By Betty Jane Sheffield

• 1: Introduction
• 2: Childhood, WWII and Working for Blue Ridge Electric
• 3: Camping With Goats
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Childhood, WWII and Working for Blue Ridge Electric

He grew up in Watauga County before electricity reached there and people got around by horse and wagon. Even after working with Blue Ridge Electric for 25 years–from 1946 to 1971–he jokes that he’s still not entirely accustomed to electric lights.

Forrest Blaine Wilson was born on May 6, 1903, three miles west of Boone in a log house on the family farm. His father taught in the public schools for 40 some years. The family included one girl and five boys, with Forrest as the middle boy. “Mother was a good homemaker and took all of us boys to church in an old horse and buggy.” She lived to age 103. His brother Jerry is 95 and was a barber in Boone for 67 years. Forrest graduated from Cove Creek High School in 1926 and later from business college in Winston-Salem. He worked four and a half years at the Paramount Public Theater and became assistant manager. “I was in the movie picture business when movie pictures started,” he says.

In 1937 he moved into a brand new building that housed his filling station, feed store and living quarters. In 1938 he married Blanche Anderson. He was 35, she was 26. She died in August 2000.

When World War II broke out, Forrest wanted to enlist, but he was nearly 40 and the military wouldn’t take him. The local recruitment office set him up at a factory in Cleveland, Ohio, that made airplane parts.

After the war, back in Boone, he and his cousin, Solomon Edgar Moody, landed work with the fledgling cooperative Blue Ridge Electric Membership Corporation. Mr. Wilson says that Stanford Berry hired him temporarily, then kept him on when a blizzard knocked out all power in the area. During his time with the cooperative, Mr. Wilson trimmed trees, set poles, maintained lines, even visited people to collect overdue bills (“light bills were $1.50 a month”). When he retired in 1971, he was the first employee of Blue Ridge Electric to be paid a retirement pension. This past May, Blue Ridge Electric honored Forrest Wilson at a ceremony during its annual membership meeting.