Tag: Other Stories

Hidden Treasures

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Storefronts uniquely St. Clair

By Elaine Hobson Miller
Photos by Jerry Martin

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

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

Historic shop

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

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

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

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

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

‘The Cabin’

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

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

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

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

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

Landmark building

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

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

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

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

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

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

No eggs in this hen house

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

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

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

Century old, new life

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

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

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

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

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

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Ten Islands

A tale of two campaigns

By Carolyn Stern
Photos by Jerry Martin

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Blue and Gray Clash at the Coosa

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

Battle of Ten Islands

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Directions

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

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Valley coming back

[Show as slideshow]

By Carol Pappas
Photos by Jerry Martin

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Alabama Gold

By David Story
Photos by Jerry Martin

Without flowering plants, there would be no honey.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

An early fascination for bees

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Rising From the Rubble

By Loyd McIntosh
Photos by Jerry Martin and Loyd McIntosh

On a blazing hot Saturday in mid-June, Gary Liverett drives his white pickup truck onto the property of Alpha Ranch, the ministry for young adult boys he founded more than 20 years ago. Fresh from picking up his son, Chris, a real estate agent in Colorado, from the airport in Birmingham, Liverett takes a seat under a tent that serves as a meeting place, a work space and a welcome respite from the heat of the summer sun.

It’s been almost six weeks since the deadly tornadoes of April 27 tore through this remote section of St. Clair County. In just a three-mile stretch along County Highway 22, 15 people lost their lives; none, however, at Alpha Ranch. In fact, 37 people survived the storm in one of two homes on the property, despite the loss of the entire ranch to the storm.

There are signs of progress on the ranch. For instance, the wood frame for a new shop has been erected and most of the debris has been removed, but there are still tons of reminders all around. Liverett is still in the process of making sense of all that transpired.

As fate would have it, Liverett was recuperating from a heart attack at UAB Hospital on that devastating day in April. Helplessly, Liverett could do nothing but watch the television coverage as the storm moved from Tuscaloosa County into Jefferson and, finally, into St. Clair. “The first news we saw that pinpointed the area was Channel 6, I guess, I’m not sure, but they said it was dead on Highway 22, and I knew that was us,” Liverett recalls. “My wife called and got word that nobody was injured, but that we had lost everything.”

Three days later, Liverett finally got a first-hand look at the destruction caused by the tornado. His son, Chris, and other family members had tried to prepare him with photos and news of all that had transpired. He knew, for instance, that 13 people had lost their lives in a three-mile stretch. He knew that both houses at the ranch, the barns, the shop and three cows were lost in the storm.

“I wept. I drove in …,” he pauses, unable to complete his sentence. Almost a full minute passes before he fully regains his composure and continues. “I still get emotional. As good as things are, it’s still hard to take.”

An independent and deeply spiritual man, Liverett is not one to say “why me” even when facing the prospect of starting over. While saddened at seeing everything he had worked to build over the 23 years, he believes that God is in control, and it is through his faith that he remains confident about what the future holds.

“When we heard we had lost everything but I knew that everybody was safe, I was OK. I think God just really works in ways that we can’t explain,” Liverett says. “I really felt at peace. I was just blessed because I think God allowed us to see what things are really important to us.

“I guess God gives us the ability to process things in small segments at a time. If you had to process losing it all at one time, I don’t think you could take it,” he adds.

The good news is people like Liverett and others who lost everything — including loved ones — are already beginning the process of rebuilding. The events of April 27 revealed an ample supply of generosity, independence and strength of character of people throughout the community and beyond. St. Clair County is already bouncing back.

A COMMUNITY’S RESPONSE
Within hours of the storm, volunteers from the community sprang into action looking for survivors, assisting the injured, and helping in any way they can. As the hours turned into days, more help arrived from familiar organizations, such as the Red Cross and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). And, according to Liverett and others on the scene, these agencies also brought with them top-heavy bureaucracies that sometimes made applying for and receiving help difficult.

What really made the difference was the response of the local religious community. “I know FEMA and Red Cross and all have their place, but nothing, and I can speak for a lot of people, nothing met the needs like local individuals, churches and other ministries that were just right there with volunteers,” he said. “You don’t have to fill out papers, you don’t have to wait days and days, and they had no strings attached,” says Liverett. “I’m not putting down any of these agencies, but most of them have only certain things they can do, whereas individual groups like Extreme Ministries, just right off the bat, committed to building several houses and structures in this area, and they’ve done all they can.”

Extreme Ministries, based in Pell City and founded by the Rev. Jeff Huey, specializes in mobilizing volunteers for construction-related projects. By the time mid-June rolled around, Huey had volunteers working at as many as eight sites around the county, including Ragland, where a group of adults and teenagers are working to rebuild a house for an uninsured man.

In the triple-digit temperatures, high humidity and intense thunderstorms arriving out of the clear blue, the mood on the construction site is serious but upbeat.

“One thing you see is a mighty good attitude,” says John O. Sims, a retired builder from Pell City.

At this site, there are people from churches near and far – Pell City, Moody, Trussville, even Dallas, Texas. While there is a definite spirit of community and desire to help their fellow man, most volunteers throughout the community are working primarily to serve God.

“Everybody’s doing this because they love the Lord, and they’re doing it because they feel it’s a way of serving Him. It gives you a good feeling knowing that you’re helping somebody out in trouble and doing it in God’s name,” says Sims.

“Everybody’s just willing to do whatever has got to be done and it’s all in the spirit of God. It’s just a wonderful experience,” adds Mike Caldwell, a Pell City resident and employee at the Honda plant in Lincoln. “The attitude of everybody is just ‘whatever I can do to help. We’ll get it done.’”

Fifteen-year-old resident Austin Hamer is one of dozens of young people form Moody Baptist Church spending the week doing what they can to help. A normal teenager for whom a typical summer day would be playing his guitar at home, Hamer says he’s proud to be a part of the volunteer effort.

“We’re here to help build Shoal Creek back and Ragland back. I’ve heard people who were just doubting and sounded like they were giving up,” says Hamer. “I think it’s really good that so many people have come to help out because a lot of people down here don’t have insurance, and the churches are, pretty much, the only ones doing anything around here.”

The aftermath of the storm was felt not only by the community’s people, but the animals as well. Family pets, horses, cows and other livestock that helped the rural communities devastated by the tornadoes earn a living were significantly disrupted. Not wanting to leave any life, human or animal, without help it needs, the community sprang into action.

Rhonda Johnson-Bowles, account manager and equine and wildlife specialist for Land-O-Lakes Purina, helped organize an effort to care for the area’s animals after counting her own blessings following the storm. Having lived in the Shoal Creek area for more than 25 years, she felt the need to help and volunteered her time and skills to the community. “I was blessed to be the dealer and not the one being done for,” Bowles says. “We started out just helping farmers and then on Friday, my boss sent me a truckload of feed.

“I just went door-to-door and started in Shoal Creek and if anyone that was affected had an animal I gave them a month’s worth of feed,” Bowles adds. Before long, donations of food and supplies were arriving on her doorstep from as far away as Michigan and Wisconsin. To date Land-O-Lakes Purina and other individual benefactors have donated over 58 tons of premium feed in the effort.

GIVING AND RECEIVING, AND GIVING AGAIN
Back at Alpha Ranch, Liverett is taking stock of this turn of events. For 23 years, he has been a giver. He’s given young men with nowhere to go a place to stay, given them a place to learn a trade and to take care of themselves, and given them hope. Most of all, he and his family have given them love, support and a chance to turn their lives around. Now he finds himself in an unfamiliar position but hopes to be back changing lives sooner rather than later.

“We learned a lot. I don’t like to be on the receiving end. I’d much rather be on the giving end, but I think, probably, had people not rallied behind us so much, I don’t know if I’d have the heart to start back or not,” says Liverett. “We’d worked so hard to establish the place. I’m 61 and to start over, I don’t know if I would have had it in me, but God has used those people, and I feel stronger now than I’ve ever felt.”

Even after a heart attack and the loss of his ranch, Liverett is working every day not only to rebuild Alpha Ranch but to help his neighbors that suffered so much in April. He’s donated the use of heavy equipment to others and the use of his land for meetings and even a few fundraising events. And as soon as construction on the new shop is complete, he’ll let anyone who needs to saw some wood or hammer a nail be able to use it.

“I hope my heart has gotten bigger toward helping people. Giving is not just giving when it’s comfortable or when it’s notable, but when it hurts or gives what you need,” Liverett says. “I’ve seen people do that here, and that’s really been a lesson to me.”

“We’re blessed,” Liverett adds. “We’ve had people reach out and help us, and I’m grateful for that. I really am.”

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St. Clair’s Savory Summer Produce

By Carol Pappas
Photos by Jerry Martin

The sign is like a portal to the South from spring and into the fall, beckoning one and all to come have a taste: FRESH PRODUCE, it says.

In the sweltering heat of a Southern summer, roadside stands and farmers’ markets peddle palate-pleasing delights straight from the garden.

It’s certainly no different in St. Clair County, where farms and backyard gardens — large and small — stretch from atop Chandler Mountain to the shores of the Coosa River below. Around these parts, cucumbers, okra, peas and beans with unsavory names like Rattlesnake are regular table fare, just like Silver Queen corn, eggplant, purple hull peas and yellow and zucchini squash.

Don’t forget the peppers — sweet and hot banana, green bells and even an Italian named Marconi.

Tomatoes? By far, they’re still the king. St. Clair County is home to one of the top five largest tomato crops in the country, perhaps the largest in the region. “We’re the tomato capital of the South,” said Judy Gilliland, who along with husband Hershel, raise five acres of vegetables and fruit on their Chandler Mountain Farm fit for the finest tables around.

And for dessert, Crimson Sweet watermelons are a farm favorite.

Up on Chandler Mountain is a treasure of thousands of acres of scores of varieties of tomatoes from traditional to heirloom. But there is plenty more to see along the countryside.

The Gillilands are third generation farmers on Three Oaks Farm, named for the trio of the more than century-old oaks that stand watch over their family home. Children and grandchildren, who lend a hand during planting and harvest, have become fourth and fifth generations of this branch of St. Clair County farmers.

“We grow as much as we ever need,” said Gilliland. They grow enough to sell all summer long at farmer’s markets in Trussville, Pell City, Sylacauga, Leeds and Ross Bridge, where city folks line up for their own taste of summer from early June to September.

Gilliland, a retired engineer from the state, and Mrs. Gilliland, who retired from a law firm, returned to their roots when they got the chance, moving back in 1990 from big-city life to the family farm in Steele.

Now they spend 14-hour days harvesting the fruits — and vegetables — of their labor. If you close your eyes and imagine the birth of a buffet of fresh-picked paradise, that would be the fields of Three Oaks.

The Gillilands are locally famous for their heirloom tomatoes, and Mrs. Gilliland explains the different varieties they grow as deftly as a seasoned teacher giving a history lesson. “They’re the ugly face with the great taste. That’s what you call an heirloom,” she said, noting a series of deep ridges of these oversized tomatoes with an unmistakably sweet taste.

There are Yellow Blush, a variegated variety; Brandywine, which is pink; Yellow, a milder type; and Cherokee Purple. They share a common benefit. “All heirlooms are low in acid,” she said.

Just down the road a piece, young Jake Owen lures passersby to his produce stand with a fresh cut watermelon perched atop a sign listing his family’s vegetables du jour. The flesh of the watermelon is the deepest of reds, arousing taste buds of no telling how many motorists happening by.

His family owns six acres flanking the fruit and vegetable stand — “five more across the road,” he said. He and his father handle the chores of growing and harvesting from the farm that produces enough “to feed all of us,” he said, referring to his family. Owen has been selling the farm’s produce for two years but plans to go to work on the commercial tomato farms of Chandler Mountain next year, he said of his future.

Then, he turned a moment to the past, talking about his farming lineage. “Daddy’s been growing stuff as long as he’s been living.” His grandfather grew cotton, and his “kinfolks” in Oneonta in the next county farm as well.

For Andy Kemp, who along with wife, Paula, started A&P Farms five years ago, it was the lure of land that helped them find their way to St. Clair County. Andy, who managed a parts distributorship in Memphis, Tenn., and Paula, who worked as a software developer for BellSouth, “dreamed of having our own property — acreage,” he said. “We found this, not knowing we’d farm,” pointing to field after field of fruits and vegetables nearing picking time. They own 75 acres “to the peak of the mountain,” he said, and they began growing and providing their bounty to one farmers market five years ago.

Today, they sell at seven farmer’s markets a week and supply a grocery store in Birmingham as well as Community Supported Agriculture — an outreach of East Lake United Methodist Church — to provide fresh fruits and vegetables to buyers and for charitable purposes.

“It’s a lot of work, but we enjoy it,” Kemp said. While there are plenty of vegetables readying for harvesting across his acreage, his favorite is growing fruit — 15,000 strawberry plants, 160 peach trees and four 200-foot trellises of blackberries. “We pick 150 watermelons every two to three days and 150 to 200 cantaloupes every couple of days.

Then it’s on to market in East Lake, Birmingham’s noted Pepper Place, Valleydale, Trussville, Pell City, Adamsville and Gardendale.

Between growing, picking and marketing, “It’s daylight to dark seven days a week.”

Heirlooms are A&P’s specialty, but he has plenty of the main ingredient to a good old fashioned tomato sandwich.

His crop these days is helped by a pair of high tunnels, similar to hot houses but strictly solar. The sides are rolled up during the day and let down at night, allowing Kemp to extend his growing season by four months. Planting season can begin March 1 in the tunnel instead of the traditional mid-April dates.

“I had 50 boxes (of tomatoes) in May. By May 15, we’re picking red tomatoes. I hope to have them into November.”

And there’s no waste for any of Kemp’s crop. They freeze what’s left, and over the winter, they produce jams, jellies and relish. Perhaps the T-shirt he donned said it best: “We grow it. You eat it.”

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