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Hidden Treasures

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Storefronts uniquely St. Clair

By Elaine Hobson Miller
Photos by Jerry Martin

When it comes to storefronts in St. Clair County, appearances can be deceiving. A turn-of-the century Victorian house in Ashville actually is a quilt shop. A log house in Pell City once was a barn in Virginia. A shed used to brood ducks and turkeys serves as a second-hand shop in Odenville. A historic feed store in Springville has become an antique mall. A tack shop in Ashville is in a landmark rock building that once held cotton waiting to be ginned.

These not-so-modern structures have been transformed under the careful guidance of ingenious owners who make the most of odd-shaped rooms and limited spaces. Some have been restored to their former glory, some modernized, but each offers an unusual shopping experience.

Historic shop

On the outside, the Ashville House Quilt Shop looks much like it did when the Queen Anne-style house was completed in 1894. Listed on the Alabama Register of Landmarks and Historical Places, its turrets and towers, gables and arches, wrap-around porches and gingerbread ornamentation showcase seven different historical paint colors. Inside, the high ceilings, heart-of-pine floors and original wood trim surround hundreds of bolts of gaily-printed fabric, cases and counters of colorful threads and a few quilts for sample and for sale.

“My husband, Lavon, and I bought the house in the early 1990s and spent three years restoring it, then lived here for three years before turning it into a tea room in 2000,” says Pat Drake, who operates the shop with her sister and partner, Loretta Horton. “We closed the tea room in 2007 and opened the quilt shop in 2010.”

Lavon did “most of the hard stuff” during the restoration, such as rebuilding the interior walls. But it was Pat who painted the ceiling frieze in the music room, using a cake decorator, caulking, paint and “about 200 trips up a 15-foot ladder.”

Pat’s mom, Alline Hill, pins customers’ assembled quilts to a long-arm quilting machine. Pat does the quilting. Loretta teaches most of the quilting classes, which cover basic skills such as binding, piecing and color combinations.

The shop, at the corner of U.S. Highway 231 South and Third Street, Ashville, is open Wednesday through Friday from 10 a.m. until 5 p.m. and Saturday from 10 a.m. until 2 p.m. Call 205-594-7046 or visit www.ashvillehousequiltshop.com for more information.

‘The Cabin’

Judy and Richard Potter love antiques, so when their nest became empty and Judy started looking for a way to use her retailing degree, the Pell City couple decided to open an antique shop in a log cabin. Never mind that they didn’t own a log cabin.

“We found a two-story log barn in Mendota, Virginia, that was built around 1830,” Judy says. “We disassembled it, then reassembled it here in our front yard on Cedar Lane.”

Opened 15 years ago, The Cabin on Cedar Lane bears little resemblance to its former self. Stone steps lead to a small porch that the Potters added. The second floor of the 20-by-24-foot structure is where the hay loft used to be. The Potters gave it a new floor from old wood and made a window out of the loft door, then added two windows in the front on the first floor. Original walls are made of hand-hewn oak, poplar and pine. “The poplar were the smooth logs, but they used some oak for strength,” Judy explains.

Judy doesn’t have as many antiques as when she started, but stocks “some really good reproduction furniture pieces, lamps and home accessories,” she says. Many of the items she sells are by local artists, including Ron Sims pottery and Peggy Turner watercolors. Other items include fused glass jewelry, decorator balls made of sea shells, pickled vegetables, dip mixes and Trapp candles.

The Cabin on Cedar Lane, 5014 Cedar Lane, Pell City, is open 10 a.m. – 5 p.m. Tuesdays through Saturdays. Call Judy at 205-338-3866 for more information.

Landmark building

Anyone giving directions to a street off U.S. 411 between Ashville and Leeds invariably says, “Go past (or to) the rock stores. …” The three rock buildings near the intersection of 411 and County Road 31 have been landmarks in the area since Will Dollar built them between 1927 and 1929. Today, one of those buildings houses Jodie’s Harness and Tack, a place to buy equine goods, get your tack repaired and shoot the bull about anything from the weather to President Obama’s health care plan.

“We bought the two buildings on this side of the Highway 25 years ago from a man who had an auction house here,” says Jodie Isbell, the “we” being she and husband Bobby. “The tack shop was where Will Dollar stored cotton to be ginned, and the building next door, where we live, was a feed store. The mercantile was across the street. There was a cotton gin and grist mill behind our two buildings, close to a creek.”

Dollar’s first store burned down in 1926, and he rebuilt using field stones from his own property. His mercantile was where everybody came to buy sugar and flour, fabric and thread, pots and pans, and to get their corn and wheat ground. “People spent the night here in their wagons to get their wheat and corn ground the next day,” Jodie says.

Sixteen years ago, Jodie and Bobby bought a sewing machine and tools from the estate of a late friend who had a leather shop. They simply wanted to repair the harnesses for their own horses, but people started asking them to repair their harnesses and halters, too. “Then they started asking us for other tack and horse supplies,” Jodie says. “It just grew.”

They’ve added saddles, horse shoes, bridles, tack to fit large horses like their Percherons, equine grooming supplies, feed supplements and more. They still do tack repairs and sell yard eggs from the 200 chickens running around the property.

Jodie’s Harness & Tack, located at 22326 Highway 411, Ashville, is open Wednesday through Friday from 9 a.m. until 5 p.m. and Saturday from 9 a.m. until Noon. Jodie can be reached at 205-629-5891.

No eggs in this hen house

Despite the vintage jewelry, the primitives and the cobalt blue and green feathers from an India Blue peacock, it’s the property surrounding The Hen House in Odenville that makes Henrietta T. Goodman’s second-hand shop so interesting. She sells “affordable treasures and boutique items at thrift-store prices” from a nondescript, one-room, pre-fab building formerly used by her husband to store feed and brood his ducks and turkeys.

But the shop sits next to Henrietta’s orchard, with its blueberry, blackberry and strawberry bushes; it’s pear, plum and persimmon trees; and muscadine vines. Both are near the front edge of a 17-acre property that includes house; barn and swimming pool; two ponds; pens for their rare Lady Amherst and Red Golden pheasants, and their peacocks, guineas, quail and chickens; and the pastures for their Zebus (miniature Brahma cattle). “I’m trying to get my husband to plant me a pumpkin patch, and he wants to add goats to our petting zoo,” says Henrietta, a vivacious woman with a ready laugh. She has been running second-hand shops since she retired from her job with Bell South Cellular in 2004. She opened The Hen House in 2010. “Everybody stops when they see my Hen House sign, thinking we sell chickens and eggs,” she says, laughing. “So we’re going to start that soon.”

The Hen House, 11934 Hwy 411, Odenville, is open Thursday through Saturday from 10 a.m. 4 p.m. For more information contact Henrietta Goodman at 205-531-0443.

Century old, new life

Just a few years ago, Springville’s Main Street was lined with antique shops. Today, there’s only one, the Ole Springville Antique Mall, but it boasts 37 vendors, including most of the owners of the former Main Street shops.

Located in the old Washington Feed building, which operated as a feed store for more than 100 years, the antique mall is owned by Curt Deason and managed by Beverly Crumpton. The latter used to own the House of Quilts antique shop down the street.

“I bought Washington Feed in 1994 and operated it until 2003,” says Curt. “I sold it, but it went into foreclosure. I bought it back in 2007, remodeled it and turned it into an antique mall.” Each vendor has a separate booth, and Deason is pleased with his dealers and their merchandise. “We’ve got some really nice stuff in here,” he says. “We don’t allow any yard-sale items, they have to be antiques. That’s one of our main policies.”

The 8,000-square-foot building actually is two buildings combined. The first was built in 1905 by the grandfather of Frank Rutland. The second was added by Rutland, who ran the feed store for many years. “You can see where the two are joined together, because the walls and doorway are very thick there,” Deason says. “Those were outside walls at one time.”

The Ole Springville Antique Mall, 6364 U.S. Highway 11, Springville, is open Mondays and Tuesdays, Fridays and Saturdays, from 10 a.m. until 5 p.m. Thursdays hours are 10 a.m. until 7 p.m., and Sundays it’s 1 p.m. until 5 p.m. The telephone number is 205-467-0612.

Ten Islands

A tale of two campaigns

By Carolyn Stern
Photos by Jerry Martin

It’s been called “The County’s most historic site” by many. Fort Strother, which would be almost 200 years old today, was an important stepping stone for President Andrew Jackson in his campaign against the Creeks. But where is it? The answer is, you just can’t get there from here.

In the early 1800s, the new country of America was a mass of movement. Opening new land to settlement was never expected to be simple. In Alabama, it meant that the native Creeks would lose land they had long considered their own, and they began to fight back.

“Legend has it that late in the year 1812, Chief Cataula called a council of war at Littafatchee, a village on Canoe Creek, several miles from present-day Ashville,” writes Mattie Lou Teague Crow in her “History of St. Clair County.” Several skirmishes and a bloody battle at Burnt Corn Creek showed that the hostile Creeks (called the Red Sticks) had declared all-out war.

On Oct. 7, 1813, Gen. Andrew Jackson of Tennessee took command of a small company of infantry troops and headed toward the trouble spots in what is now Alabama. Many volunteers joined Jackson because they felt their homes and families wouldn’t be safe as long as the Indians were on the war path.

One of those volunteers was Davy Crockett, who was well known for being a troublemaker. An example is shown in a biography called “In the Footsteps of Davy Crockett” by Randall Jones. After 60 days with Jackson’s army, he and his volunteers began to get restless and were ready to go home. In one camp situation, Crockett said he and the volunteers loaded and primed their rifles and walked across a bridge to leave, despite Jackson’s order that a cannon be aimed and readied for firing at anyone who crossed. They weren’t fired on, he declared, but Jackson said they were “the damned’st volunteers he had ever seen in his life: that we would volunteer and go out and fight, and then at our pleasure would volunteer and go home again in spite of the devil.”

Jackson marched his army to Fort Deposit on Oct. 11 and established a supply depot. From there he headed directly south from the Tennessee River toward Ten Islands. Part of his army went ahead to cut a road that eventually stretched about 50 miles. This route became known as Jackson’s Trace and was still used after Alabama became a state.

No written evidence has surfaced that Jackson ordered a fort to be built at Ten Islands, but the indications are that his plan was to establish this second step in his supply system and work south. Some historians think Jackson gave the fort the name of Strother to honor Gen. George Strother Gaines, Indian factor to the Choctaws. Others say Jackson named it for his topographer, John Strother. An excerpt from one of Strother’s letters infers that was a dubious honor.

“The evil spirits, stated by the natives to reside in a deep hole in the Ten Islands, have surely employed all their mischievous machinations to prevent this post from being supplied with provisions. …”

Through the beginning days of General Jackson’s campaign in Alabama, his men had to forage en route because a supply system hadn’t yet been set up. Eventually four forts were established: Fort Deposit, Fort Strother, Fort Williams and Fort Jackson (built on top of Ft. Toulouse) close to Dadeville.

As soon as he reached Ten Islands, Jackson sent men to cut trees for the stockade. Fort Strother was used by the general during 1813 and 1814 as his headquarters throughout the conflict with the Creek Indians.

Charlie Brannon, who has researched the fort’s history for 40 years and has known about it longer than that, has the facts at his fingertips. “I grew up not far from where the fort was, and I used to wander around and find arrowheads and other such stuff there.”

Brannon says the fort was about 300 feet by 350 feet. “Jackson’s men cut down trees, split them, carved picket posts and stood them in post ports with the flat sides to the inside.” Jackson and some of his officers stayed inside the stockade while most of his men camped outside in mud huts, he adds.

Records show that the fort included three large parade grounds, four separate camps — militia, infantry, calvary and at least 300 friendly Indians, mostly Cherokees but some Creeks. They wore white feathers and white deer tails to distinguish them from the hostile Native-Americans.

Food was of primary importance since the army numbered 3,000 men when it reached Fort Strother on Nov. 1, 1813. (Crockett and his friends were in and out.) A hundred to a hundred and fifty cattle and hogs were maintained, and cribs and storage bins were built to keep the grain dry. The whiskey supply (for medicinal purposes) required a building measuring 144 square feet. It was always kept under lock and key and was well guarded.

After all the forts were established, wagons with supplies moved continually down the line of forts because Jackson wanted to have at least three weeks’ supply of everything needed to support his army when they met the Indians in their final battle. On March 27, 1814, Jackson’s army defeated the Red Sticks at Horseshoe Bend.

In 2000, a joint project by University of Alabama archeologist Carey Oakley, Charlie Brannon, Richard Perry and community volunteers, as well as students from Jacksonville State University and Troy University, examined the land. Perry has written a detailed report of the fort’s history, “The Historical Significance of the Creek Indian War of 1813-14, Land Use and Archaeology of Fort Strother in St. Clair County, Ala.”

A cemetery had already been identified, and a ground-penetrating radar device found anomalies in the soil. Some were confirmed as being human remains. Some post ports and evidence of the moat that surrounded the fort also have been found. Brannon says that 187 artifacts from that project are in the Alabama Archives at Tuscaloosa. “Also, 57 graves of those soldiers who served under General Jackson have been identified. Some of them were killed in battle, and others probably died of malnutrition, disease or injury.”

He adds that other items found in the area, hand-wrought horseshoes and chains, rings and belt buckles, testify to the presence of early travelers. “Some of the articles have a Spanish connection, leading me to believe that Ferdinand De Soto or his men came this way.”

Andrew Jackson had a very personal reason to remember our county, writes Mrs. Crow. “It was in St. Clair County that he found a Creek baby without family. He sent him to a friend in Huntsville and later took him home to his wife, Rachel, in Tennessee. This Creek Indian boy, Lincoya, grew to manhood in the home of the Jacksons.”

Brannon says the Coosa below the dam “is pretty much as it was naturally.” Researchers have determined that the fort was located on the west side of the Coosa just below the present Neely Henry Dam, and the land has had a variety of owners. Slated once for a residential community, it also was mined for sand and gravel. The only marker that memorializes its presence is beside Highway 144 near the Ten Islands Recreation Area. Unfortunately, there isn’t an 1814 fort at Ten Islands that we could visit today. No glass cases of artifacts or armaments. No replicas of the stockade with the corner blockhouses, no designated cemetery area with markers yielding the names of those soldiers who died at Fort Strother. Instead, we have the connection between Ten Islands and Fort Strother, each a story on its own.

Blue and Gray Clash at the Coosa

In July of this year, shouts of summer fun echoed from the sandy beach along the Coosa River. Families picnicked within view of a cool swimming spot on a hot day. Most had passed a historical marker in a parking lot above the recreation area, but probably few had stopped to read it. The plaque tells of a very different scene on a July day.

Battle of Ten Islands

“On July 14, 1864, a small group of brave Confederate Cavalry under Gen. James H. Clanton, approximately 300 strong, were overwhelmed by a vastly superior Union Cavalry force under Gen. L.H. Rousseau. The Confederates were attempting to protect the Janney Iron Works near Ohatchee and Crowe Iron Works near Alexandria. The superior Union force destroyed both iron works and proceeded to Talladega.”

If you had stopped to read the sign (at the urging of an avid historian in the vehicle, like your grandmother), you might immediately train your eyes on the lake and on the opposite shore trying to count the islands. (I know this from personal experience.)

The intriguing name is that of an Indian village that existed before the settlers moved in. It was called Otipalin, a Creek word meaning Ten Islands. The islands may no longer be visible, but the location and the story of the 1864 battle live on.

Events leading to the battle began on July 12 when Union Gen. Rousseau and his “Raiders” invaded the small town of Ashville. Their intent was to load up on supplies that “the enemy might have stored there,” according to Rousseau’s Aug. 10, 1864, official report to the War Department of his actions. After securing feed for the animals and food and clothing for his 2,500 men, the general and his raiders moved on.

Rousseau continued in his report, “On the morning of the 14th, I proceeded with the main body of the command to cross at a ford at Ten Islands, four miles below Greensport.” The ford allowed crossing of the river, and here the Union soldiers met the Sixth and Eighth Alabama Cavalry.

“The advance was met by severe fire from the enemy posted on the east bank sheltered behind rocks and trees,” Rousseau wrote. However, heavy fire that was returned by his Fifth Iowa and Fourth Tennessee Cavalries allowed the Union troops to prevail. Rousseau reported 15 Confederate solders were killed, 40 wounded and eight taken prisoner. His army continued on its way south.

Tom Cooper, Alabama Power supervisor of H. Neely Henry, Logan Martin and Weiss dams for many years, says the area was the perfect place to cross the river. “The ford used by travelers and troops to cross the Coosa was at Wood Island, where a slough came up. Wagons and horses could get across there.” The crossing was natural limestone, he explains.

The 1864 battle of Ten Islands between Union and Confederate soldiers was fierce, but now the marauders are just everyday folks looking to have lots of fun. With a little imagination, they might just see Andrew Jackson and Davy Crockett crossing the river here to reach Fort Strother in the early days of the Indian wars. Or hear the guns and see the action of those long-ago events that are part of this county’s history.

Park attendant Alton Griffith has spent the past five summers watching over the recreation area at Ten Islands. “People don’t know about all this,” he says. “We have a boat-launching area and a fishing pier, a sandy beach and shallow water access, as well as picnic tables and restrooms,” he adds. “And it’s all free.”

After he retired from Goodyear in Gadsden, Griffith looked for something to do that he would enjoy. “On weekends in the summer we might have close to 1,000 people, and the license plates on the cars aren’t all from Alabama. I like to meet and talk with people, so I like it here.” So do a lot of others.

Directions

• The revived Janney Iron Works (Calhoun County) sits on Janney Road (Hwy. 77 north of 144, right on Spring Road and left to Janney Road.)
• To get to H. Neely Henry Dam directly from I-20, take Ala. Hwy. 77 north and turn left/west onto Ala. Hwy. 144.
• From the Ashville area, take U.S. Hwy. 231 south to County 26 and turn left. Continue to Ragland, pick up Ala. Hwy. 144. The recreation area is a left turn just before the bridge.

Valley coming back

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By Carol Pappas
Photos by Jerry Martin

Monstrous trucks carrying limbs and debris no longer lumber up and down the 17-mile stretch of Shoal Creek Valley Road as frequently as they once did.

The air is no longer thick with smoke wafting from towering bonfires of cut trees and remnants from life in the valley before April 27.

You might say Shoal Creek Valley is returning to normal. But this is a new normal for the 600 or so who live there — their lives forever changed since that fateful day when a mile-wide tornado swept through their valley, leaving death and destruction in its wake.

Probably no one knows the new normal better than Shoal Creek Valley Fire Chief Vernon White. He met the tornado head-on that night as he drove the volunteer department’s rescue truck en route to help others trapped by the storm.

He and other volunteers had been cutting downed trees since early morning when another tornado wreaked its havoc on neighboring communities. When he heard the weather report late that afternoon predict a fierce tornado heading Shoal Creek’s way, White headed to the house.

He wouldn’t stay there long. Radio transmissions of people needing help compelled him to leave his safe space and offer assistance.

But as he turned the corner a few hundred yards from his home, he spotted the tornado heading right for him. “I didn’t have time to try to outrun it. It picked the truck up, turned it one time, and I grabbed hold of the steering wheel and laid down in the seat.”

In the course of a few terrifying moments, the tornado deposited the truck into a nearby inlet of Neely Henry Lake. It landed about 30 or 40 feet out into the water, upside down.

He used a knife to cut his seatbelt, and he swam to safety, suffering a black eye and a single cut to his face. “That about ended the day right there,” he feigned at humor, recalling the events of April 27.

But the gravity of it all was not lost on his wife, Linda. “We are so blessed. God saved him because this man’s got more work to do here on Earth.”

In the days since, he, along with countless others, have been doing that work, trying to put back together the pieces of their lives left by that day’s fury. Inspiring stories of modern-day Good Samaritans are as plentiful as the trees that once stood sentry over this peaceful valley.

For White and others in the valley, one story stands out in particular, and there will be a constant reminder of it to passersby and residents alike at the site of the makeshift command post set up that night to coordinate rescue efforts. It is a sign built by warrant officer cadets at South Alabama’s Ft. Rucker, and how it came to be at Shoal Creek Valley is a story in and of itself.

Six weeks earlier, it was time for the cadet class under the instruction of CW2 Brad Carpenter to adopt a mascot and a slogan, a tradition each year for these classes. The class’ mascot became “The Tornadoes” — their motto, “A force to be reckoned with, Sir.”

When the actual tornadoes did forge a deadly path through Alabama, Carpenter thought out of respect to victims that they adopt a different mascot. He took emergency leave himself when the tornadoes damaged his own family’s homes, hoping to help. His mother, Elaine, lives near Pell City, and his cousin’s house was “two feet tall after that.” Insurance regulations kept him from helping there, so he turned his attention to Shoal Creek.

He bought chainsaws, American flags, ropes and water and headed to north St. Clair County, only to be stopped again. They wouldn’t let him in at first, but his determination to “be effective” eventually opened an opportunity that led him to Armstrong Street. He spent the day helping a man he later found out was an Airborne Ranger and Vietnam veteran.

“At the end of the day, he said I can’t thank you enough. I told him, ‘It was an honor to have helped you. We owe it to you, Sir.’”

When he returned to Ft. Rucker, the mascot stayed the same, but the motto changed: “Stand Through the Storm.”

“Standing through the storm. That’s what we did,” Mrs. White said. “We stood together, and we’re gradually cleaning up.”

The men created a 4-foot-by-4-foot sign with the mascot and the motto painted on it, and it was dedicated to the community in early September. “We donated it to Shoal Creek as a symbol to provide inspiration that things are turning for the better,” Carpenter said. The men raised money and donated that as well.

“It is an awesome sign,” White said. “They are wonderful young men, wonderful family men. And it’s awesome what he has done for our nation,” he said of Carpenter, citing multiple tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan. “He is a blessing to me and should be a blessing to this whole great nation for the things he has done.”

Here at home, Carpenter served once again, helping neighbors he didn’t even know before.

After all, that is what life in the valley is about these days. Only one or two families are not rebuilding in a community that had more damage and destruction than houses standing when the tornado had run its course.

“Neighbors helping neighbors,” Mrs. White said. “That’s what it’s all about.

Iola Robert’s Artistic Legacy

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John Lonergan & Wayne Spradley

By GiGi Hood
Photos by Jerry Martin

Each beginning life might be compared to the first brush stroke on a simple piece of canvas. Both new, both existing for awhile amidst the unknown. Only time will reveal just what will develop; but time will not work alone. As life’s desires are born and flourish, they will become integrated with talent, patience, determination, imagination and a strong drive to achieve. And the ultimate result will be an evolution of art that will last far beyond any one individual’s lifetime.

Such was the case of two St. Clair County boys. Both grew up as friends, products of the Avondale Mills mill village. One daddy was a fixer (a welder) at the village, the other, a weaver. Both boys shared a love of sports. They played together, skipped rocks over ponds, explored the woods and attended school at Avondale Mills Elementary. They shared tales and created lifetime memories that exist to this day.

Having shared much in their young lives, the analogy of life being compared to brushstrokes on a canvas has an enormously significant meaning, as well as an almost unbelievable parallel for Wayne Spradley and John Lonergan. Both mill village boys (who still are in their hearts) grew up to become hugely successful artists.

Each man credits the teachers and administrators in Pell City schools for the multi-faceted educations they received. They agreed that their educational experiences were enhanced by the direction and encouragement they received as their talents emerged.

John Lonergan fondly remembers Miss Iola Roberts, principal of Avondale Mills Elementrary School. “She loved what she did and she believed education was not just about books. She was a great lover of the arts — dance, theater, sculpting, painting — all of it,” he said. “Any chance she had to promote the students’ interest in such avenues, she would take.

“She was a great presence,” he explained. “Whenever she really wanted to get your attention, she would grab you by the chin to make sure what she was saying was hitting home. There was no doubt about her level of caring for the students.”

A prodigious young man, Lonergan’s interest in art was apparent at an early age. “I was drawing by the time I was 3 or 4 years old,” he remembered. “I don’t think anybody thought that much about it because I was just a kid occupying myself and having fun.”

Born to a family where hard work was the primary focus to meet the family needs, education seemingly took the back seat. But that was not the case in Lonergan’s life. It was placed in the forefront of his mind by his loving mother who aspired for him to have opportunities outside the boundaries of a mill village.

“From the time I was old enough to remember, my mother told me I was going to college. It was so deeply ingrained in me that I don’t think I ever considered not going,” he said.

And, true to his mother’s wishes, he not only went to college, he graduated twice — once with a bachelor’s degree in fine arts from the University of Alabama and the second time with a master’s degree in education and administration from UAB.

Not long after he had begun to read, Lonergan was given a set of Child Craft books that were devoted to painting. “I was young, but I devoured those books,” he said. During his third- and fourth-grade years, his teacher, Betty Cosper, was so taken with his work that she would cut out mats to go around the drawings and put them on the bulletin board.

Upon entering Pell City High School, Mrs. Dorothy Roper Mays (affectionately called “Droper” by her students) picked up where the elementary teachers had left off. She, too, greatly encouraged the development of his burgeoning talents. “One day we were talking, and I told her I wanted to be an artist one day. She quickly responded by telling me I already was,” he said. “That was a very proud day of my life. I didn’t know how I was going to do it, or where to begin, but I was determined to figure it out.”

Before graduating from high school, Lonergan managed to sell a few of his paintings. His English teacher became his first customer when she purchased a snow scene that he had painted. “To this day, that painting still hangs in her home, and I still believe I painted the moss on the wrong side of the tree.”

His science teacher also bought three of his paintings, as well as his aunt, who later he found out did so just to provide continuous encouragement for the young man’s talent.

After graduating with his first degree, Lonergan was more determined than ever to make a living as an artist, even though as he put it, “artists made no money.” While still pursuing his dream, Lonergan supported his family by working in an area very near and dear to his heart. “I returned to Pell City High School as art teacher,” he said proudly. “With the profound mark teachers had made on my life, it was only natural that I had a desire to work with young people and sew seeds that might make a difference in their lives, just as teachers had done for me.”

During the years he was busily sewing seeds at the school, his professional career took root, blossomed and bore the fruit of his dreams. After retiring from teaching, he was finally able to spend his days as the full time professional artist he had always wanted to be. Today he is considered to be one of Alabama’s finest artists. His ability to paint in different styles sets him apart from many of his colleagues.

Many of his beautiful paintings, like one of his favorites, Purple Morning, are scenes from his own stomping grounds in St. Clair County. Others are from places like Pompeii, Italy. His art is known, appreciated, enjoyed and sold at well known top-shelf art exhibits throughout the country, in places like Charleston, S.C., and Jackson Hole, Wyo. He also does commissioned pieces and displays and sells his art at The Little House on Linden Gallery in Homewood, Ala.

With all his fame and success, Lonergan is living proof that the acorn doesn’t fall too far from the tree. Today he is still teaching classes at Alabama Art Supply in Birmingham. Many, like Mrs. Gene Stallings, have had and still have the opportunity to be taught by the boy from the mill village of Pell City who grew to become a nationally renowned artist.

Career blossoms for Spradley

Coincidentally, while Lonergan was beginning to arrive at his desired professional destination, Wayne Spradley, his childhood friend from the mill village, was traveling a very similar track. At that time, Spradley, who was a few years older than John, had already begun to make his first marks, as well as his first dollars, as a professional artist.

Like Lonergan, he also was a product of both the hard working, close-knit people of the mill village and the influence of Avondale Mills Elementary School and then Pell City High School. He, too, had been privy to the school system that not only afforded a great educational opportunity, but one that nurtured and encouraged a strong interest in the arts.

He was the first from his family to receive a high school diploma. “Looking back to my first school experience, I’m not sure how I made it,” he said. “When it was time to start kindergarten, I didn’t want to go. My mother literally had to drag me into school and even resort to sometimes whipping me up the steps of the school. I don’t know why I was like that. I just had no interest in being there,” he remembered.

Apparently a precocious child, Spradley said that because he was always into something, his mother wasn’t surprised when she was called and told to come to the school. “She wondered what I had done this time,” he said. “And, when she got there, the real surprise was that I had not caused trouble, but that I had sculpted a bird’s nest from clay that caused everyone to marvel at my supposed talent. I do have to admit I enjoyed the attention my creativity had stirred.“

During his fifth-grade year, Wayne was called to the blackboard by his teacher, Mrs. Bryant. His instructions were to draw a president. To his and everyone else’s astonishment, he drew the perfect likeness of George Washington.

“Until that point I knew I liked to color, to sketch and mess around with art, but I never thought about whether or not I had any talent or desire in that direction,” he said. “But that’s where the teachers and my principal, Miss Iola Roberts, came in. They recognized my talent, and they did everything they could do to bring it to the forefront.”

From the sixth- through the eighth-grades, Miss Roberts would allow Spradley and some of his other talented friends to forego class so they could prepare stage sets for the Thanksgiving, Christmas and Halloween extravaganzas that would be presented to the whole mill village. “In February, we would begin work on Miss Roberts’ famous Inspection Plays that would be held for the community prior to the end of the school year,” he said. “Even though I was excused from class, I still had to keep up with my school lessons. But the lessons I learned about artistic creativity were invaluable to my life’s work.”

Spradley met his first real art teacher, Mrs. Armstrong, in the sixth-grade. She had just graduated from Auburn University, was really into art and could see the talent he possessed. “She would take me during study period, tell me to go outside and sketch, and then we’d talk about my work,” he said. “That was really helpful in my artistic growth. I loved helpful criticism then and I always have.”

During his seventh-grade year, a teacher asked Spradley what he was going to do when he grew up. He answered that he was going to play football, be a sailor and an artist. “She got mad at me because all she wanted me to do was be an artist,” he laughingly remembered.

True to his word, Spradley did all three. He was captain of the Pell City High School football team, he traveled the world in the Navy, and then he returned to Pell City, where he said he couldn’t buy a job. But the mill that always had been the mainstay of his family’s existence, didn’t let him down and once again provided a way for him to make ends meet.

While he was in the Navy, Spradley said, he achieved three things that were life-changing events. “I got an education in life, met and married Pat, my wonderful wife, and had time to paint and develop my artistic desires. I painted, sketched and continued to draw. I knew it was in my heart and soul, and that’s what I wanted to do for a living,” he stated.

Finally at age 28, Spradley got really serious about his artwork, and thanks to the advice and direction of Mrs. Dorothy Mays, who had graduated from the Pratt Institute of Art, he used his GI bill to study three years at the Drawing Board School of Art. It was during his first year of art school that he discovered he could make money doing what he loved. He entered five pieces of art in the Birmingham Botanical Gardens Art Show, sold them all very quickly and made $25. Spradley said he was so thrilled by his success he told his wife that they were going to take the opportunity of selling his art as far as it would go. That day was the truly the beginning of his professional art career. No longer did he just hope that one day he could do it. The journey had begun, and he was resolute in his decision to make it a life time career.

And make it he did. Invited to the country’s biggest art shows, Spradley has sold hundreds of pieces of his art, received awards too numerous to mention, and gotten to know people like Katie Couric, who commissioned him to paint her ancestral home in Eufaula, Ala. Presidents Jimmy Carter, George Bush Sr. and Ronald Reagan have all been recipients of his work.

His loving and supporting wife not long ago passed away. During her sickness, he was not able to paint as much or travel to the shows he loved. “I miss her terribly,” he said. “She was with me every step of my way and she always will be. The best thing I can do to honor her and all of her support is to get busy doing what we loved, so that’s what I’m going to do. I’ve already started, and hopefully, I won’t quit till my last breath. She may not be beside me, but now I have an angel on my shoulder.”

Both men are amazing; both true to the gifts they have been given; both still teaching and encouraging others as they were taught and encouraged.

Neither have ever forgotten their St. Clair county roots, steeped in the mill village, the friendships they forged and the teachers who put them on their paths. Both know that the teachers who recognized their talents, gave them their first accolades and always said “yes you can” were the ones who started them on the paths to the successful highways they still travel.

• Both men are still St. Clair County residents

where they are active in their hometown.

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Wadsworth Farm

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A family tradition
100 years in the making

By Carol Pappas
Photo by Jerry Martin

Born and raised near a town now under the waters of Logan Martin Lake, Mike Wadsworth went out to make his way in the world as a commercial artist. But the family farm eventually drew him back, continuing a legacy that has been 100 years in the making.

Wadsworth Farm, in the same family for 100 years, reached a milestone in 2011, earning both Heritage Farm and Century Farm designations from the State of Alabama Department of Agriculture and Industries.

Located just off US 231, south of Pell City, Wadsworth Farm is a remnant of an era gone by in an area known as Easonville before the Coosa River was dammed to create Logan Martin Lake in 1965. Most of what remains of the town now lies underneath Logan Martin, including part of the old highway.

As a boy growing up there, Wadsworth said, the family farm was surrounded by other farms — low-lying pasture land that enabled him to see all the way to present-day Voncile Lane, a road off Alabama 34 several miles away.

The farm started as a peach orchard in 1911 by his grandfather, William Lee Wadsworth. He and Wadsworth’s grandmother, Ella Ritch Wadsworth, had all their children in the house, and as the years passed, the family clan thrived.

It was more than a half century earlier that the original Wadsworth family first settled the area around Treasure Island on the Coosa River. Some were tanners and trappers, and they traveled the Coosa all the way to Wetumpka, trapping along the way and selling their pelts.

The story goes, said the modern day Wadsworth, that on one trip, the dealer would not pay what the group thought the pelts were worth. They pooled their money and could only buy one train ticket. One man returned home on the train with the pelts while the rest of the group walked back to Easonville from Wetumpka.

Another story handed down is the purchase of the first “store bought” match, when his grandfather sent for the children to witness a match struck for the first time.

It was a time when his grandfather and a great uncle operated two syrup mills, and 630 gallons of syrup could buy his great uncle, George Ritch, a brand-new, 1930 Chevrolet.

Wadsworth also recounted hard times, where families knew they could “always go see Mr. Lee” for the basics, like corn, syrup and eggs. “It’s hard to believe people lived on that,” his wife, Jeanette, said. But they were able to get their iron and protein in those basics from ‘Mr. Lee.’

Excess milk from their cows was sold to local stores and to the Southside Birmingham landmark, Waites Bakery.

Today, the Wadsworth place earns a different kind of fame near and far as a blueberry farm, where thousands of gallons of blueberries are picked each year. Originally an 80-acre piece of property, it has grown to more than 330 acres under his and his father’s time as owners.

The Wadsworths have been operating the farm as a ‘U Pick, We Pick’ farm since their first planting in 1987, and it goes by an honor system, where people from all over come to pick this seasonal favorite and take it with them. The only thing they leave behind is the payment — in an “honor box.”

The farm has done quite well under the Wadsworths’ careful nurturing and continues to grow in numbers of plants and types of blueberries.

Wadsworth didn’t set out to be a successful farmer. In early adulthood, he pursued a career in art — a gift for drawing and painting he shared with his mother.

Wadsworth graduated from art school in Birmingham and did architectural illustrations for more than 10 years. “I thought there must be a better way to make a living,” Wadsworth said. So when the Wadsworths visited a blueberry picking farm in Golden Springs, an idea that was new and expensive in the South, “I thought it was pretty neat.” The Wadsworths decided to turn part of the acreage into a blueberry farm, and they became involved with a group in Clay County. They learned the intricacies of what to do through Auburn University’s small fruits program. “I learned real quick they need a lot of water,” Wadsworth said. But as his crop grew, so did his knowledge, and he and his wife became active well beyond their Easonville farm. Wadsworth served as president of the Alabama Blueberry Association, and Mrs. Wadsworth served on the Gulf South Blueberry Board as the U Pick representative.

Back home at the farm this season, they raised a bumper crop of almost 6,500 pounds of blueberries and more than 1,000 gallons picked from their 3,200 bushes.

People have come from all over the country to pick Wadsworth blueberries. “We have met a lot of interesting people,” he said, noting one friendship he struck with “an author, geologist and archeologist all rolled into one. He has been all over the world working with oil companies.”

And as another season came to a close this summer, the Wadsworths looked back on 100 years as a family farm while looking ahead to a fourth generation continuing the legacy begun a century ago.

The way Wadsworth looks at it, “I only have the land for a short time, and I want to leave it in better condition than when I received it — better with my timber, better conservation practices.”

When he hands the land to his children he hopes they will heed their parents’ teachings about the land. “We have tried to instill good conservation and heritage values in them. Hopefully, the land will go down through generations and not into subdivisions.

“People move out in the country, and then the subdivisions come, and there’s no more country.”

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Hummingbird Heaven

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Every year, some of the smallest
birds alive flock to St. Clair County

By Carol Pappas
Photos by Jerry Martin

Close your eyes a minute, and you might think you’re at LaGuardia or some other heavily traveled airport as the whir of the air traffic heads in and out.

But this isn’t LaGuardia, not by a long shot. And that whir you hear? It’s just the yearly flight of the Ruby-throated Hummingbird — hundreds of them — heading in for a good meal at a familiar St. Clair County landing strip.

From the road, there’s not much to distinguish it from other residences in this Chandler Mountain neck of the woods. But step around back, and Bill and Jody Gilliland have quite a surprise in store.

Hanging from the backyard rooftop and dangling from clothes lines are rows and rows of hummingbird feeders, enticing these tiny creatures back year after year like regular customers to a local diner at lunch rush.

And they have been back every year for more than a decade. “They’re fairly loyal if they’re breeding,” Bill Gilliland said. A lot of times, they’ll come on the same date. They’re loyal to their route.

“We just furnish the yard and the birdfeeders is basically what we do,” he said, noting that he dedicates this time of year to keeping dozens of feeders stocked on a daily basis for his winged travelers. It takes about 200 gallons of sugar water a year to feed the thousands of birds in his yard.

“I buy the sugar,” Jody Gilliland said, downplaying her role in the process. Her husband handles the rest.

The Gillilands’ place has now become a hummingbird banding training station, where trackers from across the country and as far away as South America have come to train how to band a bird smaller than a person’s little finger.

According to Brandee Moore, who is a licensed bander living on Chandler Mountain, the tiny, aluminum band with a letter and five identification numbers is slipped onto the bird after a momentary capture, and the number is registered in a computer system so that wherever they travel, their frequent flyer miles can be logged. The band on the leg corresponds to measurements, like their bill, their age and sex. The number will never be given to any other bird, so the recapture can tell the history of that particular bird.

A hummingbird bander is not all that common — only 250 in the U.S.; not much more worldwide — because the bird is so small and has to be handled differently than other birds. To be certified requires a separate designation. And that’s why the Gillilands lend their property each year as a training ground.

“They like them to band 100 birds here” to ensure that they can build speed and precision during the capture process, Gilliland said.

And tracking their travels helps those who have an interest to learn about the habits of these fascinating birds. “We probably know about 10 percent,” Gilliland said. “We have lots to learn. But we know a lot more now than we did 30 years ago.”

They first start appearing at the Gillilands each March when migration begins. The male comes first, and the females follow. In late March, they are in full breeding plumage — “iridescent green, like jewels,” Gilliland said.

Thousands will make their way there each year through the end of October. “After Nov. 1, it’s likely not the Ruby Throated Hummingbird,” but some other species, like Rufous, Gilliland said.

By mid-July, traffic starts “picking up,” and in general, they’re all gone by mid to late October.

People who see hummingbirds in their yards generally think it is the same bird over and over again. In reality, though, if a feeder is feeding five birds, it probably is really feeding 25. “There’s a lot more you don’t see. What you see in the yard is four to five times more.

“That’s what we learn from banding.”

Gilliland, a retired State of Alabama engineer, and his wife, who also retired from the state, have always had an interest in birds. They were members of the Ornithological Society and the Audubon Society. They took continuing education classes at the University of Alabama at Birmingham and even taught some through the Audubon Society.

They met Bob and Martha Sargent of Clay, Alabama, who founded The Hummer/Bird Study Group. The group is nonprofit organization founded to study and preserve hummingbirds and other Neo-tropical songbirds. And they have been heavily involved ever since.

HBSG operates banding stations in Clay and Fort Morgan, Alabama. At Fort Morgan in the spring and fall, volunteers capture and band hummingbirds and other species because this coastal area is the first landfall and the last departure point for thousands of migrating birds.

“We are in the hummingbird path, passing through from the north,” said Sargent. From the westernmost point, they come from the eastern slope of the Rocky Mountains in Alberta Province and southern Canada.

From the east, they come from the maritime provinces like Nova Scotia and Labrador, Sargent said. After their “nesting duties, they head south” en route to southern Mexico and northern Panama “and everywhere in between.”

They are not cold-hardy birds, so when temperatures begin their descent, they in essence, “get out of town,” Sargent said. Over land, they stream southward through the Dakotas, Oklahoma and Texas. The eastern part of the population are transgulf migrants on their way to Mexico and Central America this time of year.

He likened them to a broad river, spreading out. “They are not flocking birds. They are independent, ornery, aggressive and mean. They just don’t like each other, but it works for them. That’s the neat thing.”

And that seasonal flight is something they have been doing for uncountable generations, Sargent said, “and the hummingbirds were doing just what they do now.”

Viewer submitted photo/John and Judy Hulsey:

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