Appalachian Values and Some People Who Exemplify Them (part 3)

We have looked at Appalachian Values as specified by Loyal Jones in his book, Appalachian Values (Jesse Stuart Foundation, 1994) and listed thus far religion, independence (that covers also self-reliance and pride), neighborliness, familism (love for family) and personalism (or relating well with others). Today we will complete his list with humility (modesty), love of place, patriotism, sense of beauty and sense of humor.

Mountain people hold to humility and modesty. They do not like to take credit for any achievements they might have accomplished. They had rather defer compliments to others, or at least defect them from themselves by saying such things as, “Well, this of which you speak is really not that good, not worthy of honor, anyway.” Take for example a man from Union County, who had to bear much of the responsibility of helping his mother rear his siblings after his father died. After a hard youth and manhood, he went forth from the mountains and did quite well as a leader in the state of Georgia. His name was Mauney Douglas Collins who for twenty-five years served as the state school superintendent. During his decade in the top school position in Georgia, he led in innumerableachievements in educational advancement to his credit. Among them were moving scattered one-teacher schools into consolidation, getting the “Minimum Program of Education” funded and a more stabletax base for education established, free textbooks, school and public libraries, nine months of school for all students, bus transportation. The list could go on of accomplishments under his administration. But when commended for his work, as is so often the case with mountain-bred persons, he would reply with, “It was time for a change, the people were ready for change, the time was right.” He did not like for credit to accrue to his own name. Yet the record is there for all to examine and admire. Loyal Jones describes this sense of modesty and humility: “We believe that we should not put on airs, not boast, nor try to get above our raising” (p. 90).

Love of place is almost a built-in part of our mountain ways. “Where’re you from?” one is likely to ask a person when hearing his/her mountain talk and wondering what cove or valley in Appalachian is home. Sense of place is deeply ingrained. There’s more truth than fiction to the saying, “You can take the boy out of the country, but you can’t take the country out of the boy.” We could substitute “mountains of Appalachia” for country and have a true evaluation of how much we who were born there cling to place. North Georgia Poet Byron Herbert Reece had the right idea when he wrote lovingly of his home and mine, “Choestoe,” the Cherokee Indian name meaning “Dancing Place of Rabbits.” It is a long poem, three pages published, so too long to quote here. But a few lines carry the strong sense of place he knew of the community where he was born, reared and lived:

“What does a land resemble, named for rabbits?...
There is peace here, quiet and unhurried living,
Something to wonder at in aged faces;
These are not all I mean, but symbols for it,
A thing, if one but has the spirit for it,
Better, I say, than many rabbits dancing.”

Patriotism seems almost to be a built-in characteristic of Appalachian people. Next to family, another beloved entity for which one will die is country. So many people now dwelling in the hills and hollows of Appalachia can trace their ancestry back to someone who fought in the Revolutionary War. Likewise, when the rift came between the states in the 1860’s, many mountain people sided with the Union in that fray. The county of Union, when founded in 1832, was named Union because the representative,John Thomas, when asked what to name it, declared, “Union, for only Union-like people reside there!” From every war in which America has engaged since the Declaration of Independence was declared in 1776, Appalachian mountain military persons have fought with the bravest to win and maintain freedom.

A sense of beauty permeates place with majestic purple-clad mountains rising toward the sky and green valleys with meandering streams rushing through the rocks and rills of what is Appalachia. But as if nature is reflected in what hands produce, beauty is seen in creative projects from looms, needles, workshops, blacksmith shops. Mountain music played on banjo, dulcimer, and fiddle pays tribute to beauty of sound and accompanies voices that might have composed the songs telling about the land and its people. A concert of beauty rises in place, project and pursuits as if in tumultuous offering of what the people enjoy in Appalachia in loveliness. Is life not hard there? We wonder and yet know that it often is, but amidst the hard toil and sometimes deprivation, the imagination and industry of a people seek after and produce beauty.

And, finally, all the characteristics of mountain life are wrapped in a sense of humor. Loyal Jones assizes the humor of the mountaineer by stating: “Humor is more than fun; it is a coping mechanism in sickness or hard times” (p. 123). We often make ourselves the brunt of our own jokes. I remember the Rev. Jesse Paul Culpepper who was born and reared in Wetmore, Tennessee and who, for 26 and ½ years of his ministry was the director of missions among churches in rural Fannin and Gilmer Counties in Georgia. He was known far and wide for his preaching, and the points he could easily make on a difficult passage. He had the ability to do that oftentimes by telling one of his funny stories, with himself more likely than not the one who had put himself into a humorous position which would help the people to remember the point he was making. For example, in teaching tithing as a biblical way of giving, he would sometimes tell: “Our churches need a better way to raise money than to make punkin’ pies with foam on top (his word for merinque) and try to sell them to the highest bidder. I got one of those pies one time, and it was awful. We’re not winners when we get something like that. Why not give the money to the Lord’s treasury to start with?”

In closing his book on Appalachian Values, Loyal Jones appeals to us all to help correct the abuses to place and people that have occurred within our environs. We can no longer put on blinders and hope the problems of environment and social conditions will go away on their own. He implores: “The reasons for change (must be) sound and desired by mountain people” (p. 138).

[Resource: Jones, Loyal. Appalachian Values. Photography by Warren E. Brunner, with an Introduction by John B. Stephenson. Ashland, KY: Jesse Stuart Foundation, 1994.]

c2012 by Ethelene Dyer Jones. Published March 8, 2012 online with permission of the author at the GaGenWebProject. All rights reserved.

Appalachian Values and Some People Who Exemplify Them

Senior scholar, Loyal Jones, a native of nearby Cherokee County, North Carolina, and for many years director of Appalachian Studies at Berea College, Kentucky, wrote an essay on “Appalachian Values” first published in Twigs in 1973. His intention when he first wrote the essay was to dispel the misconceptions often held about people of the Appalachian mountain region. Betty Payne James ofDisputanta, Kentucky, suggested to Mr. Jones that his essay be made into a book with pertinent photographs. The word artistry and depth of thinking from “Appalachian Values” of Loyal Jones were combined with excellent black-and-white photographs by prize-winning photographer Warren Brunner of Berea, Kentucky to make a book published by the Jesse Stuart Foundation of Ashland, Kentucky in 1994. If you have not yet read this provocative book, I recommend that you find a copy at your library—or better still—purchase your own copy, because you will want to refer to it again and again.

It occurred to me, while thinking about a worthy subject on which to write for his column, that it would be appropriate to name the values Loyal Jones calls to our attention and think of persons within Union County, Georgia, past and present, who exemplify the values worthy of emulation. I thank Loyal Jones for such a thought-provoking book. I give him deserved credit for calling to our attention the characteristics and values held dear and lived out by our ancestors. And Warren Brenner’s excellent photographs brought to my own mind persons and places with whom I am acquainted that fit so well the values Loyal Jones enumerates. I only wish I had photographs to illustrate this article that carry the same sense and depth that those in Appalachian Values convey. I ask my readers, therefore, to think of persons you know, and make a “mountain pictorial” of them as you read about these values, still alive and well in the coves, valleys and hillsides of our beloved Appalachian region.

Loyal Jones sets the stage for Appalachian Values by devoting a chapter to the early settlers to the region and their origins. Many Scots-Irish, German, English and Welsh people came to America and eventually found their way to our Appalachian wilderness and mountains, an ideal place with plenty of wild game, land for clearing and farming, and isolation that afforded them the seclusion they desired, “away from ‘powers and principalities’” (p. 24) that would rob them of their desire for freedom. “They came for many reasons, but always for new opportunity and freedom—freedom from religious, political, and economic restraints, and freedom to do much as they pleased. The pattern of their settlement shows that they were seeking land and solitude.” (p. 29)

Here we have but to do a roll-call of people who were listed on the 1834 (first) Union County census. Which from that list of 147 heads-of-households enumerated in 1834 are your ancestors? They fall into Loyal Jones’s category of people with European ancestry that came seeking freedom and independence. We salute them all.

Religon is one of the values cited by Loyal Jones. “Mountain people are religious…we are religious in the sense that most of our values and the meaning we find in life spring from the Bible. To understand mountaineers, one must understand our religion” (p. 39). I thought of the Rev. Milford G. Hamby (1833-1911), who became a Methodist Circuit Rider in 1852. As a minister in the North Georgia Conference, he often filled as many as twenty-nine appointments for preaching per month. He married Eleanor Hughes on May 9, 1850. She was the daughter of the Rev. Thomas M. Hughes. Her father was also a faithful minister in Union and nearby counties in the early settlement days. Eleanor’s grandfather, the Rev. Francis Bird, was likewise a minister. A brother-in-law to Rev. Hamby was the Rev. John Wesley Twiggs (1846-1917) who married Eleanor Hughes Hamby’s sister, Sarah Elizabeth Hughes. Rev. Twiggs was a noted minister, school teacher and farmer. These early ministers in the county did much to set a pattern of religious practice. Rev. G. W. Duval, writing in his eulogy of Rev. Milford Hamby in the 1911 Conference Journal of the North Georgia Conference Methodist Episcopal Church South (pp. 80-81) said of him: “He conferred not with flesh and blood but was obedient to the heavenly vision…He made the Bible the man of his counsel, the guide of his young life. His library was not extensive. He made his sermons from the revelation of God’s love to man.” Here I have briefly cited only three of the early ministers in the county; there were many more, both then and since. Oftentimes laboring under great hardships and certainly without much monetary remuneration for their labors, they planted the gospel in hard-to-reach places as itinerant preachers and religious and educational leaders.

Mr. Loyal Jones combines three of our Appalachian Values in chapter three, perhaps because the three are so inter-related and so vital a part of the fabric of our mountain people’s lives. These are independence, self-reliance and pride.

He quotes John C. Campbell (for whom Campbell Folk School is named) by saying in the mountains “independence is raised to the fourth power” (p. 52)—meaning we have an exceeding strong spirit of independence. I think of John Thomas, chosen to be the first representative from Union County in 1832 to the state legislature. When a name for the new county was being considered, he said, “Name it Union, for none but union-like men resides in it” (The Heritage of Union County, 1944, p. 1). Although our ancestors were patriotic and supporting of our nation, their geographic isolation and dependability on local resources bred independence. Several of the early-settler men had seen service in the American Revolution and desired independence from tyranny and outside rule. The lay of the land to be tamed and a living to be made from the wilderness inspired an independent spirit.

Closely tied to that spirit of independence is self-reliance. I think of my own ancestors, the Collins, Dyer, Souther, Hunter, Nix, Ingram, England and other settlers who began productive farms, established churches, set up mills, began schools, were elected to government positions—all showed the spirit of self-reliance. True, our ancestors sometimes over-did the self-reliant bent and depleted the land and its resources, like cutting timber and not allowing it to be replenished, before they learned to be conservators. Not all qualities of self-reliance are applaudable.

Then pride is a part of our values; not the puffed-up, vain, egotistical, arrogant, “better-than-thou” kind, but a sense of self-esteem and self-respect for a job well done. I think of my Aunts Avery and Ethel Collins who fashioned many quilts, woven coverlets, and other handcrafted items, entering them into the Southeastern Fair in Atlanta, Georgia and consistently winning blue ribbons. Dr. John Burrison and his crew of historical preservation people from Georgia State University filmed my Aunt Ethel before her death as she showed many of the items that had won acclaim. Never did she seek accolades for her work, but it was worthy of notice and was recorded in a documentary entitled “The Unclouded Day.” She and Aunt Avery had pride in their work, and rightly so. As Loyal Jones notes: “The value of independence and self-reliance, and our pride, is often stronger than desire or need” (p. 68).

In my next column, I will explore more of Loyal Jones’s listing of Appalachian Values. Dr. Stephenson asks this question in the introduction: “Who really knows Appalachia?” (p. 9, 11). This is a probative question. Even though I was born and reared in that area of America, and have experienced all the values named by Mr. Jones, I realize that we only begin to scratch the surface of the complexity and depth of a people whose characteristics, as he writes, represent “the core elements of regional culture, the bones upon which the flesh of a people is layered” (p. 10).

[Resource: Jones, Loyal. Appalachian Values.Photography by Warren E. Brunner, with an Introduction by John B. Stephenson. Ashland, Ky: Jesse Stuart Foundation, 1994.]

c2012 by Ethelene Dyer Jones.Published February 23, 2012 online by permission of the author at the GaGenWebProject. All rights reserved.

A Tribute to Congressman Edgar Lanier Jenkins

Union County, Georgia can be justifiably proud of one of her native sons, Congressman Edgar Lanier Jenkins. He grew up in the county, was educated in the elementary and high schools at Blairsville, and went out to make his mark in the world. We salute him, pay tribute to his memory, and extend condolences to his family.

Congressman Edgar Lanier Jenkins who served as the United States Representative from the Ninth US Congressional District, Georgia, passed away Sunday, January 1, 2012, three days shy of his seventy-ninth birthday. He was born in Young Harris, Georgia on January 4, 1933, the second son of six children born to Charles Swinfield Jenkins and Evia Mae Souther Jenkins. He served in the United States House of Representatives for sixteen years, from 1976 through 1992 when he retired.

He and I were, as we say in genealogical terms, double-first cousins twice (or thrice) removed. We both descend from stalwart early settlers to Union County, Georgia (where Ed and I both grew up). As John Donne so aptly stated in one of his poems, Ed’s death “diminished me.” I was deeply saddened that he could not recover from the cancer he so bravely fought and that took his life three days before he reached his seventy-ninth birthday.

I will miss his presence at our annual Dyer-Souther Reunions in July. I will miss sending him “The Chronicle,” the newsletter I write and send out to about 300 descendants of Ed and my common ancestors, John and Mary Combs Souther and Bluford Elisha and Elizabeth Clark Dyer. Edgar’s connection back to them is through his mother, Evia Souther Jenkins, the granddaughter of William Albert and Elizabeth “Hon” Dyer Souther. This couple’s first-born son, Frank Loransey Souther (1881-1937) who married Nancy Elizabeth Johnson (1886-1967) was Edgar’s grandfather, his mother Evia’s parents. Edgar’s great, great grandparents were John Combs Hayes Souther (1827-1891) and Nancy Collins Souther (1829-1888)—and through the Collins line Edgar and I pick up still another relationship, for we share the same Collins ancestors as well. But all these ancestral connections get to be a bit confusing, especially if you don’t deal with them on a regular basis. Suffice it to say that the family connections are back there, strong and with definite influence upon both of us.

Edgar Lanier Jenkins perhaps got his penchant for public service in an “honest” way, as we say in the mountains. His grandfather, Frank Loransey Souther (1881-1937) was what we call in Appalachia a “revenooer.” That is, he worked for the U. S. Government to find, break up, and arrest perpetrators of the law who made “moonshine liquor” in the coves and hollows of this mountain region. When Edgar was a slip of a boy only four years old, his grandfather Ransey (as we called him) was killed in the line of duty. Maybe that Grandfather’s death made such an impression on Edgar that he resolved at an early age to do what he could in future to treat people well and to make a difference with his own life.

Ed graduated from Union County High School and then attended and graduated from Young Harris College in 1951. His faithfulness to his junior college Alma Mater led him in later years to set up a scholarship fund there which has assisted many with tuition. His first job out of Young Harris was with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (was this in remembrance of his late grandfather, Ransey Souther?). He then joined the U. S. Coast Guard and served ably from 1952 through 1955. Following his honorable discharge, he entered the University of Georgia to receive his bachelor’s degree and then his law degree in 1959.

From 1959 through 1962 he served on the staff of U. S. Congressman Phillip M. Landrum of the Ninth Congressional District. That experience helped the young Jenkins get a feel for serving in our U. S. capitol and set the stage for his later direction in life. From 1962 through 1964, Edgar Jenkins was Assistant District Attorney for Georgia’s Northern District, and he practiced law in Pickens County, Georgia, where he and his wife, Bennie Jo Thomasson Jenkins made their home at Jasper. Their two daughters, Janice Kristin and Amy Lynn came along in the 1960’s to give them much joy and grace their home. Later he would rejoice in two grandsons, Sam and Drew Dotson, sons of his daughter, Amy Jenkins Dotson.

Ed Jenkins was elected as the Ninth District U. S. Congressman in 1976, the same year another Georgian, Jimmy Carter, was elected President of the United States. Since Ed had the experience of being on the staff of Congressman Landrum, he was not to be considered a rookie in Washington politics. His sixteen year tenure (he did not run for reelection in 1992) saw many achievements by this legislator from Georgia who served a total of eight terms. It is interesting that “The Almanac of American Politics” in 1990 described Jenkins as “one of the smartest operators on Capitol Hill.”

This article could not possibly enumerate all the bills he sponsored or the legislative committees on which he served. Some of his major roles in Congress were serving on the House Ways and Means Committee, on the very volatile Joint Committee on the Iran-Contra which had the task of investigating and dealing with trading weapons to Iran. Ed Jenkins’ main value to the area he served was his strong stands for the textile industries within the Ninth District, holding that these jobs should not be parceled out to other countries. This had to do not only with the carpet industry of Dalton, but all the once-profitable sewing shops that made clothing throughout the mountain region. What do we see now on labels? “Made in-----” with the name of another country named.

Jenkins likewise stood up for conservation in supporting our National Forest bills, and for the farmer and small business owner. He authored bills for soil and water conservation and wilderness areas. Having come from salt-of-the-earth ancestors, he recognized the value of hard work and of holding on to ideals of integrity and fairness. He also worked hard to bring about tax revisions to give more equity in the tax structure. He believed in education and in his retirement served on the Board of Regents of the University of Georgia and as a trustee (emeritus) of Young Harris College. He and his family demonstrated as well their Christian influence and were active in First Baptist Church, Jasper, where his memorial service was held on January 7, 2011. His body was returned to Union County where he was interred at the Antioch Baptist Church Cemetery.

To honor this long-time member of Congress, a bill passed on December 11, 1991 to name an area of the Chattahoochee National Forest the “Ed Jenkins National Recreation Area.” This 23,166 acre spread of north Georgia forest is a tribute to an humble man who studied hard, set goals and reached them, and lived nobly. In researching for this article, I accessed a beautiful photograph taken by Alan Cressler (photostream) of the Lovinggood Creek Falls in Fannin County, Georgia. This is one of the beautiful, sparkling falls in the Ed Jenkins National Recreation Area that lies generally within the Blood Mountain Wilderness area and the Blue Ridge Wildlife Management area. As I saw the image of the tumbling water, I thought of how Ed Jenkins’ influence is still flowing on, still making a difference now and into the future. He made “footsteps in the sands of time” and in our hearts.

My condolences go out to his beloved wife, Jo, children Janice Anderson and Amy Dotson, grandsons Sam and Drew Dotson, brothers Charles and Kenneth Jenkins, sisters Ella Battle, Marilyn Thomasson and Patti Chambers. I thought of nephew Rick Jenkins (Charles’s son) and his wife, Cindy Epperson Jenkins (of Epworth, Ga—one of “my” children whom I taught) serving as missionaries in Panama who could not attend the memorial service because of the distance. I thought of all of us many cousins—twice, thrice removed—who people this planet. We will miss you, Ed, but we salute you for the life you lived.

Edgar Lanier Jenkins, our ancestors would be proud of how you carried on the tradition of serving others. You “preached your funeral while you lived,” as our great grandparents liked to say as they sought to teach us how to live. I thought of Ed’s father, Charlie Jenkins, the barber of Blairsville for so many years, talking politics and expressing his wisdom to customers on the country’s situation as Edgar probably played quietly in the barber shop. I thought of Edgar’s grandfather, Ransey Souther, and his unselfish giving in the line of duty as a federal agent. So many influences combined to make Ed what he was. I thought of our wonderful mutual teacher, Mrs. Dora Hunter Alison Spiva, at Union County High School—and so many more people, kin and friends, who wielded their influence. Now we will look back on Edgar Jenkins’s life and say, with poet William Winter:

“On wings of deeds the soul must mount!

When we are summoned from afar,

Ourselves, and not our words will count—

Not what we said, but what we are!”

cJanuary 19, 2012 by Ethelene Dyer Jones; Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Christmastime and World War II Recollections

December 7, 1941 was, as then-president Franklin Delano Roosevelt stated in addressing the nation, “a day of infamy.” Those still living who remember that day when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, resulting in the United States declaring war on December 8, indeed remember the times. Our nation was plunged into the war that had already been raging in Europe since 1939. The years from 1941 through 1945 changed our rather peaceful, taken-for-granted way of life in the mountainous region of North Georgia. Even Christmastimes during these years became different.

Upon President Roosevelt’s declaration of war on December 8, 1941, eligible young men began to volunteer and/or were drafted. This meant that the farm workers were cut drastically while at the same time maximum production was needed for the war effort. My brother, Eugene, volunteered for the Army Air Force, as well as did my cousins William Clyde Collins, Sr., and Robert Neal Collins, and many other able-bodied young men we knew. At Choestoe Church, we had an “Honor Roll” of those in service from our congregation, and we earnestly prayed for their safety each time we met to worship.

In the meantime, those of us—much younger though we were—had to grow up and become responsible in assisting with farm labor, like hoeing (which we were taught anyway from a very early age), learning to walk behind a corn planter and guide the mule along the rows, or operate a “cultivator” plow to plow between the rows to keep the weeds down. Maximum crop production was needed for the “war effort,” and it took all hands-aboard, young though we were.

Only ten days after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, my Grandpa Collins died on December 17, 1941. He had been a stay in the community, out ahead in more modern methods of farming. He had the first “threshing machine” in the area, going from farm to farm to thresh the harvests of grain. He had the first electricity on his farm, from his own Delco system, long before Tennessee Valley Authority got permission to run their power lines into the community. He also had owned the first tractor and tractor-drawn farm implements. Grandpa Francis Jasper “Bud” Collins had a Delco Plant that produced electricity for his house and some of his farm buildings. Because of the passing of this staid citizen of Choestoe so shortly after Pearl Harbor, those of us who loved and respected him so highly thought we had lost our foremost citizen. I, for one, grieved during that time near to Christmas. Never again was his country store as fascinating to me as it had been before his death, even though his son and two of his daughters continued to operate it, and his large farm.

To complicate matters in the Dyer household, my brother Eugene joined the US Army Air Force and as soon as his training was finished shipped out to the European theater of war where he served admirably as a bombardier on many missions over enemy territory. My brother-in-law, Ray Dyer, husband to my older sister Louise Dyer, also entered service. He was sent to the Pacific theater of war. We had two members of our family far away in war. We had two less adult workers for all the farm work. We eagerly awaited any word from them in daily mail, but letters were sometimes infrequent. And then my mother became quite ill with heart complications in the days before miracle drugs and surgery could promise relief from her suffering. She died on Valentine’s Day, December 14, 1945. At the time of her death, my brother Eugene was severely wounded and lying in an Army Field Hospital somewhere in Italy. At age fourteen I transitioned from teenager to adult because I became the main housekeeper, cook, and manager of our household. It was a sad time for the Dyer family, but somehow we kept going, because of our strong spirit of patriotism and derring-do.

What were Christmases like during these years from 1941 through 1945? Recall that rationing became necessary to the war effort. We could only have a “rationed” amount of sugar, other scarce items of “store-bought” supplies, and gasoline and tires were hard to come by. Say that we adjusted. Maybe these scarcities and restrictions were not as hard on farm families as they were on those living in the cities of our country. We still mainly farmed through “mule” power and human effort and had not yet become mechanized on our farm. Our first tractor came after World War II was over. It was amazing the tasty sweets we made using our own home-created product, sorghum syrup. My father, J. Marion Dyer, made hundreds of gallons of sorghum syrup each fall, from his own and other farmers’ crops of cane. We sweetened cookies and gingerbread, dried fruit stack cakes and peanut brittle candy with our country-produced sorghum. These made good sweets for Christmas during the war years.

At school we had all sorts of drives for the war effort: selling savings stamps and bonds; collecting scrap metal for the war effort; rolling bandages in home economics classes. We knew our nation was in a crisis situation and we as patriotic teenagers did what we could to support our troops and to hasten victory. We kept abreast of progress on all fronts. It is a wonder we did not become traumatized for life, having the realities of war and its effects on our families thrust upon us at such an impressionable age. But at least no battles were fought on US home soil. We were spared those atrocities and first-hand observations and fears of war. But we did, on occasions, attend solemn memorials for a few of our young military men who met their deaths in service. Four Christmases came and went. We became older and wiser, more thoughtful and less presumptive because of how the war touched our individual lives and communities.

At the churches in our communities, we had our Christmas programs much as we had done before the war. There were still manger tableaus with shepherds and wise men gathered around. We sang the beloved Christmas carols, trying to sound notes of hope and majesty despite our concerns for the war and beloved from our churches who had gone as servicemen.

Maybe the little paper bags with our goodies—an orange, an apple, some peppermint stick candy and chocolate drops—had less of the goodies than in pre-war years. But those treats were there…and ever, hope was paramount.

And so we weathered the war years, 1941 through 1945. Maybe it is good for us to remember, to think of the sacrifices and triumphs, the determination to make-do. Have we lost some of our spirit of persistence and pride, of patriotism and faith? Christmas is a good time to reflect and recollect…and to set new directions that will lead to victory. We had this spirit in World War II years. Oh, that we could recapture the wonder, the marvel of working together for common purposes! In retrospect, I’m grateful that I “grew up” to adulthood at a young age because of circumstances.

The words of poet John Greenleaf Whittier express well the intention of having the Christmas spirit all the year through:

“Somehow, not only for Christmas

But all the year through,

The joy that you give to others

Is the joy that comes back to you;

And the more you spend in blessing

The poor and lonely and sad,

The more of your heart’s possessing

Returns to make you glad.”

c2011 by Ethelene Dyer Jones; published December 15, 2011 in The Union Sentinel, Blairsville, GA. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Lard Pail Lunches and Shared Knowledge (or Life in a Country School ~ Part 3)

Through the past two columns, I have shared memories of attending and teaching my first year in the same country school. I hope this journey back in time brought to mind some good memories of your “grade school” years, wherever you attended. It is good to remember foundations in life that helped to mold and make us into life-long learners. I was fortunate to gain a good education even under what may seem now a rather outdated system. To conclude this series on life in a country school, I will pinpoint some memorable incidents that made a lasting impression on me.

We had in the corner of each of the two classrooms at Choestoe School a wooden cabinet with doors. This book cabinet was the “library” for that particular classroom. When we finished our assignments, we had freedom to go to that cabinet, select a book from the shelf, take it to our desk and read it quietly. It was a great achievement in first grade to have learned phonics and “sounding out” words well enough to become competent to select a book to read from our “library” resources. The teachers, to encourage good reading habits, kept a chart with students’ names on the wall beside the book cabinet. A colored star was placed beside the name of each student who successfully read and reported to the teacher on books from this cabinet. These “star” awards seemed to work well as motivational devices to encourage reading. I often wondered how the library was furnished with books. That old classroom library was there in 1936, and it seemed to grow more books year by year—even before the days when Dr. M. D. Collins led state schools to have library resources and before the bookmobile from the regional public library began to make its regular monthly stop at Choestoe School. The bookmobile was an innovation by the time I taught there in the 1948-1949 school year. My life-time love for reading and books was encouraged by that library cabinet in a reading corner of Choestoe classroom long ago.

I recall a memorable field trip. When I was a seventh grader in 1943 at Choestoe School, and just prior to going to high school by riding the bus the next school year, we had our first-ever field trip. Mrs. Florence Hunter was my teacher, and she was known for getting things done. Her husband, Mr. Joe Hunter, was a county school bus driver. So Mrs. Florence and he made arrangements and got permission to take the fourth-through-seventh graders to Atlanta on a Saturday. All who could go loaded on that old bus early, early on a Saturday morning while it was still dark. We had a most memorable trip to visit the State Capitol building, the Atlanta Zoo, and the Cyclorama. I had never been to Atlanta before that notable trip, and that was probably true of the other children on that bus trip. Mrs. Florence managed to take snacks and drinks, and we had been instructed to bring our own lunch as we would have a picnic at Grant Park. What a notable building was our capitol where state government was conducted. How interesting to see all the strange animals at the zoo, some we had only read about and seen pictures of in books at Choestoe School. Then the panorama and story of the Civil War in Atlanta in the Cyclorama display was a first-hand, up close lesson in history.

We were a group of exhausted young children, sleeping on the long trip from Atlanta back to Choestoe after a full and exciting day. I’ve thought many times about how meaningful that trip was for us children, and of the sacrifice in time, money and influence expended by Mr. and Mrs. Hunter. They were able to give us a first-hand view of life beyond the confines of our mountain community. And to look back now and realize that in 1943 when we made that field trip during World War II, there was gasoline and tire rationing. For Mr. Hunter to be able to use some of his allotment of scarce items to take country school children to Atlanta was indeed a notable happening.

Graduation from that country school was a memorable occasion. We had a graduation program, not only with the two top graduates speaking with valedictory and salutatory addresses, but we had a program in which other grades participated with music and recitations. In fact, some of the programs we had for parents at that school during my seven years of learning there were so poignant that I can remember even now lines of poems I memorized to recite. Even though our teachers had few resources, they managed to make learning challenging and interesting. They gave us opportunities such as “Parents’ Night” or “Parents’ Day” when we could “show and tell” some of the things we had learned.

When I graduated from seventh grade country school, my future career as a teacher was already in my mind. I knew I wanted to be a teacher. In that way I could somehow repay Mrs. Mert Shuler, my own sister, Louise Dyer, Miss Opal Sullivan, Mrs. Bonnie Snow, and Mrs. Florence Hunter who had been my able teachers in my seven years as a student at Choestoe School. And so it was that in 1948 I returned to that same school, armed with two years of college and a provisional Georgia teacher’s certificate, ready to teach. As I greeted the twenty-five students in seven grades—for the school, by the time I returned to teach there—had a drop in student population and only one teacher could be hired for the seven grades. Talk about a challenge—a first-year teacher and twenty-five eager students scattered in every grade from first through seventh! I conducted classes much as my own teachers had done in the seven years when I was a student in that school. I had an excellent helper in a very brilliant seventh grade student named Shirley. Without neglecting her own instruction, I allowed her to help me mentor some of the younger students with their math, spelling and reading.

Looking back, I count that year as a teacher in country school as one of my happiest and best, although it was hard, with all the responsibilities falling to me. In that first year of my thirty-year teaching career, I learned to be teacher and administrator, how to cultivate parental support, how to instruct with enthusiasm and how to motivate students to achieve. I had learned to teach by having been taught myself by exemplary role models.

Education has gone through many changes since those days from 1936-1943 when I was a student in country school and took my lunch in a lard pail and had the privilege of shared knowledge because students learned from each other as well as from the teacher. And my year of teaching there, 1948-1949, was foundational to who I became as a teacher. Have we lost some significant aspects of education in these modern days? Then we had the privilege of learning from and being challenged by upper classmen whose recitations we heard. We had concepts drilled into us until the learning became second nature. There is much to laud and praise for our heritage of “lard pail lunches and shared knowledge.” Then eager students gathered at a country school under the auspices of ones called and dedicated to the important role of teacher.

c2011 by Ethelene Dyer Jones; published November 10, 2011 in The Union Sentinel, Blairsville, GA. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Lard Pail Lunches and Shared Knowledge (or Life in a Country School ~ Part 1)

Choestoe School in Union County, Georgia, 1936 through 1943 has a special place in my memory, in things I love, and in who I became in life. It also figures in my first year of a thirty-year teaching career, for it was there, where I started school, that I returned to teach my very first year as a young, inexperienced, fresh-out-of-junior-college state provisionally certified teacher.

Choestoe schoolhouse has been moved from its former location and now stands on land that was once my Daddy’s, then my brother’s, my own, my son’s, and now the county’s. The old Choestoe school house is being restored and will eventually be used as a voting precinct building and perhaps a community clubhouse.

But what took place there in the building’s heyday as a schoolhouse? Come with me to learn about “Lard Pail Lunches and Shared Knowledge.”

I received my early education in a two-teacher country school from 1936 through 1943. I never felt deprived educationally from this inauspicious start. In high school, college and graduate school, I regarded my elementary school education as excellent and special indeed.

Not only did I begin my education in a two-teacher country school, but my first year of teaching was in that same school in 1949-1950. “You can’t go home again,” as proposed by author Thomas Wolfe in his novel, Look Homeward, Angel, did not apply to me. I returned home to teach with anticipation and joy, and gratitude that the Union County School Board would consider a product of that school to be worthy to teach there.

By 1949, due to declining pupil population, Choestoe had become a one-teacher school. Having attended that school myself the very first year the “new” two-room building opened, and then returning thirteen years later to teach my first year there at the same school, were both rich and rewarding experiences for me.

Let us look at life in Choestoe School from 1936 through 1943, the years I was a student in its hallowed halls. From Primer through Seventh Grade I was educated at that school. Choestoe had been an early school, although the building in which I attended was brand new in 1936. Previous schools had preceded the one I knew so well. Early settlers began the school, some of my ancestors with surnames like Dyer, Souther, Collins, Hunter, Nix, Self and England, to name a few. Many of these forebears were in the county when it was founded in 1832. And straightaway they began a school at various locations, not necessarily on the same spot as the new building of 1936. Earlier, a log building used for both school and church had been replaced by a two-room, two-story frame school building. On the upper floor of the old building, the Choestoe Masonic Lodge met. I can vaguely remember attending events in that building when my older brother Eugene and my sister Louise went to school there. Even as a young child, the steps to the second floor fascinated me and I wondered what lay beyond the confines of what I could see.

The brand new building in which I began my educational adventures in 1936 had two rooms, both on the ground level. A covered open vestibule-type entrance was at the front. Two front doors led in from the vestibule to the classrooms. The “lower grades” (primer through third) classroom was on the left and the “upper grades” (fourth through seventh) was on the right. Each classroom had a cloak/storage room across the front where we had pegs to hang our coats and shelves to set our “lard bucket” lunch pails. If we wore galoshes over our shoes in rainy or snowy weather, we removed them and left them in the cloak room while we were in class. Also in that room were bookcase shelves in one end of the room on which the extra textbooks were aligned, grade-wise.

The classrooms were separated by a removable partition, ceiled with wood on both sides. I can remember my father and other men in the community taking down those partitions to provide a large space. A raised stage was put in place and the classrooms could then accommodate our school programs.

Each classroom was heated by a wood heater, an iron stove (not the usual “pot” bellied) a low, oblong heater with a door on the front into which to feed the wood. Parents (or patrons of the school) were required to haul their fair share of the wood consumed throughout the months heat was needed. Long tin stovepipes connected the heater to the common chimney that was outside the building about where the middle partition was located that separated the classrooms.

That first nervous day—in July, 1936—we students waited outside, anticipating what school might be like until “the principal,”—the upper-grades teacher, rang the school bell—our signal that “books” (or classes) were to begin. Miss Opal Sullivan was the upper grades teacher, a trim, beautiful young lady who seemed to me then all-too-young to be a teacher. She stood in the school entrance on the right side, awaiting her fourth through seventh grade pupils to line up in an orderly row. Mrs. Mert Shuler Collins was the primary grades teacher. She stood at the school entrance on the left side. She patiently showed the new pupils like me how to line up. When everyone was quiet and in order, we were given the signal to proceed.

Once we were inside that primary side of the magnificent new school building, it was not hard for us to tell which desks were for the primer and first grade students. The very smallest individual wooden desks were in a row nearest the line of tall, glowing windows. I quickly found one in a location I liked, and soon it seemed to me that I had found a new home. And, indeed, I had, because from that first day of school in 1936 until the present, I have found my home-away-from home in classrooms, wherever they have opened welcoming doors to me.

[To be continued: Part 2 of “Lard Pail Lunches and Shared Knowledge”. Note: This story, in modified form, written by Ethelene Dyer Jones, appeared first in Moonshine and Blind Mules edited by Bob Lasley and Sallie Holt. Hickory, NC: Hometown Memories Publishing Co., 2006, pp. 88-91. Used by permission.]

c2011 by Ethelene Dyer Jones; published October 27, 2011 in The Union Sentinel, Blairsville, GA. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Unicoi Turnpike

The Unicoi Turnpike was an old road that played prominently in the early days of settlement of Union and Towns Counties, and, indeed, as a trade route in parts of Tennessee, North Carolina and Georgia prior to the settling of the mountain region by whites. The historical marker that designates the road is at GPS reading N 34° 41.209` W 083° 42.616` in White County, Georgia. The message on the marker states:

The Unicoi Turnpike

This road is the Old Unicoi Turnpike, first vehicular route to link East Tennessee, Western North Carolina and North Georgia with the head of navigation on the Savannah River system. Beginning on the Tugalo River, to the east of Toccoa, the road led this way, thence through Unicoi Gap and via Murphy, N. C. to Nine Mile Creek near Maryville, Tenn.

Permission to open the way as a toll road was given by the Cherokees in 1813 to a Company of Indians and white men. Tennessee and Georgia granted charters to the concern. Georgia Historical Marker

Marker @ GHM 154-1R Date: 2003

In recent correspondence with Mr. Carey Waldrip, a history buff (as am I) and member of the Towns County Historical Society, he announced that Saturday, November 12, 2011 has been designated as Unicoi Turnpike Day in Towns County. Plans are to meet at any time between 9:00 and 12:00 noon on that date at the Unicoi Gap Parking Lot (GA Hwy 17/75). Hiking directions will be given for those who wish to walk the remnant of the old Unicoi Turnpike, a rough, sunken road from the Gap that leads for two miles northward into Towns County. Mr. Waldrip warns that people should come prepared for a rugged hike, with good walking shoes, and bright hat and jacket, “because it is hunting season.” Another feature of the Unicoi Turnpike Day will be a lecture beginning at 9:00 a. m. by Dr. Paul Arnold of Young Harris College who will speak on the subject of “Geocaching.” Those who have a hand-held GPS instrument should bring it for the lecture session.

Now to more history on the Unicoi Turnpike: In the September-October, 2008 issue of the Sautee-Nacoochee Community Association Newsletter, some of the history of the Unicoi Turnpike was given. Dr. Tom Lumsden, a resident of the Nacoochee Valley and one who strongly works to preserve history, stated that the Unicoi Turnpike Trail was originated by “engineers with four feet.” Even prior to the Indians’ use of the trail as a footpath, large mammals went from eastern Tennessee to the piedmont and coastal plains of North and South Carolina as they migrated for the winter months and returned along the same route in the spring. Since the trail was already there, cut through the forest by migrating animals, the Indians began to use it as a trade and migratory route as well. The route was seen as useful for trade, and from 1813 through 1817 a company headed by a Mr. Russell Wiley began at Mullin’s Ford on the Tugalo River and began to improve the trail across the top of North Georgia, into western North Carolina proceeding to Murphy, and then northwestward to Vonore, Tennessee on the Little Tennessee River.

With improvements on the turnpike, it was turned into a toll road for freight wagons. From Augusta in Georgia to Knoxville in Tennessee the toll road continued to operate until after the Civil War. Drovers went over the road with hogs, cattle, turkeys and other livestock along the trail. I have heard my grandfather, Francis Jasper Collins, tell of taking a “drove of turkeys” along the Turnpike from Choestoe near Blairsville all the way to Augusta. I could not envision how the drovers managed to keep the turkeys on trail and on task, and often wish I had been old enough when I heard him tell his stories of the turkey drives (and sometimes live cattle and sheep) to ask about particulars. I do remember his saying that the turkeys roosted in trees at night as the horses and men camped beneath them. Then early in the morning the turkeys would be fed from corn in the wagons and started on the next trek of the long journey. Also, at places along the Unicoi Turnpike were inns and rest stops, places where the men could get cooked meals and spend the night. These were sometimes at about fifteen-mile intervals. But not all the trail from Tennessee through North Carolina and Georgia had the convenience of inns for rest stops.

The Unicoi Turnpike Trail was more than just a path. It became the thoroughfare over which our ancestors moved from South or North Carolina into North Georgia, many arriving before the Cherokee were ousted from the mountain lands. People, events, and places along the ancient trail are a part of our history.

If you should plan to attend the Unicoi Turnpike Day on November 12, 2011, and walk a portion of the still discernible trail, you will be treading on ground almost sacred to the memory of a hardy people seeking a better way of life. Next week we will examine some more history of the Unicoi Turnpike—a “trail through time.”

c2011 by Ethelene Dyer Jones; published October 13, 2011 in The Union Sentinel, Blairsville, GA. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Hix and Caroline Burgess Souther’s Second Child and His Family:Two Southers Joined—Jesse Wilburn and Mary Delia

Last week we looked at “A Dream Deferred,” how Hix and Caroline Burgess Souther moved to Union County, Georgia from North Carolina about 1840, and how Hix died not long after they settled here. His widow, Caroline Burgess Souther, married Rollin (Roland?) Wimpey, combining their families, moving on to Gilmer County, Georgia where they had three children born to them, thus combining her family of three children and his family of three children with their own children, Martha, Robert and Andrew Wimpey.

The focus of this story will be that of Hix and Caroline Burgess Souther’s second child, Jesse Wilburn Souther, born November 11, 1840 in McDowell County, North Carolina who died March 6, 1920. Both he and his wife, Mary Delia Souther (May 1, 1858 – Nov. 15, 1915) reared their family in Union County. Interment for this couple was at New Liberty Baptist Church Cemetery on land that Mary Delia’s father, John Souther (he was also Jesse Wilburn’s uncle) gave for a cemetery and church site.

When Jesse Wilburn Souther’s widowed mother, Caroline Burgess Souther, married Rollin Wimpey on August 25, 1844, Jesse Wilburn was not quite four years old. We know that the couple moved, with her children and his children, six, all very young, “little stair-steps” as we would say, six and under. They moved to Gilmer County, Georgia and settled in the Gates Chapel section of that county where Rollin Wimpey farmed. From there, some of the Southers later moved to Whitfield County, Georgia and settled in the Deep Springs section north of Dalton.

Jesse Wilburn Souther joined the Confederacy in May, 1862 and fought in the Civil War in Company F, 60th Regiment of Georgia, Gordon’s Brigade. He was wounded in 1864, losing one of his fingers. A family photograph with his wife and four of their eight children shows a finger missing from his right hand. He was on the pension list of 1893.

We have no record of the courtship of Jesse Wilburn Souther and his first cousin, Mary Delia Souther, daughter of J. W.’s uncle and aunt, John and Mary “Polly” Combs Souther. Perhaps they became attracted to each other as Jesse Wilburn visited his uncle after his mother moved to Gilmer County. After the Civil War, and following Jesse Wilburn’s recovery from his wound that took a finger, we learn from Union County marriage records that he and Delia married on September 17, 1868. They made their home on Choestoe near New Liberty Baptist Church, probably on land where Jesse Wilburn’s uncle John had settled in the 1830’s. Jesse Wilburn and Mary Delia Souther had eight children as follows:

William Leason Souther (1869-1948) married Elizabeth Goforth

Johnathan Hix Souther (1871 – 1957) married Julia Vesta Woodring 1869-1950)

Bailey William Souther (1876- 1956) married Lydia Plott (1882-1969)

Jesse Benjamin Souther (1876-1964) married Dovie Caroline Townsend (1883-1975) Emory Spier Souther (1878 - ?) married Iowa Nicholson

James Henry Souther (1881 - 1958) never married

Daniel Loransey Souther (1883 – 1961) married (1) Alice Collins and (2)Dora Collins

Mary Elizabeth “Mollie” Souther (1886-1910) never married

Several of Jesse Wilburn and Mary Delia Souther’s children moved to Colorado and other points west. Leason and Elizabeth Goforth Souther homesteaded in Upper Disappointment Valley near Norwood, Colorado. But they got to that location by moving first from Choestoe to Mulberry, Arkansas, then to Montrose, Colorado and finally to Disappointment Valley. Despite its name, that area proved to be a good place for Leason and Elizabeth to homestead. They raised cattle there and Leason had a postal route from Norwood to Cedar, Colorado for sixteen years in addition to his ranching operations. Leason and Elizabeth had seven children, three of whom died in infancy and four of whom lived to adulthood, married and had families.

Johnathan Hix (Hicks) Souther and his wife, Julia Vesta Woodring Souther, also went to the Upper Disappointment Valley near Norwood, Colorado and settled there around 1900. However, they did not remain in Colorado but moved back east to Towns and/or Union, County, Georgia with their children Garnie (?), Ambrose, Esta and Gordon. His obituary (clipping, undated by person who saved it, 1957) stated that he was “a life-long resident of Union County,” but this statement was in error. His funeral was held at New Liberty Baptist Church with the Revs. Henry Brown, Tom Smith and John Thomas officiating. There is not a marked tombstone for him at New Liberty. His son Gordon and Gordon’s wife Thelma Ensley Souther were both interred at Harmony Grove Cemetery, Union County.

Bailey William Souther (1873-1956) migrated to Pueblo, Colorado in 1890. He worked as a carpenter and farmer. He cut and sold the first crossties used for laying the rail line to Telluride, Colorado. He returned to Towns County and married Lydia Plott (1882-1969) in Young Harris on February 2, 1901. Their children were Vernon, Arnold, Elizabeth Lillian and Mary Delia. They went back to Colorado where they made their home in Eaton. They were buried in the Eaton Cemetery.

Jesse Benjamin Souther (1876-1964) married Dovie Caroline Townsend (1883-1975) in Union County, Georgia on July 30, 1903. Like his siblings before him, Ben Souther went west as a young man, and the first child, Bertha Edna, was born in Telluride, San Miguel County, Colorado in 1904. They returned to Georgia where son Paul Wilburn was born in 1906, Pearl Iowa was born in 1909, Mary Lee was born in 1911. They went back west for another few years and Gladys Delphane was born in Colorado in 1913. About the time World War I ended, Ben Souther moved his family back to Georgia, settling in the Gum Log section of Union County. Gladys died at age six in 1919 and was buried at Ebenezer Baptist Church Cemetery. Ben and Dovie Souther were buried at Old Union Cemetery, Young Harris.

Emory Spier Souther (1878 - ?) married Iowa Nicholson. They had one child, a daughter born about 1911, named Emorie for her father. Emory Souther was a dentist and a pianist. This family lived in Cheyenne Wells, Colorado and later at Eads in the same state. Emorie had made application to teach school in Georgia, evidently wanting to live in the state where her father was born. However, she got a bad boil on a thigh and contracted blood poisoning. She died January 5, 1937 and was buried in Eads, Colorado. Emorie, with her father’s penchant for music, was a good pianist and singer. Family reports are that Emory Souther died in the Murphy, NC Hospital while visiting his brother, Johnathan Hicks Souther, and was buried in New Liberty Baptist Church Cemetery. However, there is not a marked tombstone there for Emory Souther.

James Henry Souther (Dec. 4, 1881- Oct. ?, 1958) never married. He went to Colorado and was living in Eaton when he died in 1958.

Daniel Loransey Souther (1883-1961) was married twice and had children by each spouse. Alice Collins (1893-1919), daughter of Joseph Newton Collins and Sarah Melissa Nix Collins and Daniel Loransey Souther were married August 31, 1913 in Union County, Georgia. Their children were Thomas Roy Souther (1915-1994) and Jesse Clyde Souther (b/d August 26, 1918). Alice died in 1919. “Ransey” Souther married Dora Iowa Collins (1900-1989), daughter of Isaac and Josephine Hunter Collins in Union County on March 26, 1922. Their children were Blain, J. D., Reba, Mamie Eulene and James Ralph. Like his siblings, Daniel Loransey Souther lived and worked in the area of Weld County, Colorado. He died January 17, 1962 and was buried in the Eaton, Colorado Cemetery. [Note: This Ransey Souther should not be confused with Frank Loransey Souther (1881-1937) son of William Albert Souther and Elizabeth “Hon” Dyer Souther, who served as a US Marshal in North Georgia, Alcohol and Tax Unit, from 1920-1937.]

Jesse Wilburn and Mary Delia Souther’s eighth and last child, Mary Elizabeth (1886-1910) never married. She preceded her parents in death and was buried at the New Liberty Baptist Church Cemetery, Blairsville, dying before her 24th birthday.

Resources for information on the family of Jesse Wilburn Souther and Mary Delia Souther were Watson Benjamin Dyer’s “Souther Family History” (1988) and Dianalee Reynolds Gregar’s “Souther Lines,” (1998), covering especially the “Western” Southers. It takes special people and careful research to dig through countless records to compile family histories.

c2011 by Ethelene Dyer Jones; published Aug. 11, 2011 in The Union Sentinel, Blairsville, GA. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

On the Farm…Coordinating Farm Work with School

Now we say “back in the olden days.” That can be a long, long time ago or when we ourselves were children. In those days, work on the farm had to be coordinated with the schedule of school in session if country boys and girls were to get anything like an adequate education.

During the twenty-five year tenure of Dr. Mauney Douglas Collins’s leadership as state school superintendent (1933-1957), Georgia schools went from seven to nine months of school. Having long times out when schools were closed for farm work was to be a thing of the past in Georgia. But memories of those times when farm work was coordinated with school sessions were a part of growing up on the farm. I recall how I started to the brand new building at Choestoe School in July of 1936, after “laying by” of crops when the summer session began.

“Time to get ready for school,” my mother gently shook my shoulder, awakening me.

Immediately I had a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. Maybe I could beg off, tell her I felt ‘sick to my stomach’ and I wouldn’t have to go to school. It’s not that I didn’t want to go. I just dreaded the unknown. I liked staying home, the familiar places and routines. I liked watching my three-year old brother Bluford while Mother worked.

Things with which I was comfortable and familiar were about to change for an adventure called school. I reluctantly crawled out of bed, washed my face and eyes with the warm wet washcloth my mother handed me. Then I put on my new flowered dress with a white collar trimmed in rick-rack. Mother had made it especially for me to wear on my first day at school. It was a pretty “feed-sack” dress. My father had let me select the pattern of cloth on the feed bags when I went with him to the store to buy the feed. After the bags were empty of their contents and carefully laundered and ironed, then my mother cut out my dress and made it on her Singer treadle-powered sewing machine. I felt very dressed up. It would be interesting to see if any of the other girls at school would have a dress made from the same pattern of cloth as mine. If that happened, it would be all right, for we all knew that our mothers made use of feed sacks to fashion our wardrobes.

After a breakfast of oatmeal, scrambled egg, bacon, biscuits, gravy and a glass of milk, I was well fed and ready to leave for school after brushing my teeth. My mother walked the mile with me on this first day to get me used to going to school. After talking to my teacher, Mrs. Mert Collins, probably giving her information about my birthdate, my mother left. It was not long until Miss Opal Sullivan, the teacher of the upper grades, and considered the principal, too, rang a bell she held in her hands, the signal that “books” (as I learned the term later) or school-time was to begin.

We lined up in two rows in front of our beautiful, brand new Choestoe School building that had just been finished by men of the community working hard on it. This new building replaced a very old two-stories, two-room building that had served the community for years, with an upstairs where the Lodge met. The old building had been torn down to make way for the new one. The new schoolhouse had two rooms and was only one-story. One room was for grades Primer through third, and one for grades four through seven. Each room also had a “cloak” room, a small anteroom where, in wintertime, we hung our coats on pegs, with book shelves for textbooks built in one end of the room, and a low shelf running the length of the room on which we set our lunch pails we had brought with us.

Once inside, a sense of excitement prevailed. Mrs. Mert kindly showed each of the pupils where we were to sit by grades, although the size of the desks helped with that seating arrangement. The primer/first grade desks were smaller than those of the second and third graders. She explained that we were to go to the recitation bench alongside her teacher’s desk when we were having our lesson. When it was not our time to recite (I learned that meant to read or do our numbers), we were to work quietly at our desks, practicing our letters and numbers or reading quietly. She opened a cabinet in one corner of the room up front. She explained that it had additional books that we could get—one at a time—and take to our seat to read. She encouraged us to do this, assuring the primer/first graders that we, too, would soon know how to read.

And then class began. We stood and said the pledge of allegiance to the United States flag which was at the front of the room, in a little stand. Mrs. Mert (as she wanted us to call her) read a Psalm from the Bible and led in a prayer. And the first graders were called first to go up to the bench to begin learning how to read. Some of my classmates did not know the alphabet and the sounds associated with each letter, but I already knew my letters and their sounds. In fact, the little “Dick and Jane” reader Mrs. Mert gave us seemed so simple to me. I had already learned to read at home. My older sister, Louise, and my brother, Eugene (who were already in high school and met the bus at Morris Ford to ride it to Blairsville), had helped me with reading. So had my mother and father. I could already read straight through the Primer Reader. Mrs. Mert must have wondered what she would do with me to keep me on task and working. But I was to learn that she was attuned to pupils and had a good grasp of how to meet their needs.

When she showed us the books cabinet at the front of the room, I made a personal resolution to read all the books in that cabinet, one at a time, until I had read through all of them during the three years I was in this first through third grade classroom. That small library in the corner of our classroom held such a fascination for me that I was never bored while in that room. Later, to bolster our desire to read, Mrs. Mert made a reading chart with each pupil’s name. As we finished a book, and satisfied her that we had read it by giving an oral or a written report, she would place a star after our name.

We had a mid-morning short recess for water (we brought our own glass from home) and rest room break (outside toilets, one for girls and one for boys fulfilled this need). Then came more lessons, and at noon, we had a longer break. We took our tin lunch pails, got water in our glass from the water bucket in the cloak room (Mrs. Mert poured it so we wouldn’t spill it and make a wet mess), and then went outside to find a seat under the shade of the trees. In my lunch pail Mother had packed a piece of boiled corn and a baked sweet potato, a biscuit with bacon, and a piece of gingerbread. This fare was sufficient and would do until I went home in mid-afternoon when a snack would surely await me. Lunch break was a longer time. The upper grades played a game of ball. Some pupils laid off a hop-scotch form on the ground and played that in competition. We younger children had pretend games, made a playhouse under the trees, or played tag. No playground equipment was available for use. We made our own games.

Inside the school building, I began to feel quite at home. The dread of something new and different had quickly dissipated. That first day of school, in my first six-weeks session in July and August during the “summer school” and before we were out in the fall for harvesting crops—especially in my case working in the cane and assisting with sorghum syrup making—we had an idyllic summer. Books opened up for me to wonderful worlds of adventure. I liked my teacher and my classmates. In fact, I liked school. Maybe it was even then, in that wonderful primary grades classroom, that I gained my desire to become a teacher when I grew up.

Thirteen years into the future from my first day of school, I would return to the same school in 1949, then as the only teacher in a school that had been reduced from two-teachers to one because of school population. I was a brand new teacher, fresh out of Truett McConnell College with a two-year degree and a Georgia provisional teaching certificate. I had twenty-five students in my class that fall, grades primer through seventh, at least one in every grade, with the largest class being fifth grade with five pupils. To be able to teach was both a challenge and an opportunity. I remembered my first day of school in that very building, and had as my aim making school both enjoyable and profitable, as my teacher Mrs. Mert had done for me in 1936.

c2011 by Ethelene Dyer Jones; published July 7, 2011 in The Union Sentinel, Blairsville, GA. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Some Early Self Family Settlers in Union

The surname Self has a long history, going back at least to the time of the Vikings, who in their ships made ocean voyages and explored lands they found long before Columbus discovered America in 1492. This group of hardy people, explorers, were called (anglicized) Seawolf. That surname was eventually shortened, probably by pronouncing it as one syllable, to Self. It is spelled variously Self, Selffe, Selph, Selphe. But to link the surname up to those first daring explorers, we need to remember it as Seawolf.

In Union County in 1834 when the first census was taken, we find three families with the surname Self, and one with a much different spelling which I will list, not knowing quite whether to include it with Self settlers. These I found listed as living in Union in 1834:

Job Self’s household had 6 males and 6 females;

Thomas Self, one male and one female;

Francis Self, one male and one female.

These made the Self population in 1834 total 8 males and 8 females. Then I found the unusual spelling Seffle, for a household with Isom as head, and 6 males and 6 females living in that household. I did not find a last name spelled Seffle in subsequent census records for the county, nor an Isom as head of household with a similar last name. This is one of those odd mysteries of old census records.

Since she was my great, great grandmother, I know of another Self, married to Thompson Collins who lived in Union and was recorded in the 1834 census.

I refer to Celia Self Collins who married Thompson Collins in 1810 in Buncombe County, North Carolina. Thompson Collins was born about 1785 in North Carolina and Celia Self was born about 1787 in North Carolina. Much research has been done to try to identify the parents of Thompson Collins and Celia Self. We can be fairly sure that a Nancy (maiden name unknown) Collins was Thompson’s mother and that his father might have been named Thomas.

Celia Self’s father was believed to be Francis Self. Since no age is given for the Francis Self family, residents of Union in 1834, these may have been Celia Self Collins’s parents. The Job Self, with 6 males and 6 females in the family in Union in 1834 is believed to be her brother, as was the Thomas Self, with one male, one female as residents. Maybe Self researchers who read this can give illumination to more specific tracing of the lines of Celia Self Collins, Job, Thomas and Francis Self, all of whom were residents of Union County in 1834.

The 1840 census shows that Job Self and Thomas R. Self were still in Union, and two more households of Self had settled here, Robert B. Self and William Self. The Francis Self listed in 1834 does not appear in the 1840 census. This leads me to wonder if, indeed, they were the elderly parents of my great, great grandmother, Celia Self Collins, and that they had died between 1834 to 1840. No marked gravestones of same are present in county cemeteries to answer this question.

The 1840 population of Self families had a total of 28 persons. The families registered in that census had constituents as follows:

Job self, 5 males, 7 females

Thomas R. Self, 3 males, 4 females

Robert B. Self, 1 male, 2 females

William Self, 4 males, 2 females

Checking the Union County marriage records for this early period of the county’s history, I looked for Self and found the following registrations of marriages of Self surnames by 1840:

Thomas Self married Nancy Cook on July 11, 1833, with John Thomas, Justice of the Inferior Court, performing the ceremony.

Robert Self married Marthy (sic) Cook on January 25, 1838, with Jarrett Turner, Justice of the Peace, performing the ceremony.

Since their marriage occurred in July, 1833, Thomas and Nancy Cook Self did not have children by the time of the 1834 census. But, in looking at the 1840 census for their household, they had two male children and 3 female children, all under 10. Since Robert and Martha’s marriage on 1838, the 1840 census showed they were the parents of one female child before the 1840 census.

Were Nancy Cook and Martha Cook, who married the Self men, sisters? And were Robert and Thomas Self brothers? This writer assumes they were. Maybe our readers can help us with these puzzles about the early Self settlers of Union County.

c2011 by Ethelene Dyer Jones; published March 24, 2011 in The Union Sentinel, Blairsville, GA. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

SALUTE TO A SAINTLY MAN

Rev. Grover Duffie Jones
October 5, 1925 – January 26, 2011

Early on Wednesday morning, January 26, 2011, my beloved husband of sixty-one years departed this earthly life. Ours had been a partnership of sixty-one loving years. I recall here some of the highlights of his life that qualify him as a saintly man, one worthy to be remembered.

We met at Truett McConnell College, Cleveland, GA in the first year of that school’s operation. I recall the first “official” visit he made to Union County in the winter of 1948. He was editor of the school yearbook, then called the “Gannetaha.” He, another yearbook staff member, Jane Lindsey of Morganton, and I were on an ad-buying trip to Blairsville for the yearbook. We went by my Aunt Avery and Aunt Ethel Collins’s house in Choestoe to eat lunch and also by my father’s house for Grover and Jane to meet him. My Dad, always getting right to the point, said, “Are you one of the preacher boys at Truett McConnell?” At that time, though Grover said later he was dealing with the call to preach, he responded no to my father’s question. As it turned out, my father’s query was a prediction, for Grover did surrender to the call to gospel ministry.

We graduated in the first class from Truett McConnell College in May, 1949. We worked, he with Meadors Distribution Company contacting various stores as a route salesman in North Georgia and I in my first year of teaching at Choestoe School. We were wed at Choestoe Baptist Church on December 23, 1949.

Grover and Ethelene at her father’s house – 1950

In 1950, Grover announced his call to preach. We entered Mercer University, Macon, in the fall of 1950 to complete our last two years of college. Antioch Baptist Church at Blairsville called him as pastor, and we made trips twice a month where he fulfilled his preaching appointments and weekend visitation to members. By request of Antioch Baptist Church, he was ordained at Choestoe Baptist Church on August 19, 1951. This was the beginning of his work as a saintly and humble pastor, continuing at Antioch, then at Harmony Baptist Church, Eatonton; Union Hill at Gray; Mt. Hebron at Hartwell (his first full-time pastorate), McConnell Memorial at Hiawassee, and First Baptist Church, Epworth. For 21 ½ years he did the work of a pastor. From those six pastorates, many testify to his godly influence upon their lives and salute him as a saintly man.

His seminary training at Southern and Southeastern Seminaries was not on a full-time basis but might be described as “piecemeal,” as he went to “J” terms (January, June, July). Those studies were geared to assisting in-service pastors hone their skills in the pulpit and delve more deeply into the Scriptures. He became known for his saintly insights into the Word and his compassionate care for members of his congregation.

In October, 1972 he began another direction in his work. He became director of missions for the Morganton Baptist Association, Blue Ridge, Georgia. Later, the Mountaintown Association was added to his assignment, as well as being representative of the Georgia Baptist Convention to the Gilmer-Fannin Association.

Retirement Celebration – June 1988
Other minister, Dr. Maurice Crowder, was host of Grover’s "This Is Your Life"

For 16 ½ years he worked in associational work until he retired June 30, 1988. Even then, he could not give up the work he loved and for four years was a North Georgia consultant to churches and associations for the Georgia Baptist Convention. His gentle way with people combined with wisdom and insight, served him well in the capacity of denominational representative, speaker and consultant.

1983 - with his grandchildren Paula, Matthew, Elizabeth, B. J., Christie, Crystal, and Nathan

In the meantime, he was a saintly father and grandfather. Son Keith was born in Macon in 1952 and daughter Cynthia in Anderson, SC (while we were at Hartwell, GA) in 1957. They grew up, married, and gave us seven wonderful grandchildren. Grover was a loving father and grandfather, continuing his saintly qualities in family relationships and seeking to demonstrate Christian qualities before them by precept and example. Even though he was ill when his five great grandchildren began to come along in 2006 and since, all of his descendants rise up and call him saintly.

1943

His battle with health began shortly after he was discharged from the US Navy following World War II. A vicious arthritis attacked him in the summer of 1946. He dealt with that malady for most of the rest of his life. In 1993 his heart received a physical makeover with five bypasses heart surgery. In January, 1996 he was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. He spent from early 2007 through his death January 26, 2011 in the special care unit of Georgia War Veterans Home, Milledgeville. Through sickness his saintliness was still in evidence. But even more evident was provision for his care during the sixteen years of his journey with Alzheimer’s.

Grover and Ethelene's 50th wedding anniversary, December 23, 1999

As his beloved wife of sixty-one years, I attest to his goodness and compassion. I gratefully acknowledge his devotion as my life companion and the facets of his ministry and wide influence. We brought his body back to the enfolding hills of Choestoe for burial. But in my heart of hearts I know that he is not dead. His influence will live on in my heart and in the hearts of those especially touched by his kind and compassionate ministry. To God be the glory.

c 2011 by Ethelene Dyer Jones; published Feb. 3, 2011 in The Union Sentinel, Blairsville, GA. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

The Country Store—A Landmark Entrepreneurial Entity

Francis Jasper "Bud" Collins (1855-1941)
Owner of Collins Country Store

The country store was a part of my growing up years, for my grandfather, Francis Jasper Collins, better known as “Bud” Collins, owned and operated one. My family went to his store to trade for items such as coffee, sugar, pinto beans, and lard, if our farm supply gave out. Then there was the clothing and merchandise section where some of the simpler necessities of country living could be bought—cloth by the yard, sewing needs, socks, hose and underwear, men’s chambray work shirts, overalls, and even at times, utilitarian shoes, but not dress shoes.

The country store was especially useful at Christmas time. In those depression years when cash was hard to come by and most farm families depended upon what they could produce on the farm to keep their families supplied with the barest necessities, not much was purchased at the country store. But Grandpa, with Mr. Garn Fortenberry as the driver for his truck, would somehow manage to go to Gainesville with a load of live chickens, eggs in crates, and dried animal skins that had been bartered for goods at his store, and take the load to Carter’s Wholesale Company or another of the wholesale distributors to get in trade there what he could to bring back to his Country Store in Choestoe.

Families in the community kept up with which day of the week the Collins Country Store would bring a load from Gainesville to restock the shelves of the little store. Garn and Grandpa would often get back home just at nightfall, so the next day would be the best time to go for a good pick over the new supply of goodies. Near Christmas, there would be sacks of oranges and tangerines, these fruits from the warm clime of Florida, brought to our Choestoe hills to be the delight of children on Christmas morning as they found them in the stockings they had “hung by the chimney with care.” Rare nuts, too, like pecans (not grown in the mountains) and Brazil nuts and pistachios would be in boxes so that a pound or half-pound could be weighed out as families could afford them.

Grandpa had a candy counter on which sat a large four-sided glass case. Near Christmas that case had all sorts of delectable-looking confections displayed in open boxes. Peppermint, licorice and lemon stick candy were among the offerings, as were the ever-appealing chocolate drops. Maybe sometimes there would be a few boxes of chocolate-covered cherries, but these were few, as Grandpa knew not many among his country store constituents could afford a whole box of these delicacies.

He had some toys, but not a wide variety. Bags of marbles, cans of pick-up-sticks, checker-boards, Chinese checkers, a few dolls, and some miniature automobiles were among his offerings. Thinking about it now, these may have been “special orders,” since they were so few, requested by parents in advance for their children who wanted these items from Santa Claus at Christmas. I can remember on Christmas morning wondering if I had not seen something I received at Grandpa’s store earlier—and how did Santa Claus then get it to bring beside our fireplace for me?

The country store also provided school supplies: Blue Horse tablets writing paper and penny pencils. And before school was out at Christmas, we nearly always could find at his store a gift for the one whose name we had drawn at Choestoe School, and thus fulfill our obligation of getting the gift for that person to put under our school tree.

Going to the store was an adventure. Since most of the trade was in barter, we had to catch the chickens we planned to offer as barter and safely pack the eggs used in trade. If Daddy had been successful in catching rabbits in his “rabbit trap,” he might have several dried and stretched skins of rabbits to offer in trade. And we nearly always had sorghum syrup to take for barter, because he was the champion syrup-maker of Choestoe.

Looking back now on this way of life, we didn’t know it if we were poor, for we always seemed to have plenty of the necessities of life: food, homemade clothing, shelter. Our farm produced well, even in the depression years. And enterprising Grandfather, up until his death in December of 1941 (ten days after the infamous Pearl Harbor bombing that started World War II) saw that his country store was maintained. After his death, his daughters and sons discovered that Grandpa had many people “on the books” to whom he had extended credit when they were unable to pay for items they needed from his country store. Likewise, he had loaned money when people were in dire circumstances. And his philosophy was not to take an “I-O-U” for same, for he said if a handshake and a man’s word did not mean they would pay back the loan, a piece of paper was little assurance that a debt would be collected. Over many of them he had written, “debt forgiven.” Some, after his death, came to pay their long-standing debt. His compassion was extended through his country store.

At Grandpa’s Country Store the spirit of Christmas lasted all year long.

c2010 by Ethelene Dyer Jones; published Dec. 9, 2010 in The Union Sentinel, Blairsville, GA. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Country Music Artist Don Byers Tapped for Atlanta Counrty Music Hall of Fame

“Autumn leaves were falling
Down in Adams Park
We sat and watched the river
‘Til it was almost dark
And there were children playing
They never noticed you and me
Down in Adams Park
Where time was always free.”
------cDon Byers (used by permission)

Perhaps you’ve heard “Adams Park” played and sung by country music performers. Maybe you did not know that a Union County born-and-bred artist named Don Byers wrote both the words and the music to the song. Not only “Adams Park,” but many others, among which are “It’s Only a Paper World,” “A Few of the Things I Remember,” “Facing the Music,” “Forgotten Tracks,” “For What It’s Worth,” and “The Troubadour,” to name a few.

Recently Union County’s Don Byers received a letter notifying him of a signal honor coming his way on November 27, 2010. The letter read, in part:

“In recognition of your contributions and achievements in the Music Industry, the Awards Committee and the Executive Board of the Atlanta Country Music Hall of Fame have selected you to be honored at the 29th Annual Awards Celebration to be held at the Holiday Inn Select-Perimeter, 4386 Chamblee-Dunwoody Road, Atlanta, GA 30341 on Saturday, November 27, 2010.”

Established in 1982 by John L. (Johnny) Carson (1933-2010) and Phyllis A. Cole, the Atlanta Country Music Hall of Fame seeks yearly to recognize outstanding persons in the field of country music composition and performance. It is a distinct honor to be tapped for inclusion into the Hall of Fame. Awards have for twenty-nine years been given to many in Georgia who have contributed to this genre and have helped in perpetuation of our country folk ways and culture.

Our hats are off in salute and congratulations to Don Byers who is being recognized for his artistry, talent and dedication to country music. He hails from a long line of Union County people who have contributed much to the upbuilding of our county from early days to the present, and we’re sure, even into the future. He was born in 1943 in Murphy, North Carolina, son of Ralph C. Byers and Alice Mauney Byers. His parents brought Don up in the Ivy Log Community of Union County. Early on, he showed interest in and propensity for playing the guitar. He says of his legacy:

“One of my grandfathers was a fiddler and the other was a banjo player. My neighbor, Billy Burnette, taught me my first guitar chords about 1952 when I was nine. I began writing songs when I was about ten years of age. My country music heroes back then were Hank Williams and Chet Atkins.”

By the time Don Byers was in high school, he was playing for school events and teaming up with classmates to play and sing. He also wrote songs during his school years, but he says the words to most of them have been lost or otherwise not kept for posterity. When he graduated from Union County High School in 1960, he had been named by his peers, “Most Talented Male Student.”

He recalls that he played solo for school events and back-up for various singing groups. He and Patsy Colwell (Davenport Phillips) did duets—Don on guitar and Patsy on piano. His friend, Wendell Patterson and Don, with whom he still plays, were often paired with their stringed instruments arrangements. He remembers that he and Wendell provided musical accompaniment for a vocal group composed of singers Gwen Brown, Anita Collins and Kathleen Garrett. One of the most famous of the high school groups as they entered that momentous year of 1960 was “The Trio” with singers JoNeal Collins, Jackie Lance and Sandra Richards. In 1959, they won first place in the school-wide talent show. Little did those schoolmates/classmates or Don Byers himself realize that the honor would one day be extended to recognize him as a productive and notable member of the Atlanta Country Music Hall of Fame.

Straight out of High School, Don joined the Army. He soon found his niche in service as an entertainer.

Don Byers, US Army, 1961 in Zama, Japan

"The Strangers" Music Group - Japan, 1961
(l-r) Ray Lambright; Don Byers (kneeling); Tom Zawlock (drums); Tom Montgomery

In 1961 he became a member of the rock-and-roll instrumental group known as “The Strangers.” Don is quick to emphasize that his Army group was not the same as the later “Strangers” which featured the Merle Haggard band. At the tender age of 17, and in his army time, he was soon conducting interviews, playing in stage shows, providing music for dances, and otherwise taking his artistry in country music to wherever he happened to be stationed. He was in Japan for a stretch of time and noted that American country music was very popular there. He remembers that wherever “The Strangers” were booked, he often had to sign autographs for fans. That popularity was somewhat foreign to a shy, country-bred lad on his first major thrust out into the vast world of entertainment and meeting people of different cultures. His work in service was with the US Army Security Agency. He did classified work with the Navy and Air Force.

He states that the members of “The Strangers” —(Rockin’) Ray Lambright (Army), Tom (Monty) Montgomery (Navy), Thomas (Ski) Zawlocki (Navy) and himself, Don Byers (Army), who played for military and civilian clubs in the Tokyo and Yokohama area of Japan, were reunited about five years ago by internet. Ski from Washington state unfortunately died about two years after their internet reunion. Ray and Monty returned to their native state of Texas and both became ordained ministers of the gospel. Monty attended one of Don’s Old Courthouse on the Square concerts in 2008. These Army/Navy buddies like to say “we will always be friends, and will also always be “Strangers.”

[Next: Stay tuned for more on the life and career of Don Byers, Music Hall of Fame Awardee]

c2010 by Ethelene Dyer Jones; published Nov. 18, 2010 in The Union Sentinel, Blairsville, GA. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.