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Observing two anniversaries
also see Then and now
This week’s newspaper marks two anniversaries – that of the Aug. 30-31, 1940, flood, and that of The Herald’s “Then and Now” series, which was born this time last year after we discovered a photo from that flood had been misidentified in a 2000 news story that marked the great flood’s 60th anniversary. Flood stories have fascinated me since I moved here some 35 years ago, and I began collecting them – and writing them down – about the time I took a feature-writing class from Addie native Bob Terrell.
Though many of those I talked with in the 1970s and 1980s have passed away, their words remain a vital part of the story.
They remembered the great flood down to the tiniest detail and willingly shared their stories of one of this county’s defining moments. Those memorable stories were told by some equally unforgettable people.
Contractor Tobe Clark lived in East LaPorte and built houses in the Cashiers area. He often found things around his house, like pictures of logging operations in the Smoky Mountains before the creation of the national park or a program from a Jackson County fair near the turn of the 20th century, and would call to see if we had an interest in them.
What I remember best about Tobe, aside from the old-fashioned hard hat he always wore, is how much he knew about the early days in the mountains and how patient he was at explaining things.
For a story about the early logging operations, he had to convey to me just how loggers went about cutting the big timber and about the tools they used. He never got bothered by my slowness to comprehend just what a peavy (tool for turning logs) was or how a j-grab worked to unhook the horse so that a log could slide by – or that a grabjack was not an implement but the man with the peavy who walked along beside to help if the log got stuck.
Tobe remembered these mountains when they all looked like Joyce Kilmer, and he supported efforts to preserve them.
“The government was right to save some of the country so that people can see how it all used to be,” he told me.
In talking about the 1940 flood and the damage it did, Tobe was the one who could relate what he had seen here to other places he had been. A veteran of a number of big projects – including Washington state’s Grand Coulee Dam – Tobe said he built a raft the day of the flood because he wanted to see what had happened on the other side of the Tuckaseigee River.
“We didn’t have any paddles, so we just got upstream as far as we could and shoved off,” he said.
Hearing the soft-spoken, matter-of-fact Tobe describe the devastation on Caney Fork as “unreal” brought home to me just how damaging that flood must have been.
Alvin Burrell lived on Sols Creek in Canada community in a little house by the side of Charleys Creek Road. While I was rereading his account of the money Vess Mathis and his wife had put aside to pay the midwife, only to have Mrs. Mathis be swept to her death by the raging flood waters, I could almost hear his voice telling it.
Alvin, a veteran of the Christmas tree fields, made sure we learned to do things the proper way – his way. Alvin would wait until after his brother Roger showed us one way to prune a fraser fir, and then he’d demonstrate his method – and insist that we follow it.
A lifelong Democrat, Alvin gleefully lumped anything that didn’t work properly with the opposite political persuasion, as in “that Republican lawn mower won’t start.”
And whether we were on Tannasee Mountain or at the Shufe Harris place on Charleys Creek, Alvin could always point out Sugar Creek Gap for those of us who were geographically challenged.
Last, but certainly not least, was Ayscue Hooper. Working away from home and confined to a freighter on Lake Superior when the great flood hit Jackson County, it was days before he knew if his young family was safe in Tuckasegee.
I met Ayscue when he appeared at our house out Wilson Creek one Sunday. He’d read an article in The Sylva Herald about our hydroelectric system and decided he wanted to see it. He was thinking of using a creek on his property to generate power, and he wanted to see a small system in action.
Some people might have called us up to see if we were home and ask directions on how to get to our house, but Ayscue wasn’t one of them. He and his wife, Gladys, simply headed up the creek to find us. After several stops, they ran into our neighbor, the late Lawrence Bryson, who rode with them the rest of the way up to our house.
Once Ayscue had seen our generator, nothing would do but that all three of us (Richard, 13-month-old Elizabeth and me) head back to Tuckasegee to have a look at his creek.
We hiked out into the gray November afternoon to survey the situation. As we prepared to cross, Ayscue warned us to be careful because the rocks were slippery. Seconds later I watched in shock as Richard’s foot slipped and my precious baby landed face down in the cold water.
At that point, I abandoned the expedition, heading back to the house with Gladys to find dry clothes and a cookie for Elizabeth. She was fine and didn’t even catch cold.
After that, whenever I’d see Ayscue, he’d remind me of the day we “baptized the baby.”
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