Month: April 2013

Spring in Springville

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The lake that is no more

Story by Jerry C. Smith
Submitted photos

Water is an absolute necessity for any permanent settlement, be it an Indian village or a major city. An area in northern St. Clair County is blessed with five springs, arranged in a circle around a sixth major spring that provided early settlers a virtually unlimited supply of pure, cold water.

In Davis & Taylor’s History of Springville, AL, Margaret Forman Windham tells of Springville’s earliest days: “As the Indians had been attracted to good watering places, so were the early frontiersmen. The springs which bubble forth cold, clear water made this area a camping spot for families moving westward from the Carolinas, Virginia, Tennessee and Georgia.

“The first settlers were some of these voyagers who so admired the hills, streams and virgin forests that they decided this would be their home for all time. … Big Springs was the name the settlement went by prior to the establishment of the post office in 1833.”

It took little imagination for the town fathers to come up with another appropriate name — Springville. Windham relates that the first industry which made major use of these waters was a tannery. In no time at all, houses, churches, and businesses began to “spring” up near the basin.

Some prominent pioneer families were Thomason, Truss, King, McClendon, Woodall, Bradford, Laster, Forman, Osborn, Sprueill, Fuller and Keith. The area is still populated with their descendants.

As Springville grew, the city decided to build a lake in the center of town. Windham describes its construction: “With mules and scrapes, the area was dug out to a depth of about 3 feet, leaving an island on which a tree was growing in the center of the lake. About 1900, a concrete wall was built around the lake leaving openings for the five surrounding springs to empty their waters into the lake.” According to Windham, Dr. James McLaughlin, owner of the property and mayor of Springville, deeded the whole thing to the city. Once completed, McLaughlin himself introduced a large species of carp into its waters, eventually adding bass, bream and trout as well.

The carp flourished and quickly grew to enormous size. Various stories put their length at up to 4 feet and weight as much as 20 pounds. Feeding these gentle giants became a favorite leisure pastime for the townsfolk and their visitors, the fishes becoming so tame they would take food right from one’s hand.

The city augmented the fishes’ feeding with corn, which enticed the huge carp and other species to root for the kernels on the lake bottom, uprooting and destroying moss which had become a problem. Windham’s narrative also mentions the strange fact that all the bream stayed on one side of the lake while all the trout kept to the opposite side.

This pleasant ritual continued for decades. Your writer remembers feeding them in the 1950s during rest stops, as my family traveled from Birmingham to visit relatives in Etowah County. Springville native Margaret Cole remembers that, when her mother worked at Milner’s Cafe in the 1930s and 1940s, they would often give Margaret stale bread to feed the fish. Her daughter, Donna Cole Davis, also frequented the lake while her mother was at Mrs. King’s beauty parlor. Mrs. Cole also remembers baptismals in the lake, when she was 6 years old.

In earlier days, a bowling alley was built on a hill behind the lake, quickly becoming Springville’s social center, hosting square dances and other community events. The bowling alley was eventually replaced with a latticed summer house.

This new structure had a bench going around all four walls inside, a favorite place for young people to gather. Like its bowling alley predecessor, the summer house was a favorite place for weddings, Boy Scout programs and other group functions.

Easter Sunrise services were held on the hill behind the lake. Windham describes it thusly: “…the service was carried on over a loudspeaker which allowed the people the choice of staying in their cars or getting out. The beautiful natural setting and the opportunity for a rather private worship gave a very special meaning to the service.” Mrs. Cole also recalls these occasions, and the giant cross on the hillside made of white stones which were later taken up and stored for re-use the next year.

In the 1930s, tennis courts were added, built by the city and maintained by local young folks. These courts were replaced by a municipal swimming pool in 1960. Perhaps the pool was installed to curtail swimming in the spring lake itself, as described by Windham in her treatise:

“The lake always tempted the young people to come in for a swim, but the water was so cold the swimmers seldom stayed for long. …Two young men who were staying at the Herring Inn went to the lake at night for a brief swim in the nude. (Two local boys) found the secret of the bathers and decided to play a joke on them. One dressed up like a girl and after making sure the swimmers were in the water, he and the other boy strolled to the lake and took their seat on a bench close to the water.

“Being a bright moonlit night, the swimmers dared not leave the water, but soon became so cold that they called out to the couple to please leave so they could get out. The couple made no reply, and the shivering boys decided to climb up on the island. Realizing the one tree was insufficient cover, they again asked the young couple to leave.

“When nothing happened, the boys swam to the edge closest to their clothes and scrambled out. Only then did they discover it had been two boys sitting there all the time.”

Margaret Cole recalls another amusing incident, wherein a lady of her acquaintance who was a fanatic about housecleaning took umbrage when a local boy spotted some dust in her house. She chased him down the hill and threw him in the lake!

Springville installed a city water system in 1935, capping two of the largest springs to ensure a never-ending water supply. However, there was little chance of a shortage. According to Windham, Alabama Power Company estimated the total natural outflow from the lake at a million and a half gallons per day, its water so pure it needed almost no chlorine or treatments.

This municipal water came directly from the springs themselves, at least for the time being, what occurred in the lake had no effect on the water supply. It’s said the lake sometimes overflowed due to heavy rains and drainage, with fish occasionally washed out onto the banks, but the water was never muddy except following an earthquake in Alaska in 1964.

Springville Lake continued as a tourist attraction and local gathering place through the late 1960s. Mayor Pearson himself often officiated over raffles and other social events at the lake. But time and progress change things. New industries and residents in town required that an even more abundant water supply be furnished.

There are several other springs in the area, but the cheapest method was to simply fence in the lake to minimize surface contamination, and draw water from the lake itself as a multi-spring-fed reservoir. This move drew opposition from several prominent Springville residents, but the fence prevailed until 1972, when the State Health Department ruled that its open-air water supply was inherently unhealthy, despite the fact that other cities like Birmingham routinely use surface water supplies.

In a move that incensed people all over the county and beyond, the city filled in the lake with dirt, capped a couple of major springs, installed powerful pumps, and resumed drawing water from them just as before, except now Springville’s treasured lake was gone, never to be seen again.

Letters of protest and op-eds flew like autumn leaves, but to no avail. One such editorial was written by then-recent newcomer to St. Clair Springs, writer Carolynne Scott: “… The fact that Springville needs more water has my sympathy, but I sincerely feel burying Springville Lake is not the way to do it.

“Everywhere I go … people are asking about the Lake, reminiscing about the days when the garden clubs beautified it, and they all drove out to have picnics around it on Sunday afternoon.”

Frank Sikora of the Birmingham News wrote: “Springville Lake was a natural park. … You could hardly walk around the place through the crowds that came on July 4. Now it’s gone. Where the water was, there is now only red-yellow dirt … Nobody wanted it to happen, but it did.”

Today, the lake basin can be seen as a round clearing, directly behind the former House of Quilts on Main Street. A pristine, crystal-clear stream gushes out its overflow pipe, passes under US 11, thence onward to merge with effluence from other springs in Springville’s new Big Spring Park, the combined waters eventually finding their way into Canoe Creek and the Coosa River at Lake Neely Henry.

No doubt many old-timers still feel an occasional nostalgic twinge when recalling their childhood experiences of picnics, dances and watching gigantic carp take food right from their hand. Such simple pleasures are hard to come by anymore.

Lew Windham wrote some poignant verse as an epitaph for Springville lake. Here are a few stanzas:

I WILL COME BACK
I will come back to step on the worn yet worthy wooden bridge,
And recall the many times we dove into the cool clear water,
Plunging deeper to the bottom in hopes
Of finding handsome treasures thrust into it years before.
I will come back and sit at the picnic table under the elms,
And gaze into the circular body into which pounds of bread
Feed the ever-hungry carp which crowded about
To gulp down any small bite.
But the path, the bridge, the spillway, the fish
And the lake will be gone this year, and my coming back
Will only be a sad journey, I fear.

New Direction

New owners bring changes to historic Springville house

Story by Tina Tidmore
Photos by Jerry Martin

A “For Sale” sign remained in the lawn of a 19th century Springville house for about six years. It has been known as the “Buchanan house” and the “Coupland-George house,” depending on who was living in it at the time. Due to a recent change in ownership, its future label may be the “Rayburn house.”

In January, Al and Lisa Rayburn purchased the light gray house that faces an empty lot next to Harrison Supply in Springville’s historic district. “I have always been a type that wanted new,” Lisa Rayburn said. “But it has so much character, like the hinges and doorknobs.”

The Rayburns searched six months for a new home while living in the tight quarters of a relative’s basement, a very different experience from the four-bedroom house they sold in July 2012. Over time, the list of required features for their next house became shorter because of their eagerness for more space.

Their desire to move grew from Al Rayburn reading Not a Fan: Becoming a Completely Committed Follower of Jesus, a book that contrasts being Jesus’ follower to being Jesus’ fan. “It was very convicting,” Lisa Rayburn said. “We felt like we had put a lot of identity into our things.” She said they had even lost the desire to foster children and they let their foster parent certification expire.

So they put the big house with the pool up for sale in a depressed housing market and waited to see what happened.

When an offer quickly came in close to what they were asking, they decided God was leading them to leave a materialistic life for another purpose, particularly fostering children again. With fewer expenses, they could do more for others, said Lisa Rayburn, a Springville Middle School counselor.

The Buchanan house had always intrigued Rayburn, who at one time lived on Bruce Street in Springville. “This is the house that we would drive by and be curious as to who lives there,” Rayburn said. She was attracted to the thought of walking on the sidewalks to local stores.

The house charmed Rayburn with its historical features, including 15-foot-high ceilings. Some of the rooms do not have modern flip light switches. They have two push-buttons: one to turn it on and the other to turn it off. Some of the rooms still have one old-fashioned bare light bulb hanging down from the ceiling for illumination.

Rayburn envisioned replacing the attic with bedrooms and a bathroom for when the children — both her own and the foster children — come for visits. The rooms downstairs could be modified into a greeting-computer room, living room, dining room, master bedroom, kitchen and two bathrooms.

After some figuring, the Rayburns determined that purchasing and renovating the old house were within their budget. Although, Rayburn said that along the way they have added some “while we’re at it” changes that have increased the cost.

The couple is doing much of the work themselves during the evenings and on the weekends. Al Rayburn is an occupational therapist at HealthSouth Lakeshore Rehabilitation Hospital, but he does have some construction experience from working on rental houses he owns. The rest of the work is being contracted, including the rewiring. They expect to be finished by the end of summer.

“We want this to be a home where people come and run around,” said Rayburn, “instead of full of antiques.” However, she said she can’t resist putting in a claw-foot bathtub.

House History Mystery

Investigating the historical mysteries of early 19th century Springville houses is like a newcomer traveling the two-lane roads of St. Clair County. Some roads lead to surprise discoveries; some roads lead to a dead end; and sometimes a long, windy road leads to the desired destination. Occasionally, following a road because it looks familiar leads to the wrong conclusion, and sometimes the chosen road leads to confusion.

From 1944 until January 2013, the George family owned the house. Recent owner Diane George Meade decided to move closer to her sister in Anniston and closer to her lake property. Although she grew up in Springville, she said she didn’t have anything to keep her there anymore.

While the George family owned the house, it experienced some damage from the well-known 1969 train derailment and resulting propane gas tank explosions in Springville. Meade said she remembers the windows were blown out in one room, and one of the chimneys was badly damaged. All external evidence of the second chimney disappeared when it was covered with a new roof.

Meade recalls being told her grandmother insisted on having the large extension on the back torn down and replaced with the smaller extension the house now has. She also said her grandfather put in the only bathroom soon after World War II.

A 1944 deed shows O.J. George, Meade’s grandfather, purchased the house from Leon “Lonnie” Vann Coupland’s heirs.

Along with his in-laws, Leon Coupland owned a dry goods store within two blocks of the Buchanan house. The book, Heritage of St. Clair County, Alabama, describes the Coupland family as “known for their civic leadership, faithful religious service and fair business dealings.”

Leon Coupland’s mother was Mary Josephine Buchanan Coupland, and his father was Confederate veteran James Douglas Coupland. The 1944 deed describes Leon Coupland as Mary Josephine Coupland’s sole heir.

Meade also possesses an 1889 deed showing Mary Josephine Coupland buying out her nieces’ and nephews’ interest in the Buchanan house and lot. Mary Coupland’s mother, Eliza M. Buchanan, died in 1898 at age 82, although the obituary says “she had been feeble for a while.”

The Springville Preservation Society estimates the date of the house as 1885. “I think before the 1880s, the people were living on the northern end, around Forman Street,” said Millicent Yeager, society vice president.

However, Mary Josephine Coupland and her husband, Springville’s James Douglas Coupland, are shown in the 1880 census as living with Eliza M. Buchanan in Springville. Also in the household is their 7-year-old son, Leon. The McClendons, Formans and Hodges are their neighbors.

Between 1872 and her death, deeds show Eliza M. Buchanan selling hundreds of acres in Springville and Caldwell in St. Clair County. In the Springville area, the buyers include C.F. McClendon in 1895; H.R. Hearon in 1885; John McClendon in 1884 and E. Carpenter in 1876. But the Buchanan and Coupland family kept the house.

Sandra Tucker, also of the Springville Preservation Society, has a photo that shows the Buchanan house with a man, a child on his lap and a woman standing behind them. In The Heritage of St. Clair County, Alabama, the now-deceased Charlotte Claypool Duckett dates that photo to 1874 and said the man is James Douglas Coupland, and the child is Leon Vann Coupland. Records show Leon was born in 1873 and is the last child the couple had. The child in the photo appears to be no more than 2 years old, which would date the photo to 1875 at the latest if the child is Leon.

Another possible explanation that seems to fit the architecture of the house at the time of the photo, the child’s clothing and apparent hair bow and the apparent ages of the man and woman in the photo is that the child on James Coupland’s lap is either his granddaughter, Esther, or granddaughter, Helen, Leon’s daughters. If so, that would date the photo to about 1902 at the earliest.

Robert Gamble, senior architectural historian at the Alabama Historical Commission, says the roof line, the chimney style, porch style and other features make him think the house is from the mid-1880s.

“In all honesty, I have a difficult time dating this house much if at all earlier than 1880 — and actually later — as it appears even in the old photo,” Gamble said. “Perhaps an old house was radically altered, but I could not see photographic evidence of it.”

Adding to the possibility that the house was altered, though, is that Springville’s James Douglas Coupland, who was living in Eliza M. Buchanan’s home in 1880, is listed as a carpenter in the censuses.

Meade thinks the house is older than even 1870. The 1889 deeds Meade has in her possession say the house is “known as the E.M. Buchanan house and lot and being the same owned and occupied by H.R. Buchanan at the time of his death…”

Eliza M. Buchanan’s husband, Howell R. Buchanan, died in 1869, according to a headstone marker now leaning against a wall in the former smokehouse on the property. That date for his death is confirmed through an 1869 deed showing him granting right of way to the railroad, yet Eliza M. Buchanan is in the 1870 census without him. This would mean the house dates back to at least 1869, and another deed shows Howell R. Buchanan selling property in Springville as far back as 1862.

The exact year of the Buchanan house construction remains a mystery. But the future is certain with the Rayburns renovating it to become a lively family home.

Buried Secret

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County’s oldest cemetery a little-known find

Story and photos by Jerry Smith

Most of Pell City’s departed are nicely memorialized in several spacious, well-known cemeteries; among them Oak Ridge, the largest; Valley Hill (which lies neither in a valley nor on a hill); New Hope (Truitt); and Mt. Zion. But the city’s original burial ground lies sequestered on an overgrown hillside at the edge of town, known only to a few family members and the historically inquisitive. It seems even the customary cemetery mockingbirds have deserted it.

Donated to the city around 1900 by Pell City’s co-founder, Lydia DeGaris Cogswell, this property provided final repose for a host of Pell Citians during its brief service before the city’s main cemetery was established at Oak Ridge in 1940.

First known as Pell City Cemetery, it was eventually called Avondale Mill Cemetery and the Company Cemetery because so many cotton mill workers were buried there. The Alabama Cemetery Preservation Alliance lists it as Avondale Cemetery aka Village Cemetery. The latest marked burial, William R. Green, was in 1935, although other unmarked graves may have been added since. Oddly, it’s once again called Pell City Cemetery in Mr. Green’s Pell City News obituary.

Over the last few decades the grounds have gradually slipped into a rather gloomy state of upkeep, and thus it remains today. Causey family member Donna Baker says, “… my Father told me the last burial was 1945. He said he used to go with my Grandmother and a lot of other relatives to clean the cemetery every year. He said the last time it was cleaned was in the 1970s.”

It’s hardly recognizable as sacred ground anymore unless one accidentally stumbles over one of the few formal tombstones still standing there. The plot was partly a potter’s field, hosting the remains of an estimated 50 or more local decedents, most of whose survivors could not afford more than a simple fieldstone or diminutive fragment of plain marble to mark their final rests

Unlike other local cemeteries, there’s only a few simple, early-20th-century tombstones with badly eroded lettering and a couple of crude stone surrounds. The only visually imposing grave marker belongs to Dock Causey, placed by Woodmen of the World in 1928.

Sunken graves appear randomly throughout the property. Those who visit here must be careful of tripping over small fieldstone markers hidden under inches of fallen leaves, which leads us to wonder how many others are interred here with no markers at all.

In Pell City’s early days, diseases unfamiliar to most people today took many young lives. In fact, three of the 10 scripted gravestones are for infants of less than one year of age. This is true of most other urban cemeteries of that era, but here we could probably assume that, for every marked infant’s grave, there’s likely to be many more whose parents could not afford a proper stone.

In a St. Clair Times story by Rob Strickland, local historian Kate DeGaris said, “It’s very old and, as I understand it, both black and white people are buried there. The relatively large number of childrens’ graves … can be attributed to health conditions of the early 1900s”.

Mrs. DeGaris continues, “It is known that, periodically, epidemics would come through the area, such as diphtheria, smallpox and typhoid, so I’m not surprised that a lot of children are buried there. …” The sadness deepens as one reads their bittersweet epitaphs, such as: Our Darling Has Gone To Be An Angel or Budded On Earth To Bloom In Heaven.

Indeed, even Nature seems to contribute to the mournful ambience by littering the grounds with fallen cedars and oak limbs whose fibrous cores have eroded over several decades to resemble gaunt, bleached bones.

If ever a local site deserved restoration, this one surely does. Long tree trunks lie across stone walls, some having barely missed tombstones as they fell. Other jagged logs have been pulverized into coarse sawdust and chips by insects, birds and decay. Briers, saplings, even young trees encroach upon almost every marker.

Although a state-required access path has been cleared on the western side of the property, visitors quickly encounter a hazardous maze of prickly Southern foliage and sunken pits. Boots and a walking stick are a must, especially during warmer months when snakes are an assumed peril in such terrain.

To access the site, drive southward from Cogswell on 19th Street to 10th Avenue South. Turn right, then an immediate left onto 18th Place South. Drive to the end of the road and look for a wide path into the woods on your left.

There are “No Trespassing” signs which you should respect unless you have a valid reason for going there. Once onsite, be very careful of rocks, concealed sinks and clinging foliage. Please disturb nothing, take only photos and notes, and leave behind nothing but footprints.

Treat this place as you would the final repose of your own kin. Who knows? Perhaps they are.

Garry House Cafe

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It’s about the history; it’s about the fine food

Story by Carol Pappas
Photos by Jerry Martin

Mark and Melissa Brooks drove past the old house with the “For Sale” sign on a corner of Pell City’s downtown First Avenue a few times before they ventured inside.

They kept looking at the house with the long, covered front porch and an unmistakable character of days gone by that beckoned them inside.

“It would make such a good café with that big veranda out front,” Melissa recalls. So they stepped inside Pell City’s second oldest home to see. “When we looked at the front room, we both looked at each other and knew we were going to buy the house.”

By Halloween 2012, the same day Mark retired from the U.S. Navy as a Captain one year before, they closed on the house and began fulfilling Melissa’s dream of one day having a café. In March, it opened as The Garry House Café, named for the family who built it in the early 1900s.

It was owned by Solomon Garry, a Lithuanian Jewish immigrant who moved to Pell City. His son, Jake, owned a mule and cart business in the 1920s. Not much more is known about the house’s history other than it is the second oldest — behind the Riser House, they say, encouraging anyone who has more history about it to share.

Australian-born Melissa talks about the house, not as a thing, but as a person. After months-long renovation by the Brooks, their work breathed new life into it. “Now she will have been here longer than she would have been.”

It began with a vision to “revive this grand old house,” says Mark. “We wanted to bring to downtown what it doesn’t have. Then she told me she always wanted to do a café,” and that was it. The journey to restore it began. When he was commander of the jet training air wing, Mark says he and Melissa hosted “pre-Winging socials” at their quarters on the base — a similar house from the same era as their new find in Pell City. At the socials, they offered quite a fare for families of pilots about to get their gold wings to be fighter pilots. They came from around the country and throughout the world.

“Melissa is a phenomenal cook,” says Mark. “She did all the cooking. We hosted more than 2,000 people over two years.”

That culinary precursor led the couple to The Garry House, Mark says of the day they made the decision to buy the house. “Let’s do what you always wanted to do,” he told her. “So here we are.”

A row of Garry House flags, seemingly proclaiming its rebirth, line the edge of the rooftop, immediately catching the attention of passersby. A white picket fence encases the front yard and walkway to a wooden staircase that ascends to a step back in time.

Intimate, white-tablecloth seating on the covered front porch gives diners an al fresco alternative to their meals. Inside lie two large front rooms with bay windows, oversized artwork by Nettie Bean adorning the walls and hinting at just how special this place is. Hardwood floors, white tablecloths and high-backed, black leather chairs only add to the richness and warmth of the home.

“Toly,” a 2-foot wooden statue stationed at the top of the hallway says it all through the sign he holds: “Welcome to The Garry House.” Toly was a find from a famous restaurant in Melbourne, Australia, Tolarno’s Bistro, the first of its kind in the arts district of the city.

The Brooks are hoping to have their own “first” in Pell City, and as you make your way through, it is easy to envision it. Just down the hallway are two more dining rooms — one with more of a female style; the other a bit more masculine.

The “more girl-like room” features monthly exhibits of artwork from the Southern Cultural Arts Foundation, a side bay window ushering in plenty of light. Melissa suggests this room for ladies luncheons, afternoon teas, bridge and other special events. The “guy-like room” is dressed in black and white — from the curtains to the tables and chairs to the black and white photographs by Wallace Bromberg that line its walls. It is perfect for lunch business meetings, she says.

While the whole café can seat 64, it can all be converted for use as a stand-up reception.

It is obvious the ideas, the planning and the vision are well thought out from one end of the home to the other.

The Garry House’s initial plans are to be open for breakfast and lunch Monday through Friday, offering a diverse menu that is not available elsewhere in the region.

In the land of ‘meat ’n three,’ The Garry House Café offers options: “Fresh, local, nutritious, delicious” is its vision. “Everything is made from scratch. No deep fried,” Melissa says. “And we are using as much local as we can. Everything is fresh, fresh.”

Homemade granola, fresh fruit, caprese salad, signature salad with a homemade honey mustard dressing are but a few of the items you will find on the menu. The Garry House Café salad dressings and granola are packaged and available for sale to take home.

“Aussie Meat Pies” are a salute to her heritage, but she “Americanizes” what is traditionally seasoned ground beef in a pastry case. She makes hers into taste-tempting treats — the filling becoming beef and mushroom, boeuf burgundy or other possibilities only limited by the chef’s imagination.

In the states, Mark explains, you might order a hotdog. In Australia, its counterpart is a meat pie. Adding a quick history lesson, Melissa says the meat pie tradition has English roots, where coal miners used them as hand warmers in their pockets and then ate them at lunch.

Breakfast pies include bacon and egg, or a zesty sausage and egg, always a favorite, or perhaps, a sausage roll.

In the future, the couple plans two special dinners per month — pre-set meals with wine pairings and tastings. “We may even have cooking classes,” she says, noting that the goal of The Garry House Café is to be more than a restaurant. It is a place for special events as well.

With Cathy Powlas assisting Melissa with the cooking, Mark handling administration and maintenance, his sister, Allison Middlebrook, as front manager, and a top-notch wait staff eager to serve, The Garry House has the makings of something very special for Pell City and the region.

And that is just what the Brooks intend. “Unique, dignified, relaxing,” Melissa says. Dining should be an experience — an event rather than simply a meal — and the Brooks aim to make that their daily special.

Features

White’s Mountain

Music’s spirit alive

Story by Samantha Corona
Photos by Jerry Martin
Submitted photos

Up on the mountain top in the early spring, it’s quiet.

But inside the house at the bottom of White’s Mountain Lane, the spirit of bluegrass music is alive and well.

Pictures cover the dining room table, and there are many more where those came from. Each snapshot bears a special memory, a familiar group of faces and a glimpse of what happens on White’s Mountain when the weather warms up and the pickers start strumming.

“It is definitely a love,” said Tommy White, namesake and owner of the park called White’s Mountain.

That love White talks so passionately about is not only for a style of music, but for the weekend-long event he and his wife, Sybil, host twice a year just up the hill from their St. Clair Springs home – The White’s Mountain Festival “Bluegrass on the Mountain.”

“There is no profit, and sometimes we don’t break even,” White said. “We do it each time because we enjoy it and because there is something special about bluegrass.”

White started playing his own rendition of bluegrass music years ago after he picked up a banjo. He served as a captain in the U.S. Army and after some time, told Sybil he was going to pursue a pilot’s license.

“She said, ‘Oh no, you’re not,’” White laughed. “So, I took the money I was going to use for my license and bought a banjo. I quickly realized that I couldn’t sing and play the banjo, so I traded it in for a guitar, and the rest is history.”

Through her family, Sybil has been around the bluegrass-style music throughout her life. She picked up her bass, and together with friends, weekly jam sessions turned into playing shows and a $500 prize from a bluegrass band contest.

As the number of players outgrew the house, White said some friends suggested that he and Sybil make an outdoor space by opening up the cow pasture area at the top of their hill. The Whites looked into what it would take, and started to work.

“We built the entire park,” White said. “She planted every shrub and I dug every hole. We built everything up there.”

The park features a main stage that plays host to bands from surrounding cities in Alabama, as well as Georgia, Tennessee, Kentucky and Florida.

It faces an open space that White reconstructed from a ravine into an amphitheater-style area that allows music lovers to bring their own chairs and blankets and be comfortable while enjoying the weekend entertainment.

Space at the very top of the mountain is reserved for those who want to set up campers and tents to stay through the weekend, although White said those spots are often limited.

There is also a concession area and picnic tables for guests to share snacks and conversations, and an old-time inspired General Store that houses White’s extensive antique collectables.

“It is designed for people who love the old traditional music and the times when you played with your family and friends and enjoyed the company,” White said. “Our friends and neighbors all perform, and we also enjoy meeting new people who want to be a part of it.”

Through word of mouth, the White’s Mountain Bluegrass Festival has grown from the once friends-only jam sessions to the weekend-long celebrations of music and history each June and October. White said performers often contact him and Sybil for the chance to play at the festival, and they’ve had guests visit from as far away as Europe and India.

Last year’s October festival drew 300-400 guests to the mountain, the usual attendance average for each event. And in recent years, it was nominated for an Alabama Tourism Award from the St. Clair County Tourism Department.

“Anything we can do to show off our home and what a great place St. Clair County is, that’s what we want to do,” White said.

In the fall, the Whites also hold an annual event called “Chimney Corner.” Families and guests are welcome to experience the fall setting on the mountain, take rides on the two-car train and get hands-on into some activities from the early days, including making maple syrup and hominy, blacksmithing, corn shelling and pumpkin picking in the White’s own pumpkin patch.

Guests can tour the old General store and see the old mailboxes from the early St. Clair Springs post office and a fully restored (and working) wood-burning stove.

White has put together a collection that takes you back in time to see everything from oil lanterns to separators that divided cream from milk, the first churners, coffee grinders, flour sifters and even gourd spoons that helped in gathering water from the wells and streams.

“In those days, there was no Wal-Mart on every corner or open around the clock. If you didn’t make it, then you didn’t have it. This was a means of survival for many people,” White said. “We try to keep some of those processes visible because a lot of people have never seen how some of these things were done.”

Tommy and Sybil are definitely proud of that history and enjoy being able to share it with others through their knowledge, their mementos and the music they believe is the soundtrack to it all.

“There’s definitely a spirit about it. Something about when you get with friends and play, and it all turns out right. You feel like you’re doing something that your ancestors did,” White said.

“You tell me that there is nothing spiritual about that.”

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Safe-Room Wine Cellar

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Story by Carol Pappas
Photos by Jerry Martin

Intricately hand-carved details of vines and grapes etched into the thick, wooden door hint that just on the other side lies a special room.

When John and Sue Pat DuBose built their new home along the shore of Logan Martin Lake, they knew winds on the open water could quickly turn into a damaging storm. So a safe room naturally was part of the blueprint.

They also knew their love of wine had to be central to the grand plan as well, so they turned their safe room into a wine cellar that even the savviest connoisseur would envy.

It is still a safe room. But it’s so much more.

John got the idea from a neighbor who turned his laundry room into a safe room. “I thought, if he can do that with a laundry room, why can’t we do a wine cellar?,” he said.

John installed the redwood shelving himself along the walls of the reinforced concrete. While it looks like a wine cellar, it fits all the specifications of a safe room. “It’s the real deal,” said John.

He put the bracing in, building what he needed in his shop. “The rest of it was just putting it together. I’m a woodworker wannabe,” he joked. But his handiwork tells a different story. It is a masterful blend of shelving and accents that make it as fine and rich as a bottle of Bordeaux and as light as a Sauvignon Blanc.

He cuts and solders copper as a hobby and added his own brand of art to the décor. An impressive piece, depicting grapes dangling from a vine, is just the right touch on a rear wall of the cellar. The lighting is equally perfect — a chandelier hangs in the center; its prominent elements simulating a grape vine with its bounty. A butcher-block table holding a bottle-sized wine opener centers the room underneath the chandelier.

The only ‘mistake’ turned out to be a complement to the wine collection and the couple’s circle of friends. John erred in ordering a portion of the shelves to accommodate half bottles of wine. His collection doesn’t include those, so he opted for diversity — those shelves now holding an array of beer cooled at 56 degrees. “We have a lot of friends who like beer,” Sue Pat said.

Much of their wine collection comes from trips made to the wine country in California and Washington with good friends Sandra Mullinax and Randy Royster. The foursome have quite a few tales from their treks that began in the early 1990s when Sandra was working for San Francisco-based Levi Strauss & Co. On her sales meeting trips, she would go on wine excursions during free time, and her discoveries eventually led to bringing her friends along for adventures in wine tasting.

“That got us started,” said John. “Sandra knew about wines. If I had gone out there, I would have been a tourist.”

As most do, they started in Napa but soon branched out to other areas, traveling further up to Sonoma, Dry Creek and Mendocino. Then it was on to Washington, where they once traveled 1,100 miles visiting vineyards “and never left the state,” Randy said.

They have stayed in every accommodation from bed and breakfast inns to larger hotels along their way. They have sampled the fruit of the Gods at vineyards large and small, getting to know the owners and always coming away with an entertaining story that inevitably begins with, ‘Remember when’ and an unmistakable smile that accompanies good memories.

Outside the cellar, wine themes abound at the DuBose home. A wine cask-shaped, wire basket holds an assortment of wine corks from some of their favorite bottles. A display of wine labels from vineyards they have visited doubles as a work of art in the hallway just outside the cellar. Hanging nearby is a painting by their daughter, Suzanne Garrett, of John’s grapevines he planted in Pell City’s Pine Harbor community.

Settling into the comfortable great room overlooking the lake once the “wine cellar tour” is complete, DuBose and friends share a bottle of wine, reminiscing about the trips they have made together, their favorite vineyards and their favorite glass of wine. For John, it is a “really good Zinfandel.” Sue Pat is partial to a pinot noir, “especially with a meal.” Sandra savors “a good red.” And Randy likes “all of it.”

They share a love of wine, memories of trips past and those yet to come. It is a bond that is easy to spot even if Sue Pat’s Tshirt didn’t give it away — “Wine & Friends,” it says. “The Older the Better.”

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