Bonnie Katheryne Jones, Black Mountain, North Carolina

Bonnie Kathryne Jones    March 17, 1907 - February 17, 1996
Black Mountain, North Carolina . . . by Bonnie, told to Teta
     . . . . the apple tree, the singing, and the gold . . . .

(above)
Marie Jones was my
cousin, and my best
friend. At night,
across the pasture,
we could see the
lamplight glow . . .
Marie in her house,
and I in my upstairs
bedroom by the
chimney.
Marie was Uncle Ot
& Aunt Mary Jones'
daughter. They
lived in our
great grandmother
Isabella Stepp's
house

Now a part of Camp Rockmont on Lake Eden Road in Black Mountain,
       this was Grandpa's apple orchard about 1914. The orchard was west of our house.
       I'm back there in the picture, standing in the wagon with Grandpa, and my cousin Oscar          (above) Aunt Frances and my cousin Bessie Grant,
       in the white shirt. I'm seven years old. Grandpa was a farmer and raised cattle and hogs.          Aunt Nora's daughter, laughing on a summer day in
       By late spring each year, when the foliage was nice and thick, he would drive his cattle            the oat field.
       up the north slope to graze for the summer, shown here in the back of the picture.

Grandpa sold his produce in Black Mountain and Asheville and drove his hogs to market

Marcus
Maloney
Jones
       "Grandpa"
Civil War
Veterans'
Reunion
1919

in North and South Carolina.
I was so excited when Grandpa took me on his drives
. . . but just as far as Asheville.   I visited with my Aunt Nora Grant and cousin Bessie until he came back through.

I would ride along with him in the wagon to town where he sold his produce to the hotels and grocery stores. Once, while waiting for him in the wagon, "Old Bob" was spooked by a loud noise, bolted, and ran down Main Street back toward home, with me holding on to the seat rails for dear life. But "Old Bob" really didn't run that fast. To me though I was flying down Main Street, and with the reins flapping in the wind it was terrifying.   Just after the scary turn onto Cragmont Road a couple of quick thinking fellas grabbed the reins and I was rescued. I remembered their names for years. After that time, Daddy told Grandpa to keep me with him when he went to town. No more waiting in the wagon.

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.

Note:
On a Buncombe County Gazetteer of 1883/84 M. M. Jones is listed as one of 32 principal farmers in Black Mountain.

Camp Rockmont and Black Mountain College
Miss Annie Ingram's land became Lake Eden Resort when the land was sold to the E. W. Grove Company in 1923, and the tract was developed for recreational use by residents of Grove's model town "Grovemont" located at Swannanoa. Later the Blue Ridge Assembly ran the resort as a girls' camp.

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
A History of Black Mountain, North Carolina, and Its People, The book includes a six-page history of Black Mountain College. Mrs. Parris is a descendant of Marcus M. and Rachel Jane Jones.

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.

This is Miss Annie Ingram's house. It sat just inside the present stone entrance to Camp Rockmont on Lake Eden Road in Black Mountain. 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

Miss Annie Ingram, standing, and friends, about 1913.

operated the historic Alexander Inn at Swannanoa, North Carolina, built in 1818 by George N. Alexander's father George C. Alexander. 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.

Alexander Inn in Swannanoa. My mother left my father and me to stay with her aging Uncle George at the Inn. It was to be a temporary leaving, but as 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
Miss Annie's father was Lewis Ingram, and his father was Robert Ingram, who was born in County Down, Ulster, Ireland in 1765. Robert came to settle on his North Fork land with a North Carolina Land Grant in 1800. Miss Annie was born on September 12, 1853, in the home she would enjoy with friends and family for the next 70 years. She died on her birthday in 1923. Her name was Diana. She never married but loved people and was known for social gatherings and parties at her home on North Fork, and she loved to dance. Joan and Robert Goodson, editors, On the North Fork of the Swannanoa River, tell that Miss Annie was "famous for her dancing at the Gresham Hotel in Black Mountain." She is buried in the Tabernacle United Methodist Church Cemetery.

Robert Goodson is Robert Ingram's descendant and namesake. He and wife Joan live on a part of Robert Ingram's original land grant. As family and community historians, their 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. These 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 to Dayton, Ohio, 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 go with her, not that I liked to eat them, for I didn't, but I liked going with her, and being out in the woods. I had a dog, Billy, and we'd run together across Grandpa's fields. My cousins and friends, we'd all go swimming on hot summer days in one of the small lakes made by the North Fork. And I could visit a lot with Miss Annie, who lived on the other side of Blakeley's pasture. Aunt Frances worked with Dr. Archer in the treatment of tuberculosis patients at the Cragmont Sanatorium. After Grandma died in January,1919, I was eleven years old, and on 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 Presbyterian Children's Home is now, farther south on Lake Eden Road at Old State Highway 10 (old 70). 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 had been born at this farm called by all their home place, except the eldest Aunt Nora, who was born in west Buncombe near the Jones family in west Asheville. Aunt Frances said that Grandpa mortgaged and lost the home place about 1904.

They then built a little log house on land of grandma's 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.

             1994 - The little log house, siding added, owned at the time of this photo by
             the Jackson family, is now a property of Camp Rockmont on Lake Eden Road,
             where the Lake Eden Arts Festival is held in the spring and fall of each year,
             and is the site of the legendary Black Mountain College.

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 Ohio, 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. 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.
   1913 - Mr. Harry Jones and a friend in front of the
         Cragmont Sanatorium in Black Mountain.

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.