Where Time Stood Still - Softcover

Ribble, DD Watkins Leigh

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1450224253 ISBN 13: 9781450224253

Publisher: iUniverse, 2010

Synopsis

During the 1920s and early 1930s, the people of the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia were living, thinking, and working as their forefathers had done for centuries. Their resistance to change extended to most areas of their lives, including their archaic way of speaking, the low position of women in the mountain home and society, and their outdated farming methods that drained the land of its productiveness each succeeding year. Their invariable response to suggestions for change was hostile: "This is the way my pa did it, and it was the way his pa did it. We ain't never done no different." Since those days--especially after the establishment of the Shenandoah National Park in 1935--vast changes have swept this primitive civilization away, and the picturesque mountaineer of story and legend has become a fading memory. Early in his ministry, Dr. Ribble worked as a missionary among these hardy but culturally-isolated Blue Ridge Mountain people. In his book Where Time Stood Still, he recounts delightful stories about the Blue Ridge Mountain folk, painting a vivid portrait of these mountaineers. A few of these stories involve the stereotypical hillbilly, such as shotgun weddings and illegal moonshining. On the whole, however, his stories paint a much more complete and sympathetic picture of these mountain people, whom he came to know well and for whom he came to feel great respect and affection.

About this title

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Where Time Stood Still

By Watkins Leigh Ribble

iUniverse, Inc.

Copyright © 2010 The Reverend Watkins Leigh Ribble, D.D.
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4502-2425-3

Contents

Thoughts from a Mountaineer....................................vForward........................................................viiPreface........................................................xiChapter 1 We Ain't Never Done No Different.....................1Chapter 2 Run! Call the Mission Lady...........................8Chapter 3 Blood on the Spotswood Trail.........................21Chapter 4 Now Explain That to Me...............................35Chapter 5 The Story Of A Loser.................................43Chapter 6 Hitch Hiker Homilies.................................53Chapter 7 A Promise and A Slip.................................63Chapter 8 Who Shall My Keeper Be?..............................70Chapter 9 Preachers Are Not Always Welcome.....................76Chapter 10 Bushwhacked!........................................83Chapter 11 Paper's Come........................................92Chapter 12 Here Comes the Bride................................100Chapter 13 A Chicken in Every Pot..............................111Chapter 14 Tempest in a Teapot.................................119Chapter 15 Ashes to Ashes......................................130Chapter 16 A Sunday Afternoon Outing...........................138Chapter 17 Roadside Chat.......................................148Chapter 18 Minding the Store...................................156Chapter 19 Feed Store Theology.................................164Chapter 20 Rambling Rectory....................................173

Chapter One

WE AINT NEVER DONE NO DIFFERENT

The first time I went into the Blue Ridge Mountains to take up residence and work, I felt I had stepped back a century and a half in time. It seemed to be a Never Never Land where little had changed for a hundred and fifty years and which both civilization and history had by-passed. The glacier like movement of population from the eastern seaboard westward had spread over the Appalachia and moved on, leaving behind in the valleys, coves , and hollows, ground moraines of people, who had no significant part in the commercial, industrial, and cultural development of the country. The rugged terrain, the absence of good roads, the lack of skills for developing the slender resources of a difficult environment, and the dearth of creative contacts with the outside world, locked them into enclaves where they long remained virtually undisturbed. They were severed from the dynamic life of a growing nation of which they knew less and less, and feared more and more. So little were they a part of it that they regarded themselves as surrounded by foreigners and felt safe only in their isolation.

Time slowed to a stop. Change was resisted. Each year became more like the last, and, even though their hard lives developed the strong virtues of independence and self-reliance, dreary sameness numbed the spirit. So they clung to the old ways of speech and to the customs of dead generations in which they found a measure of stability, "'Cause this is the way it always was."

Once the first shock had worn off, it was not too difficult to get used to their dialect. One's ear readily got accustomed to it, and in the hills it sounded very natural indeed. With time, it ceased to be a quaint experience when I encountered a mountaineer walking along a road who was glad to stop for a chat and learned that he felt "tol'able peart" and that his wife and children "were well as common"; that he was hurrying home from the crossroads store where he had bought some "vittles" which he was carrying in his "poke"; that he didn't have time to tarry long "'cause home's a right fur piece and the old woman's looking for me to git thar soon with the fixings so's she can cook up a mess for me and the family"; that he was " proud to meet up with me" and hoped that "we'll meet again soon, if I live."

Getting used to their way of doing things posed the greater problem, and I could never become adjusted to some practices that had the status and acceptance of custom. The latter clustered mainly around the position of women in the mountain home and society. Not to be forgotten was the first sight of a husband riding on his horse up a steep grade and his wife walking along behind them burdened with a sack of vegetables. No matter how many times I saw similar scenes, they never failed to cause feelings of anger and in this respect I was always a "foreigner". Sometimes the wife carried a baby as she followed husband and horse. When a husband was on foot, his wife dutifully walked three paces behind him, with or without a load. No wonder mountain women used to grow old so young. Their lives were hard enough as it was without having this menial station imposed on them. Happily, little of this is seen nowadays.

The men certainly found life burdensome, scratching, as best they could, a living from a hostile soil which would seldom allow them to rise above the poverty level. However, they expected their women to "fetch and carry" for them in addition to taking care of the tasks about home and garden, not to mention working in the fields at planting and harvest time. The men worked the crops, looked after the animals, and hunted game, as far back as can be remembered, but they never touched the kitchen gardens. This was beneath their dignity. They wanted the usual vegetables to eat: `taters, snaps, turnips, beets, onions, and cabbage, but raising them was woman's work.

Added to these indignities was the custom of men first at the table at mealtime, with the womenfolk remaining out of sight in the kitchen unless needed to render some service or to bring in more food. In the early days of my stay, being new to this I found the custom difficult to get along with. During my first meal in a mountain home, my host asked me if I wanted more bread, assuring me there was plenty more in the stove. I accepted the offer and immediately he shouted through the closed kitchen door, "Old lady! Preacher wants more biscuits!" Once the men folk were taken care of and had left the table, then it was the turn of the women and children.

This type of separation by sex extended beyond the home. In public meetings and especially at church services, chairs, benches, or pews were arranged in two sections divided by an aisle. The men sat on the right. The women and children sat on the left. The men walked in and out as they chose. The women and children stayed put except in emergencies. Growing boys looked forward to the day when they would be considered old enough to escape from the women and sit with their fathers or with their peers. This would be a big step toward dignity and freedom. Afterward, they coveted the coming of that indefinable time, when they would be allowed to declare their manhood by joining the masculine parade in and out with none to say them nay. When that time arrived had to be discovered by trial and error. The first trials were usually abortive, as an eager fledgling's first efforts usually are. A parental hiss, "Git back thar whar you belong" made it clear that childhood was not over yet. But in due time, the attempt would be unopposed. That was a proud moment, for the boy then felt he was accepted as a man.

This might be a great day for the budding youngster, but it was also the beginning of some anxiety for his parents and even for the adults in the area. Would he be a peaceable kind of fellow or would he run "hog wild?" There was cause for concern as there was so little for young people to do over weekends and also when the farming season was over. Pent up energies had not much outlet outside of physical labor which was sporadic beyond home chores. Spare time could be trouble time for youths for whom life was often unbearable with boredom. When not occupied, they tended to cluster in congenial groups of their male peers. No girls were admitted to such gatherings. They had their own groupings. Here was where a teenage boy began experiments with life under the tutelage of those older than he. In such get-togethers, he first found out what it was like to get drunk. He added extensively to the store of such meager sex knowledge as he already had. Here he tested his physical strength and courage in fights with those of his kind. Thus "pecking orders" were established. At times relief from tedium would be sought by the group "whooping and hollering up and down the road", throwing rocks at bushes, birds, lizards, chickens, hogs, fence posts and so on as fancy dictated. Sometimes when too much whiskey might be available, fights could get serious and not a few killings resulted. On the whole, there was little vandalism and when damage was done through excess of exuberance, youths were prompt to plead that they meant no harm. Acts of violence, such as killing of livestock or setting fires to buildings, were usually committed in retaliation for some injury, real or fancied, or some insult which no man who was a man could accept. Even though such acts were not condoned, the reason for them was understood and at times sympathized with. It must be admitted that the tendency toward violence was common in mountain life and a constant source of danger.

After I had been in the Blue Ridge long enough to be accepted by the people to the point of being able to exchange views and opinions freely, I ventured to question and then to criticize certain of their ways of doing things because some of them made little sense anymore and some seemed hardly civilized. It became evident very quickly that there was a limit conferred by friendship. It was made clear in the first place that no "foreigner" has any business meddling with the usages of common folk. In the second place, the stability of a mountain community would become threatened if anyone tried to change the customs and conventions that had held steady as far back as anybody could remember, no matter how archaic they had become for the country at large.

In my youthful eagerness, I felt called upon to help bring a new day of enlightenment into the hills. Noting how the little farms erode with every rain, situated as they were on steep slopes, and observing how the land declined in fertility as the same type of crops drained it of productiveness each succeeding year, I was sure I had a duty to set things right, particularly as it was evident that the great poverty of the people grew out of the condition of the soil. So I spoke enthusiastically of terracing to prevent the dirt from washing away; of contour plowing as a further guard against deadly erosion; of planting and plowing crops under to increase humus and fertility; of raising a greater variety of vegetables than they were accustomed to in order to add diversity and flavor to their diet. Mercifully I will pass over certain suggestions to change mountain partiality to fried and boiled foods, swimming in grease, which were hard to consume unless one happened to be downright ravenous.

It was made abundantly clear that in such a static society, new ideas and new methods were anathema. Not a few young people were dissatisfied with the order in which they found themselves trapped. Some escaped, but most were cowed into silence and compliance by public opinion. There was no use in arguing that the world had passed them by and that it was time to catch up. The invariable response was, "We don't hold with those people out there, noways. What we do suits us. This is the way my pa did it and it is the way his pa did it. We ain't never done no different." What leadership I was exercising then might have been lost had not the people developed a friendly tolerance toward me and said among themselves, "Don't mind him. He's a foreigner and don't understand about us yet. He'll l'arn though. He don't mean no harm."

But this state of affairs could not last. The solid front against change began to crack and crumble even before the 1930's, not everywhere nor at the same rate, to be sure. In some areas of Appalachia, it was like a dam giving way slowly and then with a rush. In others, little seems to have happened to this day. In the northern part of the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, and particularly in Greene County, little of the old is left. The outside foreign world found its way in. The establishment of the Shenandoah National Park in 1935 displaced most of the mountain families when the Federal Government bought up their homes and farms. Some settled in sight of their native hills, unable to abandon their homeland. Others scattered to far places, finding a new life and a new challenge, which not only provided an escape from the old grinding hardships but also a much healthier and happier existence. A number, alas, transferred their poverty to new localities, largely in northern industrial cities, where the demand for unskilled labor was minimal, and where, unable to compete, they were worse off than before, having exchanged the hills for slums.

The breakdown of the old isolation was spurred by the development of a good road system, eliminating most of the old dirt roads which became impassable in winter. These improved, and hard surfaced roads let outsiders in and the insiders out. Automobiles proliferated from almost zero to considerable numbers within the area. Traffic swelled and business picked up markedly with the growing demand for goods and services. Power lines at first stuck closely to the main highways, but, in time, put out tendrils that curled their way along the side roads and up into the hollows and the coves. They brought not only light and power but also the incursion of the world of radio, and, of late, television. No people can be subjected to the spell of such magic and remain the same, nor stay content with poverty, no matter how dignified, as reports of the abundant life beyond their ken filtered into their homes through loud-speakers.

More and better schools made their impact. Over the years, they have heavily cut down the former high rate of illiteracy. Children, who once were the only ones in the family "with l'arning" and who used to read newspapers to and write letters for their elders, are now elders anxious for their children to get the best education for life in this changing world where a strong back alone cannot ensure a decent living. Now it is commonly agreed that education, far from ruining a good plow-hand, is the only escape they have from the destitution which has withered people in the mountains for generations.

Here and there, however, desperate efforts are still being made to throw up dikes to turn aside this flooding in of the new. Oldsters, particularly, try to hold on to the old customs which prevailed so long. But the struggle is all but lost as the young break away from the stifling past. The elders, as always, are fearful of drastic changes and ascribe them to the working of the devil and his angels. They complain as they view the wreckage of the culture they knew and still cherish, "Things ain't what they used to be. Children have gone wild and don't listen to their parents no more. What are we all coming to?"

In certain sections, a two way movement of people has developed. On the way out are the ambitious young who see no future for themselves in the Blue Ridge. They do not intend to sever their home ties and in years to come will return whenever possible for reunions and "to visit the old folks." As they go out, they are passed by a growing current of people flowing in from the cities and the suburbs looking for bargains in land around the edges of the Shenandoah National Park, which did not swallow up all the mountain territory. The best bargains have been snapped up and the price of even poor land has soared. Some mountain farmers have made what is to them fortunes by dividing their holdings into lots which have been eagerly bought by the "foreigners" regardless of quality and frequently without investigating the availability of water.

These newcomers do not intend to become permanent residents, except for a few retirees. More and more inhabitants of Suburbia and Megalopolis are discovering the Blue Ridge as a place "to get away from it all". Thither they flee temporarily from crowds, traffic, and concrete. There they find a brief respite from urban tensions and rest from noise and confusion on weekends and vacation periods. The fear of nuclear warfare touched off a search for refuge after World War II. In a panicky mood, many families felt they might have some chance for surviving a holocaust if they could get to the mountains from target cities like Washington, Baltimore, Norfolk and Richmond. This fear has faded, and in its place is the pleasure of having a quiet spot in the highlands where one can go and take it easy for a while.

Time no longer stands still in Appalachia, for the twentieth century is steadily swallowing up the remains of the eighteenth and nineteenth. The process is far from complete because many areas have changed little and others still retain vestiges of the old days. To venture a prediction: after two more generations have passed, hill-billy jokes will have become meaningless and the mountaineer will no longer be classified as a latter day barbarian and pitied for his ignorance and poverty. One of them put it this way: "The time's a-coming when we will be just like other folks."

Chapter Two

RUN! CALL THE MISSION LADY

A hush settled over the pupils of the third and fourth grade classroom of the Blue Ridge Industrial School for mountain children. Their young teacher had just made a peculiar request of them,

"Please call me in fifteen minutes. I have got to close my eyes."

Then she put her head down on the desk and fell sound asleep, even though the morning was only half gone. The children knew very well what the trouble was. They did not call her in fifteen minutes. They let her sleep for two hours while they quietly did their assigned lessons.

(Continues...)

Excerpted from Where Time Stood Stillby Watkins Leigh Ribble Copyright © 2010 by The Reverend Watkins Leigh Ribble, D.D.. Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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Edition details

• Publisher: iUniverse
• Publication date: 2010
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1450224253
• ISBN 13: 9781450224253
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 212