The Matheson Cove: In the Shadow of the Devil's Post Office Earns Prestigious Award

Through this column more than a year ago, I introduced you to author, Dr. Eva Nell Mull Wike and her book on local and family history entitled The Matheson Cove…in the Shadow of the Devil’s Post Office. With beginnings in Union County, the book moves to nearby Clay County, North Carolina and beyond to trace the family lineage, the struggles and triumphs of a stalwart mountain family, the author's parents, Joseph David Mull and Martha Jane Wimpey Mull and related families.

On Saturday, October 13, 2007, Dr. Eva Nell Mull Wike and her husband, James Wike, artist and illustrator of the book, went to near Asheville, N.C., (at the Carolina Trace Country Club, Sanford, N.C.) where they were awarded the prestigious 2007 "Robert Bruce Cooke Family History Award" for The Matheson Cove.

Awarded by the North Carolina Society of Historians, Inc., the annual award comes after judges examine carefully numerous books of history published the previous year. Several notations from judges are worthy of note about The Matheson Cove:

"We found the book to be very appealing to a wide range of people. It is the genealogy of a family written in 'story' form, which is 100% reader-friendly, and downright entertaining."

James Wike, illustrator, received praise for his part in making the book appealing:

"Adding to a delightful text are some wonderful sketches housing original artwork appropriate to the current story being told. We can actually 'see' the scenes the author wants to relay through these pictures. Also included are some very colorful, clear photographs and family portraits."

The book is a composite of "poetry, ghost stories, letters, … family hardships…successes…emotions." Included as well is the author's frustration that an industrialized society bent on development of mountain areas is "wanting to erase all traces of an area's past so quickly and so willingly."

Since I first recommended The Matheson Cove for your reading pleasure over a year ago, I have had the privilege of meeting Dr. Wike and her husband. I welcomed them to our Dyer-Souther Family Association Annual Reunion at Choestoe in July. In person, both are warm and personable, as I knew they would be. We frequently exchange e-mails on various subjects, and especially pertaining to our common love for writing.

I rejoice with Dr. Wike (Eva Nell to me) that copies of her book have been placed in seven North Carolina High Schools and in the Towns County Middle School, Hiawassee, Ga., for the schools' local history and Appalachian culture studies. We mutually hope that Union County Schools at Blairsville and Fannin County Schools will recognize the book as a valuable resource and add copies for student use.

I shared this poem with Eva Nell and James Wike at the Dyer-Souther Reunion in July. Eva Nell, being the kind and accommodating person she is, wrote a letter to the Clay County Progress and commended the value of family reunions, including my poem.

I congratulate Eva Nell Mull Wike on the deserved honors she has received on her excellent book. She appreciates heritage and ancestors' struggles, as do I. To her, her husband, and to me, indeed:

These Are My People

Ethelene Dyer Jones

These are my people

Whom we honor today.

Born to hard times,

Nurtured by solid stock,

Dislocated from England, Scotland,

Ireland, Germany- seeking freedom

To worship and to work,

Pressing toward far frontiers.

In my veins runs their blood,

The same as they shed

On far-flung battlefields;

No enemy too formidable

To face for freedom's costs,

No shore too distant

To traverse and claim as home.

These are my people.

Their lives are high beacons,

Their deaths strong testimonies

Of the price they gladly paid for liberty.

Look to the mountains of home,

Majestic, like God, our help and shield.

My people, many long gone,

Are one with each other and with God.

Dr. Eva Nell Wike's book honors "our people." We are happy that it is so widely distributed. If you haven't a copy yet, check at the Tennessee Valley Publisher's website, www.tvp1. com, or "The Book Nook" in Blairsville or at Phillips and Lloyd Bookstore on the Square in Hayesville, NC. Or you may order from the author and illustrator at jimwike@comcast.net.

c 2007 by Ethelene Dyer Jones; published Oct. 18, 2007 in The Union Sentinel, Blairsville, GA. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

The Matheson Cove: In the Shadow of the Devil's Post Office

Mr. Steve Oakley, Director of the Union County Historical Society Museum in the majestic, restored old courthouse on the square in Blairsville gave Eva Nell Mull Wike, Ph.D., my telephone number. She called me. The first time we talked, after precursory introductions, we were like old friends who had been reconnected after years of separation, although we have not yet met each other in person.

The tie that binds Eva Nell and me is a common love for and appreciation of history. And some common family roots. But more about the shared family roots later. The intention of today's column is to introduce the reading public to Dr. Wike's book published in 2006 with the inviting title of The Matheson Cove: In the Shadow of the Devil's Post Office. Consider this a review of the book, and even with my words of commendation, I cannot do justice to Dr. Wike's book published by Tennessee Valley Publishing, PO Box 52527, Knoxville, TN 37950-2527 (The publisher may be reached online at www.TVP1.com. The hardbound book may be purchased from the publisher or from the author, Eva Nell Mull Wike, Ph. D., 109 Oklahoma Ave., Oakridge, TN 37830-8629 for $25 + $4 S&H [$29] Copies are available at The Book Nook in Blairsville and at Phillips & Lloyd Book Shop on the Square, Hayesville, NC.)

Eva Nell Mull Wike

This is a book of history, a book of remembrance, a book of family solidarity in a changing era, and a book about a place, almost magical, yet real and inviting.

Matheson Cove is a real place, a valley overshadowed by the Shewbird Mountain. The cove is located near Hayesville, N.C., and was the place where Eva Nell grew up in a hardworking family with not many of this world's goods but an abundance of love and values.

The Devil's Post Office was a cave in the Shewbird Mountain, an off-limits place where Eva Nell and her sisters longed to explore but which was forbidden by their parents. On Sunday afternoons, some of the more daring teenagers living near the Shewbird Mountain would venture up to the Devil's Post Office, take letters they had written during the week, and deliver them to crevices in the deepest recesses of the cave. What happened to the letters was a matter of legend as well, for the missives were never seen again. As Dr. Mull writes, "there is not a dead letter box in that post office!"

Shewbird Mountain got its name from an old Cherokee Indian by that name who hid out in the cave to avoid the trek to Oklahoma during the Trail of Tears.

Matheson Cove got its name from the early Matheson settlers who left the highlands of Scotland and migrated to the United States, claiming 300 acres in North Carolina in present-day Clay County. Dr. Wike tells the story of their settlement and how Dallas Matheson was ahead of his time in cultivating peach, apple and chestnut trees in the Cove. The heart of the book is about the ancestors of Eva Nell Mull Wike, the author, both on the Wimpey and the Mull sides of the family.

Eva Nell heard fascinating stories of her maternal great, great grandmother, Matilda "Minny" Little, a fullblooded Cherokee maiden, who hid in a cave in the region of Union County, Ga., called Track Rock. Thus Minny escaped being sent on the Trail of Tears in 1838. The young girl was afraid but determined. Her later life proved the true mettle of this Cherokee lady.
Minny Little married Asa Thomason on January 13, 1857 and they were parents of the author's grandmother, Lula Bell Jane Thomason who married William Isaac Wimpey. And from these came her mother, Martha Jane Wimpey who married her father, Joseph David Mull.

The Mull family and their ancestors had likewise settled in Matheson Cove. And so the story continues, page after interesting page, to recount ways of making a living, rearing large families, dealing with serious illnesses, accidents, deaths, and grief. Always there is that stalwart will to keep pressing on, to provide better opportunities for the next generation than the parents themselves experienced.

The book is well illustrated by the author's husband, James Wike, an artist who has the ability to add interest to the true story by his drawings and enhancement of old photographs. The book is a treasure of history and memoirs, of hardships and change.

Matheson Cove and Shewbird Mountain, as well as the Devil's Post Office, have now been ravaged by modern twins called development and change. As Jack Douglas Matheson states in his poem which Dr.Wike includes in her book, "I've felt a lot of memories/ In that old mountain's face./It breaks my heart to see it go,/And lose all its grace."

Dr. Eva Nell Mull Wike has captured much of the grace and way of life of the Matheson Cove. Get a copy of the book. You will be enthralled by its pages, written by one who truly loves the place. It is fortunate for readers that she stored away memories and recorded them for posterity. We hope we will experience more books from this retired mathematics teacher turned author as she explores other stories of beloved ancestors who paved the way for us all to have a better life.

(Note: Dr. Wike is available to speak to groups or to have book signings. Anyone interested in scheduling her as a speaker may contact her at 865-482-2545.)

c 2006 by Ethelene Dyer Jones; published Aug. 17, 2006 in The Union Sentinel, Blairsville, GA. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.