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"Grandpa Jones" I had been used to riding "Old Bob," but now Daddy told Grandpa that I could only ride"Kate." She was gentle, and didn't stray. "Old Bob" just went where he pleased, regardless of a command.
Grandpa would sit on the front porch in
the morning, waiting for the Asheville newspaper to be delivered. He
would sit there for some time and read the news. He used to
deliver the mail to folks on North Fork. That was when I was about
six or seven years old. Camp Rockmont and
Black Mountain College In 1933 the founders of Black Mountain College leased the Blue Ridge Assembly building across the valley from the Lake Eden site, and held classes there until 1937. At that time the Lake Eden Inn and surrounding 700 acres were bought from Grove's estate by the administrators of Black Mountain College. This nationally respected college continued at the Lake Eden site until 1956. In 1993, the Black Mountain
Centennial Committee, and author Joyce Justus Parris,
published Each year the liberal educational spirit that was once Black Mountain College at the Lake Eden site comes to life again as the Lake Eden Arts Festival - LEAF celebrated for three days in mid-May and again for three days in October. Musicians, poets, artists, and performers of individual craft - all are there. Classes, workshops and competitions are held. And there is much fun, and lots of dancing. I believe Miss Annie would be delighted to know that folks are again joyously dancing on the site where so often she gave neighbors and friends a chance to slap the dance floor at her parties and dances. Today, she would surely join the festival fun in the spirit she held there so long ago. Joan and Robert Goodson, editors of On the North Fork of the Swannanoa River, note that Miss Annie was "famous for her dancing at the Gresham Hotel in Black Mountain." And I think Grandpa would have appreciated his neighbors at the college. He most likely would have tried to sell them his produce. |
Miss Annie Ingram, standing, and friends, about 1913.
This is Miss Annie Ingram's house. It sat just inside the present stone gate to Camp Rockmont on Lake Eden Road in Black Mountain, North Carolina. I was born here on St. Patrick's Day in 1907. My father was Winfred Lee Jones, and my mother was Sarah Lenora Foster, the daughter of Benjamin F. and Henrietta White Wilfong Foster of Swannanoa. Lenora's aunt and uncle George N. Alexander and Sarah White Alexander owned and operated the historic Alexander Inn at Swannanoa, North Carolina, after the death of George's father, George C. Alexander, who had built the inn about 1818. In the early days the Inn served as a stagecoach stop for travelers. The Inn operated into the 20th century, and was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in the 1980's. My mother left my father and me to give care to her aging Uncle George N. Alexander at the Inn. It was to be a temporary leaving for my mother. I began to spend more and more time on North Fork with Grandma and Grandpa Jones and Aunt Frances, and my cousins. I wanted to stay. Miss Annie
Ingram Robert Goodson is Robert Ingram's descendant and namesake. He lives on a part of Robert Ingram's original land grant. As a family and community historian, his book On the North Fork of the Swannanoa River, 1800 - 1950, as told by contemporaries, is a compilation of stories of Black Mountain families. Included are many newspaper articles by Oden Walker, who was a descendant of early settlers in the valley in the Walkertown settlement. His articles of remembrance about the people and the mountains he evidently so loved were originally published during the 1950's in the Black Mountain News. Oden Walker had a fine sense of the elegance in nature: the nature of his mountains, and the nature of the people around him everyday. Bonnie's cousin Marie Jones was Oden's first wife. They had two daughters, Daphne and Roxanne. My Daddy and I boarded with Miss Annie for a time until Daddy went north to work. He left me in the care of Grandma and Grandpa Jones and Aunt Frances. They were lots of fun. When I was real little, they called me "Peep!" I was so happy to stay on North Fork. There was a world of happiness there. Grandma liked to pick spring greens, and I liked to walk through the woods with her. I didn't like to eat the wild greens, but I liked to walk with Grandma through the woods. Grandma died suddenly one morning in January,1919. We were at school already, and cousin Oscar came to tell us Grandma had died. I was eleven years old. I lived with Grandpa until Daddy came home from his job up north. Many evenings I would cross Blakeley's pasture in the moonlight and go to Miss Annie's for the night. Grandpa and Grandma used to have a big farm where the Black Mountain Home for Children and Families stands now, farther south on Lake Eden Road at Old State Highway 10. Grandma Rachel Jane's uncle, Confederate Maj.William Y. Porter, gave her in 1870, a large two-story white frame house and the farm of 120 acres. Uncle Will survived the War and did not marry. Grandma's father, Joshua P.Stepp, died during the War, and Uncle Will was always protective of the daughters of his sister Isabella Porter Stepp. My father Winfred and all his brothers and sisters were born at this farm called by all their "home place." The eldest child, my Aunt Nora, was born near Grandpa's family in west Asheville. The second child, Joshua Alexander Jones, was born in west Asheville also. After losing
the farm by mortage default, Grandpa
built a little log house on land given to Grandma Rachel Jane by her mother, Isabella Porter Stepp, on upper North Fork. All Grandpa and Grandma Rachel's
daughters were by that time married, except their youngest, Aunt
Frances. Uncle Dock, my Daddy, and Uncle Bob were still at home when
the log house was built. Later the house and property were owned for
many years by the Jackson family. It was known as Fairview
Farm. Exterior frame siding was added through the years. I saw
the house for the last time in 1994. In many ways it still looked
like home. June
1913 . . . a golden afternoon on the
porch of the little log house
( photo at right) The man
with the hat on his knee was a patient at Cragmont Sanatorium. I
don't remember his name. Mr. Harry Jones, from a state up north, was also a patient at
the sanatorium and is sitting between his friend and Aunt Frances.
Grandma Rachel Jane (Jennie) Jones is relaxing in the rocking chair. Aunt Frances saved four
postcard pictures that were taken during an outing on this day in June.
One was of me at Miss Annie's. It was Sunday. We had
been to services at the Methodist Tabernacle Church on Cragmont Road.
I remember Sunday afternoon visits by Aunt Nora, and my cousins Bessie Grant and Charlie Stinnett, and listening to Grandpa and Aunt Nora talk about our Jones ancestors. I remember the sound of the words so well, though I didn't know where Albemarle, Virginia, was, or Down Patrick. But when I grew up I learned where those places were and that my Jones family was very proud of their Scots-Irish ancestry. Joshua Jones was a little boy when he came to America with his family, from Down Patrick in County Down, Ireland, about 1755. They settled first in Albemarle County, Virginia. After they were married about 1770, and several children born, in 1778 Grandpa's great grandparents, Joshua and Eleanor Medley Jones moved their family from Virginia south into the early settlements in high country northwestern North Carolina, Burke and Wilkes Counties. Joshua and Elinor and their sons and daughters, were early settlers of prominence before 1800 in west Buncombe County in the beautiful and rich bottom land of the Hominy Valley. When Aunt Frances married Mr.Whisenhunt, and she left North Fork and moved to another town, she wanted me to live with them. In the summer of 1920 I packed my trunk, and we boarded the train at the Black Mountain depot. Though I made lots of new friends in my new town, I would spend part of the next seven summers back in Black Mountain, for I missed my father, my cousins, Marie, her sister Dale and brother Oscar, and Aunt Mary and Uncle Ot [Arthur]. Daddy married in April, 1922, to Miss Martha Gibbs. They lived at the house and took care of Grandpa through that year. When I left Black Mountain to go back home in the summer of 1922, I thought I may not see Grandpa again. He died on May 17, 1923. After Grandpa died in 1923, the North Fork farm and the little log house were sold. Some time later the orchard was dug up for the stones underneath. A lake was created by backing up the North Fork where the apple orchard had been. Original Narrative and Web Site © Iris Teta Eubank Wagner
2006-2011 E
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Mr. Jones wrote notes of verse on the back of the
pictures and gave them to Aunt Frances. Aunt Frances always said
that working with Dr. Archer at the Cragmont Sanatorium was her first
nursing experience and she knew from that time that she wanted to be
a nurse. Fifteen years later and her husband deceased by 1931,
Aunt Frances began a long career as a licensed practical nurse, and
her patients were wealthy private clients in Asheville, and cities in
eastern North Carolina.