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Ruralite Cafe: Published 02/06/03

By Lynn Hotaling - Associate Editor

Five generations, three different ways

 Lynn
Martha McCoy Keith, center, posed for the first of three five-generational photos in 1961. With her are, from left, her grandfather Henry Shelton, her mother, Ella Mae McCoy, her daughter, Theda Scruggs, and her grandson Douglas Strickland. This issue is a landmark for The Sylva Herald. Most weeks we don't have even one photo of five genera-tions; this edition has five.

On page 1C we feature Rose's story of local centenarian-plus-one Bessie Nations, who posed for two separate five-generational photos with different sets of descendants at her recent 101st birthday celebration.

And here in the Ruralite Cafe, we're proud to offer the story of Martha McCoy Keith, who appears in three five-generational photos but takes a different role (grandmother, great-grandmother and great-great-grandmother) in each.

Though she spent three decades in the Greensboro area, Martha's roots are firmly planted in Sylva and Cullowhee. Her grandfather Henry Shelton lived along the river near Cullowhee's business community not far from the concrete bridge destroyed in the 1940 flood.

Almost 20 years later, Martha, right, posed with, from left, her son, Kenneth, her granddaughter Teresha Coffey, her mother, Ella Mae McCoy, and great-granddaughter Janet. Grandfather Henry was definitely of the "old school," according to Martha.

"He was one of those 'sticklers'" she said with a grin. "He believed strictly in time. You got up at 5 a.m. whether you had anything to do or not, and you went to bed at dark. He thought women shouldn't cut their hair ever. My mother didn't cut her hair until after the youngest of her eight children was born."

Martha's mother was Ella Mae Shelton McCoy, who taught school in a one-room schoolhouse in Canada community for several years before she married. Travel was so tedious in the early years of the 20th century that Ella Mae boarded with a family near the school (Martha thinks it was Wolf Mountain) and Grandfather Henry rode up on horseback every Friday to bring her home to Cullowhee for the weekend.

"He went across the mountain up through Wayehutta and into Canada that way," Martha said.

Martha, seated, recently participated in her latest five-generational photo. With her are, from left, granddaughter Teresha, son Kenneth, great-granddaughter Janet and great-great-granddaughter Joscilin Coffey.

Ella Mae also operated Cullowhee's first telephone switchboard, which was located in the old Brown's store, Martha said.

Martha, born in 1921, worked from 1940 until 1956 in the mica shops that once were a common part of Sylva's economic scene.

"A lot of the older people called mica 'isinglass,'" Martha said. Various-sized chunks of mica were brought in from the mines, which were mostly on East Fork and Greens Creek, to be cleaned up and prepared for shipment, Martha said. The shop workers would use sharp knives to remove dirt and cut off cracked parts before separating the layers of mica.

"You tried to get as big a piece as possible," Martha said. "It was worth more that way."

Mica mined locally was used in airplane insulation, in X-ray film and for doors in wood stoves, she said. Over the years Martha worked in mica shops owned by Al Rubin, Bob Garrett, Lou Goodman and Ed Grindstaff, she said, and she learned the mica trade through a government training program.

Martha, who grew up in Sylva during the Depression, said her daddy, Fred McCoy, was a horse trader.

"He must have done pretty good at it," she said with a laugh. "There were eight of us young'uns, and I don't ever remember going to bed hungry."

These days Martha lives with daughter Theda on Monteith Branch, surrounded by photos of her children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren and great-great-grandchild. Son Kenneth and most of his family are in the Greensboro area, and Theda's son Douglas, 41, the baby in the oldest picture, makes his home in Tampa, Fla.

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