I Know a Valley Green With Corn: A Critique and Explication of Byron Herbert Reece's Poem

As I write this column early in the morning of April 22, I realize this is the day declared "Earth Day" throughout America. It is a day for citizens to be cognizant of the environment in which we live and what we can do to help preserve it for posterity.

I like the slogan, "Every day is Earth Day." Indeed, we cannot just practice good earth-saving techniques one day a year. We must be vigilant at all times about what we can do to help revitalize earth and its resources.

To gain a little perspective on Earth Day, how it came to be set, and its significance, a little history of the day is in order.

The April 22 date came about in this way. U. S. Senator Gaylord Nelson of Wisconsin visited California in 1969 just after the massive oil spill off the coast there at Santa Barbara. He was so moved by the damages that he went back to Washington and introduced a bill for Earth Day, setting the date as April 22 each year. A "Teach-in" on college campuses throughout the nation occurred on that first Earth Day, April 22, 1970. "The Environmental Handbook" was compiled and edited by Garrett DuBell to be used in the teach-ins. Senator Nelson enlisted Denis Hayes, a Harvard graduate student, to be national coordinator of the day. Unbelievably, the first Earth Day in 1970 had participants in over two thousand colleges and universities, in high schools and communities throughout the United States. It was estimated that the first celebration saw over 20 million Americans coming together on April 22, 1970 to hear issues about the environment and to seek reform measures to clean it up.

The United Nations and affiliated nations observe another day as Earth Day. This Earth Day uses the Spring Equinox (around March 20) when the sun is directly above the Earth's equator. John McConnell at a United Nations Conference on the environment introduced the idea in 1969. The proclamation declaring the Spring Equinox as Earth Day throughout the world was signed on February 26, 1971. Written by McConnell, it stated: "May there only be peaceful and cheerful Earth Days to come for our beautiful Spaceship Earth as it continues to spin and circle in frigid space with its warm and fragile cargo of animate life." (from "UN 'Cyberschoolbus'" 2006).

Some of the legislation enacted since Earth Day began in 1970 have been formation of the Environmental Protection Agency, the Clean Air Act, and the drive to recycle materials.

Several years before the movement to establish Earth Day, Rachel Carson introduced us to the dangers of not caring for earth's environment. In Silent Spring 2 (1962) she wrote: "The history of life on earth has been a history of interaction between living things and their surroundings. To a large extent, the physical form and the habits of the earth's vegetation and its animal life have been molded by the environment. Considering the whole span of earthly time, the opposite effect, in which life actually modifies its surroundings, has been relatively slight. Only within the moment of time represented by the present century has one species acquired significant power to alter the nature of his world."

And, as we must admit the "one species" who alters the nature of his world is mankind. With our greed, inattention to the cycles of nature, overextending the soil and its nutrients, using water resources for our own necessities and pleasure, harvesting forests for expansive building and other technological uses, along with many other non-conserving measures that could be mentioned, man has brought the environment to its present precarious stage. In 1897 Russian writer Anton Chekhov wrote: "There are fewer and fewer forests, the rivers are drying up, the game birds are becoming extinct, the climate is ruined, and every day the earth is becoming poorer and more hideous." He does not paint a pretty picture of Earth and its resources. But he wrote that a century and a decade ago. Think of the changes that have occurred since then.

What can we, individual citizens, do? Is the problem so big that whatever effort we try to do will be only an infinitely minute and ineffective action? Considering such, we might say, "Why bother?" But I suggest to you that we can become more aware of the problem. With knowing often comes action. Regardless of your political persuasion, former Vice-President Al Gore has tried to wake us up through his book An Inconvenient Truth (2006) to global warming and what we can do about it. Alan Weisman has written a provocative analysis in his The World Without Us (2007).

We can also resolve to recycle those items recyclable. We can beware of measures to conserve water. We must not litter. Our roadways are veritable trash barrels for some who scatter waste along them. Shame on us. We can attend to emission controls on automobiles to prevent toxic fumes from escaping. We can clean up, spruce up, beautify. Our world is still a beautiful place. It is still an awesome sight to look to our beautiful mountains and see the sun dissipate the morning mists. Everyday is Earth Day. Let us celebrate!

c 2008 by Ethelene Dyer Jones; published Apr. 24, 2008 in The Union Sentinel, Blairsville, GA. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Earth Day and its Significance

As I write this column early in the morning of April 22, I realize this is the day declared "Earth Day" throughout America. It is a day for citizens to be cognizant of the environment in which we live and what we can do to help preserve it for posterity.

I like the slogan, "Every day is Earth Day." Indeed, we cannot just practice good earth-saving techniques one day a year. We must be vigilant at all times about what we can do to help revitalize earth and its resources.

To gain a little perspective on Earth Day, how it came to be set, and its significance, a little history of the day is in order.

The April 22 date came about in this way. U. S. Senator Gaylord Nelson of Wisconsin visited California in 1969 just after the massive oil spill off the coast there at Santa Barbara. He was so moved by the damages that he went back to Washington and introduced a bill for Earth Day, setting the date as April 22 each year. A "Teach-in" on college campuses throughout the nation occurred on that first Earth Day, April 22, 1970. "The Environmental Handbook" was compiled and edited by Garrett DuBell to be used in the teach-ins. Senator Nelson enlisted Denis Hayes, a Harvard graduate student, to be national coordinator of the day. Unbelievably, the first Earth Day in 1970 had participants in over two thousand colleges and universities, in high schools and communities throughout the United States. It was estimated that the first celebration saw over 20 million Americans coming together on April 22, 1970 to hear issues about the environment and to seek reform measures to clean it up.

The United Nations and affiliated nations observe another day as Earth Day. This Earth Day uses the Spring Equinox (around March 20) when the sun is directly above the Earth's equator. John McConnell at a United Nations Conference on the environment introduced the idea in 1969.

The proclamation declaring the Spring Equinox as Earth Day throughout the world was signed on February 26, 1971. Written by McConnell, it stated: "May there only be peaceful and cheerful Earth Days to come for our beautiful Spaceship Earth as it continues to spin and circle in frigid space with its warm and fragile cargo of animate life." (from "UN 'Cyberschoolbus'" 2006).

Some of the legislation enacted since Earth Day began in 1970 have been formation of the Environmental Protection Agency, the Clean Air Act, and the drive to recycle materials.

Several years before the movement to establish Earth Day, Rachel Carson introduced us to the dangers of not caring for earth's environment. In Silent Spring 2 (1962) she wrote: "The history of life on earth has been a history of interaction between living things and their surroundings. To a large extent, the physical form and the habits of the earth's vegetation and its animal life have been molded by the environment. Considering the whole span of earthly time, the opposite effect, in which life actually modifies its surroundings, has been relatively slight. Only within the moment of time represented by the present century has one species acquired significant power to alter the nature of his world."

And, as we must admit the "one species" who alters the nature of his world is mankind. With our greed, inattention to the cycles of nature, overextending the soil and its nutrients, using water resources for our own necessities and pleasure, harvesting forests for expansive building and other technological uses, along with many other non-conserving measures that could be mentioned, man has brought the environment to its present precarious stage. In 1897 Russian writer Anton Chekhov wrote: "There are fewer and fewer forests, the rivers are drying up, the game birds are becoming extinct, the climate is ruined, and every day the earth is becoming poorer and more hideous." He does not paint a pretty picture of Earth and its resources. But he wrote that a century and a decade ago. Think of the changes that have occurred since then.

What can we, individual citizens, do? Is the problem so big that whatever effort we try to do will be only an infinitely minute and ineffective action? Considering such, we might say, "Why bother?" But I suggest to you that we can become more aware of the problem. With knowing often comes action. Regardless of your political persuasion, former Vice-President Al Gore has tried to wake us up through his book An Inconvenient Truth (2006) to global warming and what we can do about it. Alan Weisman has written a provocative analysis in his The World Without Us (2007).

We can also resolve to recycle those items recyclable. We can beware of measures to conserve water. We must not litter. Our roadways are veritable trash barrels for some who scatter waste along them. Shame on us. We can attend to emission controls on automobiles to prevent toxic fumes from escaping. We can clean up, spruce up, beautify. Our world is still a beautiful place. It is still an awesome sight to look to our beautiful mountains and see the sun dissipate the morning mists. Everyday is Earth Day. Let us celebrate!

c 2008 by Ethelene Dyer Jones; published Apr. 24, 2008 in The Union Sentinel, Blairsville, GA. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Davenport Mountain named for early settler, John B. Davenport

Travel on Georgia Highway 325 (Nottely Dam Road) until you are near the Mt. Zion Baptist Church. There you will find a Georgia historical marker. It reads:

Davenport Mountain in view to the east was named for John Davenport who came to this section in 1838. He built his 40 foot long log house 1.2 mi. to the east, over the peak of the mountain. It survived until removed in 1942 to make way for Nottely Lake.

William Poteet came to this section about the same time and settled near the junction of Camp Creek and Nottely River. William and Hosea Thomas took up homesteads at the west about 7 years later. George Loudermilk built his home on Camp Creek.

Thomas Lance, another pioneer, settled 4 mi. west at the foot of Lance Mountain.

The historical sign honors early settlers John Davenport, William and Hosea Thomas, George Loudermilk and Thomas Lance, families that played an important role in the early history of Union County. This article will focus on the John Davenport line.

The date on the sign, 1838, may be slightly in error. John B. Davenport, the first of the Davenport line in Union County, was not shown on this county's 1840 census. Neither was he listed in Davie County, North Carolina, from where he moved. But tax records show him still registered in Iredell County, NC in the years 1837, 1838 and 1839. It seems the census taker missed listing this Davenport family in 1840. They could have been in the process of moving to Union County, Georgia and no one went out to Davenport Mountain to find his 40-foot long new cabin. Family records, however, show that John B. and Annie Lewis Davenport moved to Union County, Georgia in 1844.

This couple had a large family of eleven children, ten of whom survived to adulthood. When John B. and Annie Lewis Davenport moved from North Carolina six of their eleven children had already been born. The dates and places of birth seem to lend credence to 1838 as the date the family moved to Georgia.

Here are their children's names, dates of birth and whom they married. The first six were born in North Carolina: (1) Debbie, born about 1826, married John Bryan in 1846 in Union County; (2) Lively Elizabeth, born about 1832, married John Loudermilk in Union County; (3) Louisa, born about 1832, (were she and Lively twins?), married Riley Burton Hunter in Union County; (4) John Evrem was born November 30, 1833, married Lively N. Thomas in Union County; (5) Anne was born about 1835 and married Jess Cole in Union County; (6) Mary, called "Polly," was born May 19, 1938, never married; (7) David E. was born April 27, 1836 (?) in Georgia and married Adeline C. Thomas in Union County in 1870; (8) Susie was born March 30, 1839 in Georgia, and never married; (9) Daniel, twin brother to Susie, married Lucinda Hix; (10) Lois Adeline, born November 3, 1842 in Georgia, married A. Judson Wallace in Union County; (11) Washington died young. We do not know his birth date or death date, since this information is no longer on the field stone that marks his grave in the Bethlehem Church Cemetery.

John B. Davenport had three sons, John, David and Daniel, who joined the Confederate Army on July 3, 1862. They enlisted at Fort Nelson near Morganton, Georgia in Fannin County and were placed in Company B of Fain's Regiment, Georgia Infantry.

Guy Davenport, a descendant, who has collected and written much information on the Davenport family line, says the three brothers "did not volunteer, but were heavily recruited." John, the oldest of the three brothers, was already married, having married Lively N. Thomas in 1857. He was recruited July 3, 1862, just six days prior to his daughter, Martha Alice's birth, on July 9. Already John and Lively had John William (1858), Amanda (1860); then Martha (1862). John and Lively had a large family of thirteen, with eleven growing to adulthood. Their other children were Lois Aleatha (1864), Rhoda (called "Radie", 1866), Alcie L. (1868), James David (1870), Dillard Hosea (1872), Minda (1875), Elisha Lonzo (1878), Nora (1882), and sons Tiny (1874) who died as a baby and another son (unnamed) who died at birth.

With political persuasions differing from the Confederate side, John Davenport deserted and went home to Union County in 1863. It is said that when he worked his fields, he wore a bonnet and a dress to keep his identity secret from the conscriptors who tried to hunt down and force deserters to go back into service. However, the secret of his being home could not be kept, and one day two Confederate armed men on horseback captured him near his home. One of his captors rode before him and one after. John was forced to walk in the middle, his hands bound. At an opportune time, John escaped, running through a thicket and evading his captors. A friendly neighbor untied John's hands and got John a gun from home. After this fiasco, John had to hide out in the mountains, and slip into his barn at night to get the food Lively left there for him. That was a long, hard, fearful winter before the war ended in 1865.

John's brothers, David and Daniel, single at the time of their enlistment in the Confederacy, deserted and went to Tennessee where they surrendered to Union forces in August of 1863. They spent time in a prisoner-of-war camp, but enlisted in the Union Army, Company C, 5th Regiment, Tennessee Mounted Infantry on September 12, 1864 at Cleveland, Tennessee. Their main work was in guarding the railroad from Chattanooga to Atlanta and keeping the tracks in shape for traffic. To have spent time in both Confederate and Union armies was not that unusual during the Civil War, especially for independent, Union-sympathizing mountain people.

Many people still residing in Union County trace their ancestry back to John B. and Annie Lewis Davenport, and the other settlers whose names are listed on the historical roadside marker near Mt. Zion Baptist Church on Nottley Dam Road. John B. (Aug. 10, 1795-Sept. 8, 1886) and Annie Lewis Davenport (May 2, 1801-Sept. 5, 1893) were buried at Bethlehem Cemetery. John Evrem (Nov. 30, 1833 - May 16, 1894) and Lively Thomas Davenport (June 11, 1837 - Nov. 13, 1932) were buried at the Mt. Zion Cemetery. Lively lived to the ripe age of 95. Her obituary told of her good deeds and of her expertise as an herbalist and caregiver for the sick and needy.

(For this article, I am grateful to "Guy Davenport's Notes" online, and for the excellent family articles submitted to "The Heritage of Union County" book by Major Leon Davenport and other descendants of John B. and John E. Davenport.)

c 2008 by Ethelene Dyer Jones; published Apr. 17, 2008 in The Union Sentinel, Blairsville, GA. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

April: National Poetry Month Honoring Union County Native Byron Herbert Reece

The whole month of April has been set aside as a time to honor poets, especially American poets, and to promote an appreciation of poetry and its richness as a literary genre.

I invite you (again) to explore with me some of the rich legacy of our native Union County poet, Byron Herbert Reece, whose life, all too short (September 17, 1917 - June 3, 1958), encompassed forty years and nine months. He left a literary legacy of inimitable poetry in lyrics that are yet to be explored sufficiently to their depths of perception.

Four books of poetry, Ballad of the Bones (1945), Bow Down in Jericho (1950), A Song of Joy (1955), and The Season of Flesh (1955) contain the corpus of his poetic production. Yet he wrote many more poems not contained within the pages of these four books. As many of his poems as could be found (those in the four published books of poetry and others published elsewhere or unpublished) were professionally recorded on audio disks by reader Keith Jones in 2007 using the services of the National Recording Company of Rome, Georgia (by owner and manager, Johnny Carter, who, himself, has a great interest in Reece and has ties ancestrally to Union County). The set of audio disks is available either from the Byron Herbert Reece Society of Young Harris or from the recording company in Rome. For hours of good listening, you might like to purchase this Reece audio poetry collection.

In addition to being a poet, Reece also received acclaim for this two published novels, each of which demonstrates his remarkable genius as a writer. Someone has said of the novels and their style of writing: Poetic and lyrical in nature, the novels are "Flawlessly written, filled with tenderness and human understanding" (from blurb of Better a Dinner of Herbs (1950). About The Hawk and the Sun (1955) this was written: "This realistic and shocking story, (is) set forth in the commanding and lyrical style of a writer hailed for his talents as a poet" (blurb).

Reece has the young lad Danny (a character in Better a Dinner of Herbs) ponder about the coming of spring to the mountains and the farm in the phrase: "When Spring begins to stain" (p. 127). Danny's thoughts, as he hoes the corn, are likewise poetic: "As the sap rose in the trees and the first flowers began to open in the wayward places, he felt inside himself a vigor that made him want to gambol with the young lambs in the spring pasture." There are numerous examples in the two novels of Reece's keen observation of nature and his poetic bent in descriptive narrative.

In this short column, it would be impossible to laud the genius and talent of "our" poet, one who was first and foremost a farmer and then a poet. It is true that many of his poems explore the theme of death, of Time's passage, of melancholy themes. But in my opinion, some of his most exquisite writings demonstrate his ability to be one with Nature, one with the seasons, one with growing things, and with the beloved land of his mountain farm home.

I highly recommend that you go again to Reece's books of poetry (I hope you have them in your collection; certainly you can see them at a Georgia library near you if you don't own them) and read his lyrical treasures.

I am hard-pressed to select a "favorite" among his many styles: lyrical ballads, sonnets, lyrical poems on a variety of subjects, keen observations and polished language in all. But somehow, at this time of year, April and spring's advent, I reread his poems about spring and am lifted and inspired by them. I give lines from some short ones in tribute to his lyrical skill, for your reading pleasure, and to honor him during April, National Poetry Month. There are many, many more than the three cited here.

SEASONAL
Although it is not in the mind
For youth to be brief as the summer
Earth's seasons are all of a kind.
The earliest comer
To spring must witness the bough
Translate the blooming that dapples
The land untouched by the plow,
To the falling of apples.
(from Ballad of the Bones, c1945, p. 74).

NOW THAT SPRING IS HERE
Now that the year's advanced to the spring
And leaves grow large and long
Forget each sorry and rueful thing
Hearing the wild bird's song.
The leaf will fall, the bird will fly
And winter close the year,
But O, put all such knowledge by
Now that spring is here!
(from Bow Down in Jericho, c1950, p. 108)

WE COULD WISH THEM A LONGER STAY
Plum, peach, apple and pear
And the service tree on the hill
Unfold blossom and leaf.
From them comes scented air
As the brotherly petals spill.
Their tenure is bright and brief.
We could wish them a longer stay,
We could wish them a charmed bough
On a hill untouched by the flow
Of consuming time, but they
Are lovelier, dearer now
Because they are soon to go,
Plum, peach, apple and pear
And the service blooms whiter than snow.
(from Bow Down in Jericho, c1950, p. 109)

His poems need no explanation or comment; they stand alone, they speak for themselves.

I invite you to explore Reece's poetry for yourself during this month set aside for poetic pursuit. As many times as I have perused his books of poetry (and prose), I always find something refreshing and thought-provoking each time I read them. We owe it to his poetic genius and memory to let his poems speak to us anew in this 90th anniversary of his birth, 2008.

c 2008 by Ethelene Dyer Jones; published Apr. 10, 2008 in The Union Sentinel, Blairsville, GA. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

This Old House

"Did you know that the old Hunter-England Cabin is being torn down?"

So was the distressed call I received last week about the old cabin beside Highway 129/19 at Choestoe, which had been a landmark as long as any of us can remember, and much longer.

Legend holds that John Hunter (b. c1775 in VA, moved to Buncombe County, NC, then to Union Co., GA; d. 1848 in Union County, GA) built the cabin about 1832 (no later than 1834).

The Cherokee were still residents of the area. A story passed down in the family is that John Hunter and other workers who built the cabin had to ward off Indians who looked with disfavor upon those of light skin building a dwelling beside the Nottely River on land that had been hunting grounds and home for the Cherokee for untold generations.

"That's such an historical house. Isn't there something that can be done to prevent its being torn down?" another distressed caller asked me.

My response to him was that we as citizens and lovers-of-history had neglected to get the old house officially on the Register of Historic Places. Our hands were somewhat tied as to what we could do, outside of having the money for the price being asked for the cabin- which was destined for tearing down and removal.

It was obvious by the telephone calls and emails to me that many in Union County and descendants of the Hunter-England families for whom the cabin was originally named were "up in arms" about what was happening with the ancestral home.

As a lifetime member of the Union County Historical Society, and as a descendant of those pioneer settlers, John Hunter and Daniel England, I wanted to do what I could, albeit long-distance, to assure that the cabin would not be razed and lost to posterity. We had such a little bit of time to really take action.

The Hunter-England Cabin

I thought of what a landmark the cabin was in my growing-up years. I grew up "across the Nottely River" (on the east side) from the Hunter-England cabin. But my mother's portion of land from her father, Francis Jasper "Bud" Collins, was acreage that adjoined the land on which the Hunter-England cabin was built. When my sister, Louise, married Ray Dyer, they built their first house across the highway from the cabin. In those days, when I walked a footlog across the Nottely in the short-cut from our farm to my sister's new house near the old cabin, I went by the old house on each trip to visit my sister's family. In those days, the old cabin was occupied, rented to people we knew, other kin who always invited me in to warm by the cabin's fireplace or take a friendly meal in the little lean-to kitchen that had been built onto the old cabin. "This old house" was a fixture in our community, a place built a hundred years before I was born. It's sturdiness seemed to assure all of us in the community that it would be around forever.

I thought about John Hunter and Daniel England, my ancestors. John Hunter moved his family from the Mills River Section of North Carolina, then Buncombe County, and later named Henderson County. In the ones coming to Georgia with John and his wife, Elizabeth, were sons Andrew, William Johnson, and Jason Henderson, and daughters Harriet and Martha. Later, his daughter Rebecca, who had married Samuel Riley Lance in North Carolina, also came to Georgia and settled near her father and mother. It is through Samuel Riley and Rebecca Hunter Lance that our noted Union County poet, Byron Herbert Reece, traces his lineage through his mother, Emma Lance Reece. Settler John Hunter was the great, great, great grandfather of the poet.

John Hunter's son, William Johnson Hunter (1813-1893), married Margaret Ann ("Peggy") England, daughter of William Richard and Martha "Patsy" Montgomery England. She was a granddaughter of Daniel and Margaret Gwynn (Guinn) England.

Daniel England was noted as a patriot, giving aid during the Revolutionary War from his iron foundry in North Carolina. William and Peggy married in Habersham County in 1839. In 1840, they built their house not too far from William's father's cabin. That house, said to be one of the first built of planed lumber in the Choestoe area, still stands today on Liberty Church Road. It was the ancestral home of many Hunter descendants, including 103-year old noted teacher, Mrs. Dora Hunter Allison Spiva. It is through one of the ten children of William and Peggy England Hunter that I trace my ancestry to John Hunter, the cabin builder. Their daughter, Georgianne Hunter, married Francis Jasper Collins, and they became my grandparents through my mother, Azie Collins Dyer.

When John Hunter died in 1848, he was buried in the Old Salem Cemetery on a mountain directly up from the cabin he built. It is a sad commentary, indeed, to think that the long-time landmark will no longer be on land near his final resting place.

c 2008 by Ethelene Dyer Jones; published Apr. 3, 2008 in The Union Sentinel, Blairsville, GA. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.