Story by Elaine Hobson Miller Photos by Graham Hadley
James Denney had been a jewelry repairman for six years when a woman brought him an antique Ansonia clock. Probably made in the late 1800s or early 1900s, it had not run in 40 years.
“I know you do jewelry repairs, think you can do clocks?,” she asked Denney. He could tell her heart was in it, so he took a stab at it.
“Turns out all it needed was cleaning and oiling,” he says. “She had tears in her eyes when she picked it up. That got me started.”
Denney had gone to school to learn jewelry repairing, but there are no such schools for repairing clocks. So, he bought a series of video tapes on the subject and began tinkering with grandfather clocks and grandmother clocks, the latter being smaller versions of the former. And yes, there are (even smaller) granddaughter clocks, too, but he hasn’t serviced any of those. He also works on mantel and wall clocks.
James Denney heating up a piece of jewelry he made
The first clock that he actually repaired came back to him, but he got it right the second go-round. “It’s very rare that someone doesn’t say how happy they are with my being here because it’s so hard to find a clock man,” Denney says.
Even though self-taught, he does have a filial background to draw from. His step-grandfather, Kirk E. Ross, ran Ross’ Jewelry in downtown Pell City in the 1960s. “I watched him my whole life,” Denney says. “Also, my dad was a jeweler for about five or six years, and an uncle had a jewelry shop in Florence.”
His business name, X-Dross Jewelry & Clock Repair, is a blend of names and a Biblical meaning. “My dad’s name was Denney, and his stepfather was named Ross,” he explains. “I wanted to blend my step-granddad’s name with mine, hence Dross. Then I found that word in the Bible, in Exodus, where God describes his people as having become ‘dross,’ meaning having impurity or foreign matter to them. In other words, slag. So, I added an ‘X’ to indicate ‘no dross,’ because it was Xed out.”
His shop is on the second floor in a building that houses several shops at 1600 Martin Street, just off US 231. His wife, Crystal, has a specialty dog boutique, Jazz’m Up Pet Salon, on the first floor. The front room of X-Dross is both the entry area and his clock workshop. It’s decorated with plants, clocks and paintings of Jesus, while a Bible can often be found on the arm of a comfy sofa.
A back room serves as a place for jewelry repair and includes a high-speed steamer for cleaning small items, a small Crockpot for acid dips, and an ultra-sonic jewelry cleaner. His watch and jewelry lathe is in his storage room, and there’s another storage room that he hopes to turn into a display area some day. He’s buying a new lathe for clock works because bigger gears require bigger tools.
If you’re in the shop at the top of the hour, you’ll hear five of his own clocks chime, but not all at once. He set them to chime in succession. At home, he has two clocks, one a grandfather that’s a “regulator” clock (powered by a weighted and geared mechanism). He changed out the handles with drawer knobs, painted the case and used adhesive blue varnish over the paint, and replaced its Korean-style motor with a German movement by Hermle.
He has serviced many brands of antique clocks, including a green mantel clock with Greek columns on each side of the clock face that was manufactured by the Sessions Clock Company.
He once took in a Black Forest cuckoo clock that had a “messed up” music box. He replaced one mechanism on it. He’s working on an Hermle mantel clock for a friend. “It probably has a bent timing arbor,” Denney says.
He restored the body of a crystal-enclosed mantel clock from the late 1700s or early 1800s by sanding it with fine sandpaper and steel wool, then buffing it.
Grandfather clocks are his favorites to work on because they are bigger, so it’s much easier to see the components. “I really enjoy restoring the cases as well as the workings,” he says. “The other day, a man brought me a Waterbury Clock Company clock from an old fire station that had caught on fire. Half the gears were bent. I bent them back, and it worked fine.”
The toughest he’s ever worked on was a Herschede brand, a grandfather clock with a tube in back and a big hammer that hits on the hour and plays music. “The pendulum was not in sync with the gears, but I fixed it,” he says. “I had to readjust the pendulum’s swing and adjust the verge (tick-tock motion) mechanism.”
Another man brought in an Ingraham clock, and Denney replaced the motor, because the man was in a hurry and did not have time to wait for him to fix the movement. “Every job finished brings me a sense of accomplishment,” Denney says.
He has also repaired small timepieces, like a clock face in a tiny figure in the shape of a teapot. That one simply needed its hands bent and a new battery. “I work on all types of clocks now, but eventually will give up battery-powered ones,” he says.
So, what are the requirements for what he does? “Patience and finesse,” he says. “I don’t get bored with my work, and I have an eye for details.’
Showing how the hammers in a chime mechanism are timed
A favorite aspect of his business is making house calls. That’s right, this clock repairman will go to your house to service your clocks. “I like to service clocks in people’s houses because I like meeting people,” he explains. “Often, all the clock needs is a slight adjustment, but they want to keep their clocks going so I will oil them. I use a synthetic oil because it cleans and lubes without leaving a residue to build up, the way natural oil does.”
Recently, Denney has started “messing around” with gold plating on jewelry. He picks up a chain with an initial pendant on it, explaining, “That one didn’t turn out as shiny as I wanted.” He’s doing it for a friend. He can make gold or silver rings using a mold made of cuttlefish bone. “Each mold can only be used once because the hot metal burns it,” he says.
As for watches, their seals tend to dry rot and break, or corrosion can set in, or the hands come loose. Sometimes, the numbers on a watch face come off. But he can handle any of those problems. Ironically, there’s a wooden puzzle hanging on one wall of his shop that functions as a clock … when it works. That makes for an interesting conversation with a clock repairman.Goforth, Mayor Thomas, Lucy Cleaver, Lee Jeffrey, Mandi Rae Trot, Candice Hill, Blair Goodgame and Morrison; Springville Parks and Rec Board; bands and individual musicians who played on the side stage and vendors.
It was 2011 when retired Pell City educator Deanna Lawley offered an idea to help boost the Pell City Schools Educational Foundation’s On Dec. 8, 1941, at 12:30 Eastern Standard Time, a solemn silence settled over the nation as stunned citizens heard President Franklin Rosevelt over the radio intone these stark words: “Yesterday, December 7, 1941 – a day which will live in infamy – the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by the naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan.”
Six and a half minutes later, President Rosevelt ended his address: “I ask that the Congress declare that since the unprovoked and dastardly attack by Japan on Sunday, December 7th,1941, a state of war has existed between the United States and the Japanese Empire.”
Gatha Harvey of Springville, Alabama, remembers how she learned of the Pearl Harbor attack. “We had been up to my sister’s and were on our way home,” she recounted. “Daddy always liked to have music, so he had the radio on, and they interrupted the program and told about Pearl Harbor being bombed.”
Americans were galvanized toward winning this war. Scores of youths dropped out of high school to join the military. Women became part of the war effort by working jobs previously occupied by men now fighting in various parts of the world.
Gatha would soon become part of the women’s work force.
From Hartwell to Marietta, Georgia
Graduating high school in 1944 at age 17, she wanted a job, but Hartwell offered very few choices – working in a sewing factory or clerking in a department store. Not an exciting outlook for her.
Then her aunt and uncle came from Marietta for a visit one weekend. Gatha recalls the day. “Daddy’s sister, Ruth, and her husband were working in the Bell Bomber Plant in Marietta, Georgia. They made B-29 planes. She said, ‘Why don’t you come to Atlanta with us?’ ” And I said, ‘I don’t know if Daddy would let me go that far away.’ ” However, Ruth did the asking, and Gatha’s daddy did indeed let her go with them.
Gatha Harvey poses for a portrait
At Bell Bomber Plant, Ruth took Gatha to the employment office, and they hired her. “I started working on airplane wings, bucking rivets,” Gatha smiled. An online article, Buck Riveting Basics, explains the process. “A bucked rivet is a round fastener that attaches two or more pieces of metal together. The rivet is driven by a rivet gun (a specialized pneumatic hammer) with an attached rivet set (strike surface) shaped to match the rounded shape of the manufactured head of the rivet. During the process, the tail of the rivet is backed up by a bucking bar that acts as an anvil while the rivet gun and set are repeatedly striking the head. As the rivets are driven, the tail (blunt end) of the rivet is transformed into a flat mushroom called a ‘shop head.’ ” So, in June 1944, Gatha officially became a Rosie the Riveter – a group still famous.
“The first day I was working,” Gatha reminisced, “I’ll bet I had gone that far (measures about two or three feet with her hands), and the inspector came to check my work. He was a young man, and he marked every one of my rivets, and I had to take ‘em all out. And I thought, ‘Boy, you sure are mean.’ Every one of my rivets had to come out because they were too close to the edge. So, I got ‘em all put in, and got ‘em right, and kept going. If we hadn’t got ‘em out, that plane could have come apart when it got in the air.”
The inspector, Alfred Harvey, was not mean after all, because four months later, on Oct. 21, 1944, he and Gatha White were married – a marriage that lasted 47 and a half years until Alfred’s death in 1992.
In January 1945, expecting their first baby, James Richard, Alfred and Gatha quit their jobs at Bell Bomber and moved to Birmingham. Alfred worked for a while in an airplane plant, then drove a truck. His sister who worked in the Tax Assessor’s office and suggested that if he wanted to drive a truck, he should take the Civil Service Test and work for the city of Birmingham. He took the test, passed it, was hired and worked 29 years for the city.
“We had a good life,” Gatha reflected. “On Oct. 28, 1945, my son Jimmy Harvey was born., and seven years later my daughter, Alice Faye Harvey Stone was born. We weren’t rich, but we had a good life.”
Growing up
In the summer of 1926, a heatwave skewered Georgia, and on the day Gatha White was born, July 21, the sun blazed over the horizon and sizzled the thermometer up to 108 degrees at Reed Creek community, her birthplace. It’s still the record heat today.
The fifth of nine children born to Judge Reese White and his wife, Arlie Maude Brown White, Gatha talked of her early years. “My daddy was a farmer. He raised corn, cotton and vegetable gardens.” All farm family children worked a farm thinning corn, chopping cotton, weeding the vegetable garden, gathering the vegetables – whatever the season required. “There were nine of us,” Gatha reminisced, “and as we got big enough to work, we all worked in the field.”
When the cotton matured, they helped with the harvest. “We would get out of school in September for six weeks to pick cotton,” Gatha recalled. This discontinuing of school for several weeks, called “getting out for cotton picking,” was a common practice in Southern states.
“We had a good time,” Gatha smiled, recalling home and her brothers and sisters. “On Sunday, my daddy would hitch up the mules to the wagon, and we’d go to church. And if there were any neighbors that didn’t have a way, he’d take them with us in the wagon.” The family mostly attended the Baptist church, but many churches had preaching only once a month, so the family attended whichever denomination was having church on Sunday.
Remembering those long ago preachers, Gatha reflected, “Sometimes they would pay the minister with chickens. Vegetables. They seldom got much money.”
She reminisced about school. “We went to a country school and rode the bus at Reed Creek. Then when we moved to Hartwell, Georgia, we’d walk to school. We all graduated high school.”
Gatha’s favorite subject in school was cooking class. “I used to watch my mamma cook, but she wouldn’t let me cook, so I would watch her. She could make some of the best biscuits.”
This recollection led to more food memories. “We’d go to the garden and pick beans, she’d can ’em. Pick peas, she’d can ‘em. Tomatoes, she’d can. Apples, she would dry. She had a frame that she’d put the sheets on, and we’d peel the apples and peaches, and she’d put ‘em out there to dry, and we’d have dried apple pies. You had to cover them up to keep the flies off.
“And we had homemade ice cream. And we made lemonade – got lemons and made it in a tub. We had a good life,” she smiled.
The family raised their own beef and pork. When hog killing time came, nothing was wasted. “Mamma and Daddy would cut pork chops, and they cured the hams with salt. We used everything but the chitlins,” Gatha recollected. “Mamma fried the sausage and put it in quart jars and canned it. She made souse meat.”
Souse meat, sometimes called hog’s head cheese, was the forerunner of sandwich lunchmeat. Gatha tells how her mother made it. “She’d boil the head and the pigs’ feet and get all the meat off that. And she put other stuff in it and she’d scrunge (squeeze) it up and put it in a big pan and put a lid on it and pressed it down to get all the grease out of it. It’s really good.”
Old recipes add various spices – pepper (black and red), sage, garlic, cloves and pickling spices. Old directions also recommended putting the souse meat in the smokehouse for a while before serving it.
Printed flour sacks and feed sacks were a godsend during lean economic days. Gatha recalled “Mamma would show daddy the sack design that she wanted him to get at the store, and when she got enough of the same design, she made our dresses. I never had a bought dress.”
From Birmingham to Springville
Gatha’s memories returned to her married life and living in Birmingham. “We lived in Woodlawn. We rented a house that had an apartment, and Alfred’s mother and daddy moved into the apartment. I cooked on Sunday to have ready when they come home from church, and my father-in-law liked pot liquor (turnip greens broth) with cornbread.”
After Alfred’s father died, the Harveys bought a house in Center Point and Alfred’s mother, who used a wheelchair, reluctantly moved with them. “She knew she was gonna have just one room and use of the house. Well, when all the neighbors made her welcomed, she was satisfied. She lived with us until ’74.”
After that, she moved in with her daughter for a while, and then into a nursing home. “She was a good lady. And she always said, ‘I hope you will have a daughter-in-law that’s as good to you, as you are to me.’ And if she was living, she’d know now that I did.”
Gatha’s eyes twinkled as she said, “My mother-in-law had a cough, and one of her sons, Ralph, was a policeman on the Birmingham police force. So, he brought her a pint. She mixed it with lemon and honey – made her a toddy. Well, that went on for about a month, and she said, ‘Ralph, bring me another pint of whiskey. I’m out.’ He said, ‘Mamma, you didn’t drink all that!?” Her reply was, ‘A little bit at a time,’ then added with justification, ‘Well, I had a cough.’ “So, he brought her another pint.”
Alfred had always wanted to travel, so prior to retiring, he had purchased a motorhome for traveling days to come. When he retired, they sold their home and headed out in the motorhome.
Alfred and Gatha
Their son, Jimmy, and his wife, Betty, had Springville property where Jimmy built a carport high enough for them to pull the motorhome under and a porch for them to step out onto when it was parked. He also put in a water hookup and installed a septic tank. They would come back from a trip and be at home in Springville in the motorhome until the next excursion.
Alfred and Gatha’s days of travel were cut short by Alfred’s emphysema. They returned from a Florida trip, and the drive home was difficult for Alfred. He had a doctor’s appointment but was so weak that Gatha drove him. His doctor put him in the hospital where he stayed 10 days, during which time he was put on oxygen. Gatha brought him home, where he died April 8, 1992.
Gatha kept active, and her four grandchildren, eight great-grandchildren, and her one great-great-grandchild, have all been blessed by her love and concern for them, for she speaks of them with smiles on her face. Each one has received a quilt – all hand-stitched and hand-quilted – with love in every stitch. Granddaughter Sonya’s quilt has scraps of dresses Gatha made for her when she was small. Grandson Richard commented on her grandmothering: “She took care of my sister and me when we were growing up, and we developed a special relationship with her. She was stern, but she was gentle. We loved her to pieces.”
The family also enjoys her cooking. At Christmas time, she always makes the dressing. She makes banana nut bread for granddaughter Sonya, her daughter-in-law Betty and herself. Grandson Richard Harvey – Springville’s Fire Chief – gets his favorite poundcake. Betty relates how “Gatha makes a buttermilk poundcake – it was my mother’s recipe – and she’s got the Springville Fire Department spoiled with it.”
Asked about the poundcake, Richard responded, “Oh, her poundcake. Yeah, she makes probably the best poundcake that’s ever been. But it’s not just me; it’s the entire Fire Station. The guys love it when she makes us poundcake.” Richard allows that the cake is especially delicious with strawberries and whipped cream.
Springville First Baptist Church
When the Harveys began parking their motorhome in Springville, Mrs. Barfield, their neighbor across the road, invited Gatha to go with her to church at Springville First Baptist Church where she was a member. Gatha accepted and went with her when she and Alfred would be in town between travels.
After Alfred passed, she became an active member of the church and was involved in its ministries – especially Sunday school and Saints Alive, the senior citizens group at the church. For Saints Alive, Gatha helped two directors, Geniva DuPre Smith and Linda Lee, by calling members to remind them of meetings or trips planned for the group.
At a recent Saints Alive lunch meeting, attendees sat by birth month at round tables, and Gatha lunched with five men who ranged in age from mid-60s to an 89-year-old. At the end of the meal, she got the group’s attention and said, “I’d like to say how much I have enjoyed dining with these younger men.” This is typical Gatha humor, as her neighbor, Dennis Jones, recently affirmed by telling, “Every time the TV says, ‘Check on the elderly,’ Gatha calls and checks on me – even though I’m 25 years younger.”
Today Gatha is the First Baptist church-member who has accumulated the most years of living. Until two years ago, she drove herself to church. Now Betty brings her.
At 97 / 98, Gatha rarely ever misses a Sunday school class or worship service. Her Sunday school teacher, Beverly Bullock, remarked, “Gatha Harvey is an example of a quiet soul who speaks loudly about her Lord and makes an effort to be in God’s house every Sunday.”
Tom Brokaw called the WWII era the “greatest generation,” and Eleanor Roosevelt said of the women of her day: “A woman is like a teabag, you don’t know how strong it is until it’s in hot water.”
Family gathers for Christmas 2023
Having lived almost 100 years, whatever “hot water times” Gatha has experienced has made her stronger. Whether the hot water of having to remove her first row of rivets or the twists and turns of living almost a hundred years, Gatha exemplified the strength Eleanor Roosevelt acknowledged.
Gatha’s grandson Richard Harvey agreed. “My grandfather treated her like an angel – he did everything for her, but at the same time she did everything for him. She was the classic housewife of that generation. Then when he passed, she was pretty much on her own and had to take care of herself. She had never driven when he passed, so at 65 she got her driver’s license.” He paused, then added, “She was never afraid.”
Whether Gatha Harvey is patriotic Rosie the Riveter, faithful wife, well-loved mother-in-law, or loving grandmother, she is an inspiration to all who know her, for she is an example of a life well-lived.
Richard recently told of his grandmother’s 90th birthday. “I said, ‘Grandma, what’s something you’ve never done?’ And she said, “I’ve never ridden a motorcycle, and I’ve never flown in a plane.’ So, for her 90th birthday, I put her on the back of my motorcycle and drove up to Ashville to a friend who had a plane. We put her in the plane, and he flew her all over St. Clair County.”
In anticipation of upcoming birthdays, Richard says he keeps asking her, “When are we gonna jump out of that plane?” Her answer so far has been, “I don’t think I’m gonna do that.”
How about it, Gatha. Is that water really too hot?
It’s been said that much about your childhood – your neighborhood, the house you grew up in, or the size of your backyard – often seems smaller when viewed through adult eyes.
For Malcolm Sokol, everything about Birmingham seems downright tiny. That’s because the retired architect and model railroad enthusiast has spent years recreating his version of the city’s Industrial District, all in miniature.
Trains are the centerpiece of Malcolm’s model city
He’s built his own small-scale 1952 versions of Ensley, Pratt City, North Birmingham, Elyton, Red Mountain and other areas, along with the railroads that connect them. There are restaurants, stores, warehouses, iron ore mines, steel mills, a rail yard, Sloss Furnaces and a railroad trestle. And he’s built it all within a room that measures 13 x 19 feet.
“A genuine model railroader tries to make everything as realistic as possible,” said Sokol, who now lives in Cropwell on Logan Martin Lake. There’s no doubt that Sokol, who estimates he’s spent more than 12,000 hours over the past eight years or so on his hobby, is the real deal. He’s got an assortment of regional and national awards for his designs to prove it.
“You can make a career out of a hobby, but when you love it so much it’s not like going to work,” he said. “You don’t put any value on your time with a hobby unless you plan to sell something, and I would never sell this.”
In addition to the time and money he’s spent creating his HO scale model railroad layout, Sokol has an emotional and sentimental investment, as well. It brings back memories of his childhood.
“I grew up in Fountain Heights, and when I was a kid, we used to walk down to the railroad tracks, which were about two blocks away,” he said. “We loved to watch the switching (of rails and cars) at all of the industries.”
Getting on track
Sokol, a member of the Wrecking Crew Model Railroad Club in Birmingham, got his first model railroad set when he was 8 or 9. “My father gave me and my younger brother, Howard, a Lionel O Guage railroad set,” he said. “We played with that thing until we wore it out.”
Some neighborhood friends had sets, as well, and they would put them together and play for hours. “That was my introduction to model railroading,” he said.
His interest was renewed not long after he and his wife, Marilyn, had their first child. They went to a model railroad show, where Sokol bought a set. “I said I was buying it for my son, but he was only a year and a half old at the time,” he said with a laugh.
Today, Sokol loves sharing his hobby with their three children and their spouses, along with their seven grandchildren and four great-grandchildren. The Sokols’ home may be the only house on the lake where guests want to spend as much time inside as they do by the water.
“They love to run trains,” he said of his family and friends. “Everyone who comes here says, ‘Let me see what you’ve done on the trains’ They love to see the progress.”
There’s always something new to see in his train room, which used to be part of his garage. When Sokol got serious about his hobby, he finished the area, adding a ceiling and walls. He put the Masonite backdrop on three walls of the room, and he and his grandson, Garrett, used stencils to paint clouds and mountains. He later installed additional mountains he’d painted on panels of Masonite in the foreground, creating a multi-dimensional background.
The first two years were dedicated to building the frame and foundation for the layout and for laying the track. Using historical rail maps for Birmingham as a guide, Sokol added some of the industrial buildings that were built alongside the city’s tracks. His layout includes Loveman’s Warehouse, Pittsburgh Plate Glass Co. and the A&P Warehouse and Distribution Center.
First National Bank and Pete’s Famous Hot Dogs are represented in the layout, while some of the stores, such as Marilyn’s Knit Shop, were named for family members. Businesses in the Ensley section of the layout include Ideal Furniture, The Bank of Ensley and Gilmer Drugs. Sokol recently added Phase 2 of his railroad, which extends into an adjacent room measuring 13 x 6 feet.
Details matter
Sokol said the skills he honed during his architectural career, which spanned more than 30 years before he retired as CEO of Evan Terry Associates in 1998, has come in handy. “It definitely helps,” he said. “I have the design ability and the construction knowledge.”
Being his own client has allowed him the freedom to build everything just the way he wants. Although much of the layout was based on historical renderings, he took some artistic liberties, as well. “When you own a model railroad, you’re the owner and designer and you can make all the decisions,” he said. “When you’re playing all the roles, it’s easier.”
Special attention is paid to the lighting setup down to the street lamps
Sokol’s attention to detail is amazing. Although many model railroaders buy pre-made tracks, he bought the rails and used a band saw to cut 35,000 tiny wooden ties, which he attached with miniature metal spikes. “It’s all hand-laid, just like the real railroad does,” he said.
Most of his buildings are scratch built, meaning he designed, cut, assembled and painted them by hand, rather than using a kit. A watercolor artist, Sokol’s painting skills add an additional level of realism to his cities and buildings that takes time to create. He spent six months, for example, building and painting the railroad trestle, which is modeled after the L&N Cane Creek Trestle #10 in Brookwood.
Sokol’s favorite building, which happens to be the first one he made, is one he named the Starry Eye Mattress Company. In addition to the architectural details, there’s a dumpster, trashcans, barrels, bales of cotton and small wooden pallets where workers can be seen stacking mattresses.
The design won two regional awards, including Best in Show, and was displayed one year at the National Model Railroad Association’s convention. “One of the kit manufacturers from Maine found me and said, ‘I want to build a kit out of this model,’” he said.
Sokol gave him permission and the kit maker changed the name of the business to Sokol’s Mattress & Furniture Company as a nod to the creator. The original limited run of 500 kits, priced at $160 a kit, sold out in the first year. Some are currently being re-sold on eBay for more than $200.
While many of the railroad accessories can be purchased, Sokol spends hours creating his own. Model railroad switches, which allow trains to be guided from one track to another, can be purchased for about $30. “I built my own switches for $2 worth of materials,” he said. “I probably saved about $3,000 right there.”
Although saving costs in what can be an expensive hobby is a motivator, part of the fun for Sokol is figuring out how to make his own buildings and structures. The blast furnace on his Sloss Furnaces layout, for example, was made from a wiffle ball bat. “I needed something that was rounded and tapered, so I just cut off each end of the bat,” he said.
He made his lampposts, which are only a few inches tall, out of three different thicknesses of tubing. All of the lighting on the layout, whether on lampposts or in buildings, is fiber optics, he said.
Much of the materials he uses comes from his own backyard. He gets scoops of dirt, bakes it to kill any bugs, sifts it, and attaches it to the ground of the layout with white glue. He makes tree trunks from azalea limbs, drilling holes in the trunks to add smaller branches. Sokol uses hairspray to make clumps of painted ground foam that he uses for the foliage on trees and bushes. “I’ve given workshops on making trees,” he said.
Sights and sound
The electronics that are part of the railroad layout are as impressive as the designs. One of the most popular features is a lightning and rainstorm over one of Sokol’s buildings on his miniature Red Mountain. The soundtrack features thunder and wind, slamming screen doors, barking dogs and other lifelike noises.
The evolution of the technology used to operate the trains makes everything more realistic, Sokol said. “It used to be that every train on the track would go at the same speed and in the same direction,” he said. Now, there’s a computer chip in each locomotive, and model railroad engineers can run trains backward, forward and at different speeds, all on the same track. They can also control sound effects, such as bells, horns and brakes.
Although Sokol completed most of the work on his layout himself, he had several model railroader friends who shared their expertise. Steve Singer helped lay the ties and build the benchwork, which is the foundation for the trains and scenery. Winston Greaves helped with the electronics, and Dave Whikehart helped build the structures. Sokol said he figures everything is about 80 percent complete, but don’t hold him to it.
“A lot of people will ask model railroaders when they are going to be finished, and the answer is they will never be finished,” he said. “There is always more detail to add, and some will build a scene, decide they don’t like it and start over with a new one.”
Although the trains have brought Sokol much joy, they are not his only hobby. He and his wife love to travel – they’ve been to Australia and New Zealand this year and often spend a month or more in a city so they can live like the locals. Although he loves the adventure, he’s always glad to get back to his model railroad.
For the past 15 years or so, he and the other members of the Wrecking Crew club have built locomotive exhibits for the McWane Science Center, which are displayed during the holidays. Aside from the fun of helping to create the layouts, he enjoys watching the children and families enjoy them.
“It’s very rewarding,” he said. “This is a great hobby.”
Top Photo: Keith Little Badger, Cherokee tribe of Northeast Alabama, surveys area
Story by Mackenzie Free and Carol Pappas Photos by Mackenzie Free
Charlie Abercrombie has a history on this mountain, dating all the way back to the War of 1812 and a man by the name of Chandler.
That’s why today’s fight to save it meant so much to so many. For Charlie, it was personal.
Many joined the fight along the way and for varying reasons – from newcomers to old timers. It was personal to them, too.
Mackenzie Free, a photographer for Discover Magazine, joined the effort and was a vocal advocate in the Save Chandler Mountain movement. She lives in the mountain’s valley on the same land her husband’s family raised generations. Mackenzie and her family stood to lose it all – just like Charlie – if Alabama Power’s quest to build a hydro dam there succeeded.
Charlie Abercrombie on the dam on family’s land
It didn’t.
This is but one story among many, painting the picture of how history could be lost so easily. Here are excerpts from Charlie’s story that Mackenzie shared on social media at the height of the fight to save the mountain:
This is Charlie Abercrombie.
Out of all the folks I’ve met since moving out to the Steele/Chandler Mountain area 10 years ago, he might very well be one of my favorites.
I “think” he said he’s 77 years old, but I might be mistaken because he’s far too sprightly and agile for that to be correct.
He’s very charming and intelligent and has a memory that far exceeds mine.
He is also humble, hardworking and takes a lot of pride in his land.
You see, this land he calls home is special.
Very special …
His property was part of a presidential land grant from the U.S. government to Mr. Joel Chandler (yes, Chandler… as in ‘Chandler Mountain’) for fighting along with Andrew Jackson in the war of 1812.
A short while later, in the early 1840s, a grist mill (grinding wheat to flour and corn to meal) was built here. It was powered by water… this dam and Little Canoe Creek.
One of the pictographs found on the mountain
Mr. Abercrombie’s great grandfather later purchased this property and grist mill from the daughter of Joel Chandler in 1896. Let me reiterate that … 1896!!
(*To put that in perspective this property has been in his family longer than Oklahoma, New Mexico, Arizona, Alaska, and Hawaii, have been a part of the United States!!!)
This land is more than just his home… its history!
It’s his heritage.
It’s sewn into the very fiber of who he is.
It’s his legacy.
And you’ll find that is a common theme for most of these families (mine included) that stand to lose everything their forefathers fought so hard to protect.
It’s more than land … it’s bigger than that.
It’s not money either … it’s about history, heritage and the American dream.
Land has always been a staple of the American dream. From the Mayflower Compact of 1620, to the Homestead Act of 1862, all the way down to the ongoing battle we face to preserve what we have today … land has always been a integral component and driving force for the American way of life.
Mr. Abercrombie’s family worked their entire lives to earn, maintain and preserve the land they have for the next generation.
He is a steward of this land and the natural wonders around him … just as his great grandfather was.
He stands to lose it all.
The same sentiment played out across the mountain and down in the valley. They treasure the land, and they want to preserve it for future generations.
People like Fran Summerlin, Ben Lyon, Leo Galleo and a host of others led what did indeed become a movement to stop the project. The Alabama Rivers Alliance lauded them with an award for what was called a valiant battle.
The consensus was that the mountain isn’t just a geologic formation, it stands as a monument to history and heritage. It still stands because people cared enough to get involved in a fray most didn’t think they could win. But, they did.
Native American groups stepped in with support for preservation of land their ancestors once lived. Twinkle Cavanaugh and Chip Beeker of the Alabama Public Service Commission visited the mountain, heard the group’s pleas and decided their votes on Alabama Power’s proposal would be ‘no.’
Within days, Alabama Power announced it was cancelling its plans.
Dr. Rock Helms continues focus on moving health care forward
Story by Roxann Edsall Photos by Mackenzie Free
He’s written plenty of prescriptions in his 24 years as a physician. Perhaps none has been quite as wide-reaching as the plan Dr. Rock Helms wrote for Pell City residents outlining how he would alleviate the pain of having to drive to Birmingham to see a medical specialist.
Two years after beginning his family medical practice with Baptist Health Systems, Dr. Helms, along with Dr. Bill McClanahan and Dr. Carl Frosina, opened a new medical clinic they named Northside Medical Associates. Since their opening in 2001, the facility has grown from those three doctors to 25 primary care providers.
While the increased number of primary care providers has been helpful in keeping up with the city’s growth, what has made the clinic most impactful is their partnership with subspecialties and the access to advanced care imaging available right in Pell City. No longer does a patient have to see a doctor here, then be referred to a Birmingham doctor for further treatment by a specialist.
Formerly Northside, Complete Health is a
major medical facility in Pell City
The expanded care has made a huge difference for those needing medical care in the area. “There were times as administrator for Northside that I had to stop seeing patients because there just wasn’t time to run the clinic and to see patients,” said Helms. “It was a very busy time.” The partnership sold Northside to Complete Health in 2020, allowing Helms to return to his patients.
Long-time patient and Pell City attorney John Rea appreciates Helms’ dedication and the vision he had in expanding the community’s healthcare options. “His vision has been transformative for the Pell City area,” says Rea. “He and the others grew a medical operation from a small primary care practice to now becoming a partner with other specialties. Now we can just go down the road to see a cardiologist or other specialist. It’s remarkable.”
Helms has been a part of the community since his parents, Ron and Joanne Helms, moved the family to Pell City when Rock was in second grade.
He graduated from Pell City High School in 1988 and graduated from the University of Alabama. He earned his medical degree from the University of South Alabama. After a residency at the University of Alabama, Dr. Helms returned to Pell City to his extended family. “If I hadn’t,” he jokes, “they probably would have disowned me.”
Helms and his wife, Jennifer, are the parents of seven children, four of whom are adopted. They also have two grandchildren. Family is very important to him, so he makes a point to take time off to spend with them. He is very close to his parents, who still live in Pell City, and to his mother-in-law, Sarah Rhodes, also from Pell City.
While his parents inspired him in many ways, Helms’ inspiration in the medical field was and continues to be Dr. Bill McClanahan. “He inspired me to become a doctor and remains my mentor to this day,” says Helms.
Helms describes himself as a “country doctor.” Living in a smaller town affords him the opportunity to really get to know his patients and to serve the community where he grew up. “The people in Pell City are the people who made me who I am today. I enjoy knowing my patients as completely as I can,” says Helms. “It’s a more personal relationship.”
“I know him as my doctor and as a client,” says Rea. “But I also consider him a friend. I think his strongest attribute as my physician is his willingness to take the time to listen to me.”
“Listening,” Helms agrees, “is an important part of the job, if you do it right.” Recently, he listened as a terminally ill patient confided that she did not have family to guide her through her end-of-life decision-making. “I was able to help guide her through parts of that process,” he said. “Being able to help people through life-altering events is a gift.”
Helms’ patients include many of the people he grew up with, including former teachers and classmates. “One patient I see I went to college with,” Helms says with a smile. “I still aggravate him about cheating us out of money at poker in college!”
“I think practicing medicine in your community makes you do a better job as a physician,” admits Helms. “When you’re serving the community you grew up in, and are still a part of, you know you’re going to give everything. You go the extra mile for people you are close to. I think it conditions you to try harder and makes you a better doctor.”
Dr. Rock Helms and local attorney John Rea
Lizzie Jones is one of those patients Helms credits with making him a better doctor. He looks forward to catching up with her during her appointment. “She comes with Fred, her husband of 63 years. She was a dedicated professional cook for 30 years at the nursing home in Cook Springs. She comes to her appointments dressed for church, complete with a fancy hat,” Helms says. “The whole office staff looks forward to her visits and her beautiful, warm smile. She always has a wonderful attitude, no matter what adversity she has faced.”
It’s a very gratifying job, Helms says, unlike some other jobs he has had. “I’ve worked in the corporate world, where you don’t always get that,” he says. He recalls being on call one night and receiving a call while eating dinner with his family. “An emergency room doctor calls me about help with a patient. I started to have him transfer her to Birmingham, but instead, I went in to see her. She had had a heart attack. I sent her by helicopter to Birmingham and she made it through. I got to see her for her six-month checkup, and she established me as her primary doctor. She’s been my patient ever since.”
When he’s not working at the clinic or hanging out with family in Pell City, he can be found on his bulldozer or tractor or hunting on his land in Lowndes County in South Alabama. “It’s where I go to de-stress. It’s definitely in the country,” Helms says. “You have to drive 17 miles for a bag of ice!”
Rea sums up Helms’ success as a combination of personality and commitment to both community and patient care. “He could have gone anywhere to practice medicine and probably had an easier path than the one he chose. But at his core is that commitment to community.” Pell City has benefited from that commitment to expanding the medical options locally.
Helms says his second-choice career was meteorology. Fortunately for the St. Clair County area, his first choice seems to be working out just fine.
Story by Roxann Edsall Photos by Richard Rybka Submitted photos
“It’s like finding a box of buried jewels,” says Tom Mottlau, describing the hunt that has become his happy obsession. He’s spent countless hours over the past three years researching his genealogy. For him, each discovery is a treasured connection to his family tree.
For Mottlau, it all started when he found himself cooped up at home during the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic lockdown. An executive with LG Electronics, Mottlau typically spent most of his time flying internationally, but suddenly found himself grounded at home with loads of time on his hands.
He had always been interested in history, particularly his own family history. With time to work on it, he subscribed to the online ancestry database, ancestry.com, and began populating his family tree with things he already knew about his genealogy.
Further research landed him in St. Clair County. Using information found on billiongraves.com and findagrave.com, he found that he had family buried at Coosa Valley Baptist Church in Cropwell. So, he headed to the cemetery, where he found the graves of two sets of great-great-great-grandparents, John James and Purlina Abbott and Samuel Patton and Margaret McClellan. Along with many others originally laid to rest at Easonville Methodist Church, their caskets were moved to the Cropwell land before the flooding of Easonville when Alabama Power impounded the Coosa River in 1964 to create Logan Martin Lake.
He’s also located many of his ancestors’ graves at Elmwood Cemetery in Birmingham and has made it his mission to replace those grave markers that were broken or missing.
T. Jones Abbott, Idora Abbott and Margaret Abbott
Locating information about ancestors can be a daunting process because America is truly a melting pot of nationalities. Going back several generations, many Americans find that, like Mottlau’s family, their ancestors immigrated from many different countries.
For him, those people came from Denmark, Ireland, Costa Rica, Portugal and Jamaica. He has discovered that some of his distant relatives worked to help build the Panama Canal. Others worked in the steel industry, which is what eventually led them to Birmingham.
Mottlau grew up in Miami, Florida, but now resides in Sugar Hill, Georgia. He has a son in school at Ole Miss, and the drive to visit him takes him over Logan Martin Lake. Each time he crosses over the water, he wonders about his ancestors who called this place their home.
On several such trips, he’s made a slight detour to Ashville, where he spent time at the St. Clair County Archives, digging deeper into information he’s found on ancestry websites. Originally an extension of the library in Ashville, the archives were moved to the current location in the former Ashville Savings Bank in 2007 and offer numerous resources for people researching their ancestry.
Archive director Robert Debter says the first step he always recommends in tracking down information on family histories is to check the heritage book for your county. “Every county has one,” he explains as he grabs a book off the shelf. “All the families that have connections to St. Clair County since it was established in 1818 are included in the St. Clair book.” These books include records on adoptions, wills, estates, as well as probate, civil and circuit court records.
After that, Debter recommends looking online in one of several ancestry databases, websites like ancestry.com, newspapers.com, or, for military records, fold3.com.
History buff and Ashville resident Billy Price has used these databases extensively to find out more about his own family. He spends at least one day a week at the archives and has learned that his family included two Revolutionary War veterans, two dozen Confederate soldiers and two Union solders.
Use of these databases on a personal computer requires a membership fee, but the St. Clair County archives and the Pell City library offer ancestry searches under their memberships for free. Patrons can get on one of the library computers and search their family histories on newspapers.com, which has information from American newspapers from as far back as the 1600s. Another available resource is familysearch.org.
“When I started fine-tuning my own family genealogy,” says Pell City Library Director Danny Stewart, “I started by asking my oldest family members to verify the stories that had been passed down. I would also search obituaries, deed records, titles and tax records.”
Mottlau has done all that. He can’t put a number on how many hours he’s spent on the computer running down leads. “My wife says I should have been a detective,” he says. “I’ve uncovered a lot, but just keep going deeper. I really want to find out enough to create an archive and make copies for all my other cousins.”
Mottlau also wants to find pictures of everyone in his direct line up to his great-great-great-grandparents. Addressing that goal, Stewart recommends regular searches on newspapers.com. As a frequent visitor to that website himself, he has recently discovered a picture of his mother’s great-uncle from 1906 that had just been digitized and uploaded to the website.
Sometimes, though, the actual story behind the picture is not the one passed down from generation to generation. Mottlau tells the story his grandmother told him about a picture of her dad. The story was that he was an attorney and was shot on the courthouse steps in Birmingham. After extensive research, Mottlau learned that his great grandfather was, indeed, shot in 1912, but not on the courthouse steps. He died in a pistol duel across the street from the courthouse, on the steps of the Stag Saloon. That information has been one of the biggest surprises to date on Mottlau’s ancestry quest.
On a recent trip to Pell City, Mottlau again stopped by the familiar grave sites at the Coosa Valley Baptist Church cemetery. He questions whether the burial plot of John James and Purlina Abbott might also include the remains of their son and daughter-in-law, John Henry and Idora Abbott, beneath a marker that simply reads “Abbott.” There are no records that he has been able to find that list the events or location of their burial site. It’s just another mystery that he continues to work to unravel.
After more than three years of searching, Mottlau has made progress, confirming some things he knew about his family and dispelling some as fiction. It’s a painstaking process, but he says finding out more about the family who are part of his past has been a labor of love. “I just really want to know the people they were,” he says.
Every now and then he finds another jewel. Some are rough and take some polishing. In the end, they are all part of his treasured past. And they’ll become part of the legacy that he will, one day, pass down to his own children.
