Light of the World

 The Star of Bethlehem shone

over the nativity scene,

the little Lord Jesus was

born on a cold winter's night.

The Son of God 

left the portals of heaven

to bring light and love

to the souls of weary ones.

Doubts and fears cease

at the foot of the cross,

Christ was born to die

and to redeem the lost.

He gives hope to troubled hearts.

And as the hosts of heaven

sing praises to the

King of Kings, eternal

light shines in the land

where there is no night.

Rejoice with the angelic beings,

our Savior has come to earth.

            --Brenda Kay Ledford

I wish all my blogger friends: 

A Blessed Christmas and Joyful New Year!

A Mountain Christmas

 Blanche and her siblings walked miles from the head of the Trout Cove over a dirt road to Ogden School in the 1930s.  The Blue Ridge Mountains were locked in the jaws of the Great Depression.

Mrs. Lucy Hyatt was Blanche's teacher.  She decided her students would have a happy holiday.  "Who wants to make paper chains to decorate our classroom?" she asked.  The students clapped their hands and rushed to the worktable.  They cut strips from construction paper and pasted them together.

The teacher also asked if anyone would like to help the janitor cut a cedar in the woods.  Blanche and her brother, George, volunteered.  They selected a white pine and dragged it into the classroom.  The pupils made decorations for the Christmas tree.  For several days they cut bells, stars, and ornaments.  Some children brought silver foil from chewing gum wrappers to design an angel to top the tree.  They threaded strings of popcorn and put them on the tree.

While the kids made decorations, Mrs. Hyatt made hot cocoa on the pot-bellied woodstove that stood in the middle of the room.  She poured cans of Carnation condensed milk, water, sugar, and cocoa into a pan.  The teacher baked gingerbread and served it to the students with the drink.  The children loved the treats.

A highlight of the holiday celebration was a program given by the John C. Campbell Folk School.  Danish dancers and musicians entertained the mountain children.  Blanche enjoyed the lively show that introduced her to the arts and culture.

Although times were hard during the Great Depression, one dedicated teacher brought a lot of joy into the lives of her students.  She was a God Send during the time when many kids wouldn't have much for Christmas.  This is a true story about my mother, Blanche.

by:  Brenda Kay Ledford

I wish all my blogger friends:

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year

Turkey Hunting

 Way back in the Trout Cove during the 1930s, my mama and her siblings decided to go turkey hunting.  Blanche, brother George, and sister, Oma headed up the mountain trail the day before Thanksgiving.

They decided to stop at Hazel Henson's house and invite her to go turkey hunting with them.  Blanche and Oma wore feed sack dresses.  Patches dotted George's overalls.  

Night fell and they still hadn't spied a turkey.  A Full Harvest Moon ricocheted through the pine trees and an owl screeched in the holler.  Blanche grabbed Oma's arm and they screamed at the same time.

George laughed and slapped his knee.  "What's wrong with you chickens?  I was just mocking a hoot owl."

Blanche and Oma tried to hit George, but he took off like a racehorse through the woods.  He reached Hazel's house before they could catch him.  Hazel joined them on the turkey hunt.

Since they didn't have any weapon, Oma suggested that they stop at Jim Power's log cabin.  They stepped on the rickety porch and knocked on the door.

"What brings you younguns out on this fine night?  Ought you be home getting ready for Thanksgiving?"

"We wanted you to bring your shotgun and join us turkey hunting," said George.

"All right.  I'll be glad to go.  Just let me finish my supper."  The old gentleman crumbled cornbread into a glass of buttermilk and wolfed it down.

He grabbed his shotgun, put on his cap and got a lantern.  He whistled for the hound dogs and they headed up the mountain.  Oma, Hazel, and Blanche followed the guys.  Old Blue, Spot, and Buck spied a squirrel and chased him through Greasky Creek.  Their howls resounded across Brasstown.

They came to Pauline Payne's house and stopped to ask the family if she was still in the hospital.  Her daughter invited them into the house.  She said Pauline was feeling better, but still in the hospital at Murphy, North Carolina.

Oma asked Mr. Payne if he still owned a fiddle.  He got the instrument and asked Jim Powers to play it.  Jim started making music and they danced all night long.  They never got around to turkey hunting.

by:  Brenda Kay Ledford

I hope all my blogger friends will have a

Happy Thanksgiving!

NATIONAL APPLE MONTH

 October 1-31 is NATIONAL APPLE MONTH

Great-Grandpa Dallas Matheson owned 300 acres in the Matheson Cove in the early 1900s.  He grew an apple orchard above the frost line on Shewbird Mountain.

He and the boys would take a sled up the mountain in the fall and haul apples down to the log cabin and store them in the cellar.  They were some of the most delicious apples you could ever eat.

One was the black beauty.  It was such a deep red that it was almost black.  There was the "Ben Davis" that was a light color with small streaks and white inside.  

Many other apples came from the seeds of other trees and this gave a mixed flavor and all were very delicious.  Those included the horse apples, the hog sweet, red June, striped May, pumpkin apple, queen pippin, pound apple, and others with no names.

Grandpa made long trays with light weight lumber for drying the apples.  The family peeled and sliced the apples and spread them on the trays to dry in the sun.  At night they brought the trays in on the porch, then out on the racks the next day.  

Dried apples are delicious, especially when made into fried apple pies or a stack cake.  The stack cake is made with five or six thin layers made from a cookie recipe.  The fruit is cooked with a little sugar and cinnamon  then spread between the layers.  It is best if left to soak for a few days.

Finally, this month is National Apple Month.  Maybe the saying, "An apple a day keeps the doctor away," is true.  Enjoy October with the mountains putting on a colorful show as the leaves deck out in colorful garments and the little trick -or -treaters fill their bags with goodies on Halloween.

                                                                  

APPALACHIAN MUSIC

 Music was an important part of the Appalachian Mountains.  This range of mountains reaches from Canada to Alabama along the eastern coast of the United States.  I live in the Blue Ridge Mountains which is a section of Southern Appalachia.

The mountain dulcimer (beside the gentleman's photo) was played often by mountain people.  Gordan Parris of Hayesville made Appalachian musical instruments.  These instruments included the guitar, banjo, and the dulcimer.  Gordan was regionally recognized for crafting fine musical instruments.  I was fortunate to interview he and his wife at their mountain home off Cold Branch Road in Hayesville.  He had several piles of wood drying in the yard that he had collected to craft his instruments.

The banjo was brought to Appalachia by the blacks.  Although only 10% of the Blue Ridge was populated by African Americans, they also contributed to the rich musical heritage of this area.

Interestingly, the fiddle was frowned on by some religious leaders in the community.  It was often played at barn dances.  Some mountain preachers were opposed to dancing and thought the fiddle was associated with the "sin of dancing." Clogging and buck dancing were favorites of the Appalachians.

Ballads were brought from Ireland and Scotland to Appalachia.  They were stories in songs.  Most had a sad theme such as the traditional Scots-Irish ballad, "Barbara Allen."  This is a sad love story where Barbara Allen rejected her fellow and he died of being lovesick for Barbara who refused to visit him on his deathbed when he called for her.

The ballads were passed down from one generation to another by word of mouth.  Many of the Irish in the homeland, were not able to read, so they preserved the songs by singing them.

The churches contributed also to the musical heritage of the Blue Ridge.  Christian Harmony music was sung without any music.  John Wesley, Fannie Cosby and other great songwriters penned powerful songs that are still sung today in many congregations.

Many of the mountain people sang to help them overcome hardships.  The black people often lifted songs of lament for the day they would be free as they picked cotton. Blue Ridge people gathered for singing at churches during the Great Depression in the 1920s to give them strength to make it through very trying times and poverty.

Music continues to lift the spirit of downtrodden people not only in Appalachia, but around the world.  It's a universal language that binds people together in fellowship and worship of  God.

by:  Brenda Kay Ledford   

Foam Party

 

The youth at our church held a Foam Party to celebrate the beginning of the school year.  Everyone had a great time including the adults.  I joined the fun and walked into the foam. 

"You can do anything with children if you only play with them," said Prince Otto vo Bismarck (1815-1898).

End of the summer, the youth holding a Foam Party.

After plunging into the foam, I bend to brush off the suds.

It was a mountain of foam and like floating on clouds when you entered the foam.

Here's a photo of me coming out of the foam and laughing with the kids.

Carefree, getting in touch with the kid inside me, I've never had such fun!

What a wonderful way to start a new school year with the kids.

THE FRONT PORCH

 Memories flood my mind as I sit on the front porch.  Perhaps it is the taste of buttermilk, the smell of cornbread baking in Grandma Minnie's Dutch oven over the fireplace, or the sorghum syrup Granddaddy Bob made each fall from cane.

The family rose before the rooster crowed to tackle the hot, hard, job of stripping blades from cane.  After cutting them down, you put the cane into piles and cut off the seed heads.  Then Granddaddy and the boys loaded the cane on a wagon and hauled it to the mill.  A mule pulled the pole that turned the mill.  Cane was fed into the vertical rollers like a washing machine.  Juice squeezed from the cane and flowed down a spout to the boiler where it was boiled from one vat to another.  You skimmed foam off the top until it came out a nice clear brownish-red color.  Dozens of yellow jackets swarmed and you had to keep them out of the syrup.  Our family made 90 gallons of sorghum syrup.  The labor paid off when you savored the rich, thick, sorghum on hot, buttered biscuits.

Besides making sorghum syrup, Great-Grandpa Dallas Matheson owned 300 acres of land on Shewbird Mountain.  He was a farmer and grew an apple orchard above the frost line.  He raised the black beauty that was so red it looked black.  The Ben Davis was light with small streaks and white inside.  Other apples included the horse apple, hog sweet, red June, striped May, pumpkin apple, queen pippin, pound apple, and others with no names.  Each fall our family took a sled and mule to Shewbird Mountain and hauled apples to the house to store them in the cellar.  Grandma and the girls dried apples on trays outside in the sun.

I ponder the good old days on the front porch. We had no air-conditioners and it was a taste of heaven resting on the porch each evening as a breeze wafted over the valley.  Neighbors would stop for a visit and we enjoyed swapping a few stories as lightning bugs flashed.  Brother Harold and I caught them in Blair canning jars and pretended they were our lanterns. 

Many homes have no front porches now.  Families are missing a wonderful slice of the bygone days.

by:  Brenda Kay Ledford

Reprinted from:  GOOD OLD DAYS, A Poetry and Prose Anthology

                           Published by: Old Mountain Press:  www.OldMountainPress.com