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PREFACE |
Nelson County, I love you!
That is why I wrote this book!
The last days of December 1999 shook me into
the realization that I had survived the 1900s and the year
2000 was here. January 1, 2000, was a date that had seemed
so far away to me as a child, a near “eternity” way back
then, and here I was lucky enough to witness its arrival.
The places, the history, and the people in
Nelson County have always intrigued me. I had grown up in
pure country, influenced by family, friends and neighbors
whose stories covered more than a century of Nelson County
history.
Nelson is home, the place I have spent all 73
years of my life except 1950-57, when I was away at college,
in the Army, and working with the Extension Service. While
away, one thought stayed foremost in my mind: “How could I
come back to Nelson permanently?”
From December 1957 to July 1981, along with
my interests in farming, I worked throughout Nelson County,
surveying boundaries of land. My love for Nelson swelled
during those 24 years of working in the beautiful forests,
fields and mountains. While surveying in Rockfish Valley in
late July 1981, as I was attempting to climb out of a creek
where the bank was nearly vertical, I was bitten by a
copperhead snake hidden among leaves and rocks above me.
Fortunately, he bit me on the hand and not in the face.
Later that year, I decided to quit surveying and devote my
efforts completely to the farm.
Some may say my interest in the past started
many years ago when I began collecting all sorts of things:
corn shellers, pitchforks, churns, washing machines, plows,
and other items of bygone eras. I placed many of these in
our farm market museum for all to see and enjoy, to
reminisce about and exclaim, “I remember that!”
A news article in the Richmond Times-Dispatch
on January 14, 2000, quoting ABC television-newsman Peter
Jennings further influenced me. This article spoke about how
he regretted his grandfather’s silence regarding his life as
a POW during World War I. Jennings later pleaded, “Each of
us has the responsibility to learn one’s own family story
before it is lost to time. Don’t miss a second. Get it
inside of your skin, get it down on paper, get it down on a
tape recorder, get it down on a disc. But get it down,
because you are preserving the intimate truth of history.
History is a collection of family stories.”
I knew then, I had to write about Piney River
and the mountains. As I began assembling the pieces, I
realized that this would not be enough, that it had to be a
collection of memories about the entire county, from the top
of the Blue Ridge Mountains to the James River, because, you
see, this was “my pasture.” And so, I began to gather and
write and smile.
In one of my first interviews, Mrs. Heber
Hilbish, 101 years old and a Nelson County native, said, “I
am older than your mama [would be].” And Mama had been gone
for over 17 years! I realized all of a sudden what a
walking, living resource I had to work with in Mrs. Hilbish
and so many others.
A number of those who enthusiastically shared
their lives and memories with me have now gone on without
seeing this project completed. I remember so well Mrs. Cecil
Reed of Lovingston, who worried, “Paul, I am going to be
gone before you finish the book!” Yes, she is, along with
many others whom we talked to and who contributed so much.
I had not realized that so many folks here in
Nelson County, both natives and adoptees, had played such
vital roles in events all over the world. There were
accounts of experiences in World War I and II, then Korea
and Vietnam. There were also Civil War stories—expressive,
heart-wrenching letters from the battlefields. This book is
an attempt to bring to life their exploits from places where
they fought and where many died. We cannot possibly know
them all, but we will tell the stories we were fortunate
enough to collect.
One of the many thrills in the process was
tracking down and finding one of the soldiers who had
participated in war maneuvers at Woodson during World War
II. I remembered this soldier’s unit as “The Texas
Division,” and that some of the soldiers’ wives had stayed
at our home. Someone told me these soldiers had been part of
the Texas National Guard, so I made a phone call to the
National Guard headquarters in Austin, TX. After a number of
referrals and several more calls, I was finally able to talk
to one of the soldiers, Virgil Duffy, who had trained here
in Piney River and he gave me his story.
This book contains copies of compiled letters
or texts that often included grammatical errors, misspelled
words, etc.; but I felt that I should not change, correct or
edit them, thereby preserving the distinctive
characteristics and expressions that the writers intended. I
am thankful that they wrote however they could and did.
Some of this book is pure history. Some of
it includes the sweet stories of families and their lives.
Some of it features letters and stories written from
hospitals and battlefields from which many never returned
home. Some of these tales are gripping. Some are nostalgic.
All are priceless.
This book will focus on events in Nelson from
just before the Civil War through Hurricane Camille and the
war in Vietnam, a period of about 120 years. This could be
called the “Golden Era of Nelson County,” when people
thrived here, working on the farms, at the plants, on the
railroad, and in the quarries.
I feel today as Mrs. Reba Lea, a Nelson
family historian from Lovingston during the 1950s, did. Mrs.
Lea, who wrote about several families in the book The
Colemans, Fitzpatricks and Their Kin, said, “If in the pages
of this book I have …failed to give credit where credit was
due, please know it was not done intentionally. With me it
has been a pleasure to …[put together] …this book…and it has
been done with ‘malice toward none.’” I have given the facts
as best I know them. I am hopeful there are not many
mistakes. Where I have made them, please forgive me. It is
my sincere intent to present every fact correctly!
This book is not my book. It is our book!
This is history, and so many of you have helped write it. I
just had the fun of putting it together. It has been
compiled to let the next generations learn and understand
what we were thinking, feeling and doing, to tell some of
the heartaches and delights of living in Nelson County.
Along the way perhaps you will understand better some of
those thousands of things that make Nelson County “tick.”
Thus this story is about you: Nelson County.
I thank the Almighty God for creating this
beautiful county, and personally for giving me the awesome
privilege of being able to spend a near lifetime in
Nelson. Furthermore, I want to thank the Almighty for
these United States of America and for His many blessings
and for what this country means to millions of Americans
here, and to countless millions of others around the world
preserving the cause of freedom. May we always be proud of
America, and may America always be proud of us.
Paul Saunders
November 8, 2006
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