Ralph Berrier, Jr. If Trouble Don't Kill Me: A Family's Story of Brotherhood, War, and Bluegrass. New York: Crown, 2010.

From Roanoke.com

As a librarian, I am confronted daily with the truth that I will never read every book I want to read. In fact, I will probably never read every book I should read. Thousands of books stare me in the face every time I go to work, and as intriguing as many of them sound, reading them cover-to-cover is simply impossible. If only the notion that the only thing a librarian does all day is read were true!

That being said, Ralph Berrier, Jr.'s If Trouble Don't Kill Me was so good that I read it once and had to read it again. The story of Berrier's talented grandfather and great-uncle (twins) was fascinating, informative, and moving, and it has something for everyone - music enthusiasts, history buffs, biography lovers, and Southside Virginia aficionados.

Reading If Trouble Don't Kill Me was something of an emotional experience for me, mostly because it combines two of my favorite things: bluegrass music and Patrick County, Virginia. Berrier, a features reporter at The Roanoke Times, is a masterful writer. He artfully weaves his family's story with local and national history and music theory. Even though a reader likely never met his famous relatives, considering what it would have been like to know them and to hear their music comes effortlessly. Berrier's pride in his family never becomes cumbersome, even though it is clear that he is enjoying telling their story.

 Saford and Clayton Hall were born in The Hollow of Patrick County on May 4, 1919 to Judie Hall. Although the twins were the unmarried woman's ninth and tenth children, Mamo (Judie's nickname) had strong support from her mother, known to people near and far as Granny Hall. The twins grew up poor in an area near Ararat "below the mountain" (meaning that they were "looked down upon both literally and figuratively" p. 13). Although they went without for much of their early lives - including britches - the boys were blessed with a musically-inclined mother. Mamo taught Saford how to play the fiddle when he was little enough to sit on her lap, and later when a banjo produced itself in their small cabin, she showed Clayton how to play it, too.

Playing music eventually got them out of The Hollow. First, in the band The Blue Ridge Buddies, Saford and Clayton played in nearby Winston-Salem, North Carolina, on the local radio station WSJS. Later, in 1937, they moved to Bassett to work in a furniture factory; Mamo eventually moved there to watch after them (they were always accused of being spoiled since they were the babies). They played live shows on the weekends and became well known as skilled bluegrass musicians in Virginia and North Carolina. One day Roy Hall (of Roy Hall and His Blue Ridge Entertainers) came looking for the twins to see if they would join his band. The rest, as they say, is history. Of course, this is a history that involves Roanoke's WDBJ, World War II, family tension, loss... and even Dr. Pepper. Fortunately it also includes reconciliation and a lifetime of the magic of music.

As I mentioned earlier, reading If Trouble Don't Kill Me affected me deeply. I love bluegrass, and much of that has to do with the way that it was introduced to me. When I was a child, my sister, brother, and I were "kept" by "Nannie" Reinhardt, a family friend who grew up in Cana (a stone's throw from Ararat). She used to tell us stories about listening to live bluegrass growing up, and we would watch The Grand Ole Opry with her (I distinctly remember episodes with the Statler Brothers of Staunton). Nannie also used to go to local jam sessions. Later, as an adult, I fell in love with the style again with updated approaches, from bands like Nickel Creek and Rose's Pawn Shop. Living in Stuart from 2007 to 2009, I got to experience the genre almost everywhere I went - festivals, high school talent shows, events at the Patrick County Music Association and the Floyd Country Store, and FloydFest (which is actually in Patrick County :) ).

The best part about reading this fantastic book is that even when you have finished the last page, the Hall twin's impact on you does not end. You can listen to Roy Hall and His Blue Ridge Entertainers on a variety of websites and even listen to similar music on Pandora. You can travel to Southside Virginia, following the Crooked Road or going off course, to listen to a wide variety of music (some of which that may have been influenced by the men). And it may even inspire you to pick up a banjo, a fiddle, a mandolin, a guitar... heck, even a washboard... and to find your inner musician - which is exactly what it did for Berrier!

Hear Roy Hall and His Blue Ridge Entertainers perform Orange Blossom Special in 1938.

Watch Ralph Berrier, Jr. introduce us to Saford and Clayton Hall and their story.

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Have you read If Trouble Don't Kill Me? Please share your opinion about the book and this summary.

What are some of your favorite bluegrass bands and venues?

Southside Misrepresented: Heidi Schnakenberg's Kid Carolina.

Outrage!

I was having what was supposed to be a quiet, lazy Sunday morning of reading when I almost choked on my coffee. I had just thumbed through the pictures, browsed the index, and finished the introduction of Heidi Schnakenberg's 2010 publication Kid Carolina: R.J. Reynolds, Jr., a Tobacco Fortune, the Mysterious Death of a Southern Icon when I found it. A glaring mistake. Two of them, actually. And both in the very first sentence of the first chapter.

Before we get to the good stuff, let me give you a little bit of context. The Reynolds family is famous in North Carolina for being tobacco people (and you have probably used another product with a link to the family, Reynolds Wrap). In Winston-Salem, there are still marks of the family's legacy: the Reynolds Building (a skyscraper that was the tallest building in the South when it was built in 1929), the Reynolda House Museum of American Art; the Z. Smith Reynolds Library at Wake Forest University, the Smith Reynolds Airport, and numerous organizations that benefited from the Reynolds' charity.

Even Southside Virginia has a strong link to the Reynolds family. The Reynolds Homestead in Patrick County is a cultural hub for local citizens. Restored and donated to Virginia Tech by Nancy Susan Reynolds (sister of R.J. Reynolds, Jr.) in 1970 as a Commonwealth Campus, the Reynolds Homestead features her father's boyhood home, Rock Spring Plantation. The surrounding community of Critz is also home to an elementary school named for Hardin Reynolds (grandfather of Nancy and R.J., Jr.).

What Schnakenberg gets wrong early on is the matter of R.J., Sr.'s birthday and the location of his birth. As you can see in this image, she claims that "Richard Joshua Reynolds Sr., founder of the family tobacco fortune, was born on July 28, 1850, in Critz County, Virginia, where his parents, Hardin and Nancy Reynolds, had settled after their marriage in 1843" (Schnakenberg, p. 1). The inaccuracy of "Critz County, Virginia," struck me first, but I quickly learned from the North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources that R.J., Sr., was born on July 20th, not July 28th (even Wikipedia had both right). [See the mistakes for yourself here.]

There has never been any county in Virginia named "Critz." The area of Patrick County (the true place of R.J., Sr.'s birth) "can be said to have been included in eight different counties since the formation of counties in Virginia" (Patrick County Historical Society, p. 25). These were Charles City (1634-1703), Prince George (1703-1720) Brunswick (1720-1746), Lunenburg (1746-1952), Halifax (1753-1764), Pittsylvania (1764-1776), Henry (1776-1791), and finally Patrick (1791 to present). The 1770 map below, A New and Accurate Map of Virginia shows the enormous Pittsylvania County.

A New and Accurate Map of Virginia (1770) by John Henry. Key for Southside Virginia counties: 3-Amelia, 6-Bedford, 7-Brunswick, 8-Buckingham, 11-Charlotte, 15-Dinwiddie, 23-Halifax, 35-Mecklenburg, 43-Pittyslvania, 44-Prince Edward, 52-Sussex. From http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/petitions/repecomp.html.

Henry County (formed in 1776) was named for Patrick Henry, Virginia's first governor and "one of the firebrands who had helped to stir up the people of the colony in their fervor for independence" (Patrick County Historical Society, p. 38). Fourteen years later, Patrick County was formed from western Henry County. Retaining the honor to Patrick Henry, when one looks at a map of Virginia, they see the two counties, side-by-side, that spell out his name (as seen in the 1920 map below).

From http://www.newrivernotes.com/va/patrick.htm.

Today, Critz is little more than a crossroads with the elementary school, a post office, the Reynolds Homestead, and a handful of churches. As history and heritage shows, there was never a county called "Critz County."

After picking up on these two inaccuracies, I had little interest in reading any further. Sure, they could be the only two mistakes in Schnakenberg's work, but I am skeptical to continue and trust any other information that she has collected.

As it turns out, I am not alone. Although Schnakenberg has received much praise for Kid Carolina (4 out of 5 stars on Amazon and 4.5 out of 5 stars on Goodreads), not all of the press has been positive. Novelist only gives it 2 stars out of five (although this is based on popularity). In the Summer 2010 issue of Dateline, a publication put out by the Reynolda House, Sherold D. Hollingsworth, a Reynolda Researcher, asks "Fact or Fiction? Kid Carolina." Hollingsworth explains that "[n]either Reynolda House Archives nor the Reynolda Researcher was consulted during the writing of this new book and, like other books about the Reynolds family, Reynolda House Museum of American Art takes no position on the accuracy or inaccuracy of the publication" (p. 1). Although the "myths" Hollingsworth corrects are not related to Southside Virginia, it is worth noting that there has been scholarly criticism related to Schnakenberg's work.

So where does this leave us, dear Southside Virginia enthusiasts? Is it worth getting upset about, or should we ignore it? I say yes, and no. Of course it is upsetting when something has been published that is so grossly incorrect. Patrick County had many wonderful aspects, and someone who reads Kid Carolina and looks for a "Critz County" will miss them all together. As a researcher who is constantly scared to death of writing something that is false, I empathize with Schnakenberg. However, I always check and double-check to ensure accuracy, often using various sources to keep everything balanced. I wonder how Kid Carolina was edited and how anyone could let them slip. I urge everyone to do their research... and to always read critically!

References

Early Virginia Religious Petitions. (n.d.). American Memory from the Library of Congress. Retrieved from http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/petitions/repecomp.html

Patrick County, Virginia History, Genealogy. (2006). New River Notes. Retrieved from http://www.newrivernotes.com/va/patrick.htm

Hollingsworth, S.D. (2010). Fact or fiction? Kid Carolina. Dateline, 10(2), 1, 3.

North Carolina Highway Historical Marker Program. (2008). Marker: J-72 - R.J. REYNOLDS 1850-1918. Retrieved from http://www.ncmarkers.com/Markers.aspx?ct=ddl&sp=search&k=Markers&sv=J-72%20-%20R.%20J.%20REYNOLDS%201850-1918

Patrick County Historical Society. (1999). History of Patrick County, Virginia. Patrick County Historical Society: Stuart, Virginia.

Schnakenberg, H. (2010). Kid Carolina: R.J. Reynolds Jr., a Tobacco Fortune, and the Mysterious Death of a Southern Icon. New York: Center Street.

Virginia Tech. (2006). Reynolds Homestead. Retrieved from http://www.reynoldshomestead.vt.edu/

Wikipedia. (2012). R.J. Reynolds. Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._J._Reynolds

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Have you read Kid Carolina: R.J. Reynolds Jr., a Tobacco Fortune, and the Mysterious Death of a Southern Icon? Please share your opinion about the biography and this summary.

Have you ever read a work of non-fiction and found inaccuracies? What did you do?

James Fox. Five Sisters: The Langhornes of Virginia. New York: Touchstone, 2000.

Watching the wildly popular PBS  period drama Downton Abbey, it may be hard to believe that there could be any connection to Southside Virginia. The outfits! The accents! The architecture! The dichotomy of servants and aristocrats! The stares! MAGGIE SMITH! How could there be any connection to the tobacco fields of early twentieth century Southside Virginia?

As it turns out, the Langhorne sisters of Danville were the real thing. After becoming famous in the United States as Southern Belles, they became acclaimed in England. Their story, written by James Fox (a grandson of Phyllis and great nephew of the others), is extremely intriguing - after all, one of them was the first female in the British House of Commons, another was the Gibson Girl, yet another was the mother of beloved English comedienne Joyce Grenfell.

Alan Pell Crawford. Unwise Passions: A True Story of a Remarkable Woman -- and the First Great Scandal of Eighteenth Century America. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2005.

photo from Simon & Schuster

These days, celebrity gossip is everywhere, whether we want it or not. An entire industry (think tabloids, public relations firms, TMZ, E!, even your local weekly) is centered around what goes on in the lives of the famous, and the definition of “famous” is forever changing (one word: Snooki). Love it or hate it, society seems to have an indelible appetite for it (and truthfully, I think that some celebrities enjoy the publicity. Obviously Charlie Sheen is winning!). Luckily for those of us who enjoy it, there are plenty of scandals going around to keep us happy – at least until the next big story.

Nearly two hundred twenty years ago, the big scandal that had everyone talking occurred right here in Southside Virginia.

Kelly Cherry. Girl in a Library: On Women Writers and the Writing Life. Kansas City, MO: BkMk Press, 2009.

photo from Barnes & Noble

Kelly Cherry, a resident of Halifax County, was recently named Virginia’s poet laureate, so when I picked up her 2009 publication, Girl in a Library, I expected a book of poetry. I am embarrassed to say that I usually run away from the genre, so I was a bit apprehensive to review the book for this blog. Fortunately, I looked closer to read the subtitle – On Women Writers & the Writing Life – and realized that I was wrong.

Rather than being a work of complex poems, Cherry’s Girl in a Library is part memoir, part exploration of life, self, history, gender, art, philosophy – anything, really.

We learn about her (gangster) childhood in an apartment above a grocery store in Ithaca, New York, and her parents’ initial reaction to her desire to become a writer, her unusual first year of college at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville and how a dean (at a different college) made it possible for her to return to higher education, and her decision to write books of poetry after her first novel. She discusses how much she enjoys teaching. Cherry also shares with her readers details of her failed first marriage but also of her happy union today.

At the same time, Cherry writes about fellow writers and their use of characters, time, and settings. She explores the field of literature and what it means to be a female in that world. She questions what it means to be a Southern writer. Truth be told, there were some essays that delved into concepts too complex for me, but it was still a very worthwhile read.

Of particular interest to readers of this blog is her description of her time in Virginia, especially Southside. Cherry spent her adolescence in Chesterfield County and was a student at both the University of Mary Washington and the University of Virginia before beginning her professional career at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the 1970s. While she has spent much of her life in the South, in the essay “The Globe and the Brain: On Place in Fiction,” Cherry describes her own struggle with writing “southern stories,” calling on Eudora Welty and William Faulkner for inspiration. It truly is a fascinating study in the significance and mystery of Place.

In her retirement, Cherry and her husband bought a small farm in Halifax, which she calls a “pleasure.” Her 2007 book of poetry, Hazard and Prospect, highlights her time in Virginia and points to the influence that her Halifax homestead and the Southside landscape has had on her.

Find Girl in a Library in the Charlotte County Library catalog.

Have you read Girl in a Library? Please share your opinion about the book and this summary.

Mark Richard. House of Prayer No. 2: A Writer's Journey Home. New York: Nan A. Talese, 2011.

photo from The New Yorker

Say you're reading a book; the story is one that you think you’ll know before you’ve even started reading. In nearly every review and description of the book, authors illustrate that the memoir will detail the life of a "special child" growing up in tobacco-loving Southside Virginia during the 1960s. You might assume that the book will be rather self-congratulatory on the part of the author, Mark Richard, and that you will not be able to relate to him or to his experience at all. On those points, you will be wrong and then most likely right. Richard does not at all seem to be patting himself on the back for the success he has created after an undoubtedly difficult childhood complicated by deformed hips. However, you will probably find it hard to relate to his unbelievable and varied experiences.