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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…
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Waiting for the big muscle to heal
Read MorePart 3 of a memoir of heart failure, open-heart surgery and complications At some point in my recovery at the acute-care facility, a cardiologist tells me that the muscles in my body will not recover any faster than the big muscle, my heart, recovers.I do…
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Decoration Day
Read MoreIt is Memorial Day weekend in the United States, but in Appalachia, particularly West Virginia, it is more commonly referred to as “Decoration Day.” My parents, Carl J. and Cossette (Watring) Feather, seemed to have a standing engagement in West Virginia each May, for the…
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Mountaineer aviator
Read MoreMost of us will have one memorial, our gravestone. According to writer Derek Coleman, an England native living in West Virginia, Louis Bennett Jr. has at least 12, all funded by his late mother, Sallie Maxwell Bennett of Weston, Lewis County. The memorials range from…
