We all called my mother’s father Papa Smith. I grew up across the street from my grandparents, and even though he worked almost all of the time, he spent a lot of time with me and the other cousins and family members who lived nearby. Papa was a large man…
The oldest of the Doughterys was D.D. or Dauphin Disco Dougherty…obviously the boy’s father, Civil War Veteran Daniel Boone Dougherty enjoyed alliteration. Further proof: DD’s brother, B.B., or Blanford Barnard, was born a year later. Did you ever get together with your sibling and say, “You know what we should…
My grandmother, Blanche Genetta Dwiggins Smith, was born on a farm out in the country in Davie County in 1891. The Dwiggins land was close to and part of the original Granville grant of 640 acres of land to Daniel Boone’s father in 1753. Squire Boone sold this land to…
When we last left Will Banks, he had been convicted of murder in what many then and now believe was an act of self-defense. Let’s travel back in time to August 22nd, 1907, Banks is standing atop of quickly constructed wooden scaffold 50 yards down the street from the Ashe…
Will Banks, a son of slaves, was born in 1875 in the Crumpler community of Ashe County, NC. Because jobs were scarce in Ashe County, Will frequently traveled to West Virginia to work in the coal mines, where he earned around $5 a month. After 2 or 3 months, he…
You’ve probably heard the story about the young couple who were short on money but who desperately want to buy each other Christmas gifts…Unbeknownst to the man, the young woman sells her most valuable possession, her hair in order to buy a fob for his pocket-watch, which he sold to…
You know all those country songs that talk about “Daddy’s Hands,” “Daddy’s Old Truck,” “Riding next to Daddy,” and “Daddy letting you drive”? Allow me to clear up a few misconceptions. Maybe certain daddies created sacred spaces in their trucks where kids could dream, but we didn’t have any trucks…
Humble beginnings often lead to humility and a life of service. One legendary example is a woman know as Sister Sophie. Born to German immigrant parents, Sophie spent her early life near Kings Mountain, North Carolina. But when her father died, she and her older sister moved to Baltimore to…
The house that I grew up in was at the end of the electrical grid, which meant that every time the power was out anywhere, it was out at our house. In those early days, having electrical power, or not, didn’t really change much. One of my fondest memories of…
Some folks call Spring in the mountains Green Up time. As Winter releases its grip (begrudgingly!), the hills and hollers go green from the bottom to the top like mercury rising in a thermometer. Staying with the theme, many Spring greens begin to appear in abundance. About 100-plus years ago,…
