Blue Ridge Country - September/October 2013 - 49

Facing page: Cast-iron expressions belie a family’s
love. Jo Harris’s grandparents (c. 1915, with their
children prior to the birth of Harris’s father) grubbed
out a living in the Smokies in pre-park days.
Left: Harris’s father was the “least ‘un” in his family
following the death of his baby brother in 1918. Here
he’s with his best friend, seven years before the
government bought the family property for inclusion
in Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

delivered to the government that of our grandparents’
32 acres, 15 were cultivated while 17 remained in
timber. There were no signs of the barn, rail fence,
the orchard’s five fruit-bearing trees, or the 15 immature ones that had held so much promise for the family’s future. Our hearts were overflowing as we
explored this part of our heritage; thoughts surged
through our collective minds like the thundering river
two miles away.
It was hard to imagine my grandparents had raised
six children on this very spot and buried another not
far away. I suppose my grandparents were mountainwise and resourceful, but with so little, life must have
been a tiresome, daily struggle.
Tragically, daddy died when I was seven so I
couldn’t ask how often he’d fished in the stream, or
if he’d sneaked off to hunt when he was supposed to
be hoeing the corn. I’d never know what it was like
growing up surrounded by this beautiful, natural
playground.
My grandparents also died before I became interested in the past. Had they welcomed that $500 government check – which by today’s standards seems
paltry, but in actuality was more than two times the
government’s appraised value – or had they been
openly hostile at being forced to leave their home?
homesite was worth another try.
With renewed anticipation we walked nearly half
an hour beyond where we’d turned around earlier.
Incredibly the tangle of undergrowth opened into a
clearing – the homesite. Joda was redeemed!
Part of the stone chimney was still standing, its
mud chinking reduced to dust. We found pieces of a
cast-iron stove or fireplace insert, but all other remnants of the two-room log cabin were gone. The spring
had native stones around it like the chimney, and
though there was no indication, we assumed there
would have been a springhouse built over it back then.
An indentation in the ground sparked a lively
conversation about an outhouse being so close to the
home. Finally, we decided it had been a root cellar. A
rotted tree stump may have caused it, but with so
little evidence of our family’s life here, we were searching, hoping for just one more connection.
We’d learned from the description on the deed

It was hard to imagine my grandparents had
raised six children on this very spot and
buried another not far away. Life must have
been a tiresome, daily struggle.
When they left in that wagon bound for the “levellands” of Pigeon Forge some 20 miles away, could
they have imagined their family graveyard would
endure as a somber reminder of the past?
Our trip had taken several hours and it was time
to go. I realized there’d always be questions, but I was
delighted by the day’s discoveries. I hoped my grandparents could look down and see that their sacrifice
had served the greater good. That the Great Smoky
Mountains National Park was a worthy guardian of
what they’d left behind. 
September/October 2013 | 49

Blue Ridge Country - September/October 2013

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