The Matriarch

CW: Violence, topics of racism (i.e. the Jim Crow South), offensive language ---

Up in the Appalachian Mountains, nestled in Goose Creek past the Edwards’ seventy-acre cattle farm, a run-down store everyone within a fifty-mile radius knew as Five Church closed indefinitely. The closing came after the death of Nellie Pine – one of the original founders of the store and a well-known matriarch in Auburn County - as family and friends requested privacy to mourn. The newspaper printed a five-page obituary for the born-and-bred Goose Creek resident, digging through the county’s history buried deep in the holler under hushed bloodshed and crimes that could send one into insomnia. Nellie’s last request would forever keep Five Church’s past in the forefront of everyone’s mind who encountered it – whether a passing traveler, lifelong citizen, or treasured friend.

I can’t recall the first time I met Nellie - she was like a mother or grandmother, someone factored into your life from the beginning before you can say your first words. Mama said her earliest encounter with Nellie was when her station wagon broke down in front of the store on her way to drop me off at daycare. It just so happened she had a job interview that day up in Charlestown and, panicking as any single mother would, rushed into Five Church with tears rolling down her cheeks begging for the telephone to call a tow truck. Nellie instead gave her the keys to her Ford F-100 and grabbed me from mama’s arms, shoeing her out the door and telling her to not come back until she got a job or a nice meal, either one. Mama said she returned later in the afternoon to find me sitting in a shallow stock pot – the Southerner’s form of a baby pen – and Nellie peeling potatoes, singing from the Baptist hymnal at a volume even the vegetables buried in the root cellar could hear.

Before Five Church came into existence, the building was on a plot of land belonging to Bobby “Church” Raymond, a white minister originally from Roanoke who, after years of what he described as “wrestling with the devil,” fled his sharecropping roots and settled in Goose Creek. He was born into old money and subsequently bought close to fifty acres for five hundred dollars where he started his own farm and transformed the abandoned building on his property into a blacksmithing shop. On Sundays, locals knew to find Bobby in the Baptist pulpit dabbing sweat with his handkerchief and on his fifth cup of water by noon. He was famous for leaning over towards the crowd of fifteen and staring at each member of the congregation directly in their eyes, condemning the “moral atrocities” of tobacco sharecropping and other blind spots in the South at the time which inhumanely took advantage of former slaves. The late 1930s saw an influx of African Americans previously tethered by debt and trafficked through the sharecropping industry flee to Auburn County, welcomed with open arms by Bobby into the renamed Friendship Baptist Church. I learned over ninety percent of the congregation left at the beginning of the migration, transferring their memberships to the “whites-only” churches in Charlestown. Among those who stayed at Friendship were the Pines, Truett and Carol, along with their daughter, Nellie.

“Naively strict” were the words Nellie used to describe the lifestyle growing up in Goose Creek - repetitive routine without judgement. The Blue Ridge Mountains provided a masked safe haven for its residents in the earlier years, one which quickly dissipated after the end of World War II. Bobby taught master blacksmithing classes for free every other weekday and the women spent most of their time with reading and writing courses. Nellie once told me over a plate of grape jelly biscuits that the schoolhouse was integrated by the late 1930’s which was both a blessing and a curse. Auburn began to be known as the “Stain of the South” and the surrounding counties ensured their disdain was evident. Factories from nearby cities banned all deliveries to Auburn and out-of-town civilians made special trips to rubber-neck at the sight of two people with different skin tones willingly intermingling amongst each other. Two brothers of Bobby’s congregation, Cabell and Harlow Johnson, were almost burned alive when their home was torched to the ground in August 1944. That same week, five additional Goose Creek residents were found hanging from the same weeping willow tree.

“We, as believers of God Almighty, stand against this evil being shown towards our brothers, members or not,” Bobby preached at the pulpit the following Sunday. “What does it mean to be “against” something? Does it mean we sit in here and listen to me preach until your eyeballs roll back in your head, only for you to go home and stuff your bellies with chicken and continue on business as usual? If you think that’s what it means, come up to the altar so I can speak the Devil out of you.”

The Pine family clapped in response. Twenty-year-old Nellie was always mesmerized when Bobby preached.

“If you take anything away from today, I want you to remember this. Silence means consent. Silence means agreement. If any of you remain silent while our brothers are being ripped from us, I don’t want to see you at next Sunday’s service.”

Not even three weeks later, the body of 55-year-old Bobby Raymond was found face-down in the shallow New River with his arms and legs bound behind his back and face bloodied against the slickened river rocks. Truett Pine discovered him after hearing a commotion in the early morning hours in the backwoods behind his cabin. Friendship Baptist Church was lit to the ground an hour later. Nellie told me it turned out the responsible party were the previous church members who initially fled at the beginning of Bobby’s preaching, but there were never any prosecutions in Bobby’s case or the prior hangings despite uproar from Goose Creek residents.

“How did you deal with that?” I asked Nellie over fifty empty jars prepared to be stuffed to the brim with peaches. “I mean, wasn’t everyone scared shitless?”

“Oh, we were terrified.” She glanced at me and raised her eyebrows. Nellie didn’t mind cursing and her demeanor was almost always nonjudgmental. “Bobby was an advocate, our ring-leader, for a lack of a better term. It was like no one knew what to do or say next after the funeral.”

Nellie continued. “Our homestead was about a mile from Bobby’s, and my father had a lot of guilt. We knew something was stirring among us - you could feel it in the air, almost like a heaviness over your chest. The last Sunday Bobby preached was when we had the most attendance in over a year. We even had to pull out the foldable chairs from storage for people to sit in the aisles. It was like you knew. It was like the mountains knew more of their kinfolk was close to departure.” She grimaced, her bust fighting tooth-and-nail against her blouse buttons. “That’s one thing I want you to remember, Laurie. The mountains always know that which is true. The mountains always carry the best secrets.”

“What did you do after Bobby died?” I asked.

“I had a feeling God didn’t want me to leave.” She palmed a peach and began slicing. “My parents were getting older and tired of the daily wear and tear of living in Goose Creek, so they followed suit with a lot of men and families heading towards the coal mines. The racial angst eventually left the spotlight and the attention turned towards poverty and hunger in the holler. It was then when my best friend, Ida Johnson – Harlow’s wife – brought me a pie one evening and told me she had a business proposition for the now-deserted blacksmith shop.” Five Church was born in the early morning hours over apple pie crumbs, sticky fingers, and belly-laughter, the name paying tribute to Bobby and the five men who were murdered earlier in the year.

Five Church would be described in the paper as “a humble rebirth of good…from the soil of hatred.” Dirt-cheap cornmeal dumplings were prepared and served every afternoon with a glass of homemade sweet tea to the crowds famished in stomach and soul. The dining area consisted of five wobbly wooden tables which were shifted constantly throughout the day to suit groups of diners. The store was conveniently located on the dirt road both the loggers and construction workers from the Blue Ridge Parkway frequented, meaning a slew of greased, bearded men of every background were asking for seconds and refills each week. Ida and Nellie welcomed each as their own, learning their names and the names of their wives and children, inviting them back for friendly conversation. A couple of the classmates Nellie grew up with worked with her, a phrasing she made sure was set straight - “My friends work with me, not for me.” And, if anything you knew was true, you always knew you were a friend of Nellie’s.

The store persisted through the decades despite its shares of the country’s distress. Appalachia in the early 1960s saw an earth-shattering wave of coal miner strikes and unemployment rates, shipping men back to Auburn County with hollowed faces, diseased coughs, and soulless bodies smothered from the mines. Five Church was less of a store during those times and more of a refuge – Ida and Nellie spent afternoons spilling into nights stirring pots of rice and beans to feed the onslaught of blighted workers passing through the holler. The 1970s brought Ida Johnson’s death from suspected lung cancer, sending Nellie into a spiral of grief everyone thought would take her as victim. When approached by a handful of Methodist preachers regarding her retirement and selling the store for church property, history tells it that Nellie immediately sat up in bed, looked up towards the ceiling, and muttered, “God Almighty, the last thing I’ll ever do on this earth is sell my store to a sprinkler.”

Nellie returned to Five Church in 1983, the same year Mama first met her, but it was said the original glisten in her eyes was no longer there - the same glistening present when listening to Bobby on a two-hour preaching stent or when meeting a traveling friend fresh from the coalfields the first time. The community attempted to rally behind her, visiting often and still providing business even though the chicken n’ dumplings were bland and tea barely sweet. Retiring was never a thought in Nellie’s mind and she wouldn’t dare allow it to be a thought in anyone else’s. She carried on as she always had after all those years – waking up at dawn’s cusp to sweep, starting on the biscuits prepared with fresh buttermilk, and feeding her hens. Even the seasons were gentler and more forgiving in her old age. I noticed the rain was adequate without drought and the begonias in the store windows pinked the brightest hue, drawing countless admirers passing through.

On a characteristically cool day in May, I was preparing for the dinner crowd as I often did in my teenage years after school. May was the starting season for the out-of-town crowd from the northern cities. Murky holler bends saturated from winter’s carcass dried in the mid-spring sun outlining the tracks to Five Church and Goose Creek. Black-eyed Susan and hydrangea dotted the perimeter of the store which were upkept by Ida Johnson’s daughters and my mother. My role in Nellie’s life started as a protégé in my preteens but was slowly turning into more of a caretaker role specifically through that spring as her ability to walk and climb the store steps diminished.

“What’s your plans after graduation?” Nellie asked, leaning on her cane behind me. “I don’t want to hear you’re leaving for Charlestown or up north, now."

“They wouldn’t have me there. I’d need a translator to get through to them with this accent.” I laughed. “Mama’s job does have an opening as a secretary, but I don’t know if I could spend my life in front of a computer. You apparently have to type and what not.”

Nellie swatted her hand in front of her face. “You don’t belong in front of a computer. I never could figure out those things.”

I dropped the potato slices in the pot with an audible splash. “What are you going to do with the store, Nellie? I know it’s on its last leg. I can see you know it, too. I can see it in your face. You’ve known it a while.” I wanted to stay in Goose Creek and run the store with every ounce of my being. Nellie was aware of this from the time I turned sixteen – I stayed extra hours to scrub the wood floors and learn recipes down to the pinch – but, stubborn as she is, she never gave me the satisfaction of hearing the words, “It’s yours.” Of course, I never outright asked who she was passing the store along to, if anyone, until this occurrence.

She gave me the side-eye. “I know what you want, Laurie. Be patient with me. I’m an old hag on death’s doorstep, for Christ's sakes.”

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Later that year, Nellie said she needed to have an important conversation with me. I walked with her down the road once carrying construction workers from the parkway now paved and lined strategically with cornfields and dotted double-wides. The crimson November sky mimicked the earlier fall harvests of beets and radishes, preparing the evening canvas for the stretch of nightfall. An amiable breeze weaved through the valley and sifted through the fields like a dusting of flour. Nellie ambled forward with her rolling walker, meticulously watching her footing but glancing upwards every now and then towards the sleepy mountain range nuzzled on the horizon.

“You know I love you. You know – you know I love your mama,” she started, the walker wheels rolling to a stop on a mound of pebbles. “But I can’t give the store to either of you – I wish I could tell you why, but I can’t.”

It was as if I had been slapped in the face by my mother. My voice quivered. “Well, I can respect that, I suppose. In the end, all we wanted – all I wanted – was a piece of you to always have and carry through my life. Five Church is your baby, after all.”

“No, no it’s not, and may God forgive me if I ever gave that impression,” she chuckled. She shakily let one hand free of the walker handle and pointed towards the mountains. “They are my babies. You are my babies - every soul that’s ever walked in the store and had a need.” She pointed to the ground. “They were my babies. The ones the others killed. The ones who died here over the years whether from hate, or sickness, or old age – and I’d always choose the latter, for dying of old age is God’s last act of mercy for us.”

She sensed my hesitancy and smiled. “I don’t regret anything, Laurie. Running the store has been my duty and I feel I’ve been faithful. But I can’t give it up, and I can’t keep running it, either.”

“Well, I’d say that limits our options, but we’ll figure it out.” I put my hands on my hips and mustered a grin.

She laughed. “Don’t be discouraged. You’ll always have a piece of me – I’m just afraid that piece will be an aching pain in your side that never goes away.” 

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Nellie Pine died a month later - two days past Christmas. She spent the holidays with Mama and I at our place across the creek where we celebrated humbly and quietly at her request. I knew she was living her last days among us – winter’s exhale was only a whisper, a type of silence achieved when the trees themselves pay reverence to their kin. Shadows hovered beneath the Blue Ridge peaks in broad daylight fearfully anticipating the living’s last mountain breath. Nellie passed peacefully at her home surrounded by Mama and I, the entire Johnson family, and a couple of her beloved hens who sought refuge indoors. We buried her under a willow tree behind the chicken coop. It took eight men to break the frozen ground, four of which we had to recruit from town.

The next day, Mama handed me a flat jewelry box with a black felt exterior. “From Nellie.”

I sprinted up the stairs and nearly slammed my bedroom door shut behind me. Wiping my tears with my sweatshirt sleeve, I cracked open the box and took out the note inside. A tarnished silver key fell in my lap.

Laurie,

To say I felt unqualified to pass this along to you is an understatement. I’ve spent many sleepless nights wondering about my role and responsibilities in these mountains. When I look back on all these years, I see my own limited perspective that continues to dwindle with each passing generation. One of my deepest fears is that Five Church will grow and its history be forgotten like a terrible dream. To me, the store has always been meant to preserve the history of this mountain – to preserve Bobby, Ida, and the ones who suffered the worst at the hands of bigotry. Believe it or not, I wanted to burn the store down just to ensure we all got our last word – that Five Church would be remembered forever as what it once was and always would be.

Turns out, our Creator knows more than me and the stubborn plans I laid before Him simply would not do. I am giving you this key to Five Church with faith you will do as you see fit with its history in mind. The mountains told me you were the one to be trusted, and as I’ve always said, the mountains always know that which is true.

                                   Until we meet again,

                                               Nellie