Barn and field near Culpeper, Virginia 

One-room school in Breathitt County, Kentucky - 1940  Marion Post Wolcott

Summer Reading

"I heard the tenor of their uneven voices singing these familiar words:

The needle's eye that does supply,

The thread that runs so true,

Many a beau, have I let go, 

Because I wanted you.

Many a dark and stormy night,

When I went home with you,

I stumped my toe and down I go,

Because I wanted you.

I walked to the door and watched them. They had formed a circle, hand in hand, and around and around they walked and sang these words while two pupils held their locked hands high for the circle to pass under. Suddenly the two standing--one inside the circle and one outside--let their arms drop down to take a pupil from the line. Then the circle continued to march and sing while the two took the pupil aside and asked him whether he would rather be a train or an automobile. If the pupil said he'd rather be an automobile, he stood on one side; if a train, he stood on the other of the two that held hands. And when they had finished taking everybody from the circle, the two groups faced each other, lined up behind their captains. Each put his arms around the pupil in front of him and locked his hands. The first line to break apart or to be pulled forward lost the game."

--excerpt from The Thread That Runs So True by Jesse Stuart, an account of the author's experience teaching in a one-room school in the mountains of Kentucky in the 1920s and 30s. Marion Post Wolcott photographed in Kentucky for the Farm Security Administration in 1940.

Photo credit: Library of Congress LC-USF34-55696-D

Abandoned House - Lydia, Virginia 

Farmhouse - Lydia, Virginia 

Old farmhouses are still common in this area. They are plain, wood frame structures built to accommodate large families. The most distinctive architectural feature is a large porch, which often wraps around two sides of the house. In the days before air conditioning, a shady porch provided respite from the summer heat.

I took this picture on a hot Sunday afternoon recently, and it reminded me of the farmhouses that I knew as a child. I never lived in a house like this, but friends and relatives did and I have fond memories of country kitchens with wood cook-stoves, a big shade tree in the yard to play under, and evenings in the porch swing, listening to the grown-ups talk in the dark.

As I drove down the road past this house, I thought about these things. There was not a soul stirring around the place and I drove on by, the dust rising in the heat behind me.

Small barn - Lydia, Virginia 

This small barn is just around the corner from the Lydia Church. Horses are kept in this field and it appears the barn is in use. This farm is located just outside the border of the Shenandoah National Park.

Lydia Church - Greene County, Virginia

The Lydia Post Office was established in 1896, and at one time this mountain community had a school, a tea room, tourist cabins, several stores and a dance hall.  In addition, the St James Mission established a school and hospital nearby. I believe this church building may have been connected to the Mission at one time. The sign over the door reads "OLD Time Religion."

Today, travelers along US Route 33 in western Greene County will see the few remaining traces of Lydia just before crossing into the Shenandoah National Park.

Mimosa Tree - Greene County, Virginia 

Summer Reading

I recently finished reading Marilynne Robinson's Pulitzer Prize winning novel Gilead. The narrative takes the form of an extended, meditative letter written by a minister nearing the end of his life to his young son. Gilead is not a "page-turner" but a book to linger over. I found myself reading passages over several times, reluctant to turn the page. It is a book to read more than once.

"I was struck by the way the light felt that afternoon. I have paid a good deal of attention to light, but no one could begin to do it justice. There was the feeling of a weight of light--pressing the damp out of the grass and pressing the smell of sour old sap out of the boards on the porch floor and burdening even the trees a little as late snow would do. It was the kind of light that rests on your shoulders the way a cat lies on your lap. So familiar. Old Soapy was lying in the sun, plastered to the sidewalk. You remember Soapy. I don't really know why you should. She is a very unremarkable animal. I'll take a picture of her."

Gilead, by Marilynne Robinson, Farrar, Straus and Giroux/Picador, New York, 2004