I’ve always thought my great, great-grandmother, America Banner, had the coolest name – very patriotic sounding, reminiscent of the Grand Old Flag…you know, that high flying flag…the Star Spangled one. When I embarked on discovering my family’s history, my knowledge of her was limited to a few facts and an old photo my paternal grandparents had of her, alongside her husband, Eli Presnell. These were my grandfather’s grandparents, and the image captured their mountain stoicism, he dressed in overalls and brogans and sporting a long white beard; she in her sun bonnet, long skirts and apron.

I eventually pieced together more of America’s story, including the fact that her father, John Banner, and his brothers settled an area within the Blue Ridge Mountains that would eventually bear their name – Banner’s Elk, now more succinctly known as Banner Elk. They had come, however, from the piedmont region of North Carolina – Forsyth and Stokes counties – and America’s grandmother, Martha “Patty” Banner, was a daughter of Anthony Bitting, Sr., who operated a tavern in his home in Germanton. Patty’s brother, John Bitting, had a son named Joseph, and Joseph Bitting started out as a farmer and merchant and, over a period of years, accumulated considerable property. As time progressed, he became engaged in tobacco manufacturing. After moving to present-day Winston-Salem, North Carolina, he was prominent in the establishment of the First National Bank and became its president. Meanwhile, his first cousins, the Banner brothers, had ventured into the northwestern wilderness, building cabins for their homes and hunting elk among other pursuits. Similar differences existed between Joseph Bitting’s daughter Kate and John Banner’s daughter America. A good twenty years and a good one-hundred miles separated these second cousins, who perhaps never even knew one another, but the differences between them extended far beyond their ages and physical proximity.

Kate enjoyed a privileged and monied upbringing, attending a variety of social events and seasonal parties and “ever ready to devise some plan to entertain and amuse her many friends.” While Kate danced at soirees in Winston-Salem, America was a married mother, eking out a subsistence farm living with her husband in the remote Beech Creek area of Watauga County. On one occasion, a local newspaper described Kate as “one of the most popular Fifth Avenue girls. A bewitching smile is ever playing about her mouth, and a…sparkle is always shooting from her merry blue eyes.” Kate’s carefree gaiety stood in sharp contrast to the stern and solemn America, who, like many a mountaineer woman, carried herself erectly and as straight as a ramrod.

At a “Bal Masque” held at an elegant home in 1886, Kate dressed as a fortune teller in “red satin with black lace and drapery," while her sister was adorned in white satin with golden butterflies. In 1887, at a grand ball in Greensboro, North Carolina, Kate wore peacock blue velvet with lace and diamond ornaments. In 1888, she attended an “Easter Dance” at the Twin City Club Room, where the ladies wore soft, flowing robes and the gentlemen sported spiked tailcoats, and where “youth and beauty chase[d] the happy hours with flying feet” on a waxed floor to the music of an Italian band. Meanwhile, if America danced at all, perhaps a flatfoot or buck dance or clogging, it may have been to the strums of a mountain dulcimer handcrafted by her husband; most likely, strict Baptist beliefs forbade dancing altogether.

Kate’s fashions were probably store-bought or created for her, but America personally handmade all of her family’s clothes, spinning and weaving her own cloth. A thrifty person, she saved every little strand of extra thread to use again.  She made pretty bonnets as well as quilts, and her Log Cabin pattern was constructed of lots of thin strips that she hand-stitched, primarily in winter and requiring as many as three winters to complete.  America also taught her six daughters to sew, and they became good seamstresses.  Although not clothed in the laces and satins of their city cousin’s social scene – things impractical for life in the backwoods – they were more accustomed to heartier, more durable fabrics and cottons, ginghams, and calicos. But while Kate enjoyed fine parties, America’s daughters had their own social outings. Because they stitched so well, could make dresses without patterns, and could copy dresses that appeared in catalogs, they were always invited to community quilting parties. 

Newspapers described Kate as a refined and attractive young lady. America’s daughters, although attractive in their own right, were tall, large-boned girls who often worked like boys on the farm, the oldest girls even helping construct the family home. While Kate served her lawn party guests cream and cake, fruits and melons and reportedly doted on ice cream and soda and bonbons, such sweet treats contrasted with the more “earthy” fare of mountaineers, who ate what they raised from the ground, including corn, beans, and potatoes. 

In 1889, Kate Bitting married Will Reynolds, brother and tobacco company partner of R. J. Reynolds. (After R. J.’s death, Will would become chairman of the company, and Reynolds Auditorium in Winston-Salem would be named for Will.) Together, Kate and Will built up their 1,100-acre estate, “Tanglewood Farms,” with its 28-room manor house – quite a contrast to the modest Appalachian home inhabited by Kate’s cousin America. And while America did not raise many flowers – mountain folk often considering them to be “foolishness,” perhaps an extravagance or frivolity in light of a hardscrabble life’s more pressing needs and demands – Kate’s estate was well appointed with 800 rose bushes, an arboretum, and a “fragrance garden.” While Kate employed help, including a gardener, self-sufficient America gathered roots, herbs, galax, and other plants to sell.

America and her husband, Eli, were good, old fashioned, hardworking folks, but unlike Kate and Will, who owned automobiles and raised and raced Standardbred harness horses, they didn’t have a horse, let alone a vehicle, so they walked everywhere.  They were hearty souls and did not hesitate to strike out and trek for miles over rough mountain paths. They ate their supper at 4:00 PM every day and went to bed about sundown, only to be up before daylight, and America would already have her house clean and breakfast ready so she could help work in the fields. 

Cousin Kate may also have had some of the duties of a housewife or homemaker, but she was more intently focused on helping lead civic affairs, and she and Will became philanthropists, particularly in the field of healthcare. In 1902, Will gave $115,000 toward the construction of a new hospital and when it opened two years later, it was named the Kate Bitting Reynolds Memorial Hospital. Three years after its opening, he gave another $75,000 to build a 90-bed addition. Affectionately known as the “Katie B.,” it served the black community and operated until 1970, when its patients were moved to the new Reynolds Memorial Hospital. Following Kate’s death in 1946, provisions in her will established the $5 million, perpetual Kate B. Reynolds Charitable Trust, with one-fourth of the income from the Trust to be used for the poor and needy in Winston-Salem and Forsyth County, and three-fourths of the income to be used for charity patients in North Carolina hospitals. (Many years later, when the Trust sold its RJR Nabisco holdings, the value of its assets more than doubled to $262 million, increasing its grantmaking resources. The Trust’s current assets are in excess of $600 million.) Among the many other provisions in Kate’s will was her bequeathing $10,000 each to Crossnore School, Lees McRae Institute, Plum Tree School, and Banner Elk School, all in northwestern North Carolina, not far from America’s mountain home.

Kate’s grave marker in the well-manicured Salem Cemetery is an elegant, simply engraved, full body-size slab at ground level with a semi-circular arch at one end, held up by six columns. America preceded her cousin in death by ten years, and her grave marker in a family cemetery on a peaceful mountainside, likewise consisted of an engraved slab, albeit much smaller by comparison and without accoutrements. 

In their own ways, these two strong women of shared blood but disparate lifestyles – Kate Bitting Reynolds and her cousin America Banner Presnell – made important contributions to the world. Kate’s money made a difference to her beneficiaries, and her generous donation of her estate as a public park has been enjoyed by many. While childless Kate raised awareness and invested in causes, seven-time mother America raised and invested in her children and grandchildren, leaving hundreds of descendants, who continue to positively impact their communities and the world. 

City and country, bonbons and corn pone, velvet and flax, fortune and family…each left its mark for generations to come. I’m happy to be related to Kate Bitting and even happier to be a great, great-grandson of America Banner; in fact, I wouldn’t be here without her. I think you might say that makes me proud to be an “America-n.” Long may her legacy wave!

(L: America Banner Presnell; R: Kate Bitting Reynolds)