A chinquapin
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 till being published in the Tri-County News located in Spruce Pine, North Carolina.
Here’s a few articles from the month of September.
1971
The writer is getting Willard Whitson of Tipton Hill section to repair an old antique rocking chair that was bought about 65 years ago. The chair was purchased from Ex-sheriff Joe Tipton.
Sherril Edwards, 21, of Bailey Settlement still remains in critical condition in Memorial Hospital in Johnson City with head injuries after being struck by a train near Poplar at Obediah Rock, just a rail and a half away up the river from where Jack Bennett was killed about two years ago when he was run over by a freight train.
Edwards was injured around 2:30 a.m. Wednesday, Sept. 1. Bob Holbrook of Clinchfield Railroad Co. said Edwards was apparently lying with his head on the tracks when the train came by.
9/16/71
1965
A new way to start which leads to open robbery has been operating in the lower end of Mitchell County section, when two men get a contract to do a job, and when completed they take all their paymaster’s money and flee.
So the scheme is worked like this or it was the way it was pulled on John K. Miller, 81, of Pigeon Roost on Monday p.m. August 23. The two men came to Miller’s home driving a light blue 1959 Ford car and it either had one of the following license tags: West Virginia, Pennsylvania or Delware.
They claimed to be traveling solely as roof painters and took the job to paint his two-room dwelling house roof for one hundred and twenty dollars. When he went to pay them, one of the men grabbed his pocket book and snatched all the money out of it and then the men ran to their car and got away taking over $900.00 in cash.
One of the men looked to be about 50 years old and passed to be a preacher and the other man was about 25 years old. The two men offered up prayers before they done their work of painting the roof for Mr. and Mrs. Miller, who are both very aged and feeble.
The men carried the paint cans in the back seat of their car and sprayed on the roof paint with a garden hose.
9/2/65
1962
The chinquapins are beginning to get ripe in this area. What few trees that is growing here is loaded down with little nuts.
The golden rods are all now in bloom and the white frost weed is beginning to bloom, which is both a good sign that the warm summer days is now coming to a close.
A hard top road it going to be built up Brummetts Creek. Work on the new road was started last week.
9/20/62
It’s always nice to peek back into by gone days in Pigeon Roost.
Pap always called his billfold his pocket book, although I doubt he ever had $900 in it at any time in his life. I’d like to have seen the two rascals painting the roof with a garden hose and I’d like to have caught them and got Mr. Miller’s money back.
I don’t hear hardly anyone talk about chinquapins today, but when I was girl someone was always telling me I had chinkypin eyes. Sonny Reighard told me he had some plants I could have I need to try to get up with him and get one and see if it will grow in Wilson holler.
Jump over to the Foxfire website and poke around. They are still publishing the magazine and those wonderful Foxfire Books too.
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If you try to grow chinquapins get two as they produce better.
By the way, how far is a rail and a half?
Maybe Sherrill Edwards was playing some stupid game like boys that age do. I found an article in the Johnson City Press that said he was admitted on Sep 1, 1971 and discharged on Sep 15th. Yes, I know a 21 year old is legally an adult but the law don’t say you have to act like an adult. Being as he was 21 years old in 1971 he would have been born around 1950, the year I was born. I didn’t act like an adult at that age is how I know. I’ll bet somebody dared him to see how long he could lay there. Or maybe he had some “friends” who tied him up and laid him there. I hope he survived his 20s and is still alive and well today. I think I’ll unleash my sleuthing skills and go find him.
I still call it a pocketbook because it folds like a book and fits in your pocket. I also call a lady’s purse a pocketbook. They used to fold too! My daughter carries a big old satchel. She could probably live three days out of it.
My father-in-law always called his billfold his pocketbook and he never had that much money to carry either. I have zero tolerance for scammers and it’s worse now than ever. It’s so sad for anyone but especially when they target the elderly. Never heard of painting a roof using a garden hose and pretending to be a preacher and praying before they did the job. What nerve! I did enjoy hearing from Pigeon Roost today though. Always something going on there, that’s for sure!
My dad always called his bi-fold wallet his pocketbook too. I do not think I have ever heard of chinquapins even though there is something familiar about this word. And what a terribly sad story of the 21 yo in the hospital and the other person on the railroad. How in the world was the 21 yo still alive according to the news story. Smaller communities are nice where everyone knows each other, keeps up with each other, and lend helping hands to each other. I just saw an older lady yesterday who I grew up with in a small town which has over the years gotten much bigger. We also went to church with her and her husband and son. She now lives in the same large city as me, she moved here to live with her son and his family. She was talking about how people do not stay in touch like they used to and encouraged me to come visit her. That is something my husband and I need to be doing. My dad always had people visiting with him or he would go with them to visit others. We just don’t do that anymore. Porch sitting and visiting should make a comeback!
Donna, read that again, I thought it was sheriff too, but it is Sherril. I don’t understand why anyone would lay on railroad tracks, but it happens fairly often around Greenville or Spartanburg SC. Personally I think they are either drunk or on drugs.
Hahahaha!! Thank you for correcting me, Randy!! I’ve been thinking about that “young sherif” all day and wondering how he ever made it on the force if he was prone to laying down on the train tracks! And I agree about what you said about people being drunk or on drugs – it is so very sad how some are so willing to literally waste their lives, most of the time just to belong to a group. I hope you are having a good day!
Donna. : )
I wonder if that was Johnson City Tennessee at the hospital ? If it was not far from Greeneville. I enjoyed all the short stories. Reminds me of 2 fellers came and ask my dad if they could paint our tin roof. Dad said how much is this gonna cost me and they charged $100 . I thought that was alot but daddy paid them. They sure didn’t try and grab dad’s bill fold . If they had , they wouldn’t made it out of the holler.
Roofing scams are an old crime. Fraudsters get the money and look like they’re doing the job but are not.
I’d like to get ahold of those two crooks for more reasons than one. After I got done addressing reason number one, if they were able to answer, I’d ask for their instructions on how to paint a roof with a water hose. Dad called his wallet a pocket book and mom called her purse/handbag the same thing.
God Bless Granny!
Enjoyed the read today. Sad to say scams are going on every day especially by phone. My church friend called Comcast about lowering her monthly rate, ended up being out $900. Make sure you’re calling a legit number!
I’ve never seen a chinquapin nut or tree, but I’ve heard the saying “you’re my little chinquapin” and also the movie, Steel Magnolias, was filmed in Chinquapin Parrish in Louisiana!
Get out and enjoy this beautiful day! Blessings sent.
Steel Magnolias was filmed in Natchitoches Parish. No Chinquapin Parish in Louisiana.
Both my parents said pocketbook.
Sally-Brenda meant that was the name of the parish in the movie 🙂 Love that your parents used the term pocketbook too!
As many times as I have seen the movie, I did not remember that. Guess I knew the area so well I just skipped it. I will have to pay attention when I watch it again.
Sometimes I call my handbag a pocketbook. I’ll tell my husband, “Let me grab my pocketbook and I’ll be ready to go.”
I haven’t heard the words “dwelling house” in ages. My grandmother always referred to someone’s houses in the plural. I wonder if all buildings were called houses and the residence was the dwelling house.
Interesting stories by Harvey Miller. It seems like scammers haven’t changed very much since then. Sad. I hope the scammers were caught and paid for their crime against all those they stoled from. More important, I hope they actually found true faith in God, asked forgiveness of their evil ways, repaid what they stoled and turned their life around to do good. One can only hope!
Those out of state roof painters are notoriously “crooked”. They come around here in northwest Alabama about once a year. They usually are from Florida of South Carolina. In days past they claimed they were “gypsies”. Years ago we had five poultry houses that were 40′ X 300′ (two were not hardly 300′). Two of the houses were built in 1957 and the other three in 1974. The tops were rusty and these travelin’ shysters came by and offered to paint the rusty tin roofs. My daddy said he’d heard good and bad about these painters, but decided to give them a try. He said if a little paint stays on, it will be worth it. I was young and don’t remember how much stayed on, but I do remember seeing the ground “silver” underneath the eves where the rain had washed off much of the paint. Nowadays, there is a young guy that fits the description of the con-men from the past, but this young man does good work and the paint stays on or at least it did for me. The first time he came wanting to paint our barn roof, I was wary. He gave me some references and one was my uncle (who I would never want to paint for much less have any dealings with as he is hard to please). Long story short, I let him paint the barn for the ridiculously low price of $400 (the young man claimed he had just enough paint in his tank to paint the roof and rather than have it “get hard”, he offered the paint at a discounted price. That was about five years ago and it has stayed on very well. The guys last name is Carroll and he is from South Carolina. He came back a year later and painted another barn. It turned out well. He had painted a neighbors barn up the road and it washed off in the rain. That farmer called Carroll up and told him about it and Carroll went back and “licked his calf over”. I reckon the paint stayed on this time. It is hard to get a warranty from these guys as they are “here today and gone tomorrow”. I wouldn’t be surprised if some of yall didn’t run into him. He travels around north GA, south TN, north Alabama, and west SC. Carroll was in two older paint covered pickups and had two black guys painting, etc. helping him. By the way, he covered every “nail hole” that didn’t have a nail with Gorilla tape before painting. The barn doesn’t have nay leaks. He is in his thirties and a smooth talker. I wouldn’t recommend him, but I wouldn’t say, “don’t use him” either. I would say use your own judgement if you are faced with such a proposition.
Chinquapins, wine berries and ground cherries three of my favorite mountain treats!
Wish I knew what it was he called “frost weed”. I have one idea that might be it. There was a chinkapin not far from here but I can’t find it now. I think it was cut because it overhung a trail. I never saw a chinkapin tree until I was in high school then discovered that on the western edge of the county they were rather common. But I still do not recall ever tasting one.
God bless you friends of Appalachia, God bless Granny Louzine Wilson with healing and health and deliverance from cancer in Jesus name
Amen
I also call my billfold a pocket book. My wife’s elderly uncle was scammed and robbed by two men. I would not last long as a police officer. No longer than my first case of someone taking advantage of an older person or especially a child abuse case. I would be in more trouble than the crook. I wouldn’t kill them, but they would be in so much pain they would wish I had.
Irish Travelers, a.k.a. Gypsies, from North Augusta, SC, operate by offering shoddy work and stealing from old people. They work in teams all across the country. One distracts the homeowner while the other quickly steals cash or valuables from inside. They all drive pickup trucks. Sheriffs know all about them. Don’t let them on your property.
I enjoyed reading today’s post because it mentioned my papaw- Joe Tipton. Not the same one, of course. Papaw always lived in East Tennessee and was a farmer and nursery man.
If you think about the word “pocketbook” it makes a lot of sense to me as a wallet, especially a man’s. They generally open like a book and are carried in pockets. Maybe this was already common knowledge to others but I never thought about it before & I love considering why things are called what they are.
Enjoyed the stories very much. Poor old couple. I bet that’s all they had in the world.
Why was the young sheriff laying with his head on the train tracks? If he was trying to hear a train coming, you would think he would have heard it rumbling on the tracks long before it hit him! I enjoyed the article from long ago that you posted. I am always fascinated with the everyday things that went on locally more so than the world/national headlines. My favorite part of old newspapers are the pages that tell what the people of the area were doing – guests who were visiting, projects at homes being done, births, weddings, school news, church doings, etc.. $900 was a lot of money back then, it still is today! I knew an elderly man a few years ago, in his 90s, who always carried $600 in his wallet in $20 bills. One day I was with him and some other church family at a restaurant, and he took out his wallet and started counting it. There was a lone man at another table who watched intently out of the corner of his eye. When the elderly man stood up, and with his walker started towards the restrooms, I saw that other man get up and slowly head the same way. I told one of the other men at our table what I witnessed, and he and another man got up and followed to the restroom, too. I think it is awful that anyone preys on the elderly. It’s horrible they commit a crime against anyone at any age, but when they assault someone who has lived a long life, it shows utmost disrespect. They forget someday they will be that age themselves, if they live that long. Crooks through the ages have always tried to deceive with the same tactics- notice how even though those thieves did do the work, it was done in such a cheap shoddy way – painting with a water hose? It is sad for people who really want/need to earn an honest dollar doing odd jobs for others, that swindlers have cast wariness on anyone who offers their labor when they knock at your door.
I am praying that you and your Mom have a great day and week, Tipper!
Donna. : )