Blue Ridge Country May/June 2024 - 59

N
ext time you are enjoying
a drive on the scenic Blue
Ridge Parkway near Mabry
Mill in Floyd County, Virginia,
and decide to take a break or hike
a trail, I hope you'll make a stop at The
Rocky Knob Visitor Center, located at
milepost 169.
A rather large information display
case stands near the entrance of the center.
Enclosed behind the protective glass
of the case are photos that represent life
along the path of the parkway during its
general construction era.
In one of the pictures a young woman,
wearing a pretty dress, is perched
on top of a haystack with a pitchfork in
her hands, while a young man is using
his own hay fork to lift the fresh cut and
cured hay up to her.
The handmade wagon, hooked to the
new, 1950 Farm-All Cub tractor, holds
the hay. The woman is placing a forkful
of hay around the center pole of the
haystack, soon to tramp it down with her
feet to keep the hay from shifting, causing
the stack to lose its shape and become
unbalanced.
That young couple stacking hay on a
sunny Saturday morning is my parents,
Woodrow and Lavada Golding. The tractor
had recently been bought from the
sale of their two work horses who had
served them well for several years.
They owned a small farm near milepost
213, which is today a part of the
Blue Ridge Music Center, six miles from
the North Carolina state line. They and
their then-four children worked the farm
from daylight to dark, barely meeting
their basic needs.
The parkway ran through the middle
of our 65-acre farm. As we worked in the
fields, we kids entertained ourselves by
waving and yelling at the parkway visitors
as they passed by. Most waved back and
blew their horns at us. Some even stopped
to chat and buy the chinquapins we had
for sale, picked from the roadside bushes.
She was mortified when a motorist stopped and took
their picture. Although we watched for it, that picture
never showed up in our mailbox as others often did.
The incident was forgotten and life moved on.
Those visitors often took pictures of us
as we stuck out an arm to passing cars,
holding the snuff glass full of chinquapins
and yelling, " Chinquapins for sale... 10
cents a glass! " Others stopped and took
pictures as we worked in the hay, hoed
corn or picked up wagon loads of rocks
from the fields.
That is how the 1951 photo on the information
sign came about. On that latesummer
Saturday morning, Mother and
Daddy were dressed and ready to begin
the 12-mile walk to Galax, the nearest
town, hoping some kind soul would pick
them up on the way.
Daddy, worried that it might rain on
the freshly cured hay in the field, decided
that they should put it up before they left
for town. That's how Mother came to be
on top of a haystack in a dress.
She was mortified when a motorist
stopped and took their picture. Although
OPPOSITE PAGE: Lavada Golding receives hay from husband Woodrow in the 1951
photo on a day when threatened rain sent Lavada to the top of the haystack in a dress.
This photograph was given to the family by parkway officials many years later.
ABOVE: Children of Woodrow and Lavada Golding pose at the welcome sign at Rocky
Knob Visitor Center, 2015. Left to right, oldest to youngest: Shirley Williams, Janet Breen,
John Golding, Eula Walters, Ernie Golding, Kay Wood, Nancy Pharr and Allison Golding.
we watched for it, that
picture never
showed up in our mailbox as others often
did. The incident was forgotten and life
moved on.
The years passed and we children,
who now numbered eight, grew up and
scattered hither and yon, eager to begin
our own lives and grow our own families.
Mother and Daddy sold the farm in
1987, and spent the rest of their 64 years
together hosting family get-togethers,
traveling, sharing the bounty of their
large garden and volunteering at the local
Ruritan Club.
Years after they were gone, our youngsister
happened to make a stop at
est
the Rocky Knob Visitor Center. It's an
understatement to say that she was both
surprised and confused to realize that she
was looking at the faces of her parents,
in a photo taken 10 years before she was
born. She took her own pictures of the
photo to confirm with the rest of us that
the young couple was indeed our parents.
Of course each of us had to make the trip
to Rocky Knob to see this iconic mystery
for ourselves.
It was with great pride and pleasure
to learn from parkway officials that the
picture was chosen from the many hunMAY/JUNE
2024 59

Blue Ridge Country May/June 2024

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