1940 Cotton Mill Pay Voucher

I went to the last Tucapau/Startex Reunion back in the spring and I promised that I would show you some of the pictures I took there. Finally downloaded them off the camera. I think this picture merits its own blog post. Below is a picture of a 1940 pay stub from Spartan Mills Startex Division. Knowing who it belonged to, I’d venture to guess that this may be a first pay check. I’ll not comment and let the numbers do the talking.


Hours worked – 32
Gross pay – $10.72

Deductions
OAB – $0.11
Thrift Club – $3.00
Rent, lights, water – $5.73
Store – $0.35

Net pay – $1.53

This year I plan to have a display about the early years of Tucapau in my classroom. This photo will be prominent in the display.

975.729

I’ve been lurking in the 975.729 region of the Dewey Decimals lately. The 975 means
Southeastern US, the .7 means South Carolina, and the 29 means Spartanburg County. I like to see what the historians say about my antecedents. One of the most concentrated of the Spartan District tomes I’ve run across is a little self-published jewel called Indians, Bloodshed, Tears, Churches, and Schools – It All Started at Fort Gowen by James V. Gregory and James Walton Lawrence, Sr. 2003.
The idea for this book began with the authors’ and the National Park Service’s search for the original site of Fort Gowan, one in a string of several forts, all within a one-day’s walk (or run) of each other, built during the times of Tory, Indian, and outlaw gang attacks on the settlers in the South Carolina backcountry. Often mentioned are the dastardly deeds of the outlaw William “Bloody Bill” Bates along the Indian Line (Spartanburg Co. and Greenville Co. boundary). We also had another Bloody Bill in the region, William Cunningham, most noted for his attack at Walnut Grove Plantation near Roebuck. Bates reminds me of the pirate character, Stephen Bonnet, in Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander Series. I imagine his maraudering band to be a lot like the gang of bandits who kidnapped Claire in A Breath of Snow and Ashes. Very nasty fellow.
Much of the information for Fort Gowen was gathered from aerial maps, the SC Archives, Greenville and Spartanburg County records, old newspaper articles, and the writings of local historians Dr. Lyman Draper, Dr J.B.O. Landrum, and Mann Batson. This little book reminded me that some of the greatest suffering and bloodshed before and during the American Revolution was borne by the original settlers of the backwoods Spartan District of South Carolina.

Blue Ridge Book Festival

It was Mother's Day weekend and my girls went with me to the book festival in Hendersonville held at the Blue Ridge Community College. I actually got to have a few impromptu reunions there in the halls of the college. Here is honorary chairman, Robert Morgan, one of the kudzu cousins, introducing keynote Sharyn McCrumb, who spoke on finding truth in fiction. She's a consummate researcher. I was using a new camera that I wasn't used to and my picture of McCrumb didn't turn out.

Louise Bailey spoke on the cultural and historical dimensions of Henderson County. I came in a little late for that one, but was delighted to hear the story about Carl Sandburg having supper at her father's home where he enjoyed the fresh pole beans cooked with salt pork so much, not only did he have three helpings, he turned the serving bowl up and drank the pot liquor. His way of saying Henderson County pole beans are the best in the world, I reckon.

Mountain balladeer and stroyteller, Sheila Kay Adams, entertained us with her story, Whatever Happened to John Parrish's Boy, one of my favorites in her collection, Come Go Home with Me. I was very sorry to hear about the recent passing of her husband and performance partner, Jim.

Gary Carden, spoke on Western North Carolina stroytelling and folklore. He told stories about growing up with his grandparents in the mountains and how he came to study drama at Western Carolina. This session was the girls' favorite. I was going to ask him to tell the story about the trout who learned to walk on land, but we ran out of time. His play,The Prince of Dark Corners, about the Carolina bootlegger outlaw, Lewis Redmond is on DVD. I have a copy which I used in Tech Prep Chemistry when we study distillation.

Rash at the Hub

Ron was at the HubBub Thursday night to do a reading of Serena. Of course he started with one of the best opening paragraphs of any novel ever (in medias res), where you know that blood is not far in coming.

Byrnes High faculty was well represented in the crowd that was treated to glimpses of training an eagle to hunt rattle snakes, and some other tidbits about how those golden eagles from Mongolia are bred and trained to hunt. He read the scene where Rachel plants her father’s headstone and remembers some loving moments with him which were few and far between.

Then there are the delightful continuing conversations of the loggers which remind me very much of some of the bird walks we take in my Tech Prep Chemistry class. Yesterday I got this from a girl out of the middle of nowhere, “Do you believe in the Big Bang Theory, Mrs. I? I don’t. I was taught creation.”

“Me neither. Jesus put me here. Hallelujah!” said the boy behind her, tongue-in-cheek and a dip in the other, which I’ve grown to ignore because apparently he needs one after lunch or he’ll be disruptive in class.

“I think it’s kinda both. Don’t you , Miz I? What if it was God that made the Big Bang to happen?” said another kid.

“I think you’re probably right. You know how I always say that chemistry is God's science. Now, look at calcium on the periodic table. I’ll use the laser pointer and let’s say the electron configuration together. Ready? 1s2..2s2…what comes next?”

Serena's Coming!

I'm excited as a mill-hill kid during fair week and I got my free ticket from my school teacher. Hey! I am a mill-hill kid and it IS Piedmont Interstate Fair week. But the reason I'm excited is that my copy of Ron Rash's latest novel, Serena, is on it's way. Should get mine today or tomorrow. You can read the first chapter if you go find the Serena page on Amazon. There is also an interesting essay by Ron on the page.

The book actually springs from a short story published in Ron's anthology, Chemistry. The story, Pemberton's Bride, features evil Serena and her new husband, and is set in a Western North Carolina lumber camp in the 1930s.

I like how he writes a short story and then it grows up to be a novel. That also happened with the novel, The World Made Straight. Perhaps one of my stories will grow up to be a big book some day. Ha.

Our school was fortunate to host Ron last spring when he came to speak to our students about writing. I was honored when the librarians asked me and a few other teachers to join them and Ron for dinner the night before. You know, everytime I see that guy he ask me what I'm working on - I know Ron from the Wildacres workshops. And he did that for our students, too. You don't get that very often with famous writers. After dinner I just had to ask about training an eagle to hunt rattlesnakes - you'll know what I'm talking about if you read the short story or novel. A very lively discussion about how he learned about it and researching for fiction in general followed.

This one is going to be big, folks.

Henderson County Genealogical Society 25th Anniversary

A crowd of nearly 100 celebrated the 25th anniversary of the HCGHS on August 16 at The Chariot in Hendersonville, NC along with guest speaker, poet, novelist, and Daniel Boone biographer, Robert Morgan. Ron Rash once told me he thinks Morgan is "the greatest". I have to concur.

Currently the society is working on transcribing the court records for the first thirty years or so of the county's existance. I have a huge folder of 1858 records sitting by my Lay-Z-Boy. It ain't easy, let me tell you. I've read these photocopied microfilms till my eyes cross, transfering into composition books before typing them. The going is lots slower than I thought it would be.

Slobot's Visit to Berry Shoals and the Tucapau Dam

Slobot goes to Berry Shoals Dam and Startex

Startex Tucapau Historical Society

I was happy to see how the society has grown by leaps and bounds when I visited the web site today. Here are the people and places that trigger so many memories that end up on a jump drive. Hopefully there will be a collection worth publication someday.
http://www.startex.org/index.htm

Morgan reads from his book, Boone: A Biography

http://www.hendersonvillenews.com/article/20070917/NEWS/70917005

Wood's Chapel

Great-grandma Johnson was a Westmoreland before she married. And her mother was a Wood, the great-great-granddaughter of Rev. William Henry Wood, an American Revolutionary War Patriot and pioneer Methodist minister in the South Carolina backcountry. Last month the Mecklenburg Chapter, (NCSSAR) of the Sons of the American Revolution honored his memory with a marker ceremony at the Wood’s Chapel United Methodist Church cemetery on Brown Wood Road, Greer, SC. That’s right near the intersection of Interstate-85 and Highway-101, practically across the street from the BMW plant entrance. (Yes, they build German cars on top of my ancestral stomping grounds.)

Born December 16 (same as brother, Keith), 1756, in what is now Warren County, NC, he served in the struggle for American freedom as a member of the Third Division of N.C. Militia under Lieutenant Henry Shurrin and Colonel Hebert Haynes. He participated at the battle of Guilford Court House and other engagements during his service in the Revolution.

He married Elizabeth Mayfield in July 1777 in Warren County, N.C. She died soon after the marriage and he remarried Nancy Burns. He and his second wife moved to the Spartan District in South Carolina after the Revolution where he started a Methodist meeting house near the Greer area which is now called Wood’s Chapel United Methodist Church.

In 1803 during a trip through South Carolina, Bishop Francis Asbury wrote in his journal that on Nov. 1 he rode to the Reverend’s home and preached there the next day. William Henry Wood lived in the same home until his death on June 12, 1843.

All my life, I’ve lived within 8 miles of Wood’s Chapel but have not attended services there. I’ve been a member at Startex United Methodist, now First United Methodist Church – Startex.
I’ve visited the Wood's Chapel graveyard several times, especially when I lived in Greer. I told my children the same thing my Papa Kuykendall used to tell me whenever we visited the graveyards at Mud Creek Baptist in Flat Rock, NC or Double Springs Baptist down the road from there. “You’re blood kin to most of these bones under your feet.” The exception being that these bones are on my Johnson side, not the Kuykendall side.

I Read The Bed She Was Born In

Last month I heard an author speak about her historical fiction novel. Jeri Fitzgerald Board spoke about Picking the Bones of Historical Fiction, using her new novel, The Bed She Was Born In. Ms. Board's book has been nominated for two prestigious awards, including the Pen Faulkner Award.

It takes place in Eastern North Carolina in the time period between the Civil War and World War II and explores the lives of 5 wonderfully strong Southern women, black and white. Board illustrates, in a way I haven't seen before, the intricate relationships (that I've always know existed) between the races in the Carolina Low Country. The characters lives' weave in and out and support each other just like the cords in the intricate weave in one of my hammocks.

I was most touched by the relationships between the women and the handicapped son, McLean. More on that later.