ECHO of the Gorge: November-December ECHO 2011

The Echo of the Gorge is the bi-monthly newsletter of the Upper Hickory Nut Gorge Community Center. The Gerton Post Office has hard copies.

Emailed copies go to anyone that asks or sign up with your email at this link -

http://gertonecho.blogspot.com/

The editor always welcomes news items: e-mail mwhitt@du.edu or phone 828-625-0264. An Echo pad at the P.O. serves as reporter too. Space determines use, and editor may revise. Other submissions considered.)

OUTGOING UHNGCC Officers: President Margaret Whitt, Vice-president Jim Earnhardt; Secretary Lana Roberts/Jean Bradley; Treasurer Sylvia Sane. Program co-chairs Mary Kay McAdams and Lynn Morehead. Board Members usually meet second Tuesdays before third Tuesday’s regular meetings. Any club member may attend. Rotating-term Board Members are Jean Bradley, Patty Tanner, Lynn Morehead, Mel Freeman; Anita Owenby serves as outgoing president; Margie Owenby is lifetime member. Debbie Pustorino is Community Club photographer and blog designer.

CALENDER OF EVENTS

NOVEMBER (Exercise classes M-F, 9 – l0)

4 Bullington Garden Center Pruning Workshop 3-6

6 Daylight Saving Time!—Check your Smoke Detectors!

15 Community Club Dinner 6:30 Thanksgiving Turkey!

Bring your covered dishes; New officers will be installed.

“What the Pilgrims Had to Be Thankful About”

19 Grove Park Inn—Lunch/Awards for WNC Community Clubs

24 NATION’S THANKSGIVING DAY—counting our blessings

30 LIGHT UP THE GORGE Judging

DECEMBER (Exercise classes M-F, 9-10)

Angel Tree and food items for the Food Bank

20 Christmas Party—Dinner 6:30

Bring finger foods, canned goods for Food Bank.

24 Bear Wallow Baptist Church Christmas Eve Service 7:30

(Bullington Center activities for November/December:

November: l6—Holiday Ornament Workshop (l0-ll:30; $20)

AMARYLLIS Sale until December 20

December 1—Wreath Making Workshop –all materials supplied--$35

9—Holiday Open House l-4 Learn more about Bullington

January 7 Grafting Workshop for Japanese Maples. $30. materials supplied)

NOTES FROM THE OUTGOING PRESIDENT'S DESK

What a pleasure the last two years have been working with each of you, getting to know you better, and coming to understand the importance of an active community club in rural America! When so many people do not even know their next door neighbors, we are all most fortunate to live in a place that is beautiful and has supportive and interesting people. Our club provides a place where we can gather and continue those traditions that are the best part of living in such a community.

I want to thank the board and officers with whom I have served: Mel and Claudia Freeman, Jim Earnhardt, Patty Tanner, Jean Bradley, Lana Roberts, Lynn Morehead, Mary Kay McAdams, Sylvia Sane, and Nita Owenby. You have been there in all the right times and places. I want to thank Barbara Earnhardt for all her good work on the ECHO, and thanks, too, to Debbie Pustorino for helping us get our blog up and running, and to Debbie and Roni Peterson for taking such great pictures at our various activities.

I look forward to joining the board as the immediate past president and taking over, for a short time, the duties of ECHO editor. Barbara leaves big footsteps in which to follow. I will do my best.

See you at our Thanksgiving dinner on November 15. And thanks to Helen Brown (ahead of time) who will prepare the turkey.

Margaret Whitt

WONDERFUL NEW CHIMES RING OUT FROM BW Baptist Church!

They’re back. They’re welcomed! We missed them! (We especially like the 1794 Westminster chimes tune, popularly known as Big Ben, translated from the hymn melody’s words “All through the hour/Lord, be my guide/And by Thy Power/No foot shall slide.” (At 9, 12, 6 again! Thanks be to all chime donors, and the committee that chose this fine gift to the community. Let there be no sliding of feet around Gerton!)

UHNGCC’S NEW OFFICERS TO BE INSTALLED

Elected, and to be installed at the November club meeting, are the following good people who agreed to lead us through the next year’s activities and projects: President, Mel Freeman; Vice-President, Jim Earnhardt; Sec’y Jean Bradley/Lana Roberts; Treasurer, Sylvia Sane; Program Chairs, Barbara Earnhardt/Sarah Gayle. Margaret Whitt will be Echo editor. Board Members who agreed to serve are Syble Freeman, Gene Earnhardt, Patty Tanner, Jean Bradley, Margie Owenby (lifetime member), and outgoing president Margaret Whitt.

SANTA’S LIST TO BE CHECKED TWICE FOR FILLED STOCKINGS

--Margaret Whitt, outgoing president, for her enthusiastic tugging and success at bringing ‘YES’energy to the Club’s endeavors these past two years;

--to all the generous donors who matched the funds to make further improvements and updates for our generous old club building;

--the Sanes, Jim and Sylvia, for adding thoughtful touches to life of the club

and building—the outdoor sign, the new window/door record, the exercise /DVD, the finding of picnic table umbrellas, scrubbing floors and windows;

--Mel and Claudia Freeman for the l000 things they think up need doing!

--the Freemans, Donnie and Syble, for biscuits and gravy and pancakes and hauling away items for mission church sale;

--the cheer and neighborliness participants bring to M-F exercise group;

--Franklin Sides’ willingness to be helpful, and call square dances besides!

--Jean Bradley’s steady hand guiding club activities and responsibilities, not to mention her devotion to making 44 phone calls to possible window donors;

--Helen Brown’s wit and experience in somehow bringing it all together for the summer play—to enthusiastic applause; and finding a STAGE for $125!!!

--Jim Earnhardt and Mel Freeman behind-the-scenes and quietly framing the new windows, installing doors, driving to GET the doors at the best price, with countless trips to Home Depot for purchases for same, Claudia and Keith sometimes along for the rides;

--the Janirve Foundation for the $10,000 grant to replace windows, and doors;

--salutes to the faithful, friendly firemen at GFD, always helpful to this community and being on guard for the Gerton 5K, and hoisting our American flags up on the telephone poles, and taking those flags down again, Karl Bradley and his John Deere assisting.

--Billy Gaines with his wife Lynn and Ned Beck for furnishing us with SPECTACULAR 4^th of July fireworks AND (and!) supplying us with fabulous barbeque and slaw and baked beans and bathtubsful of banana pudding for Gerton Fest;

--TO EVERYBODY WHO BRINGS SUCH LOVELY, DELICIOUS DISHES TO OUR MONTHLY COMMUNITY CLUB DINNERS;

--Helen Brown (again) for our Thanksgiving Turkey preparation—again;

--to the table setters, decorators, and coffee and ice tea and lemonade makers;

--to Mel and Claudia Freeman, who continued to believe in GertonFest and to making it happen. Now in its third year, we know it will continue.

--to John and Becca Hathaway for planning the first ever Gerton 5K, and providing the original t-shirt design.

President Whitt’s Remarks at Donor Recognition Dinner – l0/18/11

We are so pleased to welcome our visitors to this special Donor Recognition Dinner tonight, an event that has been in our planning since we received the generous $10,000 grant from the Janirve Foundation in December. We have a clubhouse here that has been a part of our community in some form or fashion for over 80 years. It has been a restaurant, a square dance pavilion, a firehouse—those of us newer to the community know that for over 50 years, we have gathered once a month for a dinner together. This is a community that reaches deep into third and fourth generations.

The board of the Upper Hickory Nut Gorge Community Club met over a year ago to decide in what order we should attempt to be better stewards of a building that benefits all of us. So we made a plan—and then tried to work that plan.

Our Phase One would include new windows, new doors, and new insulation in the ceiling and under the flooring. The Janirve Foundation gave us the kick start we needed and we began with the windows and doors. We had professional help; and we had life saving volunteer help—hundreds of hours actually from Jim Earnhardt, Mel Freeman, and Jim Sane, in particular.

We matched that initial $10,000 grant with another almost $10,000, gifts from members of our community to honor or commemorate a loved one—a family member, a person that was important in either the donor’s life or the life of the community—or both. For this effort, I want to thank those of you who are our special guests tonight. And to thank Jean Bradley who made calls, Barbara Earnhardt who wrote thank you notes, and Sylvia Sane, who handled the money so responsibly. We have installed brass plaques on each window and on our sets of new doors. To read the plaques is to take in a bit of the history of our community. Behind each plaque is a story, and it is our hope that these stories be shared with each other.

Phase Two would include new light fixtures in our dining area, new ceiling paint, lattice trim work, and new molding and chair railing. This work was completed only last week.

We are here tonight to celebrate the completion of Phases One and Two.

We will begin in earnest to look at our most expensive Phase Three this fall. This phase will include new flooring in the kitchen and back area. New cabinets in the kitchen and perhaps a new appliance or two. I look at what we are doing here as one might look at the inside of a church building. When we sit in a pew on Sunday mornings, the people responsible for that building, the ones who paid for it, may not be among us any more. What we will do next will be meant to last another thirty or forty years. We are taking care of this building for the future, for those who will come after us.

Upper Hickory Nut Gorge Community Club has many accomplishments of which we are very proud. I want to name a few here:

· We are the only club in the county to publish its own Newspaper, Echo of the Gorge, and we have been doing so, without interruption, since June of 1967.

· We are the FIRST club to establish a litter clean up program out of which the Adopt a Highway in North Carolina program began. We have a letter from Governor Martin in 1988 thanking us for our participation in the launch of this program.

· We have won the statewide Beautification award five times.

· When we were divided by county and region, we won the first ever Club of Distinction among some 60 clubs in the western region.

· On Saturday night, we had the County awards, and Upper Hickory Nut Gorge won six awards. We look forward to our participation in the regional competition in mid-November at the Grove Park Inn.

While we have our share of awards, we take greater pride in being a community in the truest sense of the word. We look out for each other, we care about each other, we may be Democrats and Republicans, but we all agree that we love Gerton. It is home in all the best ways.

Thank you for being here tonight, and I know we all look forward to hearing our special music from Dr. Bob Stepp and his friend and teacher Paul.

NEIGHBORHOOD NEWS

Leona Sims moved home to Lancaster, South Carolina, leaving behind “The Perfect Place,” the little store where she sold arts and crafts beside Highway #74 for 21 summers. See her interview.

Fred Kiehle, a familiar former resident of Gerton, active club member and chaplain of volunteer firemen and of the Men’s Prayer Breakfast, died near Columbia, South Carolina, October 21 where he had moved five years ago. He well deserved the American flag flying at half mast at the Gerton Fire Department. His son Fritz 3rd told friends here his father’s funeral would be held at Church of the Transfiguration November 5 at 1 p.m., the burial taking place at Bear Wallow Cemetery where his mother and wife are buried. Memorial gifts may be made to the Alzheimer’s organization. A World War II veteran, he and other friends of that era gathered many mornings for Nita’s coffee to wrangle about politics. “I truly miss those old guys,” Nita told us. Fred leaves behind his son and two grandsons.

Melanie Anderson, a new community member living on Bear Wallow Subdivision Road, can be hired for computer help—both as teacher and ‘fixer’. Even this writer can understand her explanations. Phone 828-899-4991 for appointment.

“Stormy”MacGregor of Middle Fork can be hired to care for your pets while you’re away. Sensitive to pets’ individual needs, call her at 619-944-1013.

Anita Owenby is pleased with using the security alarm known as ADT. She would gladly talk with anyone inquiring about its virtues. She also promises us excellent items for Christmas season shopping at Susan and Nita's Hickory Creek Store. Sweet Monkey Bakery Pies can be ordered too!

Betty Beard, another Huntley relation, grew up on Middle Fork until she moved to Fairview when her father and mother was hired to help farm the Clarke farm at Sherrill’s Inn property. Betty moved to Asheville when she married inn 1954. When she heard recently of the tribute window project at the Community Club, she sent her check to commemorate her Bear Wallow Sunday School teacher Mrs. Vera Meeks. Attending the October dinner, Betty found Mrs. Meek’s plaque on the window nearest the children’s book corner in our library. By happy accident, it was perfect placement for an outstanding Sunday School teacher of little children.

Billy Gaines’ brother died unexpectedly recently in Charleston, S.C.

Not too early to send greetings to Margie Owenby, Ellen Moorehead, and Odessa Glover (Shirley Boone’s mother) at Flescher’s Health Care Center, 3016 Cane Creek Road, Fairview, 28730. Also, Katie DuMont’s mother Doris DuMont has moved to Flescher’s recently.

Longtime Summertime Resident Leona Sims Bids Gerton Goodbye

“The Perfect Place” is what Leona Sims called it. “It was the perfect place for me, by the side of the road, to sell my quilts and Raggedy Ann dolls. Hundreds of people over the years bought them—and I enjoyed every sale.”

Spending winters in her home in Lancaster, South Carolina, Gerton always knew when spring had arrived when her quilts went up on the lattice display fences, and the Raggedy Ann dolls began sitting in rockers on the store front porch. “Everybody has been so good to me,” Mrs. Sims said, tearing up a little. “It’s always felt just like home to me. Once a man came into the store, walked around and looked and looked. I asked him if I could find anything for him—and he said no, he just wanted to see what a perfect place looked like.” She said for her, it WAS a perfect place.

Since 1952, Mrs. Sims has been familiar with Gerton summers when her mother would bring her and her sister to visit with Mrs. Pink Bradburn, her mother’s best friend.

“I just got used to coming here summers,” she continued, “and after I married and had two boys, I kept coming here, one little son’s asthma improving so much when he breathed the cooler mountain air.”

“I opened the store 21 years ago, after my husband died. I sewed things from my cloth shop, and brought them here to sell. My neighbors have always looked out for me—Sonny Freeman and Ellen watching out for me with such good hearts. And others nearby too—I couldn’t name them all. Sometimes, neighbors would come sit with me in the evenings on the back deck, and we’d talk and talk.”

The Raggedy Anns sold the most, she said. “Now, I’ve even sold the sign!” she laughed. The Red Angel sign will be missed, probably a cheerful puzzle to passersby.

Sandy Jakubowski has bought the shop and the little house next door where Mrs. Sims lived. “She’s about my best friend in the world,” Mrs. Sims said. “She’s helping me so much with all the things I need to not leave behind….”

She leaves us behind sadly. She makes us wish we’d spent more time with her. And maybe she’s onto something some of us haven’t seen with quite the same eyes—Gerton as “the perfect place.”

Pictures below are courtesy of Jean Bradley of the Donor Recognition Dinner and one of Fall and a Rainbow taken in her yard.