We’re pleased to present the fifth edition of THE HEART OF THE MOUNTAINS Blue Ridge Country’s new bimonthly digital issue. This edition collects stories about the Presences of Past Presidents in the Blue Ridge Region.
These stories, chosen from the BRC archive that now goes back 32 years, recall some of the most memorable and most-sought-out pieces in the magazine’s history:
• Wytheville Loooves Edith Bolling Wilson. They paint it on a wall, celebrate it on her birthday, and serve her own recipes in their finest restaurant. In some quarters, she’s just “Edith”—everybody knows her. This love could be steering a revival of Wytheville, Virginia’s downtown, where the first lady of President Woodrow Wilson—and who took on a presidential role after his stroke—was born 145 years ago.
• Mrs. Hoover's Mountain Footprint. Quiet, modest and unacquainted with the concept of self-promotion, First Lady Lou Henry Hoover was nonetheless a force of good for the people, the land and the future around the little piece of the Virginia mountains that she and President Herbert Hoover established as their retreat from the rigors and demands of the White House.
• Jefferson's Summer Home Supreme. For almost 200 years Jefferson's Poplar Forest hideaway, begun in 1806, remained little known outside the area. Since then, the consensus has been that it must be preserved. After all, it was the retreat of America's third president, an extraordinary man who wrote the Declaration of Independence. Those who founded the non-profit for its preservation" have a vision, too: Poplar Forest as much a national treasure as Monticello and Mount Vernon.
• Presidential Home Visits. Did you know that by traveling less than a 40-mile radius, you can step back into the lives and times of four men who left their indelible mark on this country and the world? The Blue Ridge area around Charlottesville, Virginia, was home to four presidents—four of our finest at that. Their homes are not just buildings but revelations of America's past, giving us insights into the personalities and lifestyles of our greatest American leaders.
• Thomas Jefferson, Gardner. Thomas Jefferson grew some 250 varieties of vegetables and herbs over the 50 years he lived at Monticello. He loved working with the soil, and also preferred vegetables over meats as his principal diet. Today his 80x1000, foot garden has been restored, and it grows as it did in 1812. “No occupation is so delightful to me as the culture of the earth, and culture comparable to the garden," he wrote.
• Was Honest Abe a Tarheel? Honest Abe's past might be more checkered than our country is willing to admit. Drawing from photographs and family histories passed down over the generations, the Bostic Lincoln Center aims to prove that Lincoln was born out of wedlock to his mother in North Carolina, before a marriage to Tom Lincoln was arranged and she was moved out of the state to Kentucky.
• Rapidan Camp, Hoovers' Getaway. Herbert Hoover’s legacy is inextricably tied to the Great Depression; and his wife's too often overshadowed by the first lady who followed Lou Henry Hoover. Yet the passion and personality of the Hoovers has a very real and palpable manifestation just off the Skyline Drive in Virginia, where they left a strong mark that makes a great place to visit these 75-or-so years after Rapidan Camp became the presidential retreat.
Please note, we’ve digitized these pieces just as they appeared in their original print form. Please remember that as a result, all quotes and references to “present day” things such as artifacts and other items are contemporaneous to the time of publication rather than the current time.
This is the fifth in our ongoing HEART OF THE MOUNTAINS series. If you have not already, we invite you to enjoy the rest of the series and more in our digital archives found here.