Tennessee Chronicles Part I: Family Fun

Boy has it been a full few weeks! I kicked off the traveling season with a trip to Indianapolis, where I presented my research at the Society for Music Perception and Cognition. Returning on a Friday, I drove straight to the dentist's office where I had some yucky surgery performed (I'll spare you the details!). In order to make my recovery a little less miserable, we packed up our bags as soon as I was mobile and drove to East Tennessee for a visit with my extended family, puffy cheeks and all. We had a lovely trip and they were very gracious with me while I healed. We were SO glad to have this time with family and can't wait to share with you about it!

I'll post some photos in three parts. Here I give you Part I in the Tennessee Chronicles.

We stayed with my Mammaw Lucille (my mother's mother) in Pigeon Forge. This is a hot tourist spot, just bordering Smokey Mountain Nat'l Park. Many of our other relatives (aunt & uncle, great aunts, cousins, second cousins, third cousins...) live in the surrounding areas (Sevierville, Dandridge, Gatlinburg, Seymour). We spent a fair bit of time driving around to our different relatives' homes to chat and see what they've been up to.

Last weekend we had the opportunity to visit my Great Aunt & Uncle Nina and Lawrence. They have apple orchards and honey bees and are situated on beautiful mountainous property. Below is a photo of Drew & me with Mammaw down below some of their orchards.


Here we are with Nina on her front porch.
Back in the "holler" (translates to "hollow" or "valley") is an old two-room shack that has a fair bit of history to it. This is the shack where my Aunt Nina and my Papaw (grandpa) Virgil were raised along with their siblings. Nina showed us where they fetched their water, how they kept their dairy products cold (in the spring) and told us stories about harvesting sugar cane & making molasses, among other things.

I have always admired my Aunts Nina & Ruby (her sister) for all they accomplished professionally. Both of them raised children while working full time as educators & educational administrators in addition to supporting their husbands in their agricultural and professional endevours. Beyond this, they had very little growing up yet built successful lives for themselves once they became independent. These are hard-working and highly capable women! One story they tell about their road to success is how they learned to read by exploring the newsprint that their mother stuck on the inside walls of their home for insulation. I found a spot inside the shack where you could still read the words on the newsprint and took a photo. It seems this print is from an old Sears catalog.


To the side of this house are stacks of honeybee hives. Drew had never seen these before and was enthusiastic about exploring them, though I made she he was careful to maintain his distance (allergy alert!!).
This was a sweet visit! We also spent half a day with Aunt Ruby and her daughters and had such a lovely time catching up. We can't wait to return!!

I'll close this post with a photo of my cousin Andrew playing with Mollie. Andrew and his brother, Logan, kept Mollie well entertained during our vacation. Drew & I had no idea she could play for so long and Mollie was thrilled by all the attention and Mammaw's fenced in backyard!