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Remembering aunt ruby by the trees
Read MoreMy Aunt Ruby passed away last week. She really wasn’t my aunt; she was my father’s cousin, but she loved being called “Aunt Ruby.” Further, it sounds better than second cousin once-removed (genealogists will probably correct me on that). Ruby Catherine Feather was born March…
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Coming to My Fathers’ land
Read MoreMy Fathers’ Land book is a sweeping memoir and family history covering nearly 250 years of Feathers in America and West Virginia.
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Chewing the fat at the mill
Read MoreSpend an hour or two shelling corn and chewing the fat with Larry Mustain at his Reed’s Mill, and the conversation eventually comes around to instances of sex in the mill. “We heard a bunch of splashing by that little bridge (over the mill raceway),”…
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Sunday Afternoon with a legend
Read MoreIt was August 16, 2004, when my father and I met Volkmar Wentzel at his home in Aurora, W.Va. He and his wife, Viola, were visiting their farm from Washington, D.C., and agreed to meet me for an interview for Goldenseal Magazine. Mr. Wentzel is…
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Virginia furnace glows for a split second
Read MoreThe stone pyramid stands between Route 26 and Muddy Creek in Preston County, an imposing artifact from the county’s nascent industrial era. The iron furnace was built by Levi Kennet for Harrison Hagans, Brandonville’s foremost entrepreneur, merchant, and promoter. Historian Reardon S. Cuppett claimed it…
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West Virginia Backroads videos added
Read MoreDuring the past six months of recovery from open heart surgery, I have had the downtime necessary to put together several videos of my interviews for Goldenseal magazine. These videos are packaged as “West Virginia Backroads” and are available on YouTube. Most of these videos…
