Some Families of Damascus, Virginia, Part XVII

A Damascus (Virginia) Story, Part II
by Pearl Osborne Wright


We continue the memories of my Great Aunt Pearl Osborne Wright concerning her youth and marriage to David Wright in 1911. - Glenn N. Holliman

"The depression (the country experienced a severe economic turn down in 1907) and news of the rapidly developing town of Damascus reached us.  In 1908, my family left Blountville, Tennessee and came to Damascus.  My father, G. W. Osborne, bought and operated a mercantile store near the center of town.  He also bought a big white house near the store and mother, Frances Wilson Osborne, rented rooms to some of the many people moving into town.  (The lumber business was booming in the early 1900s.) Damascus had really grown since our first trip in 1897."

Above, Pearl Osborne Wright in white on the right, newly wed, with an unknown friend in Damascus, Virginia in the 1910s.


"There were several stores, a bank, two churches and numerous lovely houses between the two rivers.  Before there had been only three houses and a store.  By 1910, the first train came to Damascus.  The main street was a wide smoothly scraped road with board side walks on each side.  The Damascus Light and Power Company supplied the town with electricity.  R. Dave Wright, who would later be my husband, was an employee of this company."

Right, an unidentified baby on a new sidewalk in Damascus, Virginia ca. 1910.

"After living in Damascus for two years, my parents moved again.  This time to Afton, Tennessee (near Greenville).  There my father owned and operated a larger store.  In 1911, Dave Wright came to Afton to ask me to be his wife.  We were married in Greenville, Tennessee and came back to Damascus to live."

Below, Dave and Pearl Osborne Wright  with friends brave the Backbone Rock ca. 1910. Note their fashionable climbing outfits - young men in hats, ties and white shirts, and the ladies in long dresses and stylish blouses.