Cemetary Rules and Laws

Ya'll know I'm in real estate and you also know I'm the Golden Valley Honorary Historian, so it comes as no surprise that a descendant of a Golden Valley private grave-yard ooccupant has contacted me to find out where a cemetary is, and to ask if they might visit their Great Grandmother's grave and take some photographs.

I've got to thank John Grimes for this well written and comprehensive article: http://ncroots.com/cemeteryrules.htm

I was on the verge of selling a piece of property one time when the buyer realized there was a family graveyard on the property. He nearly backed out, because he didn't want to have open access across the property and he believed he couldn't close the old roadbed. Turns out the graveyard was so close to the main road that it wasn't a problem, but I remembered if you own property with a cemetery you have to grant access to the descendants. They do, however have to request permission to visit. See NC General Statute 10 in the article.

Golden Valley Parade & Dynamite, by Mickey Brackett

Golden Valley Parade & Dynamite


By

Mickey Brackett


General Dwight David Eisenhower, a war hero and republican, was elected President of the United States and served for eight years. I was born during his term in office and was eight years old when John F. Kennedy, a democrat, was elected president in 1960. It seemed that the majority of the people in Golden Valley and, I assumed most in North Carolina, were Democrats at the time. My relatives were dyed-in- the- wool democrats and had worked at elections and as registrars for decades. Therefore I assumed at the time I should support Kennedy as president and his party.

The night after the election, the greatest news ever to be told an eight-year- old- boy was announced. A Kennedy election celebration parade with fireworks would be held that night in Golden Valley. People in their pickups and cars lined up for miles it seemed. Cecil, my brother, Kohler Queen, our neighbor, and I rode in the back of Garret Jones’s International pickup truck that had cattle sides so we wouldn’t fall out. Horns were blowing from every vehicle as they were driven along. We paraded down every road possible in Golden Valley. In the back of Mr. Jones’s truck we were screaming, “Kennedy” “Kennedy,” and best of all we were launching firecrackers as fast as we could. I threw exploding firecrackers at every driveway regardless if Democrats or Republicans lived there. We never seemed to get cold even with it being the first week in November. I thought life was wonderful! Cecil and Koehler though so as well until a firecracker exploded in Koehler’s hand. This seemed to diminish his celebration spirit somewhat. The parade continued until around 9PM. This was normally my bedtime, but tonight was different.

Some of the Democrat leaders in the community had purchased the loudest firecrackers of all - - dynamite! Laddie Brackett, my daddy, allowed the older boys to go with him and the other men to the top of Buck Holler, up the current Laser Drive, not far from our house. There within hearing range of everyone in Golden Valley sticks of dynamite were individually ignited. Instead of using a safety blasting plunger, they used long fuses and matches like in old western movies. After lighting a fuse a man would come running and panting back to the others waiting a safe distance away. The explosions were deafening and definitely something different to tell the other boys in school the next day. Soon dad took us home, thus getting into bed later than normal for a school night.

The next day at school I wanted to tell everyone about the firecrackers and dynamite the night before. Apparently, some people in our community did not appreciate all the previous night’s commotion and had actually called the law. It was easy to determine which of my classmates’ parents voted for the losing party. You would think everyone would love a parade with firecrackers and dynamite regardless of their political affiliation.

Those good Golden Valley people finished their celebrations and went back to work the next day in hosiery mills, furniture factories, textile mills, farms, sawmills, and other jobs as they always had done. Once the election was over most had no additional participation in politics or governing.

Recently I visited the Kennedy Museum and Library in Boston, Massachusetts. I looked for some mention of these parades after his election but found none. While there I listened to many of John Kennedy’s speeches and saw TV news broadcasts about events that occurred during the early 1960s when he was in office. One event that occurred was the Cuban missile crisis. I remember Nat Fortune at the Butlers Store (later to become the Good Ole Boys) keeping close to a radio during this time afraid of nuclear war starting between the USA and the old Soviet Union. Some in Golden Valley even talked of building underground fallout shelters during this time. However, the crisis was averted, missiles were removed from Cuba, and life returned to normal around Golden Valley.

I have not heard of such a parade since that night in 1960. Surely this was not the first parade for such an election? Why was the parade held? Were Democrats so tired of Republicans having control of the Whitehouse for eight years or did they love Kennedy that much? Shouldn’t parades be a part of every election? It seems few remember that night well enough to answer my questions. Politics for me hasn’t been as much fun since the Kennedy election parade of 1960.

Leat Finds Johnny's Still

Leat Finds Johnny's Still



Clip-Art from: Google Images

  by Elizabeth Whisenant Towery.

Leat asked his nephew Talmadge [whom I shall address as Tal] to go with him up the C.C. Road to look for some holly and greenery for Christmas decoration. It was about the year 1943. Leat had no car, so he was in the habit of having Tal go with him places. Tal told Leat ”Get in the car and I’ll take you up the mountain.” Tal was driving his dad's car although he had no license, but then very few drivers had licenses in the Valley and no one seemed to care.

They went to a certain point and Leat said "Let me out here.‘ As Leat got out of the car he said ‘Tal, you go on up the mountain, and see if you see any holly. Turn and come back for me. If I'm not here at this place when you get back, I'll be here soon."

Tal told he had no interest in holly, but went on up the mountain to turn the car around. When he traveled down to about where he had let Leat out, Leat was standing at the side of the road motioning for him to stop. Leat told Tal he had found Johnny’s still and that Johnny and two more people were in the still working.

Leat said, to Tal ‘I’m going back in (to the still); now as soon as Johnny leaves, you go on home.‘ Tal said, “he had already figured out why Leat wanted to look for Christmas decorations on the mountain, and he was glad to leave him in the woods.’ Folk in the Valley thought it a low-down dirty shame to interfere with, report on, or bother a man's seel and Tal respected the older folk feelings.

The government allowed some people to make whiskey. The folk in the Valley thought it no worse for them to make whisky than for the govern-ment to choose someone to make government whiskey. The folk always had ‘Huler’ (Schyler) McCurry to point their finger at, for he was making what the government called whisky and had a piece of paper he called a license tacked up on the door of his house to prove that he had government approval. It seems that the whisky makers all had this attitude about government made whisky.

The piece of paper had nothing to do with whiskey making as far as Valley folk were concerned. They said, ”It never had.… and never would have.” Tal had been out of the woods for quite a while when the next time he saw Leat, he said, ‘He had carried a five-gallon demijohn out of the woods, down the mountain and up the hill to his mother’s house,’ Leat lived with his mother. Leat said, ‘I left Johnny one demijohn in the still, I figured it was worth one five-gallon jug for not reporting him.’ Leat had taken his demijohn to the barn. He told Tal, that Johnny cut and cleared five acres of his Pa's (grand pa’s) timber while making liquor.

Tal felt obligated to tell his Pa what Leat had said, but didn't really want his folks to know that he had been with Leat; not while Leat was watching a man work in his still. Tal’s said his Pa, Higgins Towery, kept his nose out of his neighbors' business and probably thought his grand children would too.

Tal told his Pa "Leat said Johnny has cleared five acres of land for you, up, on the mountain.’ Instinctively Tal's Pa knew what Leat had been doing on the mountain. The mountain was Higgins' birthplace, so naturally he would have to go to the mountain to see for himself what Tal was talking about. Pa had said, before that he thought Leat sometimes stretched the truth a ‘little bit.’ He would need to see what was going on about
his timberland for himself. It was the Old ‘Shuff’ Shuford Towery place, Tal’s great grand fathers old home place.

Higgins had Tal drive him up to ‘The old place.’ He wanted to see what Leat had found. Tal and his grand pa walked over Shuff's place and Higgins discovered that Johnny actually had cleared an estimated five acres of the young pines in the stand. The timber that stood there was in its prime ready to harvest. Higgins discovered that Johnny had placed moss on the fresh-cut tree stumps to hide the cutting from the prying helicopters that law enforcement had recently been using to find the mountain stills. Those helicopters were a new aid for the law in its enforcement of the whiskey ban.

Leat had been sawing logs for a sawmill at this time, but he sawed no logs the following week--not after he said he had ‘toted ’ that demijohn on his shoulder for pert nearly three miles‘. The sawmill he worked at had to shut down the full week since there wasn't enough help that showed up to operate the mill. About eight men, including Leat, all lay intoxicated for the entire week. Tal said, ‘Leat told that there weren’t nary a drop left in that ‘tare’ demijohn when he went to get him a little sip to sober up on before going to work on onday morning, the week after his trip to hunt holly and Christmas decorations.

Note: This story is written using the words that Tal said were used to him by his uncle in giving the parts of the story that took place in Tal's absents.

Source: Talmadge Towery.
Written September 7, 2003.
All rights reserved.

Note: 1-The house where Schyler McCurry made government whiskey still stands. It is the last house in Golden Valley before crossing into the Sunshine Community on the Golden Valley/Sunshine Road. Some know this road as State #1006 today. I have been in the house after John Toney and his Wife Mallie McCurry owned it. The house is shown on a 1905 map and belonged to the McCurry heirs. It now belongs to John and Mallie’s son Paul Jake and his spouse Imagean Lovelace Toney.


Note: 2 -Talmadge said,he drove his dad's car without licenses until he was twenty-one years old, before being stopped by Edley Beam, a law officer. Edley gave him a verbal warning, then Talmadge got his licenses…..bettytowery@att.net