Quilting In India

Tennessee Mountain Stories is supposed to be a blog about the history of Tennessee’s Cumberland Plateau.  And one of our greatest traditions is quilting.  So when I saw an advertisement that explained the “Kantha” created by the women of West Bengal, India, I was naturally fascinated and wanted to share this with you.

The verbatim text from the advertisement for Southeastern Salvage is:

For centuries, village women in West Bengal, India have stitched together scraps of cloth and old saris to create stunning quilts for their families, to keep them warm.  The tradition of kantha (meaning “old cloth”) has been passed on for generations, from mothers to daughters.  It is believed that old cloth keeps the user safe from harm, so each piece is an investment of time, skill, creativity, patience and love.

Reflecting the culture of the region, vintage recycled saris are layered and painstakingly hand-embroidered with thousands of small and delicate kantha stitches to create one-of-a-kind quilts.  Each woman has her own personal style and stitch, making each piece entirely uniique and truly a work of art.

Saris are the traditional dress for women in South Asia.  It’s a long strip of fabric, five to nine yards, that is wrapped around the body to create a dress with one end draped over the shoulder.  So that’s a lot of fabric to work with – certainly makes for a different kind of quilt than the scraps of a standard 1940’s shirtdress.  I once met a retired missionary to India who had worn the traditional dress for many years.  She showed a group of ladies how to wear the dress and it was pretty fascinating – as was her story of the first time she was handed one and sent into a room to put it on.  I can’t imagine what I would have come out looking like if I was expected to wear nine yards of fabric without scissors or needle and thread!

Yet the tradition of teaching younger generations to create this kantha was awfully reminiscent of my own grandmothers teaching me to quilt.  We may not believe our scrap quilts have any kind of protective power over our loved ones but we have always known they would ward off winter’s chill and that was enough protection for us.

It amazed me in reading this the similarity of women caring for their families half a world apart.  I’d wager we couldn’t find a single Kantha maker who’s ever heard of our mountain yet for generations they’ve been frugally re-using worn out dresses to create warm coverings for their family just was we were.  It’s a pretty small world after all.

Monterey Train Depot Museum

The gift shop at the Monterey Depot Museum has graciously agreed to stock Replacing Ann and I want to thank Julie Bohannon for that.  When I visited the museum recently to deliver the books I took the opportunity to snap some pictures and make some notes to share with you.

When the Tennessee Central Railroad finally topped the plateau in 1890, they quickly realized that the climb up the mountain would tax their steam engines and by 1905 a maintenance facility was built in Monterey and the station there became the headquarters for the Eastern Branch of the Tennessee Central. 

This was a real boon in the local economy.  Of course the railroad brought in jobs but it also opened up markets for coal, lumber and agricultural produce that previously could not reach markets. 

General John T. Wilder was instrumental in getting the railroad up the mountain because of the coal operation he planned in Wilder and Davidson.  He is often mentioned in the museum and in fact, there is a large plaque outside with good information about him.  One of the two houses he built in Monterey still stands watch over the depot and the Imperial Hotel which he built to serve railroad employees and passengers is still next door.

Most of the original buildings are gone, as are so many landmarks of Monterey’s heyday.  There were two operating passenger depots in town - the original depot from the early 1900’s burned as did so many wood-framed historic buildings in Monterey. The rebuilt depot stood long after the close of operations and was eventually dismantled.  The roundhouse burned in 1949 and was never rebuilt.  However, the old coal chute can still be seen adjacent to the remaining tracks.  Some tools from the shop were recovered and they are now displayed in the museum.

There were numerous tracks in place when the railroad was moving passengers as well as freight across the Cumberland Plateau as well as maintaining engines in Monterey.  The museum boasts a beautiful diorama of the town and the orientation of the tracks to the depot can be seen clearly on it.

I particularly enjoyed the beautiful display of a stationmaster’s desk, complete with telegraph.  There are a number of maps and graphs that anyone interested in railroad or Plateau history would enjoy. This one in particular is a whole history lesson in itself with information on the mining companies that operated, where stores, schools and post offices were located and even who owned some of the farms and homes in the area.  Manual Powell, a Wilder miner, created this map.

The scope of the Monterey Depot Museum encompasses the whole community, not just railroading.   The Monterey Hospital is represented as well as a wonderful tribute to the city’s contribution to our military.  Community exhibits are routinely featured.  When I visited, Confederate History Month was beginning and volunteer Linda Whittaker was assembling an exhibit in that honor.

Admission to the museum is free and it is open Monday through Saturday 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.  If you’ve visited before, please leave a comment below and tell me about your experience there.

A Delicious Failure

I’ve been thinking a lot about food lately – would it surprise you to know that it’s a result of trying to be more disciplined in my eating?  In talking with a friend about cakes and icings, I got to thinking about old fashioned boiled icing so I made this lovely cake.

Just take a moment to laugh, it’s fine, we all did.

Now I’m willing to admit – even photograph – my less than perfect creations.  I’m willing for two reasons.  First, I’m far from perfect and a product like this helps remind me.  Secondly, I always want to encourage people to try new-to-you recipes even if they don’t always turn out perfectly.

But it’s a third reason why I’m sharing this failure with you today.  I made this in my climate-controlled home on my easily adjustable electric stove and whipped the egg whites with my counter-top mixer.  Yet this is a very, very old recipe.  In fact, it was the standard cake icing for my grandmother’s generation.  However, they made this sweet treat with none of the conveniences I just listed. 

Can you even imagine cooking delicate foods like this icing or candy over a wood-fired stove?  No temperature control, just drag the pot farther from the fire box if it gets too hot.  And by the way, it’s a warm day today and standing over that old woodstove would have been hot everyday of the year.

Then there’s the question of beating egg whites.  How do you even accomplish that without a mixer?  Grandma had a hand beater – like the blades of the electric mixer but with a handle, gear and crank at the top.  I suppose if you didn’t have one of those you could beat a wire whisk hard enough and long enough to transform egg whites into meringue but it makes me tired to even think about it.

I’m sure it turned out runny sometimes in that generation too.  They ate it anyway – just like we did.

Now, I don’t own a candy thermometer- and maybe today’s fiasco is the reminder that will make me add that tool to my kitchen toolbox – but I can see my Grandma standing at the stove with a tablespoon held high above the pot, waiting for the syrup to “spin a thread”.  I had the hardest time learning what that meant and how you could ever see syrup in a thread.  Well, eventually she made me understand and I’ve been using her method ever since.  It really has worked in the past.

I learned so much in Grandma’s kitchen.  The fact is, there were lessons learned there that I didn’t realize until much later – maybe she’s still teaching me despite losing her nearly ten years ago.  Pulling out a recipe like this is a sweet reminder of Grandma and big family dinners at her house and the clan all gathering together to fellowship despite the quality of the food that was served.  (But didn’t the food seem better at those meals?)  Maybe that’s why they were able to make this beautiful icing with rudimentary tools – they knew it would be appreciated no matter how it looked.

Do you remember scratch cakes and boiled icing?  I’d love to hear about it.  Please click “Comments” below and if you have any trouble leaving a comment, you can click here for easy instructions.

Isoline Campbell namesake of Isoline, Tennessee

Isoline Campbell

I am really excited about today’s article because the source is YOU – one of my readers.  Thank you Dee for sending me the information you found about R.O. Campbell and his daughter Isoline. 

Just as an aside, Dee’s email was particularly exciting because my vision for this blog would be a conversation among readers in the comments of the stories.  I have a little bit of information and knowledge – ya’ll have tons of it!  The trick is for us to all share it, and that’s how we can preserve this precious oral history.

Richard Orme Campbell was a wealthy Atlanta business man who started the Campbell Coal Company in 1884 (according to http://tomitronics.com/old_buildings/aunt%20fanny/index.html#isoline).  He built the business into the south’s largest coal company with mines in Tennessee and Kentucky.  We know that one of those mines was in North Cumberlad County. 

Orme’s oldest child was named Isoline, and the mine and surrounding community was surely named in her honor. It is interesting to note that Orme, Tennessee had already been established in Marion County, Tennessee where a mine had been established in 1892 and Mr. Campbell purchased it in 1902.

I never thought about the origin of the name Isoline but when I read it as a lady’s Christian name it was certainly new to me.  Turns out, the name is French in origin; an 1888 play portrayed a Princess Isoline.  The Orme family (R.O. Campbell’s maternal family) has some roots in France so Isoline may well have been the name of a beloved family member. 

Isoline Campbell grew up among Atlanta’s elite crowd and during her Grand Tour, she witnessed the German invasion of Brussels in 1914.  The experience changed her perspective on life, if not her very life. When she returned to Atlanta, she was more focused on service than society and she founded the Junior League of Atlanta.  This organization was purposed to, “[do] some good for the needy of Atlanta and [foster] among members interest in the community’s social, economic and educational conditions.”

One of the questions I posed last week was where the Cumberland Plateau Railroad was going when it ran from Isoline to Campbell Junction.  According to Duke’s Tennessee Coal Mining, Railroading, & Logging ({Paducah: Turner, 2003), Campbell built the Isoline spur line between 1900 and 1902.  The first trains arrived in Crossville in 1897 so the Tennessee Central line from Monterey to Crossville was already passing through the area that would become Campbell Junction.  So the Cumberland Plateau Railroad was connecting to that existing TC mainline.

Mr. Duke’s book also notes that Isoline had hotels, boarding houses, store and numerous businesses.  If any of you ever run upon any pictures of this booming Isoline, I’d love to see them for I had no idea it was anything like that thriving description.

There is no description of Campbell Junction and I’m still wondering whether that end of the spur line built up as much.  At least it had staying-power for there is still an operating post office at Campbell Junction and Isoline was long ago absorbed into Crossville’s postal community.

After 53 years in business, the Campbell Coal Company dissolved in 1962.  The mines at Isoline had played out by the mid-1920’s and the spur line tracks were pulled up in 1939.

UPDATE:  4/10/16

A reader graciously shared the following article from 1914 about Isoline Campbell - she and I thought you might enjoy it.

Railroad Ghost Town

Campbell Junction Depot
From Tennessee Coal Mining, Railroading, & Logging (Duke, Turner Publishing, Paducah, KY 2003)

A little over a year ago I wrote a guest blog for AppalachianHistory.net on ghost towns.  I got to thinking about this subject again this week; I’ll try not to repeat that previous post since you can click over and read it on that site.  However, I’m very fascinated by the changing communities and wanted to mention it here.

If you’ve spent much time tramping around our woods, you will have happened upon groups of foundation rocks that tell you there was once several homes in an area.  Or, maybe your family stories include tales from Key Town or Hood Town but Google Maps gives you no indication where they may be located.  These are the ghost towns I’m referring to.

We think of ghost towns out West where you can drive through and visit clusters of empty buildings abandoned when the gold or silver mine played out.  If you drive through our familiar mining town of Wilder you won’t see many old buildings.  I guess that’s thanks to our much more humid climate that quickly weakens abandoned buildings.  I understand that in the arid west you can leave houses or wooden wagons and such sitting outside for years without much noticeable deterioration.

I’ve mentioned that I’m preparing to speak to a fund raiser for the Monterey Depot Museum and it is that railroad research that brought Isoline to mind.  In reading a timeline of the Tennessee Central Railroad, I learned that in 1901 the TC purchased the Cumberland Plateau Railroad which ran from Campbell Junction to Isoline.  Now I knew that Isoline had been a busy spot in the early years of the twentieth century.  A big logging operation and a coal mine drew people to the area. 

There was a post office in Isoline from 1901 until 1935. Yet today, driving north out of Crossville on Highway 127, only the Isoline Baptist Church will tell you when you’ve entered the community.  As the state exercises its power of eminent domain and moves out houses in preparation for the widened highway, I wonder if even that little church will survive to remind us of this once thriving community.

An internet search for Isoline returns almost nothing.  There was one entry from roadsidethoughts.com that actually asked for input.  I sent them what I know which you can see is precious little.

If the TC bought the spur line in 1901, I wonder where that line was going prior to the the Monterey – Crossville – Emery Gap line that the TC built. 

Campbell Junction is a new community name for me, but I did find it on Google Maps in the Mayland area.  I know that whole area was big log country but I’m not sure what would join up just there to create the junction.  Yet this community still has had their own post office since 1858.

There are lots of factors that change where people live, work and do business.  Roads are a big factor as we’ve seen since the interstate highways were built almost sixty years ago.  It’s both charming and heartbreaking to drive down the state highways and see the old motels and stores which used to cater to travelers that are now routed far from the small towns.  Monterey is another great example; the railroad brought great industry to the town but without it, the commercial center of the county has shifted down the mountain to Cookeville.  I suppose there's a good possibility that both Isoline and Campbell Junction are similar victims.  When their logs and coal played out there was little to keep the population centered there.  We’ve certainly seen the same thing happen in the “rust belt” where population surged for automotive jobs and as those jobs moved overseas the people and their money also left.

There is certainly history in these two communities and I long to know it.  As so often seems to happen, I’m left with more questions than answers on this subject.  I love to write about these mysteries because I’m always hoping one of you readers will have information that you’re willing to share.  If you know more about Isoline, please be sure to click comments below and tell me what you know.