Eissmann Automotive

Countinues investment in St. Clair

Photos by Graham Hadley

Eissmann Automotive’s new expansion makes the German manufacturing giant the largest single employer in Pell City.

The auto-industry supplier, which opened its first American operation here in 2005, specializes in interior fittings and parts for high-end automobiles, including Mercedes, Audi, Bugatti, Bentley, the Corvette Stingray, Tesla, Lamborghini and others.

Eissmann’s latest expansion means a $14.5-million capital investment in its facility in the Pell City Industrial Park and will bring 200 new jobs to the region.

The company held an official opening of the new section and ribbon-cutting Oct. 15.

During the ceremony, Pell City Mayor Bill Pruitt presented the key to the city to Claudia Eissmann, chairwoman of the Eissmann Automotive Advisory Council, before a large crowd of Eissmann employees, company representatives and local and state officials. Afterward, the new expansion was open for tours by the attendees.

“With this expansion, Eissmann has become the largest employer in Pell City, and we are excited to see them continue to grow in our community. We are very fortunate that they chose our community as their North American headquarters, and we hope they will continue to expand here,” Pruitt said.

“We are always excited to see our existing industries continue to expand in St. Clair County. The addition of jobs to St. Clair County allows our citizens to work closer to home and improves their quality of life,” said St. Clair Commission Chairman Paul Manning. “Eissmann is a tremendous community partner, and we look forward to growing with them in the future.”

The company already employs almost 400 workers at the Pell City facility and expects that number to reach upwards of 580 with the new expansion.

This adds to the growing number of foreign companies, like Eissmann and Honda, employing thousands of people in St. Clair and surrounding counties.

Alabama Department of Commerce Secretary Greg Canfield noted that, two decades ago, not a single major automobile manufacturer was operating in Alabama. Now the state ranks fourth in automobile manufacturing in the nation.

“Today is indeed a celebration of the present and of the future to come,” he said.

The company’s connection to the Mercedes Benz plant in Tuscaloosa County just off Interstate 20 was the driving force behind the expansion.

“Eissmann has been in Pell City longer than I have,” said St. Clair Economic Development Council Director Don Smith.

“Eissmann is a solid, family-owned company that has outperformed even our greatest expectation in Pell City. They pride themselves on the highest quality craftsmanship in the industry, which is a perfect fit for the high-end automotive customers they serve,” he said.

“They have incredible leadership in management in their Pell City facility and we look forward to working with them on future expansions.”

Eissmann agreed. “From the first investment Eissmann Automotive made in Pell City, the community and elected officials have made us feel welcomed and supported. Our facility has grown within the community, and we look forward to continuing to work with the City of Pell City, the St. Clair County Commission and the Economic Development Council for Many years to come,” she said.

Mt. Zion Baptist Church

Two churches, a single purpose

Story by Joe Whitten
Photos by Michael Callahan
Submitted photos

Mt. Zion Baptist Church, a church started by freed slaves in Springville, exists today because in 1816 a North Carolina minister grew discouraged in the ministry and resolved to abandon preaching. Leaving preaching and North Carolina behind, Rev. Sion Blythe moved his family to what would become St. Clair County, Alabama, and settled along Canoe Creek.

Published writings referred to Blythe as “the reluctant preacher.” Born in Tennessee in 1781 and ordained as a minister in North Carolina, Blythe organized and pastored churches in Buncombe County, North Carolina.

When Blythe and family left North Carolina and headed west, he instructed his wife to tell no one that he had preached. No written record states exactly why he had become so disheartened; however, his friend and Alabama Baptist historian, Hossa Holcombe, hinted that the problem was a theological difference with North Carolina pastors concerning man’s free will.

But Pastor Blythe’s free will choice to stop preaching was over-willed by his integrity when in late 1816 or early 1817, a woman in the area where he had settled asked him point blank if he were not a minister of the Gospel.

Blythe wouldn’t lie to her, and when he admitted that he had preached, Holcomb records, “The old lady leaped, and shouted, and praised God that she had found a preacher in the wilderness.” At her urging, Blythe agreed to organize a congregation, and on March 22, 1817, in the settlement called Big Springs, a Baptist church was established and named Mt. Zion. The name referencing verse in Hebrews 12:22, “Ye are come into Mount Zion and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem …” and reminding them of their goal, Heaven, the city of God.

Until the end of the Civil War, both slave and master worshiped together — but separate — at Mt. Zion, for as Margaret Windham records in her History of Springville the “…slaves had seats in the rear of the church building and, like their masters, were members of the church.”

One wonders about the names of those slave members, but we have scant information. The oldest minutes of Mt. Zion fell victim to fire when the home where they were kept burned. Because Martha Terry Roberts had copied portions of the old minutes that mention slave names, we have some, as quoted here:

  • April Term, 1821—Received Brother James, a black man, by letter.
  • May Term, 1823—Received by experience, Littie, a black woman, and Lisha More and also Pike.
  • August Term, 1823—Received by experience, Sook, a black woman.
  • June Term, 1831—A charge against Fanny, a black sister, for having two living husbands. Case taken up and Fanny restored to her seat as usual.
  • October, 1844—Sister Jane, Nancy, Elizabeth, and Margaret (blacks) dismissed by letter.
  • September, 1854—James Thomason called for a letter of dismissal, and for four of his blacks: Alfred, Clark, Doctor, and Reny. Granted.

Sister Fanny’s case in June, 1831, is of special interest. This writer became acquainted with slave wedding vows several years ago when touring Rose Hill Mansion near Hilton Head, South Carolina. The guide, a descendant of the builder of Rose Hill, told that slave wedding vows had these words, “Till death or distance do us part”—meaning that if one partner in the marriage were sold, the wedding vows were dissolved. Ordained ministers rarely performed slave weddings, which were never legally binding, and he couldn’t have them say “Till death do us part,” due to their circumstances.

Usually a slave couple wanting to marry might have a ceremony in the slave quarters, but most often, the couple would simply “Jump over the broom,” and they were married. An online article published by the Caswell County, North Carolina, Historical Society discusses the jumping over the broom and also white ministers’ use of “Till death or distance do us part” in Antebellum slave weddings.

The fact that in the same June meeting Fanny was restored to her seat in the church fellowship makes this writer believe that this was Sister Fanny’s reason for having two living husbands and the church sympathized with her.

The expression “received by experience” means the candidate for membership had recently come to an experience of salvation. To be dismissed by letter means to be dismissed in good standing to another church.

From those minutes we learn the first names of several slaves and the name of one of the slave owners, James Thomason. Although it is meager, these nuggets of information can assist slave descendants in genealogical research.

 

Changing times

In time, some stout-hearted people of the United States began to take note of the injustice of slavery, and a distant rumble began to arise, like far-away thunder forewarning an approaching storm. The rumble grew until in 1861, it roared into a storm of civil war, which by 1865 had wreaked ruin on much of the nation and unshackled slaves and set them free.

But being declared free and grasping the reality of freedom are two concepts not comprehended quickly. Former slaves, now free to congregate and worship together, continued to meet with Mt. Zion until 1868.

According to oral history, in 1868 the freed slaves of Springville began meeting on their own to worship God. No written record seems to exist for this group of believers prior to 1883, the year they joined Wills Creek Baptist Association in Etowah County.

For white Mt. Zion, the war years took its toll on church membership through battlefield casualties and through the emancipation of slaves. Mrs. Windom records that by 1870 the membership of Mt. Zion had dwindled to 70. That congregation decided to construct a more modern sanctuary that might encourage more people to worship with them. They began meeting in the new building in 1871. In that same year, Mt. Zion changed its name to Springville Baptist. With a new building, it probably seemed to them a good idea to identify the church with Springville.

Oral history doesn’t record just when the freed slaves began calling their group Mt. Zion. However, in their History of Springville, Alabama, Donna Cole and Virginia Taylor wrote, “After the war, the Black congregation left to form their own church and they kept the original Mt. Zion name.” It’s possible that two Mt. Zion Baptist Churches existed for a while in Springville.

The name became official in 1883. The Tenth Annual Session of the Wills Creek Baptist Association met at the Ashville Mt. Zion Church in August 1883, and the minutes record: “Received Mt. Zion Baptist Church of Springville, on the AGSRR [Alabama Great Southern Rail Road], as a newly constituted church — delegates, Elder L.C. Thornton, R. Pruet. Sent for missions, 50 cents; minutes, $1.00.”

Other Wills Creek Association minutes give more Mt. Zion facts:

  • 1888, meeting at the Cedar Bluff , R.H. Vogal, Pastor; Emma Galbreth, Clerk; and 71 members.
  • 1892, meeting at Mt. Zion, Ashville, J.H. Kerley, Pastor; J.H. Hudson, Clerk.
  • 1896, meeting at Lebanon Baptist, C.C. Curry, Pastor; F. Thaxton, Clerk, and 45 members.
  • 1897, meeting at Mt. Zion, Springville, C.C. Curry, Pastor; L. Byers, Clerk; 53 members.

Building a church

The first church building was constructed on the same property where the Mt. Zion church stands today. We don’t know the date of that construction, but the minutes of 1896 report the value of Mt. Zion’s church property as $1,000. That value in 1896 probably included a building.

Deacon Mitchell Hammonds recalled the church building, for he attended there as he grew up. “The church, when I was born, was a wooden building. It had two bell towers. It had a bell in one. It had two front doors and had three rows of pews. That old building had, of course, the big pot-belly heater.” That church was taken down and replaced with the present structure around 1976.

On sun-lit days, light streaming through the “Life of Christ” stained-glass windows bejewels the sanctuary. The vintage stained-glass cross window gracing the front of the church was donated to Mt. Zion by First Baptist Church of Springville.

Estell Long, who was born in 1936 and grew up in the church, fondly remembers the bell ringing. “You had a rope up there. … Will Woods would go early Sunday morning and pull the rope and the bell would tone.”

She recalled that during revivals the seats at the front of the church were reserved for those who wanted to be baptized and join the church. At the end of the week, the church would have a baptism at Lee Laster’s Creek. Mitchell Hammonds recalled that he was baptized in the Cahaba in Trussville. Later, the church was able to build an outside baptistry on site.

Mrs. Long reminisced about the singing in the church. “They had people in the choir, and they sang the old-fashioned songs. Mattie Kelly was the pianist. She would play the piano, and they would sing. When she finished, she would always shout. She was one of the shouting sisters in church.” Another pianist was Mattie Jo Williams Herring.

Some of the choir members Mrs. Long remembered are Sarah Frances Newsome, Velma Eleanor Newsome, Casey Lewis, Elizabeth Shepherd, Ruth Pulliam, Katherine Newsome, Margaret Hammonds Woods, Leola Pulliam Herring, Josephine Pulliam Herring and Nellie Mae Newsome Boyd.

Nellie Mae Newsome Boyd also served as a missionary to other churches in the surrounding area — Attalla, Ashville and Branchville. She would take reports from church to church so they could know the work of sister churches in the region. On these visits, she could share needs from the churches in her circle of ministry.

The young people of the church weren’t neglected. In the 1940s and 50s, Mary Bradford instructed the youths of Mt. Zion in the Baptist Young People’s Union – BYPU. Part of her teaching was having them memorize different Scripture passages, such as the Twenty-third Psalm. She assigned the passage at one meeting, and at the next meeting she expected each one to quote the passage from memory. Miss Bradford made sure each had memorized the Scripture.

Harvey Lovell Newsome served as Sunday School Superintendent in the 1940s and 1950s, and after Mr. Newsome, Sammy Kelly served as Superintendent.

Mrs. Long and Mr. Hammonds recalled the following men who served Mt. Zion as deacons: Sammy Kelly, Henry Beaman, Brook Toles, Bob Woody, Milton Herring and Willie LaShore.

 

Present day Mt. Zion

At present, active deacons are Mitchell Hammond, Henry Wright and Willie Jones Sr. These deacons minister to the church and community. One way is the Brotherhood Breakfast that meets on the first Saturday of each month. This interracial meeting begins with fellowship and breakfast. Henry Wright is credited with organizing this monthly event, with the purpose of encouraging each other in Christian faith, the preferred devotional topic for each speaker is “Why are you a Christian and what is in it for you?”

Yearly events at Mt. Zion include the National Day of Prayer, summer revivals and Youth Month in June, which includes a youth revival. Each February, the young people learn of African-American history on Wednesday nights. A favorite summer event has been the church trip to Lake Winnepesaukah in Chattanooga for a day of fun and relaxation.

 

Pastoring Mt. Zion

Mt. Zion has an incomplete list of former pastors. A careful research of the Wills Creek Baptist Association’s minutes could perhaps furnish a complete listing. Nineteenth Century pastors include L.C. Thornton, 1883; R.H. Vogal, 1888; J.H. Kerley, 1892; and G.W. Burton, 1896-1897. The church also has names of 15 pastors since 1901. Pastors since1937 include W.R. Simpson; T.C. Williams; I.H. Henderson; Joseph Jackson; and currently, Larry Adams.

Adams has pastored Mt. Zion since 2011. During his seven years shepherding the flock, he has seen spiritual growth in his congregation. His preaching emphasis is the whole Word of God, preaching it in context. He recently said, “We don’t skip anything. Even in our Bible study, we go verse by verse.” Pastor Adams, a bi-vocational pastor, is sometimes out for a Wednesday evening Bible study. Therefore, he makes sure he and the one teaching for him are together. “Right now,” he said, “we’re studying the book of Hebrews on Wednesday night. And if some of my other ministers are doing the teaching, I give them an outline of what we’re teaching, and we follow that outline. We have everybody together. They ask questions, and I get excited about teaching the Bible. And I say, ‘We’re gonna teach the whole Bible,’ and I have.”

Pastor Adams gets enthusiastic telling about the church and its ministries. The Children’s Church involves a wide range of ages — first-grade through 12th. The older group mentors the younger ones as a part of the Youth Ministry.

The church’s music ministry consists of Men’s Choir, Women’s Choir and Youth Choir. The Mass Choir combines the Men’s Choir and the Women’s Choir together for a service. The organ, keyboard and drums accompany the singing.

 

History within history

A current need for the church is a larger building with classrooms and a fellowship hall. The congregation has discussed this need and is working toward the goal. One discussion point is whether to build where the church now stands or to build on the church-owned lot diagonally across the street from the present structure.

Mt. Zion purchased the 1920s-era Springville Colored Elementary School building from the St. Clair County Board of Education after integration closed the school. They have renovated the building located next to the church and use it as their fellowship hall.

Springville Colored Elementary School was a two-room, two-teacher school with grades one, two and three in one room, and grades four, five and six in the other. Mrs. Long remembered her teachers in the 1940s as being Miss Mary Reid the first three years, and Zora Quinn the last three years. Mr. Hammonds recalled names of other teachers: Pauline Hudson, Alberta Williams, Sarah McCray and Rosey Dial (Pauline Hudson’s sister).

Students desiring high school education had to go to the Ashville Colored High School, which was later named Reuben Yancey High School. By the time Mrs. Long was in the seventh-grade, a bus transported students from Springville to Ashville. However, they were required to meet the bus at a store located near today’s Dollar General. The students living in the Flat Woods, or Jones Village, had to walk up to Highway 11 to meet the bus.

Before the St. Clair County Board of Education provided transportation, the only African-American students who attended high school were those who could afford to ride the Greyhound Bus to and from Ashville. Mrs. Long said Claudie C. Woody and William Hammonds were the only two students who earned high school diplomas before transportaton was provided free to students.

Mr. Hammonds recalls fondly his teachers and their instruction at Springville Colored Elementary School. “Our teachers always encouraged us to be the best that we could. They encouraged us to reach high and to hold high standards.” He quietly reflected a moment on integration, then, added that in the old school, the teachers “… tried to instill values in us. You know, be the best that you could be. They wouldn’t accept less.”

So, the old 1920s school building serves an interracial church — a church outgrowing its current facilities and looking to the future.

Pastor Adams is excited that Mt. Zion Baptist Church and First Baptist Church are doing things together. Pastor Chipley McQueen Thornton and Pastor Larry Adams became friends early on and have worked together in the community. The two churches have a combined service and fellowship meal once a year at First Baptist. This year, an additional Thanksgiving combined service is planned for November 25, with lunch to follow. Both congregations look forward to these joint services.

The two pastors are together on missions. Pastor Thornton has twice taught theology to local pastors in Africa. In February 2019, the African pastors will meet in Paris, France, and Thornton has asked Pastor Adams to go with him to do some of the teaching. Pastor Adams recently said, “Pastor Chip asked me, ‘You got your passport?’ And I said, ‘I got it! I’m ready!’ He and I are going over what we’re going to teach to be sure we’re on the same page. Chip is a tremendous teacher.”

When asked for a comment about Pastor Adams, Pastor Thornton replied, “I shook his hand and sensed I was in the presence of a genuinely spiritual man, a man of God. He carries that aura. After hearing him so eloquently expound the Scripture, I thought, ‘Ah! Here is another Apollos (Acts 18:24)! We must go train others to do the same.’ I eagerly invited him to go with me to teach pastors. He eagerly accepted, praise the Son! Now off to Paris we go, trusting in the good will of God to guide us, come what may.”

 

Reaping rewards

The work that Sion Blythe began in Big Springs, Alabama, in 1817, flourishes today in two churches. Blythe never dreamed that the one church would become two when slaves gained freedom. But in God’s timing, a church of freed slaves formed, and today both First Baptist Church Springville and Mt. Zion trace their history to March 22, 1817.

Pastor Adams’ purpose for being a minister is to let people “know that God loves them and that Christ died for them.” And for his congregation, he desires they grow in understanding God’s Word as he shepherds them toward Zion, the City of God.

Folks familiar with long-ago church songs can hardly think of the name Mt. Zion without thinking of lines from Isaac Watts’ 1707 hymn:

We’re marching to Zion,
Beautiful, beautiful Zion,
We’re marching upward to Zion,
The beautiful City of God.

And if we listen closely, we may hear Sister Mattie Kelly’s shouts of “Glory! Hallelujah!” still echoing down the years.

 

Bobbye Weaver

A life filled with the stars

Story by Leigh Pritchett
Photos by Michael Callahan

Bobbye Williamson might never have imagined that a simple wink would determine the course of her life, but it definitely did.

That single, innocent, little action set off a series of events that sent her globetrotting, mingling with celebrities and experiencing her own brushes with fame.

She would visit five continents; meet Rock Hudson, Clint Eastwood, Bob Hope, Lucille Ball and a legion of other stars; be part of a “Ben Casey” rehearsal; and lunch with Dustin Hoffman’s parents. She would even have to use her acting skills and an exaggerated Southern accent to talk her way out of trouble with President Richard Nixon’s Secret Service detail.

That little wink happened back in 1949 while she was working at Roberson’s department store in Pell City during Christmas break from the University of Alabama.

Emmett Weaver, an Anniston native and young editor of Pell City’s newspaper, came into the store. Bobbye greeted him with a pleasant salutation and a wink (which was actually a facial tic).

Emmett thought Bobbye was flirting, so he invited her to Citizens Drug Store for a soda.

Those few minutes over refreshments made clear that “we just had a lot in common,” Bobbye said.

They married in June 1950.

Scarcely three months later, Emmett – who had been a medic during World War II – was reactivated because of the Korean War. He was stationed at a military hospital in New York.

“Every night, we were at a Broadway show, if he wasn’t on duty,” Bobbye said. “That was the heyday of Broadway – Ethel Merman, Carol Channing, … . That was a lot of fun.”

When Emmett completed his military service in 1953, he became entertainment editor at the Birmingham Post-Herald. Bobbye taught music at Saks Junior High School. The two also attended Birmingham-Southern College – Emmett to do his master’s coursework, and Bobbye to finish her degrees in English and Spanish.

Through Emmett’s 30-year, award-winning journalism career and Bobbye’s various endeavors, the two met one celebrity after another, ended up in humorous situations and earned a spot on many prominent Christmas card lists.

Until recently, the Weaver home in Vestavia held reminders of the eventful life Bobbye and Emmett shared.

There was the ashtray from Bob Hope, the miniature piano from Liberace, the stirrup from John Wayne, the original artwork from Jack Lord. The Weavers’ collection of memorabilia is extensive and diverse: original scripts, photographs, letters, costumes, playbills, posters, keepsakes from premiers and gifts from famous people.

The treasures go on exhibit in 2019 at Oxford Performing Arts Center in Oxford, Ala. John Longshore, the center’s executive director, said the collection will be a semi-permanent exhibit. He noted the magnitude of the collection, saying its variety will marry well with the array of entertainment that the center brings into Northeast Alabama.

 

Always the performer

According to cousin Beth Geno of Kingsport, Tenn., Bobbye was born to perform.

“She has been a performer ever since she could talk,” Beth said.

Bobbye, whose parents were Robert and Lillie Kate Williamson of Cropwell, was talking and singing by 8 months, doing impressions as a toddler, studying music at a conservatory by age 8 and teaching piano lessons at 13.

In high school, she helped to lead worship services for evangelist Billy Graham’s “Youth for Christ” program.

As an adult, Bobbye chaperoned Miss Universe, Miss International and Maid of Cotton contestants, even designing a costume for one woman that captured media attention. Bobbye broadcast live updates about the pageants to Birmingham radio stations WCRT and WSGN.

A popular musician, Bobbye played piano and organ for many secular and religious events and the ukulele in an ensemble at Vestavia Hills Baptist Church. For decades, she taught music at Temple Emanu-El in Birmingham and in the music suite of her home.

She sang with choruses, operas, and numerous church choirs and in the High Holy Days service for Temple Emanu-El. In addition, she was a backup vocalist for Tom Netherton during his concert in Birmingham.

On Alabama Public Television, she hosted the show, I Hear Music.

All-Star Attractions, the production company she operated with Marvin McDonald, brought to Birmingham such personalities as Judy Garland and Victor Borge.

“Judy Garland just packed the house,” Bobbye said.

Bobbye-Weaver-the-Actress could be found in dinner theaters and Town & Gown Theatre (now Virginia Samford Theatre) in Birmingham. She appeared in such productions as Fiddler on the Roof, Arsenic and Old Lace, Annie Get Your Gun and Carousel. For her role as “Bloody Mary” in South Pacific, she won the Obelisk Award.

Emmett – along with James Hatcher and former Birmingham Mayor David Vann – established a seasonal professional theatre called Summerfest. Through Summerfest, Bobbye appeared opposite such talents as Edie Adams (in Hello, Dolly!), Joe Namath and Phil Crosby (Bing Crosby’s son).

As guest artist at Birmingham-Southern in 1987, Bobbye played “Fraulein Schneider” in Cabaret, even wearing the same costume that Lotte Lenya used in the Broadway production.

Beth said Bobbye was never one to be timid in front of a crowd. “At the drop of the hat, she would stand up and sing with somebody.”

In fact, Bobbye did that at a party with famous soprano Eileen Farrell.

Afterward, “she invited me up to her house in Maine,” Bobbye said. “Emmett and I kept in touch with her.”

 Because of Emmett’s work as entertainment editor, the Weavers were familiar faces at premiers. Rocky, Music Man, My Fair Lady, A Bridge Too Far, The Spy Who Loved Me and Smokey and the Bandit are among the 42 premiers the Weavers attended. Thirty were world premiers. At the New York premier of Norma Rae, Bobbye even interviewed actor Beau Bridges for WCRT.

Annually, CBS, NBC and ABC sent Emmett to California to talk with stars appearing in shows and movies that were to be released the following year.

During one of those trips, Lawrence Welk encouraged Bobbye to go in another musical direction.

As Emmett and Welk were dining at the Palladium, Bobbye was invited to join them. Enjoying the musical entertainment, Bobbye began drumming a sequence on the table. In his distinctive accent, Welk told her she was “a natural” and should learn to play drums.

For Christmas that year, Emmett gave her a set of Slingerland drums. She taught herself how to play and later took gigs in Birmingham at Parliament House, The Club, the Luau, Downtown Club and the Elegant.

When Welk came to Birmingham to do a show in 1973, he engaged Bobbye to play in the “Dixieland jazz” segment.

Subsequently, the famed band leader made Bobbye an offer: Bobbye would have a six-month training period, followed by a two-year road tour, after which she could become part of Welk’s “family” of entertainers.

Though she gave it some thought, 40-year-old Bobbye declined because she knew she would have to get her teeth straightened. Plus, she just, plain and simple, preferred to stay in Alabama.

For 10 years, she taught drums. She even wrote an instructional book, called Through the Back Door, to give her students shortcuts for learning technique.

She also wrote and performed two one-woman shows, called Four in One and Raccoon Ridge (a comedy about Minnie Pearl’s cousin). In Four in One, Bobbye appeared as Ethel Merman, Carol Channing, Marlene Dietrich and Sophie Tucker.

Bobbye toured with those shows eight years.

In 2008, Emmett was diagnosed with a chronic condition, and Bobbye left performing to care for him. He died in 2014.

“He was fun up to the end,” Bobbye said of her husband.

In September, Virginia Samford Theatre recognized the couple’s contribution to local theatre, particularly Bobbye’s sponsorship of the recent production of Hello, Dolly!.

Now at 87, Bobbye still heats up her Slingerland drums and is writing two books. One of the books is for children and is about dealing with bullies and challenges in life.

“She’s done so much in life,” Beth said of Bobbye, adding that Bobbye and Emmett were well matched as a couple. “They made the most of life and enjoyed everything they did. They were great partners.”

Editor’s Note: Margaret Vaughan, Jo Ann Winnette,
Beth Geno, Dr. Patrick and Sandy Bernardi assisted with this article.

 

Dry Creek Farms

Christmas in the Country

Story by Paul South
Photos by Susan Wall

This time of year, thousands of electric lights welcome visitors at Dry Creek Farms. Barns, fences, even a waving wire Santa behind the wheel of a wire tractor, pass on Yuletide greetings with a gentle glow that grows brighter as darkness falls.

It’s all part of the joy the St. John family has shared now for three years on their working cattle farm, where even at Christmas, white-faced Hereford cattle trump red-nosed reindeer. On the weekend of Dec. 7-9, Dry Creek will host its third annual “Christmas on the Farm,” a gift to the people of Pell City and surrounding areas.

Santa and Mrs. Claus will be on hand to meet the children and hear who’s been naughty or nice, as well as Christmas wishes. Gallons of hot chocolate and plates full of goodies will be served. And farm animals – a bottle-fed calf, bunnies, chickens and a horse – will give children a taste of life on the farm.

Photos with Santa are available for $10 each. And kids will also be able to write and send letters to Santa at a small post office in the barn.

But for Joyce St. John, paternal grandmother of this farm family, the lights, tinsel, trees and Mr. and Mrs. Santa Claus who come to Dry Creek, dim in comparison to the lights gleaming in the eyes of children and in the Christmas story she loves to share. Dressed in red velvet as Mrs. Kris Kringle, Mrs. St. John reads Clement Moore’s classic, ’Twas the Night Before Christmas. But her true joy – and to her and many others “the reason for the season” – the telling of the birth of Jesus, born in a Bethlehem barn more than 2,000 years ago. For Joyce, the event is more Nativity than North Pole.

“A lot of children who don’t get to experience the things of the manger and all because they’re not involved in church, this is a way of being a witness to them that Christmas is not about Santa Claus, it’s about the birth of Jesus,” Mrs. St. John says. “You’d be surprised at how many children will start asking questions once I start telling the story of Jesus and how He was born in a stable and His bed was a trough that the cattle ate out of. They start asking questions and then you can start sharing about Jesus, and they’re so surprised. Then you have children who can tell you the story of Jesus, and it’s amazing how excited they get being able to tell you stuff about Jesus.”

Grandson Carter St. John runs the day-to-day operation at Dry Creek, which along with raising and selling show cattle, serves as a popular celebration venue. He hopes the event will spark an interest in a generation of kids more familiar with Fortnite than farming. The St. John show cattle compete in events statewide and around and across the country in fairs and other agricultural events.

 “We want (youngsters) to come in here and actually get to know livestock,” Carter says. “That’s how we were raised, and we want other people to see that . . . Maybe it will help their future, maybe they’ll love livestock and not do bad things on the street and make this a hobby for them, loving animals. It kept me out of trouble because it kept me busy.”

He added, “It gives them different options, because they didn’t know farming was out there . . . It’s just like playing baseball or football. It’s a hobby for them. We want more kids involved in farming.”

Six stalls offer different activities for children and their parents. Refreshments, the letters to Santa, spots to visit Santa and his bride and more. At big box retailers, holiday festivities may be best remembered for long lines and long waits. But at Dry Creek, it’s joyous “organized chaos,” Joyce St. John says with a laugh.

Some kids steer classic, pedal-powered metal toy tractors. Others run to Santa. Still others cuddle furry baby bunnies or pet pigs. Sometimes the barn is as quiet as a Christmas Eve mouse, but more often it’s a blizzard of activity. About 150 kids, with parents in tow, flocked to last year’s event.

“Sometimes the barn would be full,” she says. “Sometimes there would be little breaks, but it seemed like someone was in there all the time.”

Joyce St. John has a gentle, welcoming voice that overflows with kindness. The kindness remains when she takes on the role of Mrs. Claus. But, she says, her personality changes when she dons the red velvet dress and hat.

 “I just love how excited the children get to sit in Mrs. Santa’s lap. I also do the story, ’Twas the Night Before Christmas, and so many of them have heard the story about Santa. You do kind of change your character. My character changes while telling the story of Jesus’ birth compared to ’Twas the Night Before Christmas.

She senses a transformation when she tells the story of the baby born in the Bethlehem barn. Her already happy heart overflows with joy while telling the Gospel story. Sometimes, she says, children return to hear the story again and again and again.

“Telling the story of Jesus, it puts you almost like you’re almost there in the barn witnessing it and being a part of it. I get excited talking about Jesus. There’s a big difference talking about Santa Claus and talking about Jesus.”

The St. Johns string lights, hang tinsel and decorate trees weeks before the Dec. 7-9 event. But for Joyce St. John, only one beacon matters – the Light of the World. She sees Christmas at the Farm as “a ministry,” countering the commercialization of Christmas.

 “Several children . . . just to see their eyes light up when you told them the story about Jesus, especially those who really didn’t know about Him.” You knew that this may be the only time during the year that anything is really said about Jesus.

Doing this Christmas on the farm . . . It’s about the true meaning of Christmas. If it touches one person’s life, and they come to know Jesus, it will have been worth it.”

For more information about Dry Creek Farms, visit www.drycreekfarmscattle.com.

Got Her Goats

Rental ruminants help clear kudzu from Ashville farm

Story by Carol Pappas
Photos by Wallace Bromberg Jr.

Cindy Massey took more than a casual look at the kudzu-covered cliffs that surrounded her Ashville farm and knew she had to put a stop to the invasion.

Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia, describes the invading kudzu as climbing, coiling and trailing perennial vines introduced in America from Asia in the 19th Century. It’s even earned the infamous reputation as ‘the weed that ate the South.’ But never mind the lore behind it. All Massey knew was that it had to go.

She had kept it under control for years through a treatment process. But when that process was skipped a couple of times, the vines enveloped the hillsides and rock formations – top to bottom – that form a natural, dramatic backdrop all around her expansive valley acreage. That is, when you can see them.

She asked her landscape architect, Rodney Griffin at Gardens by Griffin, for advice, and his answer would set in motion a solution not seen all that much around these parts. “Why don’t you rent a goat?”

It was no time for conventional means anymore, said Massey. So, she turned her attention to the internet and made a discovery that’s catching on around the country – renting goats – and lots of them.

She found a company in Tennessee – Rent-A-Ruminant – that would bring a herd of goats to Alabama and let them do what goats do best. And on a warm, sunny day in August, kudzu started tumbling down like a row of dominos given a mighty thump.

 All across Massey’s 135 acres, one by one, members of the herd of 47 goats made their way up and down and all around the hillsides, craning their necks to reach their ‘gold.’ Some stood on hind legs to get an extra boost toward their target. They tracked, tromped and chomped on one hillside and then headed to the next course at Taylor’s direction.

If one man’s trash is another’s treasure, the same holds true for goats. According to Rent-A-Ruminant owner Jax Taylor, kudzu is like the “golden corral” to them. She compared the bottom to broccoli, the next layer to a chocolate fountain and at the very top, they strike gold.

As Maddie, an Anitolian Shepherd, Great Pyrennes mix herded the goats, keeping them inside temporary netting that encloses each section designated for their clearing prowess, Taylor talked of how her story began.

Now a veteran, she was in Kuwait, about to be deployed to Iraq. A library in Los Angeles had donated out-of-date books to soldiers, and she picked up one on suburban homesteading. For the next 15 months, she would read that book over and over again and became “intrigued” with the concept of self-sufficiency and homesteading.

She decided when she returned home, she would buy a goat. And that she did. Her first was a Nigerian Dwarf, Becka, and you might say that goat cleared the path forward for her in more ways than one. After a second tour, this time in Afghanistan, she decided that when her Army career ended, her next career would involve goats. She had already started her farm and had moved to standard sized goats.

Her herd has grown sizably since then, and so has the territory for Rent a Ruminant, a franchise company begun in 2004 in Washington State. Besides Taylor’s franchise in Tennessee, there are others in Louisiana and Texas.

This was Taylor’s first time to herd in Alabama, and she settled into a loft apartment above the barn on Massey’s land for the two and half weeks she was there with the herd. She and her goat caravan have traveled to parts of Tennessee, Georgia and Kentucky clearing property and taking care of the environment.

“We try to run the business like animal lovers would run the business,” she said, noting that most are rescues. She calls them by name if they venture where they’re not supposed to go as if they are wandering toddlers.

There are three generations out there, she said, proudly pointing to each. Becka is the matriarch. Fiddle is her first kid, and Banjo is Fiddle’s first kid.

How do they get their names? “Sometimes, they just come to us. Pineapple is “off the wall.” Morgan is named after a niece. Sir Richard? He’s their “problem child.” He jumps the fence. “They do something that gives them a name,” she explained.

Taylor likens their approach to clearing the kudzu to the atmosphere of a Jurassic Park – “like dinosaurs attacking.” 

And when they were done, Massey’s property was cleaner that it had been in years. By the end of their stay and multiple work days, Massey was calling the goats by name, too.

“I saw firsthand that running a goat rental business is not for the faint of heart,” Massey said. “Some of our terrain is quite steep and while it was no problem for the goats, Jax and her husband, Mathhew, had to clear brush and install fencing to contain them.

“I love the fact that they demolished a lot of kudzu, and no chemicals were used. I try to be mindful of the wonderfully diverse ecosystem we enjoy here. The goats neutralize seeds in their gut rather than broadcasing them as with a machete or Weedeater.”

She noted that the goats were extremely efficient and worked quickly, returning her property to the picturesque landscape she first fell in love with.

“The goats and the Taylors were a delight,” she said. “I missed the sounds of tinkling goat bells and ‘baaaaah’ after they left.”

Caroline’s Mill

St. Clair Springs couple returns to days gone by

Story by Elaine Hobson Miller
Photos by Michael Callahan

For several of the 40-plus years Tommy and Sibyl White have lived in St. Clair Springs, they have gazed out their living room window at the swampy spring-fed pond across the road and said, “Wouldn’t it be neat to have a water wheel there?”

The pond was on a piece of land that didn’t belong to them, so the couple never dreamed their idea would go anywhere. But the owner decided to sell that four-acre plot, and when Tommy learned about it, he pounced. The deal was sealed early this year, and Tommy set to work clearing the property and building that wheel and a mill to house it.

“Three springs feed the mill pond,” Tommy said. “A stream ran out of it constantly all year round. We thought it would be the perfect place for a water wheel.”

He didn’t have a drawing of what he wanted, but that wasn’t an obstacle. “I had in the back of my head what I wanted it to look like,” he said.

It wasn’t the first time he had plunged feet first into a building project. The host of White’s Mountain Bluegrass Festival for 12 years, he built a wooden train, a general store and an amphitheater and stage at the top of White’s Mountain Lane. Tommy and Sibyl live at the bottom of that lane. When the bluegrass festival got too big for them to handle — they were doing one in the spring and one in the fall — they quit. But the lure of old-time music and old-fashioned folk ways proved too much for them. So about five or six years ago (Tommy isn’t good with dates), he came up with the Chimney Corner Celebration to take its place.

Held the third weekend of October, it is named after the warmest spot in any bygone farm house, the corner between the pot-bellied stove and the fireplace. The Celebration warms up at sundown on a Friday with a jam session of local bluegrass musicians. It continues from 9 a.m. until “whenever” the next day with more bluegrass, bagpipes and other period music and dance. Activities and displays include sorghum syrup and cider making, spinning wheel operations, hominy making, quilting, chair caning and blacksmithing.

“We just love that kind of stuff,” Tommy said. “The old ways of doing things bring back memories of the old days, when people had to make it, grow it or do without it.”

The star of the show this year was supposed to be the new mill, but it wasn’t quite finished in time. Tommy had planned to demonstrate grinding corn and wheat, and the water wheel was supposed to produce the electricity to power a generator for the lights of the mill house. The water level was a couple of feet below what the mill wheel needed. So, the demos would have to wait for the rainy season.

He made the eight-foot by two-foot mill wheel in his shop by modifying a metal spool used to roll electrical wire. It’s an undershot mill, meaning water runs under it to turn the wheel. Two grinding stones, one stationary and one moving against the first, form the basic elements for grinding grain. Tommy cut grooves in the mill stones so the grain could pass through them.

“To harness water power, you must have height and volume,” Tommy explained. “To get the volume, you raise the water level and restrict it to a narrow channel that is called the mill race.” The wheel sits at the discharge end of the race, and water pressure will turn the wheel. A control valve will lower and raise the water level. When the wheel runs, water will pass through the mill race and into a stream that continues under Highway 23 and into Little Canoe Creek.

Made of pressure-treated pine lumber and siding, the mill building is 12 feet by 16 feet, including a porch that wraps around two sides. It has traditional mill-style windows, which are openings cut into the siding with wooden covers that slide out of the way. “I remember Mom had windows like these in her kitchen,” Tommy said. “I would go outside and climb up and open them on a hot day.”nnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn

Mosquitoes were a hindrance to the property clearing at first, but Tommy’s son found a $400 fogger machine online, and it cleared out the mosquito population from the quarter-acre pond in a hurry. Once construction started, curious passersby on Highway 23 stopped their cars frequently, asking questions and admiring the project.

 Begonias, coleus, geraniums, hasta and caladium add color to the place, along with hanging baskets of ferns and an airplane plant, thanks to Sibyl’s green thumb and eye for landscaping. “I had to contain her, or she would have filled the place with flowers,” Tommy said. “She had some good ideas, though.”

The mill won’t sit dormant between celebrations, either. “I’ll decorate it for the Christmas season and use the electricity the wheel generates to power the lights, provided the rains come and bring up the water level,” he said. “We’ll just grind whatever folks bring us, too.”

Meanwhile, at the top of the lane where the Chimney Corner Celebration is held, Tommy has built a number of buildings that help tell of bygone days. He has a general store and post office combination, something that was quite common in the early history of the U.S. Postal Service.

The back room of the building holds some of the old-fashioned machinery he has collected, including two corn shellers, a grist mill, treadle sewing machines, several ice boxes and a cast-iron cook stove that is vented through a fireplace chimney. An avowed tinkerer, he rebuilt the corn sheller that had belonged to Sibyl’s dad as a boy by using another one as an example.

Shelves in the front room are filled with old glass and pottery, such as the soft-drink bottle embossed with the words, “Ashville Bottling Company,” that he found when he cleaned the sludge out of the mill pond. Post office boxes at the front of the store came from the St. Clair Springs post office that closed around 1949. “St. Clair Springs was a town before Springville was,” he said, a touch of pride in his voice.

He restored a cider mill that he uses at the celebrations. “I found it in northeast Alabama, or rather, I found what was left of it,” Tommy said. “A fellow advertised it on the internet, and I finagled a deal.” Sibyl researched it and had photos and diagrams for him to go by.

Both bluegrass musicians, Tommy plays guitar, and Sibyl keeps the beat on a bass fiddle, while friend David Connor plays banjo in the unnamed trio they form. They play at the Chimney Corner Celebration and area events such as the Looney House Festival, and at the annual Christmas Pickin’ the Whites hold in the back room of the General Store.

In another nod to times gone by, all electricity is turned off at the store that night, and those lucky enough to get an invitation play by the light of the fireplace, oil lamps and lanterns.

Tommy and Sibyl’s granddaughter, six-year-old Caroline, has taken an interest in learning how to play the guitar, and Tommy plans on teaching her what he knows. “We’re calling it Caroline’s Mill in her honor,” Tommy said.