Category: St. Clair History

Grave Dowsing

Finding where the bones are buried

Story by Elaine Hobson Miller
Photos by Wallace Bromberg Jr.

About 50 people gathered inside Reeves Grove Baptist Church on a fall Saturday, listening attentively as The Backwood Boys sang Ain’t No Grave (Gonna Hold This Body Down), Swing Low, Sweet Chariot and other old spirituals.

They heard a brief history of the church and received apples from the apron pockets of several women dressed in the fashion of the late 1800s, when the church was established.

But the main attraction was outside, after these presentations, when two grave dowsers approached the old church cemetery, dowsing rods made of wire in their hands. Dowsing has been used for centuries to locate water, graves, pipelines and other underground objects by watching the motion of a pointer – usually a forked stick or paired bent wire. At Reeves Grove, the group was locating graves as part of its ongoing restoration project at the historic church.

Backwood Boys Mark Willingham, Marlin Galloway and Adron Willingham play at grave dowsing event.

It didn’t take long for Wayne Gregg’s rods to cross, indicating a grave. According to the marker, that grave belonged to Elizabeth McCorkle, wife of the original owner of the McCorkle Plantation upon which Reeves Grove now stands. Something wasn’t quite right, though. The markers weren’t where they were supposed to be. His rods indicated the presence of a second body that wasn’t represented on the grave marker. “We think it might have been Elizabeth’s husband,” says Linda Moyer, chairperson of the Reeves Grove Historical Committee.

The group soon moved on to the slave section of the cemetery, where the graves have no stones. The committee wants to mark those graves and give the folks buried there the recognition they are due, even if their names are unknown.

Gregg, who is from DeKalb County, wasn’t the first dowser to notice the anomaly of an extra person in a grave, however. “I went up there one afternoon with some members a week before they had the official event,” says Frank Waid, a Springville grave dowser who studied under Gregg. “We laid out the McCorkle Cemetery and marked a bunch of graves with flags. (Moyer says they put ribbons on the graves of the church founders.) One kept giving all kinds of problems. I was getting readings of male and female bodies. I said, ‘Something’s wrong here. I think there’s two people in this grave, but I’m not sure, because I’m not as experienced as Wayne Gregg.’ So, when they had the special day and demonstrated dowsing for the people, Wayne started walking in the spot where I had been walking and said, ‘There are two people buried here!’”

The dowsing event was another effort to raise awareness and money for the restoration of the original church building. The church historical committee is restoring the sanctuary and its attached fellowship hall to be used as an event venue.

But restoration wasn’t uppermost in the minds of those in attendance on dowsing day. People were so interested in Gregg’s presentation on grave dowsing that their questions and his answers pushed his allotted 30-45 minutes on the program to an hour. “They were fascinated,” says Moyer. “They also enjoyed Macki Branham’s brief history of the church and Glenda Tucker showing off a fashionable dress from the McCorkle era.” The dress was once worn by Eliza Elizabeth (Moore) Keith, (December 16, 1827-January 8, 1891), the great-great-grandmother of Glenda’s husband, Harry Tucker.

The Backwood Boys – Gallant musicians Adron and Mark Willingham on guitars, Marlin Galloway on mandolin – continued to play as the audience filed outside behind Gregg and Waid for the actual grave dowsing. Gregg narrated while Waid demonstrated dowsing techniques.

“I use two wires I got from Wayne,” Waid says. “If they cross high, it’s a female; if low, it’s a male. Lots of times (during the 1800s) women died in childbirth and they buried mom with her baby on her chest. Wayne can tell that, but I don’t have that experience yet.”

Waid noticed that all the graves in the slave section were small and wondered whether they might be buried in a fetal position. “They wouldn’t have had the resources for caskets, so they probably wrapped the bodies in blankets,” he said. “Most of these slaves came from South Carolina, and they were Caribbean slaves, so some of their beliefs determined how they were buried.”

Waid took a grave-dowsing class from Gregg about three years ago at his wife’s urging. She is a member of area historical and genealogical societies and thought grave dowsing might add depth (no pun intended) to that type of research.

“He gave a long, interesting class that morning, we had lunch, then went to an old cemetery,” Waid says. “We started practicing dowsing. Somehow it seemed to work for myself and Joseph Williams, also from Springville and part of the Springville Preservation Society. It was amazing! There were some people there who couldn’t get the hang of it, or it didn’t work for them, but for Joseph and me and one other lady, it did.”

In a self-published booklet titled, Dowsing for Fun and Profit, Gregg writes, “In Peru, a rock carving more than 9,000 years old depicts a man holding a forked dowsing stick,” he writes. Modern dowsing begins to appear in records around the 15th century in Europe.

Members of the Reeves Grove Historical Committee placed white ribbons on the graves of the church’s founders.

Although most scientists are skeptics, Gregg says dowsing has been proven many times. “I recently read a German government 10-year report recorded by a physicist at the University of Munich,” he says in his booklet, which he published several years ago. “He described how dowsing was used to locate water sources in arid regions of Sri Lanka, Zaire, Kenya, Namibia, Yemen and other countries. The success rates by dowsers in 691 drillings was an amazing 96%, where a success rate of only 30% would be expected from conventional techniques.”

Gregg got interested in dowsing when he went to work for Southern Bell telephone company in 1963. “The older guys who repaired underground cables taught me,” he says. “We didn’t have the modern devices we have now.”

Although dowsing is sometimes related to spirituality and witchcraft, Gregg says he doesn’t have any special powers, nor is he gifted in any way. It has nothing to do with witchcraft, because “it works for the majority of those who try it, and I know we are not all witches.” At times he has thought he discovered what makes it work, such as disturbance of the earth’s energy fields, only to find it was not true, particularly when it comes to determining the gender of a person in a grave. “Albert Einstein referred to dowsing as quantum physics, yet unexplained,” he says.

Still, people for whom the stick worked were called “water witches” by our ancestors, who hired them to locate underground water. “Rods work for a large percentage of first timers,” Gregg says. “Forked sticks work for only a very small percentage.”

For grave dowsing, he uses wire rods, which can be made of any stiff wire. The most common are coat hangers. The rods are made by bending the wire into an “L” shape, with the handle being the length of the dowser’s hand and the long part extending in front of him for 12-18 inches. “Rods will work for a large percentage of those who try for the first time,” he writes in his booklet. “They will never work for some, no matter how hard they try. Excessive jewelry, cellphones and other items worn on the body will sometimes make a difference.”

In his booklet, he explains how to hold the rods (elbows at waist, forearms parallel to the ground). He cautions NOT to place one’s thumbs over the bend of the handle, as this will restrict movement. Don’t grip too tightly, he cautions, only enough to keep the rods parallel. Approach the gravesite walking very slowly. “The rods will cross in front of you when you are over the grave. Once you step off the grave, they will uncross.”

He says the rods will respond the same to any burial, including stillborn infants through adults, even animals. “It makes no difference if the body was buried wrapped only in cloth, in a wood or metal coffin, or a coffin inside a vault,” he writes. “The age of the grave makes no difference. It can be recent or hundreds of years old.”

He says in order to more easily find unmarked graves and determine gender, it’s important to remember that most cemeteries in the United States bury their dead in a Christian manner. Their bodies are laid on their backs with their heads pointing west and their feet pointing east, as if they’re looking east for the second coming of Jesus Christ.

“You will discover that unmarked graves in an established cemetery will be buried in the same rows as marked graves,” he writes. “In a cemetery with no markers, it will be necessary to determine east and west directions to know the position of graves. Locate unmarked graves by walking slowly across the area you suspect. If graves are present your rods will cross and uncross as you move from one grave to the next.” Above all, he says, practice, practice, practice to get good at dowsing.

At 80 years of age, Gregg doesn’t dowse as much as he used to. He doesn’t have plans to conduct another workshop, either, but his booklet, which also discusses dowsing for water pipes and buried cables, is available, along with two wire dowsing rods, for $10.

Several folks at the Reeves Grove dowsing event bought the package, and just about everyone came away with a new perspective on the subject.

“Through the years, the McCorkle property gradually got sold bit by bit to various people, and we found out the day of the dowsing event that the original cemetery probably extends into what is now the Fant property,” Moyer said. “Now we know where the graves actually are in the old slave section.”

Editor’s note: For more about the restoration project, go to discoverstclair.com/back-issues and scroll down to April 2019, page 42.

Call Gregg at 256-706-3262 for information on how to obtain the booklet and rod set.

Rock House

Four generations, one unique home in Ashville

Story by Elaine Hobson Miller

Photos by Graham Hadley

Some call it the Rock House because of the building materials used for its walls. Others call it the Weaning House because several young newlyweds have lived in it. Historically, it is known as the R.E. Jones House, after its builder and original occupants.

Regardless of what you call it, this Craftsman-style house on U.S. 231 near downtown Ashville has been home to four generations of a local family with the fifth due in June. That’s a lot of love and laughter for a house that’s only 76 years old.

“My daddy started building the house right before WWII,” says Ross T. Jones, the current owner and a former transportation supervisor for the St. Clair County Board of Education. “He went to war before he could finish it and returned in 1945, then completed it in 1946.”

Ross’ daddy, Ross Earl (Buddy) Jones, was born in 1909. He was the son of Ashville businessman Green T. Jones, who co-owned the Jones and McBrayer General Store with A.L. McBrayer of Ashville.The store sold everything from milk to coffins.After graduating from high school, Buddy Jones worked for the county and for his father, delivering coal in the winter and ice in the summer to area customers.

Buddy married Lorene Montgomery, whose father, Walter Montgomery, had purchased the land where the Rock House stands in the late 1800s for $500, a horse and a saddle. The 3.5 acres of land came with an existing house. Lorene’s parents lived in that house, which is next door to where the Rock House was built, until they died. Ross Jones’s nephew lives there today.

By the time Buddy was drafted, he had finished the two back bedrooms, central hallway and kitchen of the Rock House. “My mom and brother, Jerry, lived there while dad was on active duty,” Ross says. When he returned from the war, Buddy finished a third bedroom, the breakfast nook, living room and dining room. The rooms were kept warm by a wood heater in the hallway. Its flue has since been removed and covered over.

Four generations: Ross T. Jones, Laura Norris, Gracie Merritt and daughter Hattie Grace

“There was an outhouse on the property back then, and we’re not sure when the indoor bathroom was added,” says Ross, who was raised in the Rock House. “It was probably about the time Ashville got a sewer system, because we’ve never had a septic tank here.”

He has the original blueprints for the house, which was patterned after a rock home in Albertville. His father gathered the rocks for the foundation and outside walls in the afternoons after he got off work. He and a co-worker took the company truck after making coal or ice deliveries and picked up rocks in various fields around Ashville. He dumped them into a big pile in what is now the backyard.

“Folks were glad to get them out of their fields so they could grow crops,” says Ross. When Forney Coker started laying the stones, he soon announced to Buddy Jones, “You don’t have half enough.” So, Buddy continued his rock gathering until he had the amount needed.

Some of those rocks support the house from underneath. Two 20-foot-long rock columns, each about 2.5-3 feet in height and two feet wide, start at the back and end where the hallway stops and the dining room begins. The front porch wraps around half of the right side of the house and uses six rock columns that measure 2.5 feet on each side. Each column is topped with a concrete banister. The columns and walls were formed by building wood frames, stacking rocks in them and pouring concrete into the frames. After the concrete set, builders moved the frame higher, added more rocks and concrete, then repeated the process until the columns and walls reached the desired heights.

There are two ways to enter from the front porch. An arched entryway rises above French doors at the main entrance, which takes you in through the dining room. To the left of the dining room is the living room, which can be entered through a single outside door. “Grandmother used that door, but hardly anybody else has since her,” says Laura Norris, Ross Jones’s daughter. “Most use the French doors into the dining room.”

Behind the dining room is a breakfast nook that leads into the kitchen. The hallway runs from the dining room to the house’s only bathroom at the back. The breakfast nook, kitchen and back bedroom are off the right side of the hall, while two bedrooms and a small closet between them are off the left side. The back bedroom on the right is being used by the current residents, Laura’s daughter, Gracie, and her husband, Stoney Merritt, as a laundry room, storage room and extra closet. A side door enters a tiny area that used to house Ross’ mother’s washing machine, and that area leads into the breakfast nook.

“There are only three closets in the house, including the utility closet in the hallway,” Laura says. “There’s a brick fireplace in the back bedroom and another one in the living room that are original. They are so shallow, we think more coal than wood was burned in them.”

Front door still uses the original key to lock

Several newlyweds rented the house after Buddy and Lorene’s death. Laura didn’t live there until she married Michael Norris in late 1999. They lived there until 2001. Jonathan Jones, Laura’s brother, moved in when he returned from college, staying until he moved to Huntsville in 2005. In 2006, Laura and Michael returned to the Rock House, this time turning it into the offices of their startup company, Laboratory Resources and Solutions (LRS). When LRS moved into their current office in downtown Ashville in 2017, Laura turned the cottage into an Airbnb for a couple of years.

“We had a lot more business than I thought this area would have,” Laura says of that enterprise. “Roses & Lace Bed-and-Breakfast next door had closed, and we got a lot of guests from wedding venues and Talladega race fans.” That incarnation ended in August of 2020 when Gracie and Stoney moved in as newlyweds. When their daughter, Hattie Grace,was recently born, she became the fifth generation of the same local family to live in the Rock House.

“Mom and dad helped us do a few renovations before we lived there in 1999, and Michael and I have done all of the renovations that have taken place since 2006,” Laura says.

She and Michael kept the original hardwood floors in the living room, dining room and front bedroom, had the dirty carpet ripped up from the hallway and back rooms, then replaced the pine that was under that with more hardwood, and had all hardwood floors stained to match. All doors and windows are original, but the roof is fairly new and so is the wiring and plumbing. Plaster walls were patched and painted throughout the house. They also added heating and air.

“I wanted to maintain the original character of the house,” Laura says. “I tried to save the original sink in the kitchen, but it was rusted through.” The bathtub is original to the house. Ross tiled parts of the plaster walls alongside the bathtub during the 1990s to create a shower.

While re-wiring the house, their electrician fell through the plaster ceiling in the hallway. “We had to call in a plaster guy to fix it,” Michael Norris says. It wasn’t the first time that had happened, though. “I did the same thing when Laura and I lived here,” Michael says. “We were putting insulation in the attic, and you have to walk on the wooden beams, and there’s still bark on them. The bark came off and I fell through.”

Two outbuildings are original to the property, one a barn, the other a shed. The barn was built by Ross Jones’ maternal grandfather, Walter Montgomery, and the white shed by his father, Buddy. “The third door of that white outbuilding on the right was the outhouse,” says Laura. “My grandfather moved grandmother’s washing machine out there after it caused the floor at the side entrance of the house to rot. He covered the hole where the outhouse had been with a slab of concrete and put a drain in it for her wash house.”

Laura had the kitchen remodeled for Gracie. She replaced brown appliances from the 1960s with stainless-steel editions, added a dishwasher and replaced the flooring with gray, interlocking tiles. She kept the cabinets that were built by Wilson Construction of Ashville in the 1960s. “We put new doors on them and painted them white,” she says. “The old ones were stained from years of cooking.” She put in quartz countertops, with white subway tiles for the backsplashes, a gray under-mount sink of a composite material, and added modern light fixtures. “We had to special-order the wall oven to fit the 30-inch space,” Michael says. “The standard is 36 inches.”

The Hoosier cabinet in the breakfast nook belonged to Laura’s grandmother on her mother’s side. “She made lots of biscuits on it,” says Laura’s mother, Beth Jones. “The marble countertop in the breakfast room is from the soda fountain in the original Ashville Drugs, when it was next door to Teague Mercantile.”

This is Gracie’ssecond time to live in the Rock House. “I wasn’t even two when we moved,” she says. “I learned to walk in the hallway. I had grid marks on my feet as a child from walking on the floor furnace (now a cold air return for the HVAC system). I’m using a dresser and vanity that belonged to the original owner, my great-grandmother, and she used them in the same bedroom.”

Laura used the same pieces of furniture as a teenager, then Gracie used them as a child where her parents live now on County Road 33. “They came back home,” Gracie says.

Her favorite spots in the house are the kitchen and front porch. “There’s always a breeze on the porch,” she says. Her grandfather, Ross, adds, “In the summers it doesn’t get hot in here.”

Laura still has the original key to the front door, although she thought she had lost it when the child of an Airbnb tenant took it out of the door when his family traveled back to Texas. “I couldn’t open the front doors without it, so I called the family, and they found it in their child’s belongings and sent it back to me,” she says.

Gracie has many fond memories of playing in the backyard with her younger brother, John-Michael, and exploring the woods behind the backyard. “There used to be a big crabapple tree that we climbed a lot,” she says.

The limitations of just one bathroom and few closets will eventually propel Gracie, Stoney and little Hattie to find a larger home, but in the meantime, there’s no place that she had rather be, she says. “I like the idea of living around so much family history.”

Features

Museum of Pell City

Communitywide project finds new
home in municipal complex

Story by Eryn Ellard
Submitted Photos

When the doors opened six years ago to a Museum on Main Street exhibition from the Smithsonian Institution and Alabama Humanities Alliance, the Pell City and St. Clair County community didn’t know quite what to expect.

The Smithsonian component, The Way We Worked, was intriguing and compelling and drew an inquiring audience. But it was the local exhibit, Pell City Works, that pulled it all together to form a vision that is now becoming reality.

In coming months, Pell City will have its own historical museum – Museum of Pell City – featuring the original Pell City Works exhibit, the Making Alabama bicentennial exhibit and countless other features and additions all under one roof in a 4,000-square-foot suite at the Pell City Municipal Complex.

The Way We Worked and Pell City Works debuted in 2014 and drew over 7,000 visitors from multiple states during its first five weeks of exhibition. The primary focus of the professionally designed Pell City Works exhibit was on the city’s local history and how Pell City came of its unique footing. It tells a story of growth, family and hard work through photographs, stories and local artifacts.

After seeing its popularity and success, project co-chairs at the time – Pam Foote, Deanna Lawley and Carol Pappas – began to research ways that it would eventually become more permanent or perhaps grow into something even more special for the community. The exhibit was preserved intact and stored in the basement of the Municipal Complex while they worked off and on over the years trying to find and fund a permanent home.

That grassroots movement evolved into a partnership with the Heart of Pell City, a local nonprofit, and the city council. The effort has led to the founding by Foote, Lawley and Pappas of a separate nonprofit dedicated solely to the museum and its operation in the future.

Fundraising so far is over the $15,000 mark with a goal of $100,000 initially. The city is providing the 4,000-square-foot suite as a permanent home for the museum, and the Making Alabama exhibit, worth about $100,000, has been awarded to the group as a permanent exhibit. Pell City is one of only five communities in the state to be so honored.

Making Alabama focuses on the 200-year history of the state, its working class, families and complexities of its heritage. Making Alabama will be the perfect complement to Pell City Works, valued at more than $40,000, and is a project that organizers are proud to make a part of the community permanently, Pappas said.

“These will be an ideal centerpiece for the museum – the making of Pell City and the making of Alabama together under one roof,” Pappas said. “We have been waiting on this moment for a long time.”

“Every year that passes, more history is lost about our town, especially the years before the lake and I-20 so drastically changed it,” Lawley explained. The local exhibit from 2014 generated all kinds of interest in those early years. “Emphasis was put on the primary industry, Avondale Mills. People would stay for hours looking at pictures, often shedding tears or laughter.”

Without such a movement for a museum to preserve and protect those moments in history, “there will soon be just a void as those who experienced them leave this earth,” she said.

Artwork and digital storytelling come together in state exhibit.

Foote, who served as the actual project manager, agreed. “There were so many people who thanked us for telling ‘their’ history. They had a father, a brother, an aunt who worked at the mill. They grew up in the mill village. Everyone seemed to connect.”

Even though upwards of 7,000 people saw the exhibit, “others to this day come up to me and tell me they were so sorry they missed it – that they had heard about it and wished they could see it now. Now, they can.”

The museum space has been prepared by the city, and museum organizers are preparing to open within the year. The new museum is being designed by Jeremy Gossett, a professional designer who helped create the Pell City Works exhibit, as well as others across the state. The museum showcases a hearty collection of local and state historical exhibits, as well as interactive learning tools for students and history buffs of all ages.

“Traveling exhibits and cultural programming also are part of the vision for this new museum, engaging audiences from near and far,” Pappas said.

Pell City Manager Brian Muenger said the space above the library is the perfect home for the new exhibit – thanks to its open concept and three separate offices, and he is excited to see the project come to fruition.

“My hope is that the museum will become a bridge between generations and a means for newcomers to Pell City to gain an appreciation for the fascinating history of how the city was formed, has grown and how it has evolved,” Muenger said. “The preservation and presentation of this information, specifically to the youth of the community, will ensure that the contributions of the generations before are not soon forgotten.”

Pappas said the museum will feature a children’s area with STEM skills featured for students. Upon completion, the museum also could be a regional, multi-county field trip destination for fourth grade students learning about state history.

Planned is an oral history recording studio, which will help preserve the community’s history even more as the years go by. There is space for presentations, lectures and the showing of documentaries.

Its location above the Pell City Library, which features a genealogy section, enables a solid partnership between the two entities for joint programming and other projects.

Several unusual artifacts have already been donated to the project, including an 1890s player piano and a 1926 Victrola console in mint condition, both of which will be used to showcase state and local music history. In addition, the project will also be home to many traveling exhibits to keep the museum fresh and compelling for visitors for years to come, Pappas noted.

Fundraising efforts for the museum have been fruitful and many local businesses and citizens have donated time and money to the cause.

Urainah Glidewell, president of the Heart of Pell City, said the outpouring of support has been graciously received thus far, and there are many opportunities to get involved along the way. For instance, any business or person wishing to donate $100 or more will be recognized as a founding member of the museum, known as Museum 100.

“Plans are to have a donors wall to honor those who helped make the museum a reality,” Glidewell said. “Of course, once the museum is open, we will continue to need donations for operating costs, bringing in new exhibits, etc. As of now, the plan is to have free admission for visitors, but donations will always be welcome.”

“We are so excited that this dream is finally coming to fruition,” Pappas said. “We’ve had a lot of help along the way, and we’ll continue to need that support. But the end result is going to be an impressive museum that preserves, honors and treasures our history. This is truly a community effort and will benefit generations to come.”

Editor’s Note: To donate or volunteer or simply to learn more, go to museumofpellcity.org or follow on Facebook, at museumofpellcity.

Features

Vegetables for Sale

Former Pell City Schools Superintendent Michael Barber pens uplifting book

Story by Scottie Vickery
Submitted photos

Michael Barber was 10 years old the day he took his daddy’s prized Pontiac Catalina for a joyride. After returning it safely to its covered parking spot, he thought he’d gotten away with his grave sin. But a twist of fate and a dog named Whiskers caused things to take a terrible turn. Let’s just say a dog mistakenly left overnight in a car is capable of causing a whole lot of damage.

That’s not the only lesson young Michael learned that day. He realized his father loved him far more than his most prized possession. “My father never stood behind a pulpit and preached a sermon, but he taught me the most important spiritual lesson I carry in my heart to this day,” Barber recalled. “Total forgiveness is just that, it is total.”

A former teacher and retired superintendent of Pell City Schools, Barber has spent his adult life educating children, but the “eternal lessons” of his childhood were learned outside of a classroom. They often took place on front porches and came in the form of joyrides, dogs, shotguns and a cheap necklace.

Barber shares seven stories from his childhood – including the story of his father’s Catalina – in his new book, Vegetables for Sale: A Child’s Discovery of Redemption in the American South, published in November. “It’s a simple book for a complicated time,” Barber said. “These are stories of redemption, unconditional love, forgiveness and mercy.”

The title comes from a sign 5-year-old Michael helped his grandmother make, a testament of his grandmother’s wisdom. She was tired of him asking for candy money, so she set up a vegetable stand on the side of the highway and put young Michael in charge. “My grandfather had a third-grade education, and my grandmother only finished sixth grade, but they knew we needed to know the value of certain things, and one was the value of money,” he said.

“I didn’t make much money, but the lesson I learned was worth millions,” he wrote in the book’s introduction. “It is better to earn than to be given, with the exception of God’s love.” As a reminder, Barber framed the sign he made with his grandmother (“She wrote the letters and I painted it”) and hung it alongside his diplomas in every office he has ever had.

A preacher, public speaker, and bluegrass musician, Barber didn’t set out to write a great work of literature or theology. He intended the book to be a ministry tool, one he could leave behind when he spoke at prisons, jails, nursing homes or revivals. “These are stories I’ve used from the pulpit,” said Barber, the pastor of Mt. Zion Baptist Church. “I knew some had the ability to move people because I’d seen how God had used them during sermons.”

The book is a small one, measuring 5 inches by 7 inches with fewer than 100 pages, and that was Barber’s intention. “It’s designed to be a book you could put in a purse, in a glove box, in a tacklebox,” he said, adding that his hope was to make the book more inviting by writing something that could be read in one sitting. “It’s written by a preacher, but it’s not preaching. Whatever God wants to do with it, it’s out there. He’ll put it in the right hands.”

A special place

Barber, 55, grew up in Pell City with his brother and sister in a time when life was simpler. “The American South has changed in the past half century of my life, much for the good, but I admit sometimes I find myself missing a place I never left,” he wrote.

His days were filled with bike rides, fishing, baseball, watermelon, peach cobbler and lessons he didn’t realize he was learning. “I’ve always had people invest in the right things in my life – my parents, my grandparents, church folks,” Barber said. “They made sure we learned the right things. We were held accountable if we did something wrong, and they didn’t always come to our aid bailing us out.”

They also served as wonderful role models. His father, who was the first in his family to go to college, was a certified registered nurse anesthetist and owned an anesthesia corporation. “I think he put everyone in the county to sleep at some time,” Barber said. His mother was a registered nurse, and Barber thought he would follow in his parents’ footsteps and enter the medical field. His plans changed, though, when he got a feeling he just couldn’t shake. “The Lord kept leading me to education,” Barber said.

Mother Pearl, Cobbler Cook Extraordinaire

His Sunday school teacher, Andrew Wright, was the principal of Iola Roberts Elementary School at the time, and his pastors were teachers, as well. “To have three men in your life who were elementary school teachers and in ministry showed me how God could use you in education,” Barber said. “God has always put the right people around me.”

Although he retired from the school system in 2019, Barber performs contract work for the Alabama Association of School Boards. “I’ve had a great experience in public education,” he said. “To me, education is ministry,” he said.

Barber was an assistant principal in 1995 when God called him to preach, as well. He had a guitar and his Bible, and he traveled around ministering at nursing homes and “wherever God placed me.” He landed at Mt. Zion as a deacon and has been preaching for about 25 years.

One ministry he particularly enjoys is Cake Walk, the bluegrass band he helped form that earned its name from the early days of playing at cake walks and fall festivals. “Mt. Zion is a musically blessed haven,” he said. “Anyone you pick out of a pew can pick something, play something or sing something.”

Barber, who plays mandolin, guitar, banjo and bass, said the size of the group fluctuates and the members range from 8-year-olds to 90-year-olds. “We’re not the best musicians in the world, but for some reason when you put us all together, it sounds pretty good,” he said. “It’s a joyful noise, I know that.”

The group plays live every Sunday morning on WFHK 94.1 The River, and before the coronavirus pandemic, the members regularly shared their music at nursing homes and other places. “I’ve seen people who were really sick wiggle a toe under the cover when they hear the banjo,” Barber said. “It’s a wonderful ministry, and members of the band have said they had no idea that service could be so much fun. For me, that’s when you really hit the mark.”

A tool for ministry

Barber’s outreach ministry was the impetus for Vegetables for Sale, and the idea had been in the back of his mind for a while. “I had a bunch of stories I wrote years ago, and I’d always planned on doing something with them, but I didn’t know what that would look like,” he said. Once the pandemic hit last March, Barber finally had time, so “I went to the attic and started gathering stories I’d written in old spiral notebooks.”

Although he’d planned to leave them behind at speaking engagements, COVID-19 changed those plans, so Barber started to give them away. “My idea of promoting it is leaving a copy on the table at Starbucks,” he said with a laugh.

After his wife, Legay, posted about the book on social media, it started taking off. “We accidentally, I guess, launched it,” Barber said. “The potential to reach people through the internet is mind boggling.” The book, which features a childhood photo of his father on the cover, is available through Amazon, Walmart.com, Barnes & Noble and Kindle. It will soon be available on Audible, an audiobook book service from Amazon.

Barber said he read the book for the Audible recording because the subject was so close to his heart. “This is a book about my mom, my daddy, my sister and brother and my grandparents,” he said. “I sure didn’t want someone reading it and having it be just a book to them. Besides, I hate when people try to fake a Southern accent.”

Although he never expected to sell a single copy, Barber said he’s heard from people from all over the country who have shared how the book has touched them. A hospice nurse shared how a family read it together during the last hours of their mother’s life, and it gave them a chance to laugh and cry together. Another woman wrote to say the book helped her after receiving a cancer diagnosis.

“If God doesn’t use it for anything other than that, it was worth writing it and putting it out there,” Barber said. “I’m definitely not a writer, and I’ll never be a best-selling author, but this was a labor of love. Whatever voice we have, whether it’s a guitar or an ink pen, as long as we’re giving God the glory, He’ll use it.”

Preserving History

Cannonball Man holds our past in his hands and heart

Story by Buddy Eiland
Photos by Graham Hadley
Submitted Photos

Searching for history can become a lifetime obsession. Just ask Steve Phillips. Although the guns of the American Civil War fell silent in 1865, Phillips has spent more than 50 years searching for the cannonballs and artillery shells, along with other artifacts left behind from that great conflict. In the process, he has become a knowledgeable student of Civil War history and has built one of the most extensive private collections of its artifacts in existence.

Phillips is a retired professional diver, having owned and operated Southern Skin Diver Supply Company in Birmingham for many years. His sons, Spencer and Forrest, still operate the business, and both are expert professional divers.

After leaving the Air Force and before he became involved in the dive business, Phillips was in the office machine business in Birmingham. He and his wife, Susan, live on a comfortable acreage straddling the St. Clair/Shelby County line. Their property has a lake, a creek and a secret mountain waterfall. Long ago, Native Americans lived there, and he and his family have found thousands of stone points over the years that they left behind.

Phillips has spent years reading, researching and learning where to look and how to find Civil War relics and artifacts. Searching by metal detecting on private land permissions and diving in public waters, he has found about half of his collection.

Cannister shot, made up of small balls, and other shells

The rest he has bought from other collectors, dealers and museums selling surplus items from their collections. Although his collection contains an unbelievable variety of artifacts, Phillips says, “I’m really all about cannonballs and artillery projectiles.” Learning from an early mentor, Tom Dickey of Atlanta, Phillips became an expert at disarming and preserving artillery projectiles. (Dickey is the brother of Deliverance author James Dickey). Over the years, he has disarmed and preserved over 2,000 cannonballs and artillery shells, developing his own methods from trial and error along the way.

The preservation is necessary because the iron will deteriorate from exposure to the air after being in the ground or water for so many years. The disarming process is extremely dangerous, as, even after over 150 years, the black powder sealed inside can still be viable and can explode if improperly handled.

He has designed a way to disarm projectiles safely and remotely, using a shed about a hundred yards behind his house and barn with a drilling apparatus controlled by ropes and pulleys to allow him to maintain a safe distance from the operation. “I don’t recommend people try this,” he says. “I’ve never had one to explode, but I treat every one like it might.”

After drilling into a shell, the black powder can then be safely washed out. Phillips uses a process of electrolysis to remove rust and scale that results from many years in water or in the ground. Then he boils the shell, usually several times, to remove salt and sulphites from the iron and help stabilize it. Finally comes a coat of preservative to complete the process.

Interesting among Phillips’ extensive and quite varied collection is probably the greatest number of “war logs” in any private collection. These are tree trunks from the Battle of Chickamauga, Georgia, that have artillery shells embedded in them. They speak to the intensity of the battle and were obtained from Tom Dickey’s collection after his death and from a museum in Atlanta.

The Enfield and the Coal Torpedo

What does he consider the most valuable item in his entire collection? Phillips is quick with an answer. “Monetarily, or to me personally?” he asks. “Probably money-wise would be the coal torpedo because it’s so rare. To me, personally, it would be my great-grandfather’s Enfield rifle that was left for me on the battlefield at Gettysburg. Of all the hundreds of items in my collection, it would be my favorite. It’s not the rarest, but it’s my favorite,” which leads us to two of Phillips’ most intriguing stories about his collection.

Rifle returns ‘home’

Some years ago, Phillips was attending the Nashville Relics Show, displaying some of his cannonballs and other items from his collection. “I subscribed to a magazine for The Horse Soldier, an antiques dealer in Gettysburg that sells relics and other artifacts from the Civil War. I was looking at a copy of the magazine, and, normally, I would just look at the cannonball and artillery section, but I was bored, and I began to look at other sections.

Phillips with the Enfield rifle that belonged to his great-grandfather, Private/Corporal John C. Deason, that was recovered from Devil’s Den, part of the battle of Gettysburg

“I saw a listing for a British-made Enfield rifle, a very well-made rifle, better than most people had. On one side of the stock were carved the initials “JCD,” and on the other side was carved, “Co B 44^th Ala Infantry.” It was identified to a Private/Corporal John C. Deason of Company B, of the 44^th Alabama Infantry. John C. Deason was John Columbus Deason, my great-grandfather on my mother’s side of my family.”

Deason fought in the battle of Gettysburg in the Civil War as a member of Company B of the 44^th Alabama Infantry. They were involved in the part of the battle known as Devil’s Den. The fighting took place in close quarters among some large rocks. The rifle was picked up by the owner of the Slyder farm, which was part of the battlefield. It was missing the ramrod, and because of the close quarters of the fighting, the ramrod was likely bent, rendering the rifle useless. Without the ramrod, it couldn’t be reloaded, so he probably dropped it, picked up another rifle and continued to fight.” About 130 years later, Slyder family descendants sold their collection of relics collected after the battle.

Phillips contacted The Horse Soldier, expressing an interest in buying the rifle. Told that the rifle had been sold, he said he would like to contact the buyer and try to purchase it. “Don’t let him know,” he was told, “because he is a Yankee, and if he finds out you want it, you’re not going to get it.” He backed away from trying to buy the gun, and about five years later, he received a call from The Horse Soldier, asking if he was still interested in buying it. “I told them I was, so I bought it and brought it home.” This special rifle now occupies a place of honor, hanging over the mantle in his den.

Rare find

The coal torpedo Phillips found on an underwater dive. “I picked it up and thought it was just trash, but I kept it because I didn’t want to keep hearing it on my metal detector. I had found a 12-pound ball that day, and when I began to start cleaning it up, I threw the ‘trash’ into the tumbler with it to help knock some of the rust off.”

The tumbling cleaned rust from the odd piece he had found as well, and he noticed what looked like copper in the side of it. Comparing it with several artillery fuses from his collection, he determined that it was, indeed, a fuse plug. Taking the object to his veterinarian, who X-rayed it for him, he determined that it was hollow. Further research determined that what he had found was a coal torpedo, used by Confederate spies in the Civil War.

The coal torpedo – one of only four known to exist

It was cast from iron in the form of a lump of coal, filled with four or five ounces of powder, and, when covered with pitch and coal dust, disguised it so it could be placed in the coal bunker of a ship. Shoveled into the firebox of the ship, it would blow up the firebox. That would rupture the boiler, which, essentially blew up the ship.

Coal torpedoes were credited with destroying several ships during the war, and many, including Phillips, believe one was used to destroy the Sultana on the Mississippi River, resulting in the largest loss of life from a single ship in U.S. maritime history. Over 1,800 people died in the explosion and fire.

Phillips has the only coal torpedo known to have been found since the Civil War, and one of only four known to still exist. One was found on Jefferson Davis’ desk when Richmond surrendered, being used as a paperweight. Two were found at the Confederate spy headquarters, which was located in Canada during the war. According to Phillips, it is likely one of the rarest and most valuable relics of the war. “I thought I had found trash,” he said, “but what I had found was just wonderful. We don’t really know what its value to a collector might be because it will never be sold.”

The Alaska connection

If you are paying close attention, you might notice that Phillips quite often wears a solid, 14-carat-gold belt buckle. It was cast from a mold made from a Confederate belt buckle. In addition to being a Civil War relic collector, Phillips is also a gold prospector. For more than 25 years, he has spent about two months in Alaska, mining for gold. Diving and dredging in the Bering Sea at Nome, on claims he and his son, Spencer own, he has very successfully found gold over the years. He also has working claims further inland from Nome. Although he no longer dives, his son, Spencer does, joining him in Alaska during the summer.

According to Phillips, gold mining there is not as productive as it once was, but he continues to find gold. Inland, most of their pursuit involves dredging in the river there. The inland claim is extremely remote, so much so that, when they leave for the summer, the cabin there is left unlocked, providing refuge and shelter in case a hunter might become stranded there in the harsh winter. The greatest winter threat to the cabin is bears, who sometimes do damage to the property while they are away.

The remoteness of the area presents its own problems, according to Phillips, and resourcefulness and self-sufficiency become virtues. Failures to vehicles and equipment left to the elements over the harsh winters, along with poor access to spare parts, present their own challenges, and major repairs are especially diffiuclt … and frequent.

Phillips has made a hobby-business of fashioning jewelry from gold “pickers” he has found gold mining. These are gold particles larger than gold dust, but not large enough to be considered nuggets.

Phillips has generously shared his Civil War collection, placing many items on permanent loan to be displayed for the interest and enjoyment of the public. The museum at Tannehill State Park is furnished with items from his collection.

In keeping with that practice and with a personal desire that his collection will always be accessible for enjoyment and study by the public, Phillips’ collection will soon be moving to a new home. It will be placed on permanent loan at the Sons of Confederate Veterans’ headquarters and museum in Columbia, Tenn.

A number of videos Phillips has made to share his stories about collection are available on YouTube. Videos include the John Columbus Deason rifle, the confederate coal torpedo, artillery projectiles from Selma, Confederate mines, disarming and preserving artillery shells, and more. Also posted are videos about his gold prospecting adventures in Alaska. l

Features

A long journey

Dry cleaner escaped Holocaust, traveled storied route to Ashville

Story by Joe Whitten
Submitted photos

For Bernie Echt, the journey from Gross Kuhren, Germany, to Ashville, Alabama, included stops in Africa, China, the Dominican Republic and sojourns in various cities in the United States.

Bernie’s parents, Solomon and Erna Czanitsky Echt, already had daughters Ruth and Eva when Bernie was born on Nov. 4, 1937. Sister Sarah would arrive Nov. 4, 1938.

His parents and grandparents owned a farm in Gross Kuhren and dealt in horses and cattle. Although Jewish, they conducted business with both locals and the German military before the war.

Relations seemed good with people in the area, for as Bernie recalled, “My parents and grandparents had lots of connections; that’s why we are still here. Otherwise we would be …,” he let those words hang, then added, “They helped us to get the hell out of there.”

Bernie wasn’t yet a year old when they fled the Nazis, so he recounts what he was told by relatives. In spite of the apparent good relationship, “At the end of 1937 or the beginning of 1938, one evening, they knocked on the door, and calling Solomon by his nickname, they said, ‘Sally, you need to go with us down to headquarters.’”

Solomon and Erna both asked for a reason, but the only answer they got was, “We can’t tell the reason; you just need to go with us. You don’t have to take nothing along.”

Erna asked where they were going, and they replied, “To town.”

“It was the Gestapo,” Bernie continued. “They took him to the concentration camp, Sachsenhausen, and put him to work in the stone quarry. He was in there until the end of ’38, or thereabout.”

Bernie is unsure of how this happened, but his mother and grandparents paid off certain Nazi officers to get Solomon out of Sachsenhausen. He believes they gave money and cattle, and that one of the officers was a close friend who used to visit on Sunday afternoons.

The officers warned that Solomon must disappear immediately, so within 24 hours of release, he was on a freighter to Shanghai, China. He lived in Shanghai a year before Erna and the children could journey there.

And what a journey Erna and the children had getting to Solomon in China. The grandparents hoped to emigrate to Palestine, but borders closed before they could leave. They never got out.

Along with other Jews, Erna and the children secured passage to China on an Italian freighter. Difficulties arose at the Suez Canal when authorities refused the freighter permission to proceed.

Low on fuel and food, the ship diverted to an African island where it languished for six months. A Jewish organization managed to get money to the captain so he could continue to China.

Finally, in 1939, Erna and children joined Solomon, where he worked on a missionary farm in Shanghai.

Because of the Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945), the Japanese occupied Shanghai. For the moment, things seemed peaceful. “The Japanese soldiers would come to the house,” Bernie remembered, “and my mother would cook them something. They had a good time.”

Concentration camp

All that ended Dec.7, 1941 – Pearl Harbor. “The Japanese came for us,” Bernie remembers, “put us up on a truck and took us to a camp. They took our passports. Everything. We had just the clothes we wore.”

There were 2,000 in this Japanese concentration camp with 16 people to a room. They devised privacy curtains with the bed blankets during the day, then took them down for cover at night.

The rabbis in the camp made sure Jewish boys received religious instructions. Going and coming from the place of instruction had its dangers, as Bernie recalls one night: “I remember rabbi took us one evening to the main building there, and the Japanese were shooting the guns with light-balls to light up the streets inside the camp, so they could see if anybody was walking around. And the rabbi said to us, ‘Just stand against the wall and don’t move.’ That’s what we did, and that’s how we always got through.”

The rabbis made sure that the kids who went to temple had kosher food for Passover, a sacred necessity for Orthodox Jews, such as the Echts.

World War II ended, and liberation finally followed. Bernie recalled, “McArthur came, and the streets were full of military. The Japanese commander who mistreated so many – he didn’t do it personally, but he had command over it – the teenage boys in the camp went to the Japanese headquarters, got the commander out, brought him to the camp and got sticks and hit him.”

Bernie didn’t participate in that. “That wasn’t my idea. I couldn’t join in beating him. He was only a man. I look at things a little bit different. I shouldn’t, maybe, but I do. A human being is a human being.”

The American nurses took the internees into the country, gave them food, and American military doctors gave physical exams.

The Americans taught them songs, Bernie recalled. “The first song we learned was ‘God Bless America,’ and then we learned the military songs – the Navy song and ‘This is the Army, Mr. Brown.’” He laughed and added, “We changed that one a little bit.”

Wanting to leave China, Bernie’s family went to the consulate and asked about being able to come to the United States. A Jewish organization (American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee) took over and organized the Echts’ and others’ exodus. They left for San Francisco on the Marine Lynx, an American transport ship. “We sailed under the Golden Gate Bridge, and it was wonderful,” Bernie said. “I was 9 or 10 years old.”

In San Francisco, the family stayed quarantined in a hotel for six weeks. Bernie recalls that the Jewish organization fed them and took them to a clothing store and bought them garments and shoes. He got his first pair of long pants and pair of shoes.

Dominican Republic

When the quarantine ended, the Jewish Distribution Committee came to tell the Echts the three countries available for relocation: Australia, Canada and the Dominican Republic. The family chose the Dominican Republic.

As early as 1938, General Truijillo of the Dominican Republic offered to the Jewish organization refuge to as many as 100,000 Jews fleeing Germany. On the north coast, now Sosua, General Trujillo set aside a large section of wooded land, and the Dominican Republic Settlement Association (DORSA), a Jewish group, cleared land and erected barracks. “It was similar to a Kibbutz,” Bernie said. “They all ate together, and the women did everybody’s laundry. There wasn’t that much that each one had separate.”

DORSA built houses on plots of land, families with kids got the first houses built, then couples without children. To get them started, for the father of the family, DORSA gave 10 cows; for the mother, six; and for each child, one. A family paid so much a month to DORSA until they had paid for the farm, house and livestock.

The Echts lived on one of the DORSA farms until Bernie’s mother died in 1949. After her death, Solomon left the farm and moved the family to the city. When Bernie turned 13, his father and sisters arranged his bar mitzvah. “I learned all the rituals,” he said. “I already knew a big part of it. I was very orthodox when I started out. Very orthodox until my mother died, then I slowly let it go.”

Home-life deteriorated for Bernie after his mother died, and a few months after his 13th birthday, he set out on his own. He had only the clothing he wore and no money.

He went to the Jewish organization in Sosua, met with the administrator, and told him about leaving home and needing a job. The administrator told Bernie he had no job for him because he lacked education and job skills.

Unsuccessful there but undaunted, he made his way to the farmers’ cooperative and told them his predicament. “I need a job. I need something to do to make a living.”

They listened to him, then, offered him the only available job, cleaning the animal intestines in the slaughterhouse, which paid $25 a month.

Bernie took the job. He lived in a barrack room for $3 a month, which included electricity and water. He commented, “I earned $25, paid $3 for lodging, and had $22 left. I didn’t need nothing.”

Work ethic rescues him

Although he started with a nasty job in the slaughterhouse, Bernie worked hard, and that served him well. The manager of the meatpacking plant soon took him out of the slaughterhouse and taught him about choppers and carvers. Mr. Meyerstein, who had worked for Armour and Swift in Chicago, taught him how to make sausage.

A careful observer and fast learner, Bernie said, “When I saw anybody doing something I wanted to learn. I caught it with my eyes and remembered it. I had no other choice. There was no Social Security, no unemployment, no insurance. Nothing. I had to learn.”

Management liked Bernie’s work ethic and raised his salary to $45 a month. He saved $10 a month until he had about $30 put aside. Then he went to a farmer to buy a calf. When the farmer found he had the money, he asked where he would keep the calf, and Bernie bargained with the farmer to pasture the calf for $1 a month.

They both agreed that when the calf became a milk producer, the milk belonged to the farmer, but calves born to those cows belonged to Bernie.

Next stop: USA

In 1957, when Bernie came to the United States, he was earning $85 a month and had 12 head of cattle, which he sold to finance his trip to the States and for Washington’s required $300 security deposit in case his job fell through.

Some Marines were the first who tried to help Bernie get to the United States. They said if he were willing to join the military, they would help him join the Marines. Bernie was willing, but the Marines weren’t – he was 2 inches too short at 5 feet, 5 inches tall.

Regulation height was 5 feet, 7 inches tall.

However, when a Mr. Weinberg came over from New York City, Bernie had success. He asked Weinberg if there was a newspaper in New York where he could run an ad for work in the United States. Yes, there was, the Aufbau, published in New York City for the German Jewish Club. Weinberg placed the ad: “Young butcher looking for a job in the U.S.”

Bernie waited. Then a letter from a Mr. Krucker arrived at the consulate in the Dominican Republic. Mr. Krucker owned a Swiss restaurant in Pagona, N.Y., and needed a butcher there by May 27, no later.

Bernie leapt into action. A visit to the consulate produced a list of “must do” things in order to leave. He took the list and returned in two days with everything else on the list.

Then he needed a “quota number,” but the consulate said that would take two weeks, and that would be too late to make it to New York by May 27.

Bernie tells it best. “It was hard to get out of the Dominican Republic at that time. Because of Nazi persecution, I was stateless – no passport. All I had was an ID from the Dominican government, like a driver’s license, but not a driver’s license.”

Bernie had to be in New York by May 27, so he begged the consulate to call Washington and get a quota number. “I will pay for the call,” Bernie said.

The consulate said, ‘Are you serious? We don’t do that normally.’ But with a little more pleading from Bernie, he said, ‘All right. Go outside and sit and wait. I’ll let you know. I can’t promise you.’

Bernie waited an hour and a half before the consulate came out and said, ‘I can’t believe it. I got you a quota number. Everything’s ready. Go to the airport and get yourself a ticket and you’re ready to go.’

Then, another problem loomed. Bernie had no passport, but he knew who could help. A German Jew named Kicheimer could work miracles almost. Bernie told Kicheimer why he was in a rush and gave him his paperwork.

Kicheimer returned the next day with the necessary documents, and Bernie was ready to leave. At the airport, Ruth and Eva were crying, afraid of what the police would do if they found out how he’d gotten his documentation. Bernie told them, “I did nothing; the man did everything. I’ve got a legal piece of paper.” He laughs and adds, “I was so glad when that plane went up and I looked down.” He was on his way to a new life that one day would land him in Ashville.

When Bernie arrived at the restaurant, Mr. Krucker gave him a place to stay in his hunting shack, telling him to unpack, come to the restaurant and eat, then rest for the next day when they both would go to New York City to buy fish, meat and vegetables for the restaurant.

Bernie spoke of Mr. Krucker’s kindness to him, saying, “He treated me like I was his son. He was very good to me. When I bought my first business, he co-signed the loan for me.” Bernie’s respect for Mr. Krucker was evident when Krucker asked him not to wear his David Star because it made some German patrons uncomfortable. Bernie removed it, saying, “Mr. Krucker, I am Jewish in my heart, I don’t have to show it.”

Saying, ‘I do’

The restaurant’s head waitress, Pia, was a German gentile in an unhappy war-bride marriage that would end in a divorce. She was 10 years older than Bernie, but age presented no problem to him, and a few years later she became his wife. She converted to Judaism, going through the counseling sessions with the rabbis.

This was important to Orthodox Jews for descent is traced through the mother and gives both male and female children irrevocable Jewish status. It was a happy marriage that held strong until Pia died of brain cancer in 1979. The couple had three children: Bernhard “Bernie” Jr., Daniel and Katharina.

Mr. Krucker had urged Bernie to ask Pia out. He was reluctant to do that because of lack of money. Pia knew this and said, “This time, I will buy you a root beer float and a hamburger. If you did have money, I don’t want you to spend it. You are new here, and you need to save your money.”

They didn’t go out again until Bernie had saved up some money. Mr. Krucker knew this and came to Bernie and gave him an envelope and said, “That’s for you.” It contained his $50 weekly pay, inside. “I was rich,” Bernie said.

Never afraid of hard work, Bernie worked in the restaurant through the summer and into the fall, and when the number of diners dropped, Bernie got a job in the meatpacking plant in Mazzolas, N.Y., earning $65 a week. When he got off work there, if an auction was being held, he would sell hamburgers at the auction house. “You know, a couple of bucks here and there, and I made money,” he said. On Saturday and Sunday, he worked at the restaurant.

Bernie and Pia were engaged now, and he wanted more income. One day he asked the man who picked up and delivered the restaurant’s laundry if there were money to be made in laundry work. He told him, “If you work hard you can make money. It’s on a percentage of what you collect.”

So, Bernie went to see the owner, Frank Senatores, who told him, “I don’t pay until you bring in work. You deliver it and collect, and I pay you a commission on that. You have to use your own car. I don’t supply no vans or anything.” Bernie accepted the job.

Making of an entrepreneur

He worked hard – and so did Pia. After working his dayshift at the meatpacking plant, he and Pia would run the laundry and dry cleaning routes until about 8 p.m. Pia would drive, and he ran to the houses delivering and picking up. “I’ve been doing that for 60 years,” Bernie said recently. “The same system. And it works. Believe me, it works.” They built up a good route and eventually bought the drop business.

In another village, he saw a laundry and dry cleaner that wasn’t doing well because of the lazy owner. Obtaining a bank loan, Bernie bought that company and gave up the restaurant job to concentrate on the laundry business.

Always the quick and thorough learner, Bernie learned the dry cleaning and laundry business hands-on. He bought a 1952 Chevrolet truck van, put hanging racks inside, and had a high school art student paint the truck white with a crown for Imperial Laundry and Drycleaners, with the address and phone number.

From the beginning, Bernie has never turned down a challenge, for he’s always assumed he could do it. Early on, a man came in with a wide lapel, double-breasted suit wanting Bernie to cut the lapels down to a narrower size. Although he had never done alterations before, Bernie said, “We can do that, but it will cost you.”

Pia thought he was crazy, but Bernie said, “Don’t get excited. We have a suit hanging here. I’ll lay it on top of the one to alter, mark all around the lapel but leave a half inch. Then we’ll cut the material off and turn the rest under and sew it.” They did, and the customer was so happy he gave them a generous tip. After that, Pia learned to do whatever alterations that were needed.

By the time Pia died of cancer, they were living in Florida, and Bernie had expanded into selling laundry and dry cleaning equipment.

Five years after Pia’s death, Bernie exhibited his machines at a convention in Atlanta. One evening after the exhibits closed for the night, Bernie went to eat a restaurant where there was dancing. There he met Doan, who was buying merchandise for her dress shop in Springville, Alabama.

The magic of dance

She and Bernie danced that evening, and that dance blossomed into a courtship that resulted in a wedding the next year, 1985. The love affair has lasted 35 years. Although Doan didn’t convert to Judaism, she attends temple with Bernie.

It was Doan’s St. Clair County roots that brought them to Ashville and the establishing of Imperial Laundry and Professional Drycleaners there in 1994. Their pickup and delivery routes extend into Jackson and Cherokee counties. Bernie’s original method of building a business by meeting and knowing his customers still holds him in good stead today.

Katharina Echt says of her father, “My brothers and I were raised with a strong foundation of what it means to work hard. We each have a keen understanding, by our father’s example, of what is possible with sheer will and determination. Ever present is his steadfast belief in our ability to achieve anything we set our minds to. And so we have.”

Bernie never lost hope or purpose in the face of hardship, adversity or tragedy. He has focused on the good of life rather than the bad and remains a cheerful man who is a delight to know.

Stop by and say hello. You’ll enjoy meeting him.