The Journal of Mountain Life
Generations of Memories
from the
Heart of the Blue Ridge
It was more than a concert, it was a rare privilege to be attending the Stoneman Family Festival at Willis, Virginia in August. The reason it was more than a concert was that family members from Maryland and Tennessee traveled here for a reunion.
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Scenes like this are just around the next bend or over the next hill along the hundreds of miles of backroads you'll discover with our easy to follow self-guided Backroad Tours.
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B.L. (Bunny) and Tella Mae Cockram are each 73 years old. They’ve been married for 50 years and since 1935, home for them has been their 60 acre farm in the Mountain View section of Meadows of Dan, Virginia. Tella Mae has a hundred laying hens and she sells eggs to a lot of the folks here-'bouts. In addition to the 100 laying hens, she and Bunny have 50 head of cattle and 25 head of sheep.
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The original route of the Appalachian Trail crossed the Pinnacles of Dan, traversed the Dan River Gorge and climbed Indian Ladder to the plateau known locally as the Rich Bent. This path carried hikers through some of the most breathtakingly beautiful terrain the Blue Ridge Mountains have to offer. Earl Shaffer on his historic first ever through hike of the entire Appalachian Trail in one season, passed through this area and described it ...
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By Susan M. Thigpen © 1984-2012
Issue: April, 1984
50th Wedding Anniversary photograph of Mae and Henry Harris.In a previous story, we were jokingly told that the land below Lovers Leap Mountain in Patrick County, Virginia is so steep that a man once fell out of his cornfield. Another person added more to this by saying that it was true - Around the turn of the century, William Trent had a cornfield on ground that was very steep. This land was planted by walking along with a pointed stick and boring the hole, dropping in the corn, and then covering it by pushing the dirt back with a booted foot.
The corn was left in the field until it was completely dry and then stored for livestock feed and to be ground into cornmeal. The day William Trent chose to pull his corn was in cold, late autumn and the ground was covered in ice. This day was chosen for a reason. With the ground covered with a hard layer of ice, the ears of corn could be pulled and then thrown down hill and they would slide all the way to the barnyard, saving the hard task of carrying them down. Unfortunately, William Trent slipped on the ice before finishing the task and ended sliding down the icy mountainside, breaking his leg in what must have been a complex fracture.
Henry Harris of Stuart, Virginia wrote to us that it was his grandfather, William Trent, who fell out of his cornfield and broke his leg. I called Henry about it and went by for a visit. I ended up staying five hours, as one story after another poured out. I could sit and listen to his stories all day, and he has plenty of them. Add a comment
By Olyer W. Turner © 1984
Issue: April, 1984
I was born on March 28, 1909, in a little log cabin in the mountains. The waters of Philpott Dam now cover the land where the cabin once set, very near where the boats go in the water at Runnett Bag. In the summer of 1982, I took a boat ride all over the places where I played with my friends when we were children. Where we wadded and once played in the river, and where I had driven my horse and buggy so many times were under the lake.
Oh, what wonderful memories of the fun we had in our early teens on Sunday afternoons. I wasn’t raised up there. I was put in a foster home when I was about four and a half years old, but my mother still lived there as well as my foster mother’s sister, Emeline Hall and her son Marshall, his wife Sis and their boys and girls. Many that read this may remember little Mary Hall. Her house still stands. Add a comment
By Bob Heafner © 1991
Issue: September, 1991
It was a Friday night in Floyd, Virginia. The moon was rising full in a sky filled with stars and a gentle breeze made the night comfortable. Several hundred people were milling around in the alley between the two old frame buildings and the sidewalk that connected them. Suddenly a hush fell over the crowd.
Looking back, I cannot remember any sound being made for the briefest of moments. It was as if the world had suddenly turned mute. Then with an almost magical quality the strands of an old mountain song filled the night air.
The voices of husband and wife, Carlton and Janice Harmon, blending in perfect harmony, softly and without accompaniment, cast a spell over the listeners with the opening lyrics of "Going Up Cripple Creek." In a soft, slow melody they sang: Add a comment
By Nancy B. Collins © 1989
Issue: December, 1989
Most older people have had more stormy times than calm and easy times. But, they have had what I call "little patches of blue" that came shining through.
I want to write about some little patches of blue that came into my life from time to time. They were little patches of blue skies after a bad storm. When I say storm, I mean having a lot of things to deal with and not knowing how to work them out.
I was brought up in the quietness of the mountain country near Meadows of Dan, Virginia and I would not take anything for my life there in that country. We were poor and carefree most of the time. I look back and realize there are worse things than being poor, such as having too much to fall on a person when they are not prepared for it and that is just what happened to me. By little patches of blue, I finally worked my way through it.
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