Some Families of Damascus, Virginia, Part VI

by Glenn N. Holliman


This is the sixth in a series of stories with photographs of  my great uncle and aunt, Dave and Pearl Osborne Wright and their many years of life in Damascus, Virginia.  Pearl is the grand daughter of Isaac and Caroline Greer Wilson of Ashe County, North Carolina.  As ever I am grateful to Phyllis Mink, daughter of Doris Osborne Akers,  Bob and Rob Adema, descendants of Gladys Osborne Adema and Geraldine Stansbery Holliman Feick, a niece of Pearl Osborne Wright and this writer's mother, for making many of the historical photographs available.

These stories and others are in Ancestry.com under the names of Dave Wright, Pearl Osborne and Bob Adema.

When one reads Louise Hall's history of Damascus, the feeling grows that Dave Wright was the all-around handy man for the village.  While a youngster, he played in the town brass band.  A hard worker beginning in 1901, he daily lit and cleaned the oil lamps downtown. From 1905 until his retirement in 1949, he 'was' the electric company, running the generators for the town.   
                                     

 Dave Wright as a boy who became  the  'electricity' person for Damascus 


The electric generator he operated was at the 'race' on Beaver Creek.  As the decades went by he continued to manage the larger and larger units, finally retiring from the Appalachian Power Company.

At the Emporium Hall, it was Dave, beginning in 1911, who ran the Westinghouse Movie Projectors.  When the Damascus Amusement Company built a movie hall in 1920, Dave, one of the owners, not surprisingly ran those movie projectors.

In 2011, Bob Adema, Dave Wright's great nephew observed Laural Creek where it merges with Beaver Creek, near the site where electricity was generated by his uncle for the town a century earlier.
                                                                        
And when a car taxi service started from Damascus to Glade Spring in 1912, yes, Dave was recruited to drive the new fangled automobiles.  The small rail road cart above, loaded with Damascus young people, soon gave way to the horseless buggy.  

Some Families of Damascus, Virginia, Part V

by Glenn N. Holliman


This is the fifth in a series of stories with photographs of my great uncle and aunt, Dave and Pearl Osborne Wright and their many years of life in Damascus, Virginia.  Pearl is the grand daughter of Isaac and Caroline Greer Wilson of Ashe County, North Carolina. As ever I am grateful to Phyllis Mink, daughter of Doris Osborne Akers,  Bob and Rob Adema, descendants of Gladys Osborne Adema and Geraldine Stansbery Holliman Feick, a niece of Pearl Osborne Wright and this writer's mother, for making many of the historical photographs available.

Some of these stories may be found under Pearl Osborne's name in Ancestry.com.


According to historian Louise Hall, Dave's father, P.W. Wright constructed a large home in 1898 along Beaver Creek.  The home became a boarding house, an inn if you will, for the travelling lumber and rail road men who frequented Damascus during the boom years from 1901 to 1926.  Being so close to mountain-fed rivers, the large, rumbustious creeks occasionally overflowed.  During a disastrous flood in 1901, water ran through the first floor, stranding guests on the second floor.

As time passed, Dave and Pearl took over running the inn.  For a while in the 1910s, they may have been assisted by another great uncle of mine, Toby Osborne, one of five sons of G.W. and Frances Wilson Osborne, natives of Ashe County, North Carolina.

Left, the Damascus Inn in the 1910s. Notice the picket fence and unpaved street.  The persons on the right and left are believed to be Pearl Osborne and Dave Wright.  The tall gentleman in the middle is unidentified.

The Damascus Inn would serve as the back drop for several generations of family photos, some of which will appear later in this series.  Below the house from a 1910s photograph taken on the bank of Beaver Creek near the town bridge.

 Today the Damascus Inn, the home first of P.W. Wright and later one of his sons, Dave Wright, is a private  home.  In the fall of 2011, a political sign had replaced one from a century earlier that had read 'Damascus Inn'.   The "Inn", a piece of local history, appears well-preserved by the current owners.

Some Families of Damascus, Virginia, Part III

by Glenn N. Holliman

This is the third of a series of stories with photographs of  Dave and Pearl Osborne Wright and their many years of life in Damascus, Virginia.

Robert David Wright was a descendant of the 18th Century family that founded this village which snuggles between two mountain ranges.  According to historian Louise F. Hall, there were hopes in the late 19th Century to develop an iron industry, but the deposits were only on the surface and not commercially viable.  Lumber companies did discover the timber and by the middle 1920s had decimated the surrounding forests.

This picture was probably made around 1912 of Dave Wright at the Backbone, a ridge line on southwest of town.  The rail road in the early 1900s blasted a tunnel through the ridge.  The dramatic escarpment of a solid jagged rock formation became a popular recreation point for young people.

Above, Dave and his young wife, Pearl Osborne Wright, operate a foot driven rail car, probably enjoying a day out at the Backbone.


In September 2011, my second cousin, Bob Adema and other family members, visited Damascus and the Backbone, now as a century later, a National Forest Recreational Park.

Bob Adema's mother, Gladys Osborne Adema, was raised by Pearl and Dave Wright in Damascus after her mother died in 1923.  The Wrights never had children of their own, but raised Gladys, her sister Doris and her brother Bascomb Osborne at their home in Damascus.  The Wrights are the great uncle and aunt of both Bob Adema and this writer.

More on the Backbone and early photographs of Damascus in the next posting....

Some Families of Damascus, Virginia, Part II

by Glenn N. Holliman

In my last post, I began a series on a small village, a little over 1,000 persons in 2010, nestled between two mountain ranges, the Iron and Holston, and joined at the edge of the downtown by two small rivers, the Laurel and the Beaver. Damascus, Washington County, Virginia lies next to the upper East Tennessee border and welcomes trekkers from both the Virginia Creeper and Appalachian trails. It remains an eclectic community of B and Bs, cafes, bike shops and a good local library.  In the winter, the sunshine sometimes has difficulty reaching the United Methodist Church, so deep is this recessed cove at the south edge of town. 

What interests me is that my great aunt and uncle and several second cousins spent their lives, whole or in part, contributing to this community, assisting its economic base and leading its renaissance after the collapse of the iron and timber industry in the early 1900s.

Guiding in this process is "A History of Damascus, 1793-1950", well-written by the late local historian of Damascus, Louise Fortune Hall. My historical tidbits are from her excellent work (below). I purchased my copy last autumn at the library.
                                                                  
Louise Hall relates that in 1785 a father and son, Jacob and John Wright, a Revoluntionary War veteran, settled along what is now Glade Spring Road, now a state highway that leads northwest to I-81.  A descendant of these Wrights, David Wright, my great uncle and his brother, Ward, were born in Damascus in the late 1800s.  Dave married by great aunt Pearl Osborne Wright in 1911.  Pearl had lived in Damascus from 1908 to 1910 when her paarents (my great grandparents), George Washington and Frances Wilson Osborne ran a general store and boarding house.

Below is a photograph from approximately 1910 showing the Osborne boarding house and store on what is now main street Damascus.  G.W. and Frankie Osborne are surrounded by some of their children. The tall woman in the centre is Pearl O. Wright and next to her is my grandmother, Mayme T. Osborne Stansbery.  This picture has been in the possession of Geraldine Stansbery Holliman Feick, my mother.

When my wanderlust great grandfather, G.W. Osborne, still looking for his elusive forture, moved the family to Afton, Tennessee in 1910, Dave Wright followed and asked the hand of Pearl in marriage.  From 1911 until his death in 1962, Damascus was their home.

The Families of Damascus, Virginia, Part I

On the Road to Damascus
by Glenn N. Holliman

Let's begin with a Google map of Western North Carolina, upper East Tennessee and a portion of Southwest Virginia.  By the late 1700s most of my mother's ancestors had made their way from Pennsylvania and the Chesapeake colonies to the uplands and valleys of the Appalachians found on this map. They were the Osbornes, Greers, Wilsons, Boones, Browns, Wilcoxsons, Taylors, McCrays, Bayless and others.

The red dot in the bottom center is the approximate location of the Civil War farm of my great great grandparents, Isaac and Caroline Greer Wilson, in Sutherland, near Creston, Ashe County, North Carolina.  The blue dot underlined in red is Damascus, Virginia, and in the center left underlined is Bristol, Tennessee the birthplace of my mother.  Geraldine Stansbery Holliman Feick, my mother,and I are descendants of all the above families.

 On her father's side, Charles S. Stansbery, Sr., mother descended from a family that landed in the Maryland colony in the late 1600s, made their way thought through the Piedmont areas of Virginia and the Carolinas, before offspring settled by the 1850s in the Knox and Greene counties of East Tennessee.

For a period of time, this Southern Appalachian area was America's frontier.  The Cherokee and Shawnee lost their hunting grounds by the late 1700s and eventually most of their homeland as the tide of European and African Americans kept pushing westward.  Many of the offspring of my families moved into Tennessee and Kentucky and within a generation across the Missisippi and eventually to the Rockies and beyond.  Daniel Boone, my 6th great uncle, founded Kentucky but eventually would die in Missouri.

Of course, not all children and grandchildren of the named families above moved west.  Many made the Appalachian mountains, coves and river bottom land their homes.  To this day, one will find my distant cousins living in Ashe and Watauga counties in North Carolina, Knox, Greene, Sullivan and Washington counties in Tennessee and Grayson and other counties in Virginia.

In this series of posts, I am exploring the lives of ancestors who remained in the Appalachian highlands, in particular a great aunt and uncle, Pearl Osborne Wright and her husband, Dave.  They made an impact on the small community of Damascus, Virginia, in the first half of the 20th Century and left an archive of photographs that capture their lives and the fashions of their time.

Above David and Pearl Osborne Wright in Damascus, Virginia early 1900s with their puppies.  Many of the photographs to be posted are courtesy of my second cousin, Phyliss Akers Mink, a great niece of the Wright.


My Great Aunt Pearl was not the first of my ancestors to travel through Damascus, Virginia.  That honor belongs to Daniel Boone, a 6th great uncle of mine.  A few miles south of Damascus, in Laurel Blooming, Tennessee is a monument (pictured below) to his explorations.  He traversed what is now the upper East Tennessee and Southwest Virginia valleys and river bottoms, before forcing the Cumberland Gap.

More Adema Photographs

Bob Adema, a Great Grandson of G. W. and Frances Wilson Osborne
by Glenn N. Holliman

I have written a series of articles on that part of my Mother's family that lived in Damascus, Virginia in the first 3/4ths of the 20th Century.  My Great Aunt Pearl Osborne was born in Ashe County, North Carolina in 1890.  While living in Damascus as a teenager in the first decade of the 20th Century, she met a descendant of one of the founding families of this Appalachian community - Dave Wright.  They married in 1911, and together ran the Damascus Inn.  For decades, Dave operated the creek - driven generator for electrical service in the small village.  For years on Saturday night, he operated the projectors at the local movie 'palace'.


My second cousin is Bob Adema.  His Mother, Gladys Osborne Adema, and my Mother, Geraldine Stansbery Holliman Feick, were first cousins.  Gladys, along with her sister Doris and brother Bascomb K. Osborne, were raised by their Aunt Pearl and Uncle Dave when their mother, Doris Kruger Osborne, died prematurely in 1922 in Baltimore, Maryland.  


The story of this interesting family situation, and how it impacted the lives of the three children will unfold in future articles.  As for now, here is a nostalgic look at a beautiful automobile lovingly restored by cousin Bob.  


On two occasions I have been pleasantly entertained for lunch at the home of Bob and Gayle Adema. Bob is a grandson of Bascomb W. Osborne, one of the five adult sons of G.W. and Frances W. Osborne. Now retired, one of his hobbies is maintaining his 1946 Ford, pictured below.

My wife, Barb, sitting on the passenger side with Bob driving, insisted on a spin!  I was relegated to the back seat, discovering a two door is not as easy to exit as when one was ten years or so in age.

Bob has altered the dash board, installing a tape deck and air conditioning controls.  The Ford has over 350 horse power, but with a (gasp) modern Chevy engine!

Bob comes by his mechanical aptitude naturally through several sides of the family.  His grandfather, Bascomb W.  Osborne, as well as Bascomb's brother Bill Osborne, were both auto mechanics from the 1920s to the 1950s.

Our thanks to Bob and Gayle for lunch, family talk and ride in a legend, the first Ford model produced after World War II.

Osborne and Wright Photographs

by Glenn N. Holliman

More Photos from the Collection of Bob Adema

1950

This is a photo of my Great Aunt Pearl and Great Uncle Dave Wright at their home in Damascus, Virginia. Dave, an electrician and in charge of the local electric service company, died in 1962. Pearl was born in Mast, North Carolina and died in Damascus in 1980 at the age of 90. They had no children themselves but raised Bascomb K., Gladys and Doris Osborne after their mother died in 1922. Can anyone identify the little boy on Dave's right?

Phyllis Akers wrote on September 9, 2010 that the boy is her brother, David Akers and continued: "Notice how Aunt Pearl is dressed up. I remember her always wearing a dress and stockings and heels even when she was carrying a load of sheets upstairs to make a bed. They had a bedroom on the main floor but they had boarders upstairs for many years. She must have washed, ironed and carried sheets up and down stairs way up into her 60's. I remember Mom saying that when she was sick, you could always tell when she was feeling better because she put her earrings on. Uncle Dave died just after I was married. Probably from another stroke. He was the first person I saw putting tons of salt on his food even before he tasted it. I remember Duane and I going to see him in the hospital."

David Akers sent the following on Sept. 9, 2010: Hi Glenn,
Thanks for the update. I have not been there yet but will check it out
after while. I have some old pictures of Uncle Dave at the control center
of the hydro-electric dam in Damascus if you would be interested. He was
the first lamp-lighter in Damascus and then moved into the first operator
position for the dam. He and the dam were later bought out by the
Appalachian Power Co. where I later worked for 30 yrs. and then retired.

Below is Uncle Dave Wright at his kitchen table repairing radios which he did after retirement. This is a professional photograph taken in 1959.


More soon....

Photos in the Post WWII Era

by Glenn N. Holliman

Last night, July 6, Rob Adema visited Barb and me here in Newport, PA, as he was en route to business calls in Central Pennsylvania. Rob is a great great grandson of G.W. and Frankie Osborne, through their son, Bascom, a brother of my grandmother, Mayme Osborne Stansbery. Bascom is sometimes spelled with or without a 'b' on the end.

Photo above is l to r, Glenn Holliman (b 1946) and Rob Adema (b 1966) July 6, 2010 in Newport, Pennsylvania practising genealogy. Glass is of Coca-Cola, sort of. Photo by Barbara Holliman.

We sat up late examining documents and old photographs. In celebration of his visit, I am posting several photos we looked at closely as they reflect both his direct line and our over lapping families. I believe the 1945 photo is courtesy of Phyllis Ackers, and the 1954 picture, a family snapshot by my father.

A contemporary photo of Rob's parents, Bob and Gay, and his Aunt Peg Adema can be found on the Contributors page of this blog. August 20, Barb and I will be visiting Rob and his parents, Bob and Gay, outside of Buffalo, NY to look at more family memorabilia of when our ancestors lived in Southwest Virginia, East Tennessee and Western North Carolina.

Now the Wilson/Osborne frontier families, under many different names, are spread across the nation.

Photo above taken approximately 1945 at the Elmer 'Flea' Akers home in Damascus, Virginia of the children and grandchildren of Bascom Wilson Osborne, one of the five son's of G.W. and Frankie Osborne. Back row, l to r - 'Flea' Akers, Doris Osborne Akers, Gladys Osborne Adema, Edith Osborne (wife of Bascom Kruger Osborne, who is kneeling). Front row, l to r - Phyllis Akers, Bobby Adema, Peg Adema, Uncle 'Bab' Bascom K. Osborne, in Navy uniform, and his daughter, 'Gini' Osborne.

Photo of Pauline Osborne Smith, daughter of Thomas 'Toby' Osborne, one of the five sons of G.W. & Frankie, in the early 1930s rowing a boat. In the photo below, she is pictured in the 1950s with her children in a visit to her first cousin, Geraldine Stansbery Holliman Feick.

Taken in the summer of 1954 in Johnson City, Tennesse at the home of Geraldine Stansbery and her husband, Bishop Holliman. Left to right in front of the 1948 Plymouth are: Louise Stansbery Sherwood (daughter of Mayme Osborne Stansbery), Rebecca Louise Holliman Payne, then 4 years old on her aunt's knee, and standing is one of Pauline Osborne Smith's children, name unknown.

Kneeling with his Cocker Spaniel, Sandy, is the writer, Glenn Holliman, age 7. Behind standing sans shirt is Vance R. Sherwood, Jr., also age 7, now a published clinical psychologist. The tall young man is another of Pauline's children, name unknown.

Continuing left to right are Dave Wright, husband of Pearl Osborne Wright, Geraldine (Gerry) Stansbery, sister of Louise Sherwood, Pauline Osborne Smith (whose photo above is of her rowing a boat), and Pearl Osborne Wright, who is Geraldine and Louise's aunt.

Pauline and children lived in Sumner, Washington at the time. Pearl and David Wright in Damascus, and Louise and her son, Vance, in Knoxville, Tennessee.

An aside, it was Dave Wright who in 1912 gave his mother-in-law, Frankie Osborne, her first automobile ride from Damascus to Glade Valley, Virginia and back!

More family history in the next posting....