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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.

Features

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.”

Features

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:

Features

Coming home to the Cove

By Carolyn Stern
Photos by Jerry Martin

Traveling from Pell City or Ashville to Oneonta on US 231 North, you might easily miss a road sign on the right, just after mile marker 242. It reads “Beason Cove Road.” However, if it catches your eye, and you turn, following the narrow road down a hill and across Muckelroy Creek, you enter a valley that holds an enduring history of a family and of the area.

Beason Cove Road runs along the base of Chandler Mountain, parallel to US 11 North. A number of genealogies based on recorded documents shows that a son of the original St. Clair County settler brought his family to what became known as Beason’s Cove.

Today, almost two centuries later, a family reunion is held annually on the second Sunday in June (even in 95-degree temperature). These are folks who know who their “people” were and are. The meeting place for these reunions is a small white-painted, steepled church with an adjoining cemetery where many family members are buried. The church was, and still is, known as Union Church or Beason’s Union Church.

The first structure was made of logs. It was torn down in the late 1800s and replaced with a wooden building that was destroyed by fire on the second Saturday in June 1919. The present building was constructed in 1921.

But let’s back up a bit. How and when did the Beeson/Beason family happen to settle in St. Clair County, and who first came to the Cove?

Capt. Edward Beeson, who was born in Guilford, N.C., joined the army of the Revolution in the spring of 1778. He was commissioned captain of a company of foot soldiers. In 1814, after Gen. Andrew Jackson negotiated a treaty to end the war with the Creeks, more than 20 million acres of Creek land became available to settlers. Much of it was in the area that became known as Alabama.

Beeson was one of the many people who moved their families further south to take advantage of the open land and settled in St. Clair County, between what is now Ashville and Steele.

Records show he was married three times and had nine children. He later moved to Etowah County, where he was buried in Carleton Cemetery in the Aurora community. In 1925, his grave site was moved to the Beeson/Union cemetery. His military marker is located there, as is a large memorial marker installed in recent years by his descendants.

One of his sons, Curtis Grubb Beason, who was 12 years old when he came to St. Clair County, was the one responsible for the settling of the Cove area and spreading the ownership among his children.

Curtis married Martha Clark, who was part Creek Indian. Her parents were Henry and Margaret (Lightfoot) Clark. The couple had 10 children, five girls and five boys. Eight of them eventually owned farms in Beason Cove. Curtis Grubb was an influential man of the time. He held the office of county tax assessor and collector in 1843-1844. He was state senator from St. Clair County in 1863 and a delegate to the Constitutional Convention of 1865.

Around 1840, Curtis built the two-story Beason plantation home that you can see by taking the first left turn after entering the Cove. The last of the Beasons to live in the plantation home were Miss Allie Beason and Curtis Hinton, son of Laura Beason Hinton. When both died, the house passed out of the family. The once narrow, dusty road is now known as Curt Hinton Drive (an alternate route to the Horse Pens 40 access road). Trees flanking both sides of the sparsely populated roadway produce brilliant autumn color and thoughts of days gone by.

Curtis gave the land on which the church stands to his son William Spruell Beason. William Beason and his wife, the former Juliann Dearman, gave the property to the Methodist Episcopal Church of the United States on Oct. 10, 1880. Later, the property reverted to the family. William and Juliann were the grandparents of the Doctors W.D. and R.C. Partlow, who were connected with Brice Hospital and Partlow School for a number of years.

In the past few years, Beesons have given their support to Samford University, the Birmingham Museum of Art and other causes. Alabama State Sen. Scott Beason is a descendant, and his father, Tom, is president of the Beason Family Association, which maintains the church property today. Other family members make vital contributions to education, medicine, government, agriculture, the military, religion and business.

Edith Bowlin Tucker is the great-great-great-granddaughter of Curtis Grubb Beason, and many of those who come to the reunions are “cousins” of hers.

She writes in a summary of the family’s history, “William S. Beason’s home was a big log house located just beyond the church.” Her nephew, Jerry Payne, and his wife, Janice, built a log house on the corner of Beason Cove Road and US 231 in 2001.

Jerry and Janice are the only Beasons who live in the Cove now. Their home is just a short distance from the church and cemetery. Throughout the year, Jerry takes care of the church grounds. “I feel like that’s what my mother would want me to do,” he says. “Living here gives me a real connection to our family’s story.”

But wherever the parents, grandparents and, of course, the cousins live, they are sure to continue the proud history of the Beesons/Beasons, no matter how their names are spelled.

Alabama Gold

By David Story
Photos by Jerry Martin

Without flowering plants, there would be no honey.

It’s all about the nectar, says beekeeper and self-proclaimed “bee doctor” Jimmy Carmack, who’s appeared on numerous local TV shows and radio shows promoting honeybee issues. Owner of Carmack Farms in Odenville along with others in the state, he has become quite the expert.

Many myths have surrounded honey over the centuries: unfiltered honey can be good medicine for allergies, that the body metabolizes honey differently from other sweets or that honey’s as good as gold.

State Apiarist Dennis Barclift with Alabama’s Plant Protection section is quick to point out the pros and cons for people with allergies, “The pollen in the honey can make some people with allergies sicker. Others may claim to want honey because of its antibodies, which gives resistance allergies, but all this is speculation and folklore.”

Barclift adds, “However, we do know honey’s good for you; we know it tastes good and is a ready energy source since it’s simple sugar. The sugar’s broken down by the bees, so the human body can use it immediately. That’s why many athletes drink a solution of honey and water.”

And, honey’s indeed much in demand. “I get a lot of calls in the spring looking for local, unfiltered honey,” says Carmack, who’s participated in workshops and continuing education courses at Auburn University.

So, myths aside, two facts about honey are indisputable. Whether an entrepreneur like Carmack or a hobbyist, honey production’s fun and challenging. And, whether a chef or a homemaker, cooking with honey’s nutritional.

Man’s fascination with honey began 10,000 years ago. According to retired home economics instructor Lee Cannon, author of the Southern Living Quick & Easy Cookbook, honey extraction, and not solicitation, is the world’s oldest profession. Since the dawn of time, she says, man has craved honey, coveted honey and consumed honey.

“Honey’s the world’s oldest sweetener,” she adds “There’s evidence of honey gathering on mesolithic cave paintings in Valencia, Spain. In Ancient Greece honey was the primary sweetener. And in ancient Egypt, honey was used to sweeten cakes and biscuits; Middle Eastern people used honey for embalming’ and in the Americas, the Maya used honey from bees for culinary purposes. Honey was a 16th century sweetener popular before slavery in the West Indies made sugar cane plantations a reality. Then, sugar changed the game and took the place of honey.”

People still clamor for honey today, and in order to meet the growing demand, Carmack excises honey from hives at his apiaries, keeping bees in three or four counties. “We have colonies of bees all the way up to Huntsville,” says Carmack, who has set up exhibits at fairs, Earth Day events and Farm Day for Kids at statewide schools.

“We primarily produce wildflower honey, cotton honey and occasionally kudzu honey,” continues Carmack, who has worked with the apiary at Jones Valley Urban Farm in downtown Birmingham. “Our honeys have won numerous local, state and national ribbons.”

Other popular flavors indigenous to Alabama are “clover/spring flower (peach apple, and blackberry mixtures) and tulip poplar,” Barclift says.

And Cannon goes on to say some of the honeys with which she’s most familiar are alfalfa, buckwheat and basswood, the latter of which is an ornamental shade tree producing cream-colored flowers known for their nectar.

Buddy Adamson, director of the Alabama Farmers Federation’s Bee and Honey Producers Commodity Division, says the most common honeys in Alabama are wildflower, clover, cotton, soybean and privet, an invasive plant that’s nonetheless a “fruity” source of nectar. Lighter honeys are more prevalent and come with a milder flavor.

“Honey can be as clear as water,” explains Carmack, or almost as black as coal. It can vary from practically tasteless to bold and robust. The nectar source determines the color and flavor. For example, cotton honey is very sweet but prone to crystallization. He says that when honey granulates, it hasn’t gone bad. It can be re-liquefied by heating in a pan of water, but cautions that honey should never be refrigerated. Folklore has it, he adds, crystallized honey found in the pyramids of Egypt was still edible.

Once his honey’s extracted and packaged, Carmack sells jars of Pure Alabama Honey to retailers on US 280 at Cowboys’ gas station and Whole Foods, also on US 280, which in 2007 became the first national grocery chain to open its anchor store in Alabama with an exclusive supply of Pure Alabama Honey. Carmack, who’s described by Barclift as “knowledgeable about bees and a good beekeeper,” also sells at other venues, such as Valleydale Farmers Market on Saturdays in the summer and Pell City Farmers’ market on Wednesday afternoons.

Pure Alabama Honey’s available in five sizes: 8 ounces, 12 ounces, 16 ounces, 32 ounces, and 64 ounces, but individual retailers may not carry every size. “You’d be surprised at how big a seller our 64 ounces is,” Carmack says. “There are people who really go through a lot of honey.”

Adamson explains Carmack is the exception to the rule as there are practically no commercial-sized apiaries left in the state today, as opposed to almost 70 about eight years ago. According to Adamson, costs vary from $1 per lb. on up. He says one pint of honey is about 3 lbs. and may sell for around $4 to $5.

Barclift concurs, “Honey can go up to $2 to $5 a pound.”

An early fascination for bees

“Bees always interested me as a child,” explains Carmack. “Then, as an adult I was working with a guy who was a beekeeper, and he showed me what to buy along with the book, First Lessons in Beekeeping. We went to the old Sears store in Birmingham. It had a big garden center and sold beekeeping supplies. In 1973, I ordered my first bees there from York Bee in Jessup, Ga. I was hooked. I’ve been keeping bees ever since.”

Carmack, a certified master beekeeper through the University of Georgia’s Honey Bee Program, has served as president of the Jefferson County Beekeepers Association and president of the Alabama Beekeepers Association.

“I was involved with the Alabama Farmers Federation in creating a bee and honey commodity with their organization,” he says, “and served on the Bee and Honey State Committee for nine years.”

One thing Carmack says he learned during his tenure with the committee was people often don’t realize the benefits of bees and the role they play in agriculture: “The pollination bees provide is essential to many of our state’s most valued crops.”

Adamson agrees, “Beekeeping’s indeed important from the standpoint of pollination; honey’s important secondly to pollination.”

The nectar source for Carmack’s Pure Alabama Honey bees comes from wildflowers, which include a cross section of blooms: dandelion, clover, tulip poplar, holly, blackberry, mimosas and sumac.

“Pure Alabama Honey’s raw and strained as opposed to microscopically filtered, which means it still maintains the pollen granules that are so beneficial.” When pasteurized, honey is heated to a high temperature, breaking down the vitamins, minerals, and enzymes.

Barclift notes that “pasteurized” is a bad term: “Honey’s filtered but not ‘pasteurized’, and it’s often highly filtered or strained. Straining and filtering are cleaning processes, getting bits of wax, a purification, if you will, to get out bits of pollen from the comb.”

As for the nutritional benefits of honey, Cannon explains what’s in it: “It’s about a third fructose, a third glucose, and less than a fourth water. Higher sugars and sucrose make for less than a tenth of honey’s make-up.”

With an Italian-American background, Cannon’s traditional cuisine wasn’t steeped in honey – her mother, Philomena Ferrara, didn’t really cook a lot with it, so Cannon’s first culinary experience with honey was in the form of a pancake or ableskiver from a recipe prepared by her husband Bob’s Mormon mother, Winifred Morrell Cannon. “For every Sunday supper we ate ableskiver, prepared in a special ableskiver pan, topped with homemade honey butter.”

This family tradition has been carried on by Cannon’s sister-in-law, Winnifred Cannon Jardine, a home economics graduate of Iowa State University and author of the Mormon Country Cooking (She for many years was a food critic with The Desert News in Salt Lake City.).

“Today honey has become more expensive than sugar,” says Cannon, “but I still like to put honey on toast and squash – don’t peel the squash – it’s better than butter.”