Our Past: Capturing
our Fleeting Days
Scratching through the discards of Granny’s kitchen, I uncovered one small item which simply brought tears to
my eyes. It
was a tin spice grater. From my earliest recollections, it had hung on Granny’s kitchen cabinet. In this grater Granny kept her aromatic
smelling nutmeg, which she used for making pies. . . . A thousand times I had watched her lift the
little lid and grab a nutmeg seed and rub it over the
perforated grater to shave off enough of the surface
for her pie. Here it was, the conveyer of so many pleasant memories for me, and now it was a mere rusty
trinket that wouldn’t bring $2.00 at a flea market. It was only natural that I should want to preserve some of
these antiques, whose history and background I knew. . . . I began to think about how important it was to
preserve these items, and the memorabilia of all the
people who represented a passing culture.
John Rice Irwin, The Museum
of Appalachia Story
Visit
for any length of time with John Rice Irwin and you
will invariably--inevitably--be treated with a story. He remembers just about every auction along the
way, every smokehouse and barn he has explored--and
every good friend that he has made among the rural
folks of Appalachia. He can tell you the history of just about every
item on display and in storage. Those histories--and the people to which they
are connected--are central to his passion for
collecting and central to the character of the Museum.
It was the familiar story of
the devastating Barren Creek flood--legendary in East
Tennessee for churning past the banks of the Clinch
River in the dead of night and sweeping many people
and hundreds of farm animals to their deaths--that led
to one of his earliest purchases. The purchase, made at a local auction, was just
an old, worn, poplar horse-shoeing box, but the
auctioneer mentioned in passing that it had been
fished out of the nearby Clinch River over half a
century earlier, following the catastrophic flood.
After
that purchase came many others, sometimes at auction,
sometimes from making trips over dirt tracks and going
door to door. Earning
the hard-won trust of rural folk is never easy, and
John Rice will tell you that it was his knowledge of
and curiosity about old-time farm implements that
often opened the door to friendships. But conversations with him begin to draw a
larger picture, one where it becomes clear that it
was—and continues to be—his admiration and esteem
for the ingenuity, craftsmanship, and hardy
perseverance of the people of Appalachia that has
allowed him to forge relationships of trust and mutual
respect.
The purchase of several
truckloads of early Appalachian artifacts from Bill
Parkey of Hancock County reveals just such a
relationship. Bill's
family had lived in Rebel Hollow near the Powell River
for generations, settling there before the Civil War,
and the old homeplace had a wealth of early tools and
equipment that he continued to use for blacksmithing
and wagon-making. For years, John Rice had been told that Bill
would never part with his beloved tools for any amount
of money. The
warnings largely were correct, for although John Rice
occasionally was able to purchase a thing or two, his
trips to "Revel Holler" were generally spent
just visiting with his friend. It was only after Bill's death that his widow
called John Rice, saying that Bill had told her never
to sell his cherished tools unless it was to "the
professor"—because John Rice had "always
treated him right." It is illustrative that John Rice insisted on
paying Mrs. Parkey twice her asking price for several
truckloads of her husband's tools.
What grew out of John Rice’s
love for this region’s past and its people is an
impressive living history that has been nationally
acclaimed. It
has been featured in the Smithsonian magazine, which said, "it vividly portrays
something ethereal—the soul of mountain
people," and
it has been named one of only a handful of affiliates
of the prestigious Smithsonian Institution in the
state of Tennessee. The National
Geographic Traveler referred to "music of
such perfection, such . . . well, such rightness,
that I looked around for a sophisticated sound system
. . .Yet, what I heard—wafting unamplified from the
cabin's front porch—was simply the pure mountain
sound of fiddler and guitar and two-part vocal harmony
. . . I clambered up the porch steps and took a seat
beside them, feeling I had come home."
Southern
Living has featured the Museum of Appalachia in its pages no
ewer than five times. Its writers have been drawn into the romance
and beauty of the region's history on their trips to
the Museum; one writer's visit inspired prose as
pristine as morning at the Museum: "Day's first light breaks, and honest work
is already under way. So says the rhythmic pounding of wooden mallet
on iron wedge, echoing across Tennessee fields veiled
in morning mist . . . As the sun conquers the moist
autumn morning, a picture-perfect Southern Appalachian
farm unfolds, one little changed from farms of a
century ago."
The Museum has been featured
in dozens of other national magazines and has been the
subject of articles in virtually every major newspaper
in the country; John Rice Irwin and the Museum have
been the subject of several articles in foreign
newspapers as well. Thousands of people from every state in the
union and many foreign countries view this splendid
preservation of Southern Appalachian life each year,
and the official Tennessee Blue Book has described it as "the most authentic and
complete replica of pioneer Appalachian life in the
world." The
American Automobile Association's Tour Book rates the Museum as a "Gem," and our
Tennessee Fall Homecoming has been named one of
October’s Top 20 Events in the Southeast by the
Southeast Tourism Society for 13 years successively.
Time-Life Books' Country
Traveler featured the Museum of Appalachia along
with five other exceptional outdoor museums, alongside
Historic Old Salem and Hancock Shaker Village. Reader's Digest's Our Living History says of the Museum: "It is the smaller touches that give the
museum its authentic feel: an ax stuck in a tree stump, cords of firewood
stacked neatly next to a cabin, birdhouses made from
gourds. Inside
a cabin, dresses hang on wall hooks, kitchen utensils
are laid out, and plates of dried beans and peppers
sit on the table. Planned down to the smallest detail, the museum
receives its highest compliments from visitors who
ask, 'Does somebody still live here?'"
But however thrilling it is to
see the Museum praised in print by such prestigious
publications, it is the many unsolicited comments and
honors of Museum visitors and local folks that bring
him the greatest pleasure. Many visitors to the Museum send letters or
return questionnaires with comments that are
thoughtfully read and carefully preserved. A retired toolmaker wrote, "The day we
visited was cold and rainy, but we soon forgot the
rain. Could
have stayed all day." From a visitor from North Carolina: "The brochure we picked up at the Welcome
Center . . . does not do you justice . . . this is a
don't miss place." From a trainer for the U.S. Department of
Labor's OSHA: "Today
I have brought my 27-year old son who has been ill for
nearly four years. Having difficulty with motor skills now, he is
disabled . . . . We arrived here at 1p.m. today . . . It is now
4:45 and he is still looking. I think he is reading every written word, so I know he is enjoying it."
The Museum's history is a proud one, grounded in a profound respect for
the tenacity and indomitable character of a region. But it is a living history: it preserves an essential spirit of the past
while it continually seeks to educate, entertain, and
interpret for the present. From John Rice Irwin's earliest acquisitions
has grown a vibrant place of creative activity,
careful preservation, and loving commitment to a
people and a region.
