearby homesteads to buy chairs as they had the money to do so. Later on, the word about Reid-made chairs spread beyond Choestoe. The products were hauled by covered wagon over the Logan Turnpike to the market in Gainesville to be sold and distributed from there.

My Grandmother Sarah Souther Dyer had her favorite chair. We all knew it as "Grandma's Chair." My grandmother would have been 75 from my earliest memory of her, and from then on until her death at 101+ years, she held court from her Reid-made chair in her special corner as my family and her many other family members and friends visited her. She had been a Choestoe mid-wife and a woman who kept up with national and world affairs by reading the newspaper. Her impaired hearing prevented her from listening to radio broadcasts (after she got his modern convenience in her home), although I can remember her straining to hear President Franklin Delano Roosevelt in his "fireside chats" during World War II. Reading, trying to listen to radio, or entertaining family and friends were all done by Grandma as she sat in her straight-back Reid-made chair.

She was definitely the matriarch of the family. When she spoke, we listened. I can't remember that she made much "to-do" over the Christmas holidays, for I never remember seeing a Christmas tree in her little room, nor any holiday decorations on her plain wooden mantel. It's not that she didn't believe in Christmas. She definitely did. But always practical, she never sought frills and excesses in anything she did. From her, seated as I remember her in that straightbacked chair, we learned many stories of "how things used to be," and we listened with wide-eyed awe.

In addition to the woven seat of her Reid-made chair, Grandma had some wooden baskets that fascinated me as a child. The structure of the baskets looked much like that of the seat of Grandma's chair, woven from white oak strips. "These baskets my mother Nancy Collins Souther (1829- 1888) and my father, John Combs Hayes Souther (1827- 1891) bought from the Indians that peddled them by our house. Those Indians had hidden out in the caves in the mountains to avoid being taken on the Trail of Tears." We would touch gingerly the egg basket and the larger basket used for laundry that Grandma told us about.

"And this chair I'm sitting in," she would continue with her story of old-fashioned items in her house, "was made by Jason Reid who lives up on the river and has his chair-making shop there. If you buy a Reid chair, you'll have one that sits well, and one that will last" Grandma affirmed. I wondered if somehow chair-maker Jason Reid had learned to weave his white oak strips into chair seats from some of those Indians or their descendants. I'm sorry now I didn't ask her about that.

I don't know who got Grandma Dyer's chair in the distribution of her property following her death. But in my mind's eye, I still see our family matriarch enjoying her "throne chair," the simple though elegant product of one Jason Reid who took pride in his products and taught his sons how to carry on the trade of chair-making.

Fortunately, although I don't have Grandma's chair, I am the happy owner of two later Reid-made chairs. One is a rocking chair which my parents used to rock me when I was a baby. I was able, in recent years, to have the seat replaced by an authentic craftsman who knows how to weave nearly the same pattern the Reid brothers wove long ago into the seat of the chair. I also have one of the Reid straight chairs, with the seat restored.

Neither of these chairs would rate very high as luxury items or fine furniture. But the memories they evoke are priceless. Sitting and rocking at family gatherings bring many recollections of humble families and how we "made-do" during the Great Depression. We were taught the values of family solidarity, responsible citizenship, and Puritan work ethic. Sitting in these chairs, our parents taught us by both word and example at simple Christmas celebrations and all year long.

I will take a little time during Christmas season, 2008, to sit in the old family rocking chair and read the Christmas story from Luke 2. That action will connect me to the Reid chair makers of Union County and to parents and grandparents who made all the difference in who I am today.

c 2008 by Ethelene Dyer Jones; published December 18, 2008 in The Union Sentinel, Blairsville, GA. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Christmas at Valley Forge 1777

Many of us have ancestors who fought in the Revolutionary War. Whether they were with General Washington at Valley Forge or at Cowpens or King's Mountain or any of the other notable battlegrounds of our War for Independence, they were there to lay down their very lives as the price for freedom.

Let us take a little time to recall Christmas, 1777, during that war… Christmas in wartime is especially difficult, and so it was at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania in 1777.

"These are the times that try men's souls," wrote Thomas Paine in his well-circulated pamphlet entitled "The American Crisis." His opening line became the pivotal description of the Continental Army that fought against great odds to win freedom.

Indeed, Valley Forge stands as a monument in time attesting to the trying times General George Washington and the Continental Army faced.

Was there any hope for the struggling nation against the British? Was the dream of freedom to be lost amidst the cold, illness, death and deprivation of harsh winter? The Continental Congress had been forced to flee Philadelphia under British occupation. Little hope remained for support or supplies to feed the starving troops.

There they were, twelve thousand tattered troops with their General, George Washington, encamped at Valley Forge. Despite the bitter cold and the seemingly insurmountable odds of disease, starvation and lack of provisions, from this lowest point of the Revolution, the troops were trained and drilled into fighting form. A miracle was taking place as men shuddered in the fields of Valley Forge.

Dr. Albigence Waldo was one of the doctors ministering to the troops at Valley Forge. His diary gives us insight into both the pathos and glimmers of hope of that Christmas, 1777: "Universal thanksgiving! A roasted pig last night! God be thanked for my health, which I have pretty well recovered. How much better should I feel, were I assured my family were in health. But the same good Being who preserves me is able to preserve them and bring me to the ardently wish'd for enjoyment of them again." (*Dec. 18th, p.88)

On December 25 Dr. Waldo wrote: "We are still in tents."

Of General Washington, Dr. Waldo stated: "He has always acted wisely…His conduct when closely scrutinized is uncensurable. Were his inferior generals as skillfull as himself—we should have the grandest choir of officers ever God made." (*p. 89)

General Washington from his cold tent began a letter to the President of the Continental Congress, tendering his resignation, citing "abandonment to starvation and neglect."

In the midst of his writing, General Washington heard sounds coming from the field. Was it a mutiny, as one of his officers had predicted? He braved the falling snow and bitter wind, going from platoon to platoon where fires glowed, embers sputtering and hissing against the snow. Pots on the fires at each location gave off strange odors of whatever provender the soldiers had found of wild game to flavor their gruel.

At each location he was met with shouts of "Long live the United States! Hail to our Chief! May Liberty prevail!"

At one stop General Washington asked, "Have you not suffered enough?"

The lieutenant in charge responded, "Having come this far, we can but go the rest of the distance. With you to lead us, we can't lose!"

Washington and his aide made their way back to the General's tent. When they arrived, they found garlands of holly and cedar twined around the marquee that identified the headquarters tent, and draped above the tent-flap door. General Washington took the letter he had started to Congress. He burned it at the fire his aides had built outside his tent. "May God relieve your sufferings, if the Congress will not. And a good Christmas to you!" he said.

I am not sure of the timing, but I like to think that it was at this point that General Washington fell to his knees and prayed at Valley Forge.

He spent the remainder of that winter encouraging and training his troops. By June, 1778, they were ready for an advance against the British.

Christmas, 1777, bleak, comfortless and cold as it was, became a time for building hope.

*[Source material found in Colbert, David, ed., Eyewitness to America . (New York: Pantheon, 1977). "Winter at Valley Forge" by Dr. Albigence Waldo, p. 87-90.]

c 2008 by Ethelene Dyer Jones; published December 11, 2008 in The Union Sentinel, Blairsville, GA. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day: A Beloved Christmas Carol

Christmas is upon us and we’ve barely recovered from the wonderful feasting and family gatherings of Thanksgiving.

With the short days and early darkness of this particular season, it is well that we have special holidays to boost our spirits. Already we hear familiar carols played in many places—over music systems in stores and from our own cassette disk players, radio and television.

Can you recall when you first heard and sang American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's carol, "I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day"?

I thought back to our two-teacher school at Choestoe where I attended as a child. Our teachers always prepared us for a big event, "The Christmas Program," to which our parents and the community were invited. It was sometime during my early elementary school days that I was first introduced to and memorized the words of Longfellow's poem that was set to music composed by John Baptiste Calkin.

Of course I didn't learn many facts about either the poet or the composer back in those early elementary school days. I just memorized the words and learned to sing them to the tune. But from those early years, this particular Christmas carol has remained a favorite of mine, and still is to this day.

The spark for poetry and music was ignited away back in those years at that county school, and fed and nourished as well at the country church by the same name.

Since then, I have learned the story behind the carol, and it, too, is both sad and inspiring.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was a northerner, born February 27, 1807 in Portland, Maine. He showed great promise as a student, and by the time he was six, it is said that he already knew Latin grammar, could spell, read and multiply. His father wanted him to become a lawyer, but the lad, who entered Bowdoin College at age fourteen, had a bent for writing and for languages. Bowdoin hired him as a professor of Modern Languages and sent him on a trip to Europe to learn more about the languages he would teach. Between the years of 1829 through 1835, he was a beloved young professor at Bowdoin, writing his own textbooks because none were available for the modern languages courses he taught.

He then became a professor of Modern Languages at Harvard, and continued in that position from 1836-1854. It was while there that he began in earnest his writing career. He knew much sadness during these years. His first wife, Mary Storer Porter, whom he wed in 1831 died following the loss of their first child in 1835.

He met Frances Appleton in Europe. She was the daughter of Nathan Appleton, a prominent Boston merchant. Their marriage was exceedingly happy. Their home became a meeting place for noted poets and writers such as Ralph Waldo Emerson, Julia Ward Howe, Charles Sumner and Nathaniel Hawthorne. Longfellow became known as "The Fireside Poet."

Tragedy visited again. His wife Frances died in a house fire on July 9, 1861. He never quite recovered from the grief of her passing. He filled his days with writing and traveling, preferring on several occasions to take his motherless children on extended tours of Europe. He wrote over twenty books and numerous poems. He died March 24, 1882 and was laid to rest in Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Two years later, his bust was placed in Poet's Corner of Westminster Abbey in London, the first American poet to receive that honor.

There is some confusion as to whether Longfellow wrote the seven-stanza poem, "Christmas Bells," on Christmas Day 1863 or 1864. In 1862, the aging poet received word that his son, Lt. Charles Appleton Longfellow, had received a severe wound to his spine. Some have said that the poem on which the carol is based was as much "anti-war" as "pro-Christmas."

In 1872, after the terrible conflict while the nation was still recovering from war, a composer, John Baptiste Calkin set five of Wadsworth's seven stanzas (with only slight changes) to his tune, "Waltham." In later years, other melodies have been used as settings for Longfellow's Christmas poem, but the most popular is the one composed by Calkin.

If you are a fan of the "Casting Crowns" contemporary musical group, you might hear the 2008 version by Mark Hall, lead vocalist, as he sings "I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day" in the Christmas album, "Peace on Earth."

Read again Longfellow's inimitable Christmas poem. It will inspire you today as it did people who heard it in 1872 when it was first set to music. Two stanzas are repeated here, the 3rd and 4th of the carol. The 3rd refers to the despair brought on by war; the 4th forsees the end of war and restoration of peace:

And in despair I bowed my head:
"There is no peace on earth," I said;
“For hate is strong,
And mocks the song
Of peace on earth good-will to men!”

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
"God is not dead; nor doth He sleep!
The Wrong shall fail,
The Right prevail,
With peace on earth, goodwill to men!"

Longfellow's words still have a strong message of optimism and hope for us today in the midst of an economic decline and, as our ancestors would say, "perilous" times. Listen to the Christmas Bells. They still ring out, 'loud and deep'!

c 2008 by Ethelene Dyer Jones; published Dec. 4, 2008 in The Union Sentinel, Blairsville, GA. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Thanksgiving in perspective

Thursday, November 27 is the day in 2008 designated Thanksgiving Day. We gather with family and friends to give thanks for the blessings of the year and to feast on turkey and all the trimmings that make for a royal dinner.

"A truly American holiday," we think. With visions of the Pilgrims at Plymouth Colony in Massachusetts coming together in 1621 to celebrate one year of survival in the New World, their Wampanoag Indian neighbors gathering with them, with a three-day feast and festival, we consider that event to be the first American Thanksgiving.

But was it? More investigation into history will show us that the Plymouth Colony celebration was not the first Thanksgiving, even in America.

The celebration predates 1621 by thousands of years in other parts of the world. Many cultures had days of thanksgiving at harvest time, to celebrate victories in battles, to recognize the hand of God in the affairs of men. We have but to read ancient psalms to see that giving thanks lay at the heart of worship and recognition of Diety. But in America, was there a time before 1621 and the Plymouth Colony gathering that could be termed America's "First Thanksgiving"?

Florida explorer Juan Ponce de Leon arrived in America in 1513. He claimed the land he had found for Spain. He led his entourage to solemnly give thanks for safe passage and for the land they would explore for the King of Spain. He was followed by other conquistadores who did likewise in succeeding years. Some of these days of Thanksgiving were led by Hernando de Soto in 1529, by Father Louis Cancer de Barbastro in 1549, and by Tristan de Luna in 1599. These periods of Thanksgiving were along the coasts of Florida, that land of waving palms and tropical sunshine.

Add to the Florida celebrations another early Thanksgiving Feast by Spanish explorers, this one held in Texas as Francisco Vasquez de Coronado and about 1500 of his men held a day of Thanksgiving in May, 1541. In fact, so positive was the Texas Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) that this was the "first" Thanksgiving in America that the organization erected a plaque at the Palo Duro Canyon in Texas in 1959 marking it as the location of "the First Thanksgiving."

France got into the battle for exploration of the New World. In 1564, a group of French Huguenots landed along the St. Johns River in Florida and began a settlement there. Like others who had braved the ocean voyage and had arrived intact in the new land, a Thanksgiving Day marked their feat in 1564.

In September, 1565, Pedro Menendez de Aviles, an experienced admiral from Spain, settled St. Augustine, Florida and called the people together for a mass of thanksgiving. Joining the settlers were the nearby Seloy Indians. The feast for that occasion was garbanzo beans, garlic-flavored pork, hardtack biscuits and red wine.

This festival, coming at the first permanent settlement in America, is considered by many historians to be the first and most continuing Thanksgiving on American soil by foreign settlers. In fact, there has been a quarrel between those who hold to the St. Augustine theory and the Plymouth Colony theory of "first Thanksgiving" site.

Then came the claim of the Jamestown settlement in Virginia, and the 1610 date for its Thanksgiving celebration. Why did this one not hold as the first of the English colony Thanksgivings in America? Settled in 1607, Jamestown had a hard time existing. Disease and starvation were rampant. When Lord De La Warr came in 1610 with supplies, the remaining colonists took heart. The Jamestown Colony did not list the word "Thanksgiving" as the intent of the celebration led by the Rev. Richard Buck and Ensign Anthony Scott as this colony took on new life. But Thanksgiving was implied in the gathering and determination to make Jamestown a permanent settlement.

A painting commemorates another English colony Thanksgiving held in 1619 at Berkeley Plantation in Virginia, about thirty miles north of Jamestown. Captain John Woodleefe had this written declaration which began the first Thanksgiving there: "Wee ordaine that the day of our ships arrival at the place assigned for plantacon in the land of Virginia shall be yearly and perpetualy kept holy as a day of thanksgiving to Almighty god." It is believed that Thanksgiving Day was held in November when the ship arrived from England. The painting, "The First Thanksgiving," by Sydney King, shows the ship in the James River and the thirty-five men kneeling on shore.

It is interesting that regardless of the country from which the early settlers came, whether from Spain, France or England, they recognized the providence of Almighty God in guiding them through treacherous seas to a land, not necessarily "flowing with milk and honey," but with challenges, hardships, disease and enemies to be overcome.

Sarah Josepha Hale, editor of Godey’s Lady’s Book, lobbied for and wrote numerous articles and pamphlets calling for a national day of Thanksgiving from 1846 until 1863. President Lincoln, during the Civil War, decreed that a day of Thanksgiving be held on the second Thursday in November. The day was changed a bit but finally came to rest on the fourth Thursday of each November by decree of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, signed into law in 1941. It is held on a Thursday from the English tradition of Calvinistic "lecture-days" and harvest festival days. For over six decades now we have held Thanksgiving Day on the fourth Thursday of November.

c 2008 by Ethelene Dyer Jones; published November 27, 2008 in The Union Sentinel, Blairsville, GA. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

A Look at Owltown

Travel Highway 129/19 south from the old courthouse square in Blairsville and you will come to the Owltown District of Union County lying around the vicinity of the Experiment Station. It was the last of the fourteen districts of the county.

This district numbered 1409 was signed into law on April 4, 1887. Court appointed commissioners John M. Rich, Milton G. Hamby, and Quiller F. Reece had been assigned the task of laying out the lines of the proposed new militia district. Daniel Mathis, Thomas Fields and other citizens had petitioned for the new district and signed a request for it with the Court of Ordinary in Union County. Portions of already-existing districts of Arkaqua, Choestoe and Coosa were surveyed and made a part of the new Owltown District. Mr. William Colwell, County Ordinary, signed the completed papers and the new district was summarily formed.

One is reminded of the words of naturalist John Muir, who in 1867, passed through beautiful Union County, Georgia on his walk from Louisville, Kentucky to Cedar Keys, Florida, a journey of over one thousand miles. He wrote of this mountainous region: "Oh, these vast, calm, measureless mountain days...in whose light everything seems equally divine, opening a thousand windows to show us God."

Whether Muir passed through what became Owltown twenty years after his visit, we know not. But he could well have been describing that section of Union County nestled along the Nottely River and its tributaries. County Historian Edward S. Mauney, in his description of Owlton in 1950, said of it: "Being no less mountainous than the county's entire terrain, with its dark recesses called coves, the natural habitat of that wise old bird, the owl, suggests what is believed to be the origin of the name." (p. 72, Sketches of Union County History III, 1987).

Hoot Owl Town and Hoot Owl Hollow were eventually shortened to Owltown. Others have thought that in addition to being "the natural habitat of the owl," Owltown may have received its name from a settlement of Cherokee Indians with Chief Owl as its leader.

Some of the early-settler families that chose Owlton as their place of residence were Hamby, England, Fortenberry, Rich, Davis, Stephens, Reece, Spiva, Akins, Curtis, Majors, Fields, Mathis, Colwell, Bowers, Rider, May, Crump and others. Even today, these family names remain in residents in the coves and hollows of District 1409 and elsewhere in Union.

If John Muir did, indeed, traverse land in what became the Owltown District twenty years after his sojourn here; he would have seen cleared patches in the bottom lands where the farmer settlers grew corn, potatoes, cabbage, onions, beans, wheat, rye, oats and flax. In garden patches were tomatoes, cucumbers, pumpkins and peppers and in yard patches, herbs like sage and rosemary for seasoning. Growing out from their mountain cabins were the beginnings of mountain orchards of apples, pears and peaches. Owltown has been noted as a place of production of good-tasting, juicy apples.

On the mountains were chestnut trees, the annual fall crop of which provided food for ranging hogs and cattle, and enough to pick up and haul to market in Gainesville over the Logan Turnpike. This extra crop from the forest helped to provide coffee, tea, sugar, cloth for making clothes and even shoes for members of the mountain families.

Another distinctive early industry of Owlton was the gold mine at Owltown Gap. The yield of this mine is not currently known, but it, along with the Coosa Mines, caused enough excitement to produce a mini-gold rush to Union County in the heyday of gold mining here.

Fort Mountain is within the area of Owltown District. The ancient fort, some of the remains of which can still be seen, is a great mystery. Legend prevails that it was built by a contingent of Spanish conquistadores who came through the region in the sixteenth century under the leadership of one Juan Pardo and built a fortress on the mountain. Lost in mountain mists and lack of records, we may never know the origin of the fort on this mountain.

Out of Owltown have come many distinguished citizens. To name a few, the following come to mind. Rev. Milford G. Hamby was a noted minister in the North Georgia Methodist Conference. Mr. Newton Curtis was termed a "good teacher" and an able debater. Solomon Hill Rich and Nancy Conner Rich had a son named Charles Edward Rich who was a noted Baptist preacher and educator. The Rev. Luther Colwell, another long-time Baptist minister in Union County, was a son of John Theodore and Amy Elizabeth Bowling Colwell. John Theodore Colwell was county ordinary when "the old courthouse" on the square was built in 1899.

"A thousand windows," to quote from John Muir, open throughout Owltown. One has but to drive its roadways to be surprised by beauty and a quality of "divine light" that emanate from a lofty past and point toward an optimistic future.

c 2008 by Ethelene Dyer Jones; published November 20, 2008 in The Union Sentinel, Blairsville, GA. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

A day to honor those who served

In the 11th hour on the 11th day of the 11th month in 1918, the Armistice was signed ending World War I. The shouting and celebration would come later, commemorating this auspicious event in world history.

On November 11 each year we observe Veterans Day to honor all military men and women of the United States who have served in the past and who currently serve.

President Woodrow Wilson proclaimed an observance of Armistice Day on November 12, 1919. Wanting to commemorate the actual day of the signing of the treaty to end World War I, Congress requested in 1926 that the day of tribute and remembrance be set for November 11. Signed into law (specifically Act 52, Statute 351, 5 U. S. Code, Section 87a) the act was approved on May 13, 1938. Since then November 11 (or for a period of time, a day near November 11) of each year has been set aside as a legal holiday in which Americans recognize the value of freedom and those who won and maintain it.

In 1953, a veteran named Al King of Emporia, Illinois, promoted Armistice Day as a day to honor all veterans, not just those who had fought in World War I. A bill was introduced to Congress, passed and signed into law by President Dwight D. Eisenhower (himself a decorated general and a veteran) on May 26, 1954. The word "Armistice" was changed to "Veterans" on November 8, 1954. Since September 20, 1975, when President Gerald R. Ford signed a law declaring that the observance would be held on the actual day—November 11—of the signing of the Armistice, Veterans Day has not moved about to gain the convenience of a "long weekend" off from work. America has kept November 11 as a time to thank veterans for their unselfish service and to remember outstanding events in the battle for freedom.

For almost two years now I have had almost daily contact with veterans. Most of you know that my beloved husband, the Rev. Grover D. Jones, who served admirably in the U. S. Navy during World War II, has been a resident of the Georgia War Veterans Home in Milledgeville. Now in a skilled nursing unit of the Vinson Building, his daily needs are met by a staff who see their job as a calling. I am grateful that the facility is available to Georgia veterans who need the care.

Others and I have been greatly concerned that 81 of the mobile (still able to walk and care somewhat for themselves) veterans in the Wheeler Building domiciliary unit were given notice to find another place to live by November 30, 2008. Today's local paper stated that most of them have found new places to live before the deadline set for their evacuation.

The sad commentary on this situation, to me, has been that "no funds were available in Georgia's tight budget" to care for these 81 veterans. In talking with several of them, I learned that their small monthly stipend would not allow for rent and other living expenses, and many of them did not have relatives with whom they could live. Would these veterans be put out on the street, homeless and forgotten, with little thought of their care during their declining years?

My cry on Veterans Day is that Georgia and America should find ways to care for those who were willing to give the supreme sacrifice for our country. Those who returned from war are often crippled in mind or body. The cruel streets and bridge shelters of America are no place for them to have to lay their heads. Indeed, it is time we reconsider our priorities on this Veterans Day, 2008. I offer the following original poem in tribute:

Autumn for the Veterans
It is autumn for the veterans.
Like falling leaves their lives
Ebb out into the great beyond.
No fight is left.
Their battles behind them now
They may have nightmares about Anzio,
Storm Tarawa in the Gilbert Islands,
Bivouac at Guadalcanal or Peleliu.
They may relive the trauma of Normandy beachhead
To set a day in history: D-Day, June 6, 1944,
Operation Overload.
Many were at the Battle of the Bulge,
Tens of thousands of young soldiers
Barely out of boot camp
Facing the enemy head-on.
In this autumn of their lives fears return,
Play on the dark wall of memory
Where courage again meets the enemy,
Fellow soldiers fall on foreign soil,
Where cities built from civilization's cradle
Crumble in the ruins of war
And innocents are set adrift or meet untimely deaths.
In the Pacific Enola Gay bore "Little Boy"
And Hiroshima was laid to waste.
Three days later, as if more destruction ordained the victory,
Nagasaki fell, scattered and scorched by splitting atoms.
"What did we do?" the veterans ask.
The question comes in midnight watches,
In noonday's red and purple fire,
In twilight's clouds like huge mushrooms
Hovering and smothering.
It is Autumn for the veterans.
Spring and Summer with their red-hot battles are past.
Purple hearts and silver stars lie in quiet displays,
Mix with golden falling leaves of Autumn.
Winter is very near—
Closer than we know.
-Ethelene Dyer Jones

c 2008 by Ethelene Dyer Jones; published November 13, 2008 in The Union Sentinel, Blairsville, GA. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.