Sunday, June 27, 2021

July - August 2021

UHNGCC Re-Opens July 4 

Community Cook-Out, 6:30 p.m.

Both of our WELCOME TO GERTON signs have been enhanced with summer flowers -- geraniums and azaleas among others. Thanks to Mike Hamlin and Stan Mobley for selecting and planting; thanks to Nita Owensby for ongoing mowing. We should look good all summer long.

Monarch Butterfly Release on the Chestnut Hills Greens Thursday, July 1, at 10 a.m.


New neighbor Sara Fletcher will release over 100 Monarch butterflies from their cocoon on Thursday, July 1, at 10 a.m. Come to Chestnut Hills Commons area for the display---and picture-taking event.

President's Note

I am excited to announce we will be having a scaled down 4th of July event at the Community Center -please join us on the 4th for a cookout and chance to socialize with your neighbors. We will be announcing additional events in the coming weeks and are planning to hold our annual Gertonfest event at the end of summer.

Thanks to all who have continued to support our efforts by dropping off donations for the Hickory Nut Gorge outreach center. We deliver donations left at the Post Office twice a month to ensure families in our larger community have the support they need.

We have continued our work with the Adopt-a-Highway program to ensure we are collecting litter along Highway 74-A, and we have placed American Flags along the main thoroughfare for Memorial Day and the summer Holidays. We added new Flags, poles and brackets so we had a larger flag presence this year and will be retiring some of the older Flags after this season. If you wish to support this effort you can send a check made out to the UHNGCC and specify you would like the funds to go to purchasing new Flags for the 2022 season. The address to send any donations is UHNGCC PO Box 222, Gerton NC 28735 – the Flags cost approximately $26.00 each and we are using new poles which “spin” and do not have the Flags wrap around the poles – these are $20.00 and then the new brackets are roughly $8.00 each. We have found a local distributor for the items and are glad to be supporting a small local business.

We look forward to seeing you at our upcoming events and enjoying all that Gerton has to offer!

All the Best!

Stan Mobley

UHNGCC President 


Dave MacDonald helps Stan Mobley hang the American flags in time for our summer celebrations.

Grand Openings and Activities at Studio 74-A and Bearwallow Provisions on Saturday, July 3

At her Grand Opening, Sheila will be doing a gift basket giveaway, discounted drinks and free snacks and samples. Also, I have invited some friends to set up tables outside on the east end of the building to sell what they want. Two are bringing their jewelry and another friend is hopefully going to bring his metal art. Another has all kinds of really nice embroidery items like hand towels and such. There will also be a new neighbor that will be bringing various home items to sell. Others are invited to join--bring your own set up items and your items for sale. Be in touch with Sheila about details. The more the merrier. 
Up at the Bearwallow Provisions, Erik will have activity and opportunities to get some lunch and meet up with neighbors. 

Calendar of Events

July 1, Thursday, 10 a.m. - Butterfly Launch - Chestnut Hills Commons
July 3, Saturday -- Grand Openings at Studio 74A and Bearwallow Provisions
July 3, Saturday, 1 p.m. - Chestnut Hills HOA Annual Meeting - Chestnut Hills Commons
July 4, Sunday, 6:30 p.m. - COMMUNITY COOK-OUT at UHNGCC
August 6, Friday, 9:30 a.m. - Litter Sweep
September 4, Saturday, 8-6 p.m. - GERTONFEST XIV RETURNS. SAVE THE DAY

Lots of bear activity mid-day in our neighborhoods this year. Sometimes they just get up close and personal, thinking even bird feeders are there for their taking! 

UHNGCC Provides Ongoing Help for Hickory Nut Gorge Outreach

Every two weeks our UHNGCC board checks in with the Outreach in Lake Lure to get a list of items that greater Gerton can provide to our neighbors in need. Through an email blast we let those on our list know what the items are that are most needed.  We bring the items to the Gerton Post Office. A member of the board picks up the food and twice a month on a Monday, a board member will drive the load to Lake Lure.

May needs included Vienna sausages, Spam, chili, shampoo, razors, laundry detergent, dish soap, large containers of juice, and boxes of cereal.  In May, we made two deliveries, totaling 421 pounds. 

June requests included cake, brownie, and cookie mixes and frostings; ramen noodles and chunky soup. On June 7, we delivered 207 pounds of these items. For the last delivery on June 21, Outreach requested help with laundry detergent and dish soap. We delivered 271 pounds, making our June gift a total of 478 pounds.




WNC Communities awards $11,500 in George H.V. Cecil Journey Scholarships to Eleven Winners in Western North Carolina

Two of the eleven winners were from Edneyville in Henderson County-- Rily Corn and Jazmin Lara. The winners received between $500 and $1500 each.

The Journey Scholarship was established in 2002 to award scholarships to high school seniors with good character, high academic achievement, and significant contributions to community service. It was renamed the George H.C. Cecil Journey Scholarship in 2020 to honor the eighteen years of selfless service George Cecil dedicated to the program as the founder and Scholarship Committee Chair. He believed supporting our youth in gaining a valuable education is one of the most important contributions we can make to our communities.

As of 2021, WNC Communities has awarded $198,000 to 187 outstanding high schoolers of Western North Carolina to help further their education. To be eligible, students must be active in one of the 70+ communities participating in WNC Communities Honors program. Information on how to apply is available through high school guidance counselors in all twenty counties WNC Communities serves.

This information is provided for the young people who are presently active in UHNGCC--when the time is right to apply for the Journey as well as the scholarship that UHNGCC gives out each spring. This year we had no applicants for the scholarship.

Litter Sweep - June 2021

Front Row: Pete Reese, Ellen Boyle, Sara Fletcher, Karen Gamble; Back Row: Sylvia Sane, Stan Mobley, Jim Earnhardt, Charles Gamble, Mike Reandeau, Chuck Mallory, Steve Jones, and JoAnn D'Ambra (Mike Hamlin, taking picture)

Upper Hickory Nut Gorge Highway Litter Pickup

On Friday, June 4, the Gerton community gathered at 9:30 a.m. to clean up the litter dropped along 74-A, Gerton Highway.   The pickup began 30 minutes earlier than usual in hopes we would beat the heat of the day.   We had a turnout of 14 eager volunteers picking up the assortment of litter and recyclables with a total of 9 bags of litter and 9 bags of recyclables.  Gerton was very fortunate that there was much less litter this quarter along the highway.  That can hopefully indicate that people are becoming more conscious and not tossing litter out their car windows.

Our next Highway Litter Pickup will be Friday, August 6 at 9:30 a.m. We will meet again, at the Upper Hickory Nut Gorge Community Center, 4734 Gerton Highway.

Have a great summer!  

Mike Hamlin

THE COMMUNITY CLUB BUILDING
A bit of its history

by Syble Freeman

The saga of the community club building began with the west end of the building (currently the library) as small living quarters for seasonal restaurant operators who ran a restaurant occupying the older section of our present facility. This would be in the 1920s – 1930s. The living quarters opened onto a covered rock patio and then into the restaurant space which housed dining area, kitchen, storage, and restrooms. I'm told there was a standing joke at the time that the operators frequently left town owing lots of bills. Consequently, there was a frequent turn over of managers.

Advancing into the 1930s the Asbury family operated the Copper Kettle Tea Room in the same space. After the Great Depression of 1929 changed their lives forever, the Asbury family spent the next fifty years living in their place on Chestnut Hills.

In the 1940s and 1950s, a dance pavilion located on the east end of the building featured square dances with live bands on Saturday nights. One amusing recollection of that era involves a local constable and his helper who arrived to break up a fight in the dance hall. The constable told his assistant, “You wait outside and count them as I throw them out.” Sure enough the door slams open and someone flies out. The helper yells “One.” “NO, NO!!” hollers the constable, “Don't count me!”

After the restaurant and dance hall fell into disuse, a group of ladies in the Gerton area established a Homemakers Club, and cooked many fundraising dinners in the dining area to purchase the property. Club members I can remember include Hattie Oates, Beatrice Meyer, Modeen Bradley, and Margie Owenby. Margie, as the last surviving member, was around to help us celebrate the 50th anniversary of the club's founding .

In the late 1960s following formation of the UHNG Community Club, the old dance hall was demolished and the current larger meeting room was built by Roy Owenby and his crew.

After the Gerton Volunteer Fire Department was organized in 1974, the building was again enlarged to house a two-bay firehouse. When the department moved to a larger building above the Gerton Post Office, the space was reconstructed to house Nita's Store. The October 1986 Echo of the Gorge described Nita's grand opening celebration “...with many neighbors in attendance and prayers of dedication and a ribbon cutting.”

Presently, Sheila Padgett's Studio 74A serves the community and travelers with antiques, crafts, coffee, and treats from the same retail space.

My thanks to Jim Earnhardt, Nita Owenby, and Don Freeman for their help with this report. 


Memories of Chestnut Hills; Turning 100 in 2022



From: Toni Field Barkett

The Field Family Cabin

In 1948 my family visited Chimney Rock. My mom wanted some relief from the heat of Florida’s summer. Although we stayed there and swam in the Broad River, Mother was disgusted with the dumping of sewage into the river. We found Chestnut Hills and my family’s love affair with Gerton began.

My parents purchased a cabin at the top of the hill in 1948, and it is still in my family all these years later – although it truly does not look like it did originally. The inside of the old part of the cabin is original but much was added on through the years.

So many of my childhood and adulthood memories are intrinsically linked with Chestnut Hills to the point that in my heart I consider Gerton my home although I’m a native Floridian.

These are some of my fondest random memories:

Playing hide and seek at the Company House with all the kids on the hill; it seemed like there were a million of us!

Watching butterflies in the lower lot of the English house.

Running up and down the gravel Chestnut Hill Road.

The exquisite Olympic size swimming pool (very cold especially as I got older) plus the baby pool outside. The pool became a destination place for families to enjoy picnics and fun.

Meeting people by working the concession stand in the pavilion or ticket booth.

The wonderful people who lived on the hill – the Asburys, Gilbertsons, Earnhardts, Englishes, and, of course, Bertha Douglas with her "Nawlins"  hospitality.

The sock shop, the candy store run by the blind couple, Nita’s grocery, Chet and Mary Lee’s gas station, the “old” post office.

As a young child I was quite blond; rumor has it that the amount of chlorine in the pool could be determined by how green my hair turned. Truth or fiction - I don't know.

There aren’t many of us “old timers” left, but it is great fun to reminisce.

This is a painting of the cabin in the 1940s. The original house is full of mysterious architectural  features from originally having no stairway going downstairs to having a dining room, which consisted of a picnic table. We ate in shifts! 

From Shirley Boone:

In days gone by, Boone grandchildren enjoy kites on the open greens of Chestnut Hills

While visiting and living in Gerton over 40 years, my children and grandchildren were instructed and comforted by an outdoor world, as only Gerton provides. These experiences began in the 1980s when as a family we frequently used houses to vacation, thanks to the Earnhardts. Through our visits from ’73 through the 80s, we gradually grew to feel Gerton was HOME; therefore, we built on Windfall Circle in 1993--a long love affair.  We retired to Gerton in 2002. When grandchildren began visiting us, they had similar experiences in Gerton’s natural world, as our children had, when earlier we had visited the Earnhardts. 

Historically, Chestnut Hills has provided the perfect meadow for Gerton’s activities.  I remember my children, and later, grandchildren’s delight in finding their first Easter egg in Upper Hickory Nut Gorge’s annual Easter egg hunt, their joy when playing catch with their beloved golden retriever, Allie, and their swagger when they climbed their favorite chestnut tree. These Chestnuts had been earlier planted throughout the meadow by the Earnhardts. These grew from tiny trees to shapely, broad trunked trees with low lying branches--a perfect tree for a child’s first climb.

While the meadow provided one form of pleasure, a gurgling crooked creek that split the meadow in half gave them the thrill of discovery. This mountain-fed stream had a mind of its own--no boundaries, especially after rainstorms. Children’s imaginations unleashed. Giggles danced in the air as our children schlepped through creek silt with knee high boots, filled pails to an overflow of clear mountain water, formed mud cakes fit for a five-star restaurant, and overturned stones to discover what squiggling, scary creatures lay beneath.

We often hiked to Bearwallow Mountain, Wild Cat Rock or trails in Florence Preserve (frequently with a backpack filled with picnic makings). On these many hikes, I observed our children grow to keenly observe all that surrounded them; our seven year-old granddaughter learned to read a trail map, our son, to identify wildflowers. As we burned the trails to thrilling heights, we soaked in green, green beauty at every turn. At the top we were reminded of nature’s splendor.

 We dream of independence for our growing children. Repeatedly, while walking from our home to Nita’s grocery, our seven-year old grandson, Sam, with hiking stick in hand, cultivated a sense of independence.  When he arrived at Nita’s Grocery, he was always warmly greeted by Nita and Margie who allowed him to help himself to his pleasures. Exchange of money was another invaluable experience.  Exiting the door, you always heard Margie, say, “You come back, you hear!” Her words hugging him tight made him feel so BIG.  These may seem like little things to some, but to a growing boy, these were just more steps to feel comfortable in becoming independent.

Shirley and son Deke enjoy the view on one of many hikes through the years. 


To grow up in Gerton’s nature cocoon--our children’s/grandchildren’s lifetime gift--cost little or nothing.  They have grown into adults building their college education and careers upon all that nature taught them. When our grandson received his Eagle Scout award, one of his touching remarks, published in the local paper, “I have grown to love nature by always being a part of the outdoors.”  Through many, many years, Gerton has continued to provide this over and over to so many!


From Jim Earnhardt:

Even though our family lived and I worked in Winston-Salem for 37+ years, I always felt like I really “lived” in Gerton, where we moved the year following my retirement in 2006. Our friends couldn’t comprehend our move at the time.

My father and Mr. Nee English (both of Thomasville, NC) were fortunate enough to be able to purchase a defunct mountain property in 1945 called Chestnut Hills in Gerton, NC. The community had its first heyday in the early 1920s but died during the Great Depression and WWII. The pond had to be dredged and the dam rebuilt in 1945-46. There were no insurance concerns at the time so we were able to swim in the pond. The swimming pool was rebuilt at the sight of the original pool and was opened to the public in 1949 (admission was 50 cents/adults and 25 cents/children). The water was very cold. Most of us took our turns mowing the commons (we only mowed grass from late May through Labor Day when the pool closed for the season). There was only one full-time resident family (the Asburys) living on the hill for almost 50 years – now the home of Kim Jones and Michael Alburl. The homes were all uninsulated summer vacation cottages. The Earnhardt family owned the “Pile of Logs” (now the Hathaway home) from 1945 to the mid 1980’s. My wife and I purchased our present home by the pond in the early 1970s.

I spent each summer from 1945 (my brother, Gene, had polio that year) through my college years where each of us took our turns lifeguarding at the pool, mowing the commons and picking up trash around picnic tables scattered over the grounds. The commons had also been the site of a nine hole “pitch and putt” golf course during the early years (1920s-1940s).

Prior to age 16, there was more time for hiking, building model planes and tree houses, fishing, etc. Each summer was more like a camp when I was younger, but with no organized activities. It forced one to be creative. I learned how to drive a car in the mountains by practicing how to use the clutch starting and stopping on Chestnut Hills Rd. You learn fast!

Once we became lifeguards at the pool at age 16 we had our one day a week off to hike, play golf, or whatever. Most of us when working at the pool would hope for rain and especially lightning so we could temporarily close it. Almost every able-bodied teenager in the Gerton area over time became a lifeguard or worked at the pool in some capacity. The original lifeguards with the reopening of the pool in 1949 and the first few years came out to Gerton from Asheville by bus which would stop daily at the present Community Center (25 cents one way). Few families at the time had more than one car or truck, if any. After a 30+ year run the pool closed in 1981 primarily because of a marked increase in the cost of insurance, supplies and the need for repairs. David Earnhardt, my nephew, was our last lifeguard.

Only in the past 20-30 years have people begun to gradually move here full-time. Owners have slowly transformed most of the homes to live in year-round.

There have been five generations of families living here (two with the original Chestnut Hills and three since the 1945 rebirth). For all its ups and downs over the now 100 years, it continues to have a magical draw. 

The swimming pool located on the Chestnut Hills Common area (now underground!) in its glory days. Cold mountain water --50 cents for adults; 25 cents for kids!

Little Library

 Cleaned and Re-Painted; Repaired and New Book Selection

Gerton's Little Library, the first one in the Hickory Nut Gorge, has been given a thorough post-pandemic cleaning. The door has been repaired; the whole has been re-painted. Thanks to the work of Jim Earnhardt, and Stan Mobley who assisted Jim in replacing the library to its original post. All of the books in the Little Library have been replaced. These are "clean" books! Help yourself. At present we do not have books for children, but they will be forthcoming.


Neighborhood News

Art Show in Michigan 

“It’s Only Natural!”

Travis Waldron, Botanical Textile Designer

Poundings, not paintings…

Long time Gerton resident, Travis Waldron is a botanical textile designer who captures the beauty, vibrancy and magic found in nature through a process known as leaf and flower pounding. This pounding process involves gently hammering leaves and flowers onto a canvas of cotton fabric, which has been treated through a method known as mordanting. The pigments of the plant material are absorbed into the fibers of the cotton. Travis employs a technical pen to outline and enhance her botanical subjects and often quilts the background to further accentuate details, using a 1954 Singer sewing machine. No paint or dye is ever used in the development of her work. The color you see is entirely derived from plant material. Travis recently installed a large exhibition of her work at Pierce Cedar Creek Institute, a nature arboretum in Michigan, titled “It’s Only Natural.”

After mordanting, pigment of plant material is absorbed, outlining in pen, and then quilting and framing. The colors you see are completely from nature itself.
Virginia Creeper as the centerpiece of a quilt.



Travis arranging and hanging the 30-some pieces in the Pierce Cedar Creek Institute in late May. The show will stay on exhibit through early fall. 

________________________________________ 


ECHO of the Gorge is published bi-monthly by the UHNGCC. News and photos may be sent to Margaret Whitt at margaret.whitt@du.edu. Photos for this issue provided by Margaret Whitt, Mike Hamlin, Stan Mobley, Travis Waldron, Shirley Boone, Jim Earnhardt, Toni Barkett, Gloria Anders 

Officers of UHNGCC for 2021: President - Stan Mobley; Vice-President - Jim Earnhardt; Secretary - Karen Owensby; Treasurer - Sylvia Sane; Board Members - Jean Bradley, Chuck Mallory, Margaret Whitt



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