The 1974 Winter Edition of the Foxfire Magazine contains a compilation of newspaper articles written by Harvey Miller. At the time of the magazine’s publication Miller’s weekly column had been around for sixty years and was still being published in the Tri-County News located in Spruce Pine, North Carolina.
Here are a few of the February excerpts from the magazine.
Be sure to jump over to the Foxfire website and poke around. They are still publishing the magazine and those wonderful Foxfire Books too.
1960
Brr-Brr. The weather here all last week was certainly a whizzer in the way of coldness. It snowed a little bit about three or four times every day, but it never attained to be over a depth of three inches. Really the breezy gusts of wind were stinging cold. Thursday night there was a lot of ice frozen in the creeks. That was the morning there was registered from 5 to 10 above zero all over this area.
As I write this snow is all gone on the sunny side of the mountains but at the other colder parts, it still clings with no apparent change from day to day, favoring very much toward a saying started in the olden days that reads like this — “the snow sticks on the mountainside awaiting for more to follow likewise but in larger quantity than heretofore.”
The local residents here report that since the colder weather has been on the wing, their winter’s wood supply and coal bins have really gone down to a low ebb. Since the first of the year started, we have had some unseasonably warm days but it didn’t linger around very long. We noticed the cattle lying around in the fields basking in the warm sunshine. The older people called those warm days “weather breeders.”
That’s why the cold weather seemed so pinching coming right on the heels of the warm spell.
2/4/60
1957
G.D. Barnett, local merchant, went Tuesday to Johnson City where he purchased several hundred cement blocks at a block factory.
He is making preparations so he can start building in the early spring another room to his store house building which he will use for a feed room.
Mr. and Mrs. Jack Honeycutt announce the birth of a son who was named Duggler.
2/14/57
1956
Funeral services for Mrs. Mary Jane Hughes, age 90 years, 3 months, and 4 days old, who died Saturday night, January 28, at her Pigeon Roost home after a long illness, were held at 1 p.m. Monday January 30 at the Freewill Baptist Church of which she was a member. The pastor, Rev. Gilbert Adkins, assisted by Rev. Calvin Barnett officiated. Burial was in the Barnett cemetery on the farm now owned by Grove Byrd.
Mrs. Hughes was the daughter of the late Mr. and Mrs. Charlie Byrd, the first settlers here in the area that goes by the name of Byrd Creek. She was the widow of John Hughes, who died 23 years ago.
Among survivors are two brothers, U.L. Byrd of Pigeon Roost and Don Byrd of Kennett Square, Pa., 94 grandchildren, 150 great-grandchildren, and 25 great-great-grandchildren.
By her request, she was buried in a homemade coffin built by local carpenters.
2/9/56
Thanks to Mr. Miller I have a new name for the warm spell of weather we’ve had: weather breeder. Now I’ll have to see if some bitter cold follows. I’d still love a big snow, but my chances are getting pretty slim with each passing day.
As you might imagine baby names have been the subject of many discussions around our house, but I don’t recall anyone mentioning the name Duggler.
Don’t you wish you could have know Mrs. Hughes? I sure do. I love that she wanted a homemade coffin, that her family history was connected to Pigeon Roost, and that she had so many descendents while still living.
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Sadie, sorry you’re going thru such a rough time. I hope it’s ok if I pray for the Lord to wrap His loving arms around you. Grammy from Texas
Miss Tipper loving your articles in the BP&TA. If I may suggest a name to Katie for baby boy , Matthew (Pap’s first or middle name)Presley. What a tribute to her dad and Pap. The baby’s Grandfather and Great Grandfather. I’m so excited to see both the boys. My first child was boy. Blessings to you all in the coming weeks and always.
I should have said three straight Wednesdays during March. On the first Wednesday, schools were not dismissed early and many of the buses slid into ditches on the county back roads when taking the students home in the afternoon.
The article’s author neglected to mention Mrs. Hughes’s 13 children. How else would one achieve the impressive total of 94 grandchildren? That’s an average of just over 7 grandchildren per child. Imagine that family reunion!
What I noticed other than what you mentioned was that the local merchant went to the factory in Johnson City to get cement blocks. I wonder if they weren’t available locally or he got a better price there. Think about what kind of truck he hauled them in and how long that took in those days. I love these articles. Please keep them coming.
Johnson City was probably the closest town that had a factory which made cement blocks. Mitchell County, North Carolina, were Pigeon Roost is, borders Carter County, Tennessee where Johnson City is partially located.
By 1957, there were trucks that could have carried several hundred cement blocks, you need to realize cement blocks come in different sizes, such as 4, 6, or 8 inch width but all the same length-16 inches, maybe 18. I would guess these were 8 inch and will say the older blocks are heavier than today’s cement blocks. I have have hauled 3 cords of pine pulpwood or sweet gum many times to the pulpwood yard on a 1955 Chevrolet truck. It would moan and groan on the steep hills.
Miss Sadie speaks as if ’57 was a more primitive time than it was. Trucks were very robust by ’57. In fact, trucks were very robust during the ’40s else we would not have been as successful during WWII. All that war materiel that was produced in US factories had to be delivered to the war fronts in Europe and the Pacific.
On a side note, my brother Frank, now deceased, worked for General Shale, makers of bricks and blocks, in Johnson City, TN, in 1957. I wonder if his plant made those blocks. He worked for years in a brick plant in Chattanooga afterwards then ran a block plant in McMinnville. TN (and a sand plant) before returning to Johnson City where he retired from General Shale after about 35-40 years. The only other job he had during that period was when he was called to active duty in the Air Force where he served as a radar site commander in Germany.
We have a local monthly news magazine that has in each issue
reports from the court actions and news articles from decades and decades long gone. Always a fascination for me.
I always enjoy reading about what was going on in Pigeon Roost. Never heard folks use the term” weather breeder” for warm spells in the winter but I like it. At this point here, I don’t think we will be getting any snow this winter but will surely have some more cold days.
I know there is excitement at your house now Tipper with lots of baby names being brought up, but I have never heard the name Duggler for a first name. Maybe it was already in their family down the lines.
When I was reading Mrs. Hughes’s obituary, I didn’t see any children listed but oh my goodness all the grandchildren, great- grandchildren and great- great grandchildren. What a blessing! It was also special that she wanted a homemade coffin. It would have been nice to have met her.
Weather breeder is a term not reserved solely to warm spells in Winter but to any unusual patterns. I’ve heard the term all my life, and I didn’t grow up in the mountains (but my Pa was born there in 1894). We have weather breeders here in Texas that usually mean tornadoes will be spawned. Warm temperatures for the season mixed with atmospheric winds and moisture are sure signs that tornadoes will happen.
Mrs. Hughes would have been an interesting lady to talk to. When I read an older person’s obit, my first thought is a history of information gone.
My local library has all the foxfire books and magazines for good reading in which I take advantage of!
I’m sure everyone knows evangelist Billy Graham was also buried in a pine wood coffin.
Everyone enjoy this beautiful day! Blessings to all.
Rev. Graham’s pine plywood coffin was built by prisoners in Louisiana.
Papaw-yes I know!
Oh, I love reading and hearing about the old times! I would sit and listen when I was growing up, just fascinated by the stories. And I still love it now. Hoping everyone a good day and good health. Love and prayers to Granny and Little Mamas too.
I live in Mitchell County not far from Pigeon Roost. So many of these names like Hughes, Adkins and Barnett are familiar to us. I really enjoy reading these older posts of people who must have been related to them. Thank you so much Tipper for posting them.
I too am wishing for a big snow.
Thanks to you for previously telling us about the Foxfire magazine edition with Mr. Miller’s articles. I was able to obtain a copy. It is one of the most enjoyable reads I have.
Good morning Tipper and all. I love reading the old articles from foxfire magazine. We are having a sunny, cold day here in the West Virginia mountains, with a winter storm warning in effect this evening. We are predicted to get 5-8 inches of the white stuff! I have been wishing we would get one more big snow and it looks like my wish is about to come true. Now I wish I could send some of it to Western North Carolina for you.
With all of those grandchildren, I am wondering how many children Mr. and Mrs. Hughes had. I imagine it was more like my parents families. My paternal grandparents had 12 children and 43 grandchildren. My maternal grandparents had 10 children and 31 grandchildren. I have lots of first cousins! 94 grandchildren was an amazing number…even from the days when folks generally had more children.
I can’t wait to learn the names your girls pick out for your grandsons. I hope everyone has a super rest of your day. Happy Friday!
“Weather breeders,” I like it!
Reading this I was think of you, Matt, and Katie living on the north side of your mountain, the colder side. Where I live, the big lakes keep us warmer than the folks who live inland. It’s amazing how it all works. Keeps the home fires burning. Love to you all and to Granny and Paul.
This post today makes me realize that along about 1950-60 or so most all Americans lost personal contact with “first settlers”. Until then for many there would still have been family stories (as shown in Mrs. Hughes family story of them) about grandparents or great-grandparents that kept the connection green. Of course the same idea extends to anything that has come and gone out of living memory. As it is going, we can feel a loss but once it is gone we cannot know anymore what the loss was except by the records they left. For me, I remember pre-interstate, pre- space travel and pre-internet. Our grandson cannot imagine that world.
Ron, my ‘first settler’ ancestor came to the Colonies in 1630. We lost contact many generations back. 🙂
I grew up during and after WWII. Raleigh had a lot of unpaved streets. There were many unpaved, dirt roads throughout Wake County and the state, at least until W. Kerr Scott became governor. He is credited with paving thousands of miles of rural roads. A brother and brother-in-law and I traveled from Raleigh to Los Angeles and back in June ’55 before there were many – if any – interstate highways. We picked up 2 brothers, twins, who were discharged from the Army at Fort Huachuca, AZ, before going to the West Coast. We were in a new ’55 Ford station wagon without AC. Ike was still in his first term of office. There were very few 4-lane roads on that trip and almost no bypasses around cities and towns. I can remember that it took us hours to get through Dallas and Fort Worth on surface streets with traffic lights aplenty. Television was still new to most folks. We didn’t get a set until WRAL started a TV station when I was a teenager, but I don’t remember the year. We got our news, sportscasts, and entertainment from the radio.
I saw my first computer in 1965. It had 4k – yes kilobytes – of memory and consisted of 3 separate ‘boxes’ for the console, memory and the card reader/punch. In addition, there was a huge printer and 4 separate boxes for tape drives. Because it was in a bank, it also had a machine to read the MICR characters at the bottom line on checks. We processed millions of paper checks 5 nights a week and hundreds of thousands of punched cards. Networking computers wasn’t done until quite a few years later and the Internet was only a dream. Those devices took up a very large room that had to have multiple auxiliary chillers to offset the heat they put out. The idea of a portable computer the size of a smartphone was still inconceivable. I bought my first IBM personal computer in 1981.
I remember Alan Shepherd’s downrange trip (in ’59 or ’60, IIRC) and John Glenn being the first to orbit Earth in a capsule. That was heady stuff. Even more thrilling was the moon landing in July ’69.
I’ve lived through some interesting times.
Good morning everyone. 94 grandchildren, 150 great grandchildren, a homemade coffin. In my mind, this must have been a beautiful funeral. The kind that we don’t see anymore. Tipper, we got only one day of snow. Which isn’t much for NE Arkansas. There were a few flakes mixed in with the rain the other day. At first I was OK with it, but now I would like one more snow before the heat. Don’t give up hoping. Spring has crazy weather. Wishing everyone good health.
I bet Katie’s going to name her baby “Little Joey” 🙂
Tipper, I wish we would get at least one big snow too, about 8 to 12 inches. Something about being in the woods like the picture above feels so peaceful and quiet, you can just feel God’s presence.
In 56 and 57, I would have been 2 and 3 years old and living in Greenville County, SC. I started grammar school in 1960. I can remember getting snows on up into March during the 60’s. I think it was during the winter of 1970, it snowed on the first 3 Wednesdays in March. I now think back about us killing a 500 lb hog each year in November during the 50 and 60’s and saving or preserving the hams, shoulders, side meat/fatback and some other cuts of meat salted down in a large wooden box in an outside building called the smokehouse. It stayed cold enough during the winters for the meat to keep and not spoil. Now there will be short periods of cold days and nights before warm days. After the cold week in January we have been having sunny days of 60-70 degree daytime temps. Right now it feels like early spring, but my Daddy would always say there will be a cold spell right before Easter, I think Easter is March 31st this year. A lot of times he would be right. By the way, I still live less than 100 yards away from the home I wrote about in my first sentence.
Randy, I’m a deal older than you and grew up in Raleigh. In 1960, we had snows on each of the first 3 Wednesdays in March . . . more than a foot each snowfall. I was a senior in high school. We were out of school most of March. They tried to schedule make up days in June, but there was such a hue and cry from students and parents alike that they only added a few days. They got seniors to come to school by threatening to withhold diplomas.
We really enjoyed sledding during that time. All the best sledding hills in town created places for fires at top and bottom, usually in 55-gal drums. That was the first time I ever slid down a hill on a Coca-Cola sign turned upside down. There were small ones, about 2′ in diameter for individual sledding (and friendly couples), and larger ones about 4′ in diameter that could accommodate a half dozen or more. Once started downhill, they could not be steered nor stopped and would spin. I went into the branch at the bottom of one hill several times along with all those with me. There was about a 4′ drop that would jar your teeth. If you didn’t have anyone pinning you in, you could bail out before the branch bank, but you went over if anyone was holding you down.
Robert, I was in high school during the time of the March snows I mention. I lived out in the country (nearest town of any size was 13 miles). There would be no traffic on the roads and anytime it snowed during the 60’s my neighbors children had an old car hood they would use for a sled and slide down a big hill on the road and then all of them would work together to pull it back up the hill.
I too like the term “weather breeder.” Tipper, I’d love hearing some baby names y’all like! It doesn’t take a lot to entertain me anymore. Lol Please send up some prayers for me. It’s been rough on me without going into detail. I feel I’m being pulled in to most days like seams pulling when fat overflows the seat of one’s pants and there’s ripping and tearing happening… God bless you all and especially Granny and the mothers in waiting.
The Trappist Monks from Iowa construct simple, hand-crafted coffins. All Trappists, including nuns, must be involved in some type of hands-on endeavor, from wood-working to jams (the order in Massachusetts produce unique and wonderful jams!), to caramels and bakery goods). I will take a simple coffin, my grandmother’s quilt inside along with the ashes of my cat.
Weather breeder is a new one for me also. We’ve been having one this week here in the Plateau. I’ll take it though! No doubt nasty weather will be back before Spring. You can never trust the month of March in Tennessee. The wonderful Foxfire books and magazines do make some good reading.
Wish I could go back in time for a little while. I know there were problems then too. It wasn’t perfect. But the world seems to be on fire right now. We could all use a break. I a nice walk in the hills and some peace.
I love seeing articles of written perspectives of times long past.