Getting the Job Done: The Story of Rockingham Construction Co. Inc., 1937 - 1987

Jones, Nancy Bondurant

Today we fill a room with light by flipping a switch, but in the 1930s, many households had only kerosene lamps with which to pierce the darkness, and life-changing, labor saving appliances and machinery operated by electricity were beyond their wildest imaginations. Some however dared to dream of a time when farms and families could be transformed through rural electrification. Marion R. Weaver was one of those men. As historian and author Nancy Bondurant Jones wrote of Weaver in 1987: "He had the vision to conceive the economic and social revolution about to be set in motion." Fifty years before Jones penned those words, Weaver, a Valley farmer and businessman, heard of an electrical contractor in Baltimore who had declared bankruptcy and offered to buy that company's equipment. The contractor agreed; Rockingham Construction was born. Within months the new company was contracting with Shenandoah Valley Electric Cooperative to construct hundreds of miles of power lines in rural Shenandoah Valley-literally taking the power to the people. Jones wrote this history to celebrate Rockingham's story at its half-century mark in 1987, but the volume was never published. The company continued to provide technology and power to a fast-changing world for thirty-five more years. Marion Weaver's grandson and head of the company, Winston Weaver, Jr., and company accountant Carl Martin were moved by a desire to memorialize the story told by Jones and provide some updates in the form of more photos and appendices listing the many people and families who played a vital role in American society, improving transforming lives and livelihoods by "getting the job done." This book is the result of those efforts.

203 pages, soft cover, Lot's Wife Publishing, 2023.