As I stood in line at an event last evening, I met an older man who steadied himself with a cane. I soon learned that he is a military enthusiast, and he began talking extensively about Civil War-era Virginia, a topic that I also find fascinating. His accent sounded distinctly northern, and he shared that he had grown up in Philadelphia, having moved there from the South, where his mother was from, and where his great-grandfathers had fought for the Confederacy.
In fact, as our conversation...
Today, I happened upon Mr. Dan Miller. He was manning a booth at an event in southwest Virginia, sitting among various antique pieces, one of which was a large, wooden bowl, purported to be Indian and more than two-hundred years old. Whether that is genuinely accurate, I cannot say, but there was no doubt about Mr. Dan’s genuineness.
At age 85, the first thing he told me about himself is that he takes no prescription medications and tries to avoid doctors whenever possible. He believes they...
In 2007, a work-related conference took me to Asheville, North Carolina, and during a free evening, I ventured a little further west to Maggie Valley, to a gathering that my cousin Dean had invited me to.
As I mingled among the folks there, I looked across the way and saw someone I recognized – Harold Beckenholdt. Mr. Beckenholdt, a native Oklahoman, was nearly eighty. He was standing alone, so I went over to converse with him and to ask him about some work he had done in my home county some...
In some ways, it was a run of the mill event like hundreds before it in any number of communities – family and friends gathering to witness the union of a bride and a groom and to wish them well in their new life together.
This one was different, though. The bride, a local gal, had somehow managed to snag an Irishman for her husband, and that almost never happened in these parts. Almost everyone from here married another someone from here, and usually someone they knew from church or school....
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...
Almost twenty-four years ago, I was hanging out in a hotel lounge in the company of a couple of college-age acquaintances. There were a few other patrons around us. A white tent stood on the hotel lawn – not unlike one that might have been erected for a wedding reception – and I observed a man exit it. Dressed in a red, untucked, casual shirt, he wore a straw hat and dark sunglasses. I probably would not have paid him any further attention but for some news that had been circulating in the...
A few days ago, a local restaurant, Red Onion, closed its doors. I ate there periodically through the decades, but recent mention of the establishment triggered an almost forty-year-old memory.
For the first five months of 1986, fresh out of college, I was employed as a front desk clerk at the newly opened Sheraton Hotel in Boone, North Carolina. It was the largest and nicest hotel in town at that time.
One evening, as I stood engaged in a phone conversation, a man walked up to the desk donning...
I was blessed to know all four of my grandparents, and at the time of my birth, I had five living great-grandparents – all four great-grandmothers and one great-grandfather. Four of these were dead by the time I was nine, so my memories of them range from non-existent to quite limited. But I was twenty-eight when the remaining one – my Great-Grandmother Mamie Yates – died, so I had more of an opportunity to know, appreciate, and love her. Today marks the 125th anniversary of her birth on May...
“Do you believe in God?”
That was the question a stranger once posed to me on a shuttle bus. It’s not a question I’m asked very often, and it took me by surprise, although it really shouldn’t have, considering what had transpired within the past hour.
In anticipation of an early morning flight, I had spent the previous night in a hotel near the airport. The next morning, as I prepared to depart, I uttered a prayer to God, asking Him to use me some way that day to make a difference to someone....
I don’t claim to be the first or only person who ever formed an interest in genealogy as a child; there are likely thousands of us. But I would venture to say it’s not the norm. I was 11 when it took hold of me, and I know it coincided with our nation’s bicentennial in 1976. Attention on America’s founding was everywhere, and it set me to thinking, not just about our country’s history, but also about my family’s history.
The following year, a miniseries documenting writer Alex Haley’s ancestry...
My great-grandmother’s brother, Dick Horton, was more mechanical than agricultural and, much to his father’s and brothers’ chagrin, finagled himself out of farm work whenever he could. From the age of eleven in 1888, he began learning watch repair from his uncle, Joe Councill, a traveling tinker.
In the fall of 1900, Dick took this interest to another level, leaving his Vilas home in the Blue Ridge Mountains to attend the Philadelphia College of Horology and Optometry. He graduated a year...
Around 1919, my seven-year-old future grandfather, Iris Harmon, began attending school. Suffice it to say, his first day was not stellar.
Someone threw a rock.
It struck him in the head.
He “cut a terrible shine.”
Hurt yet undeterred, he resumed his education despite this literally rocky start.
Each day, he and his siblings walked three miles to the schoolhouse and three miles home. Whether uphill both ways, barefoot in the snow, I know not, but Iris dreaded the trek.
“A little fellar,” he...
My great-granddaddy, Council Harmon, more commonly referred to as “Counce,” was dark-haired and blue-eyed and always wore a thick brush of a moustache. Standing about five feet six inches and weighing probably no more than 135 pounds in his prime, he sometimes had a hard time finding clothes to fit him. Even after reaching manhood, he continued wearing boy-sized shoes out of necessity.
Though small of stature, he was a manual laborer and a hard worker like most men of his region, day, and...
There are particular moments in life when we human beings find ourselves reluctantly surrendering our modesty. More often than not, these seem to involve medical examinations and requisite degrees of undress. For me, one such examination involved a procedure known as a flexible sigmoidoscopy.
Although proclaimed to be less invasive than a full-blown colonoscopy, try telling that to the parts about to be invaded. It’s a hard sell, kind of like trying to convince ancient Europeans that the...
Although we’re officially a week shy of “springdom,” today was a mid-60s, spring-like day. To add to the splendor of it, I not only had the day off of work, but I got to visit the stomping grounds of some of my ancestors – specifically Martin country in the beautiful and pastoral Green Valley and Brushy Fork section of Ashe County, North Carolina, bordering Tennessee.
I was a teenager the first time I ventured into that territory and, suffice it to say, that’s been quite a few moons ago. It...
In the fall of 1918, an explosion in the the North Fork portion of the Mabel community in western Watauga County, North Carolina resounded for miles. Eighteen-year-old Charles Thomas, who lived nearby, was the first to arrive on the scene, and he made a horrific discovery. His twenty-three-year-old sister, Lillie, had been torn to pieces by dynamite. But what exactly had happened and why?
While Lillie was rumored by some to have been the victim of her twenty-four-year-old second cousin, Grady...
More than a decade before the War Between the States, a smaller scale war was waged between brothers Jesse and James Ward that would stretch on for more than five years and would eventually be ruled upon by the North Carolina Supreme Court.
The brothers were sons of Benjamin Ward, a Virginia native and Revolutionary War veteran, who had made his home in western North Carolina by 1777. Benjamin was among the first settlers on lower Watauga River in Ashe (present-day Watauga) County. He died in...
Through the years, I have paused many times at the grave of Adeline Henson Combs, the youngest sister of my great, great, great-grandfather. Until I conducted further research this week and discovered some revelatory documents concerning her, my knowledge of Aunt Adeline’s life was minimal. Her parents, Charles and Elizabeth Henson, and her four older siblings – John, Sallie, James, and Jordan – had moved from Iredell County, North Carolina to present-day Watauga County around the time of her...
I recently read this:
“We die twice: once when our breath leaves us, and again when the last person who truly knew us sets down the last object that remembers our existence…. Every object we own is a poem waiting to be understood. That faded photograph, the chipped teacup from your grandmother’s kitchen, the worn leather journal – each carries the fingerprints of moments lived, breaths taken, tears shed…. Listen to these objects. They tell stories of love, of loss, of becoming. Each item you...
This week I celebrate my 28th year of employment with the international Christian relief organization Samaritan’s Purse. Over the course of these almost three decades, I have had many interesting experiences, most stemming from traveling the globe, and I am sometimes asked what my most memorable trips have been. There are a few that stand out, but I would have to say my brief stint in Iraq is at the top of the list. Almost eight years ago, in January 2017, I traveled there in support of the...