Memories of a Lewis Mountain Man originally appeared as a series of articles in Mountain Laurel, an "informal periodical ... produced by Laurel Publications in Wytheville, Virginia ... devoted to chronicling the life and lore of the Blue Ridge Mountains" (at p. iv). These stories were edited by Michael E. Monbeck, who tried to wield "the editor's pencil as lightly as possible, with my chief function being to eliminate the inevitable repetitions and redundancies that creep into such occasional pieces, while at the same time retaining the original character of ... [Stoneberger's] unique and colorful writing style, including his vocabulary, word usage, sentence structure, and so forth" (at id.). While Stoneberger died after the first rough edit, the resulting collection is one of which he could have been truly proud.
Memories is largely focused on Stoneberger's family and boyhood, thus it is only from the Preface that we learn of his hitch with the CCC and his subsequent career operating heavy construction equipment (at p. v). While one might have preferred a linked and amplified narrative, we should be grateful for what we have; Stoneberger had the gift of evoking pictures and his memories of life on Lewis Mountain in the pre-Shenandoah Park era are hard to beat. Sometimes he shows how outside events such as the courthouse shootout at Hillsdale (see p. 29) or the sinking of the Titanic (see p. 41) affected people in the region. Other descriptions convey an in-depth understanding of country practices that would be almost impossible to replicate today- the descriptions of butchering hogs (at pp. 45-49) and of driving a horse team up a steep mountain incline (at pp. 69-71) immediately spring to mind. Memories also preserves some wonderful/horrendous stories; the man who lost his pants killing a deer (at pp. 56-57), the black man forced to dance all night (at pp.78-79), and the boy who trained two large rattlesnakes to drag "logs" to his play sawmill (at p. 26). Occasionally there are references in passing (riding the freights to apple pickings; at p. 16), or sometimes only a cryptic comment (why was John Scott Roche known as "the mountain prophet"?; at p. 6). While most of the stories relate to the Stonebergers, the Roches/Roaches, and the Lams, readers with no mountain ancestry will appreciate this unique insight into the region's culture.
1
/
of
1
Potomac Applachian Trail Club
Memories of A Lewis Mountain Man
Memories of A Lewis Mountain Man
Regular price
$10.00 USD
Regular price
Sale price
$10.00 USD
Unit price
/
per
Shipping calculated at checkout.
Couldn't load pickup availability
Stoneberger, John W.
82 pages; Vienna, VA: Potomac Appalachian Trail Club; 1993.
Share
