Review: Shenandoah Secrets

Shenandoah Secrets by Carolyn Reeder
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A great compendium of stories from the Shenandoah valley area. I really enjoy reading stories like these, especially having recently been there. Actually, they make me want to go again and find some of these places.

Some interesting short stories:


"One autumn day, the teacher at the Simmons Gap
Mission School noticed an unpleasant smell and traced
it to one of her students. She sent a note home asking
the mother to give her child a bath. When nothing
changed, the teacher sent another note. Finally, she
told the child to ask her mother to bathe her. The next
day the little girl came back with a message:
her
mother said she'd been sewn into her clothes for the
winter and wouldn't be let out till June!"


"John Henry Bolen spent the Civil War
years
evading the conscriptors who
combed the area looking for men of
draft age. Once the conscriptors came
Beulah
in the daytime when John Henry was
in the house, and he had no way to
escape. Thinking fast, he sent his wife
outside and had her walk toward Pig-
nut Mountain hitting two shingles to-
gether. Since the conscriptors thought
she was signaling her husband to stay
away, they didn't bother to go into the
house.
When the conscriptors came on a
summer night, John Henry and a friend
took refuge in the chimney, one standing on the other's
shoulders. Mrs. Bolen slapped the baby playing on the
floor near the hearth so Its crying would mask any noise
they made.
Eventually, though, John Henry Bolen and his
friend were caught and taken to an army camp, but they
escaped and came home- wearing out their shoes on the
way."




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