BSHS May update
Friday, August 1, 2008, 10:09 AM
Beersheba Springs Historical SocietyP.O. Box 117
Beersheba Springs, TN 37305
May 2008
Dear Members and Friends of the Beersheba Springs Historical Society,
The year has flown by and it’s nearly Memorial Day and time for Historical Society meetings again. We’d like to share plans for this summer while gathering your ideas and suggestions. First we’d like to review some of the high points of last summer and report on decisions made at our annual meeting on August 25th.
But we’d like to start by remembering our friend, neighbor and Historical Society board member, Rick Fassnacht, who died of cancer at the Turner Cottage on July 4th. He lived in Chattanooga and had a life-long love for Beersheba. He is warmly remembered by us all. The Historical Society has made a gift of $500 in his honor to the Fire and Rescue Squad for their new fire engine.
We also want to express our warm thanks to Matthew Chenoweth who has served as board member and secretary of BSHS for the past six years. He did a great job developing our newsletter and our web site, and he digitized many of our photos, including all of those in the Beersheba History book. Matthew’s work in Atlanta has made it increasingly difficult for him to regularly attend BSHS meetings, but he assures us he will continue developing the web site. It is exceptionally beautiful, and we recommend that you look at it. The address is: http://www.beershebaspringshistoricalsociety.org/. We are looking for a new newsletter editor, and if this is a possibility for you, please let me know.
Board Members: At the annual meeting, members selected two new board members. They are Charlotte Brown Boyd and John McClellan. Charlotte is well-known in Beersheba, for she was born there and has continued a close relationship with the community. She lives in McMinnville and is an elementary school teacher and antique dealer. She’s been very helpful to the Beersheba Museum, and this summer she organized the Museum exhibit and June presentation on the Browns of Beersheba.
John is newer to Beersheba and brings a fresh perspective to our life here. He and his wife Joella purchased a house on the Backbone last year, and they have taken an interest in the Historical Society. He’s a Nashvillean and has a strong background in business and the development of medical office buildings.
Officers were selected during the annual board meeting and they are:
President Joan Almon
Vice President Harrison Taylor
Recording Secretary Susan Snow
Corresponding Secretary Charlotte Boyd
Treasurer Larry Papel
Other board members are: Dillard Adams, Clopper Almon, Theresa Carl, and John McClellan.
New dues levels were also set at the meeting: Annual dues will be $10 per person starting in 2008, and lifetime membership will be $150. Memorial plaques will remain at $25.
Publications: We are reissuing three of our BSHS publications. There is a new edition of the Civil War diary of Lucy Virginia French, edited by Hershel Gower. It evokes the difficult times on the mountain during the war, and also contains a segment from French’s novel, Darlingtonia, which speaks of the war years at Beersheba. We are grateful to Herschel and the many members who read the proofs.
The John Armfield book is being typed for a new printing and work has begun on an enlarged edition of the Beersheba Springs History. Sections on the local families will be further developed with the help of Sanford McGee. Special thanks go to Herschel Gower who has been involved with all our publications over many years and continues to take a strong interest in them.
Brand new this year is a beautiful walking tour map developed by Elizabeth Papel. It is still undergoing changes, so if you have a historic home please review what is written about it. Copies are available at the Museum and at the Methodist Assembly. Or you can request a copy to be sent to you by mail or electronically.
Our books can be bought at the Museum, at the Library, and at the Methodist Assembly. They are also available at the Southern Museum of Photography on Main Street in McMinnville, open Wednesdays and Saturdays. We hope soon to be able to make them available for mail order.
Last Summer’s Events: Last June we responded to a request from the Monteagle Assembly and hosted a walking tour. Nearly 40 people took part, and we thank all those who opened their homes. Special thanks also go to Bill Howell and Clopper Almon for leading the two groups. In addition, Clopper gave a talk about Beersheba at the Monteagle Assembly as part of their 125th anniversary celebration.
June’s meeting was a rich presentation about the members of the Brown family who have been such an integral part of Beersheba life. The large family includes Odessa and Jamie Brown, Dennis and Frances Brown who owned the grocery store for many years and also managed the Assembly, and Margaret Coppinger who founded the Historical Society and first established the Museum. Charlotte Boyd, daughter of Dennis and Frances Brown, described beautifully the threads that have woven the family together and integrated it strongly with the community.
The July program featured Herschel Gower offering a portrait of Leonard Tate, Beersheba’s poet laureate. Herschel read a number of Leonard’s poems which show him as a poet of deep insights who felt a strong union with nature and the condition of being a mountain man. We strongly recommend the poetry book, All the Lost Octobers, for your own enjoyment and as a wonderful gift. The cost is only $10. We are very grateful to Ben Caldwell and Hershel Gower for the work they did almost 20 years ago when they printed this book. Otherwise, these beautiful poems would have been lost to us.
In July we offered art camp, and during its four days 29 local children ages 6 to 16 took part. The reviews show it to have been a success, and we have engaged the art teacher, Lolly Durant from Chattanooga, to do a five day camp this summer with separate classes for the younger and older children. We will also include adults if space allows. Thanks go to all those who helped out, especially Phil Mayhew who fired the clay objects and Susan Snow who organized the camp and worked in it with Lolly.
In August we had a booth at the Crafts Fair and sold many books and also jade plants donated by Gertrude and Ben Caldwell. The plants attracted new people to our booth and were a wonderful contribution for which we are very grateful. Many members helped staff the booth. We thank them all, but special thanks go to our youngest helpers, Robert and Sam Papel and Hays Harrison. Their enthusiasm brightened the booth.
This summer’s events: The meetings from May through July begin at 4 p.m. at Grace Chapel. The August meeting begins at 5 p.m. on the porch of the Papel home.
May 24th will be our opening meeting of the season during which we will share plans and hear your suggestions and requests. It’s a lovely time to see everyone again.
June 28th will see a continuation of our focus on the families of Beersheba. We will focus on the Plumacher and Hunerwadel families. Eugen Plumacher is best known as the organizer of the Gruetli-Laager community, but his wife Olga Hunerwadel Plumacher is also a fascinating figure. She remained on the mountain for decades and wrote two philosophical books in German while her husband served as consul to Venezuela. She buried her beloved son in the Armfield cemetery and raised her daughter Dagmar, who married Fred Bohr. John Bohr of Beersheba is Dagmar’s grandson. Olga’s nephew, Arnold Hunerwadel, settled in Beersheba, and the Hunerwadel family has contributed much to the community and to the museum. We will work with the Bohrs and the Hunerwadels to prepare a special exhibit for the Museum and the presentation for the meeting.
July 26th will see a focus on Lucy Virginia French. Her great, great granddaughter, Virginia Lee Steenhuis of Murfreesboro will present a lively picture of Lucy Virginia’s life, and Monty Wanamaker, who runs the Southern Museum of Photography in McMinnville, will talk about her written works. He and Chris Keithley are working on an annotated version of Lucy Virginia’s complete diaries, of which we published only the part pertaining to Beersheba. Lucy Virginia also wrote poetry and novels.
The Museum: The Museum acquired many new objects this year, including a unique chair that served as dental chair and barber chair and stood in the old Brown store. The dentist came periodically, and all the children and those in need of dental care would line up outside the store. The sight of it has brought back bittersweet memories to those who had to use it. The rooms are nearly full now, and the next big job is to organize the archives. This summer we will welcome volunteers to help with this.
We want to thank Susan Snow who has worked so hard to establish the museum and oversees it all year. We are also very grateful to the three workers who have taken turns keeping the museum open for us from spring through fall on Saturdays from 1-4: Sharon Whitman, Renae Hobbs and Brittany McDaniel. The museum is always changing, so do stop in often.
Contributions: At the annual meeting Howell Adams shared news of a remarkable donation. He and his family unanimously decided to give the museum building and the house next door that belonged to Margaret Coppinger to the Historical Society, provided it feels it can care for the buildings. We are extremely grateful to Howell and his family for this offer and are very interested in receiving the buildings. We are in conversation with them regarding the transfer of the properties.
The Historical Society is a non-profit, tax exempt organization and donations are always gratefully accepted. We have special funds that may be of interest to you:
The Museum Fund for further acquisitions for the museum and its overall care.
The Bill Earthman Fund which allows us to provide art camps for children.
Donations to our General Fund allow us to continue the work of the Historical Society, including hosting events and publishing books. If you would like to honor a relative who has passed on, you may do so with a small bronze plaque that is placed on the large wooden memorial boards now hanging in the museum. The cost is $25 per plaque.
We took time this winter and spring to update all our records and make them more complete. Special thanks go to Susan Snow and Harry Williams for their help with this project. One thing that is not clear is who has paid for lifetime memberships. If you have, please let us know on the enclosed membership and donation form. Also, if you have an email address, please let us know. Sending updates by email will save us much money, but we’re also happy to send notices by post. Do let us know which you prefer.
We look forward to seeing you all this summer.
With best wishes,
Joan Almon for the Board of the Historical Society
joan.almon@verizon.net
Tel. 301.699.9058
7303 Dartmouth Avenue, College Park, MD 20740
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