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Old book leads to new information
Until Ray Menze compared Sylva Herald photographer Nick Breedlove to Eliot Porter, I hadn’t thought of my copy of “Appalachian Wilderness” in years.
Menze, who was Nick’s photography teacher at Smoky Mountain High School, seemed a good source for expert opinion with regard to Nick’s upcoming photography exhibit at downtown Sylva gallery It’s By Nature. (See page 1C for more information on the show.)
Once reminded, however, I located the book. After looking again at Porter’s stunning images of Great Smoky Mountains National Park, I read the accompanying natural history, which was written by the late Edward Abbey who’s much better known for writing about southwestern landscapes. As it turned out, I learned several new things, leading me to believe that either I was so caught up in the pictures 30 years ago that I didn’t read the text or that I was so new to this area that what I read didn’t stick in my mind.
Either way, it was interesting to discover that the outspoken Abbey, author of “Desert Solitaire” and “The Monkey Wrench Gang,” once lived in Sylva and taught English at Western Carolina University. As I continued reading, another familiar name popped out at me – Newt Smith, who still teaches English at WCU.
When I caught up with Newt by telephone Sunday night, he added detail to Abbey’s casual references to Sylva, WCU and Newt’s chestnut pig pen.
A Google search produces lots of information about Abbey, but none of it mentions the author’s time in Jackson County. As Newt explained it, that’s likely because it was so brief. Abbey came to WCU at the beginning of the 1968-69 school year, but he didn’t even make it through the end of the fall term, Newt said. Abbey left the area for two reasons: he didn’t much like teaching, and a permanent job in his beloved Southwest opened up with the National Park Service at Arizona’s Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument.
According to Newt, Abbey, who had worked for the park service in temporary positions, couldn’t refuse a permanent part-time job that offered both benefits and the opportunity to write full time.
Abbey’s time in Jackson County had a lasting impact, though it would seem to be on the medical, rather than the literary, community.
During his short stay in Sylva, Abbey and his wife Judy rented a basement apartment off Ridgeway Street from the late Marcellus Buchanan. The Abbeys had an infant daughter, Suzie, and they had practiced Lamaze techniques during her birth. That was of special interest to Newt and his wife, June, who were expecting their first child and were interested in learning about Lamaze. Judy Abbey loaned June a book about the method and helped Newt and June master the breathing exercises. When Courtney Smith was born the following spring, Newt and June had a successful Lamaze delivery, and then served as Sylvia Smythe’s Lamaze coach. June and Sylvia then were Lamaze instructors for C.J. Harris Community (now Harris Regional) Hospital for some 20 years.
And Jackson County had an enduring effect on the iconoclastic author as well. Two of the characters in Abbey’s most famous fiction work, “The Monkey Wrench Gang,” were based in part on people he met here, according to Newt. Doc Sarvis, the surgeon turned eco-warrior, was modeled on former WCU art professor Al Sarvis, who was one of Abbey’s good friends during his time at WCU. And Seldom Seen Smith, the book’s Mormon river guide, was patterned after Newt Smith, who Abbey returned to visit in 1970 while doing his research for “Appalachian Wilderness.”
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