One last blog post for 2014. This one is for my niece, Sonya, because she wanted to know.
Despite my absorption with researching ancestors—“the dead ones,” as my daughter once said—I cherish good times with the live ones. Sunday, December 21, 2014, a lovely day of sunshine and blue skies in Smyth County, Virginia, was a day of connecting with living family members.
Despite my absorption with researching ancestors—“the dead ones,” as my daughter once said—I cherish good times with the live ones. Sunday, December 21, 2014, a lovely day of sunshine and blue skies in Smyth County, Virginia, was a day of connecting with living family members.
In the morning, Myron and I drove to Rich Valley
Presbyterian Church, one of my favorite places in Smyth County. Established in 1836, this red brick and white stucco
church’s significance to my father’s side of the family goes back about 120
years. Usually when I go there, I wander through the cemetery, snap
pictures of tombstones, and peer inside the sanctuary at its original dark oak
woodwork and pews angled toward the pulpit front and center.
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| Beautiful doors at RVPC. |
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| Inside the sanctuary at RVPC. |
But this day was the
first time I had attended a worship service there.
Being the Sunday before Christmas, we sang old favorite carols—“I
Heard the Bells on Christmas Day,” the best. Two little girls sang a duet, lost
their place and giggled, gathered their composure and sang on. A young mom told the children a story about Mary. The pastor preached that being
favored (or chosen), as Mary was, results not because we are worthy, but we are
worthy because we are favored, the same theme as my morning Advent reading.
After church, we stayed for a pitch-in dinner. The best part
was meeting Pratt descendants: Greg Pratt and his daughter, Lauren Grace, named
for Grayson Pratt; Champ Clark and his mother, a Pratt: Hal and Lynn Campbell
and their sons, Will and Patrick. Hal is a mover and shaker at that church, not
to mention Southern States cooperative in Marion, where my nephew-in-law, Andy,
is the manager. The Pratt descendants compared notes on which Pratt we called 3rd
great-grandfather or grandmother.
In the afternoon, we visited with my aunt Noby, who is
recovering from a fall, and her son Garry. My brother from Connecticut and my
sister and her husband from Missouri joined us. We have all commenced upon the area for the wedding of my brother’s granddaughter.
In the evening, the wedding of my grandniece, Brandi McCall
and her groom, Allen Fry, took place at Emory & Henry College Chapel. Warm
hugs for a frazzled but lovely mother of the bride, my niece Teri, and her ever
calm and wryly smiling husband, Andy. I spotted sister of the bride, Cassie, at
the end of a hallway sitting on the floor in her maid-of-honor dress, her
high-heeled feet stretched out in front of her—typically Cassie. “These heels
hurt my feet; I had to sit,” she said. Entering the sanctuary, we took seats
with another niece and her family and my brother’s wife.
The groom stood tall in his Navy uniform, the bride smiled
on the arm of her father, who handed her over to the groom. There were
candle-lighting and vows; they kissed and strolled down the aisle, husband and
wife. The bride came back for her paternal grandmother and pushed her in her wheelchair out of the sanctuary. It was all over in a hummingbird sighting! All
that preparation and anxiety became history. The reception was a brief and
sweet family reunion.
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| Wedding of Brandi and Allen. |
Monday, December 22, 2014
I’m back on the trail of the “dead ones.” By
mid-morning, the sun broke though the December sky laced with angel
hair clouds. My husband and I drove through the valley on highway 42 snaking alongside the
North Fork Holston, passing familiar cites: Tate Moore’s store (boarded up and
empty), my parents’ first home after they married in 1940 (still occupied), the
location of my dad’s service station, all in Broadford; Ralph Spencer’s store
at Chatham Hill, now closed. Our destination: Ceres, Bethany Rd., and the Bethany
United Methodist Church and cemetery. We found it! No problems!
Standing on the grounds of the church my
great-great-grandfather, Jacob Waggoner, helped found in 1867,[1] I felt
awestruck. It’s a plain building, erected in 1880, lacking the beauty and
grace of Rich Valley Presbyterian, but nonetheless historically significant.
The original church, Doak’s Chapel, built by Jacob Waggoner, Elias Repass, and
Felix Buck, trustees, was replaced by this building. Stark white, two front
doors, an evergreen tree next to one corner, an outhouse at the back, his
and hers.
Pulling my coat tightly around me against a cold, brisk
wind, I ambled among tombstones in the cemetery. I was hoping to find the grave
of Anna F. Harman Waggoner, but it was not to be. “Anna, are you here?” I
whispered. Tears filled my eyes. (Why? I wonder.) Anna died so young, in 1871
at age 37 after giving birth to her ninth child. The earliest death date I
could find on a tombstone was 1880. If she is there, her marker is unreadable
or her grave is unmarked. I felt sure she was there, but where?
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| This seems to be the oldest section of the cemetery. Several unreadable tombstones dot this corner. |
Later, in Marion inside the courthouse, I found a deed that helped answer a question, but also raised another one. Such was my on site research
day!
[1] Bland
County, Virginia, Deed Book 1: 296-97, Robert and Margaret Doak to Elias
Repass, Felix Buck, and Jacob Waggoner, Trustees, 4 November 1867; County
Clerk’s Office, Bland. Though the deed shows Jacob Waggoner among the original
trustees of Doak’s Chapel, the history published by the Bethany UMC omits his
name: “Bethany United Methodist Church, Ceres, Virginia, 1880-1980,” 100th
Anniversary celebration pamphlet published by the church; digital copy sent to
the author by the Bland County Historical Society, 2 July 2014.
