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My grandparents’ creek

Many of my first memories as a child stem from years spent at my grandparents’ home—the home place of my great-grandfather George Parker. George Parker was a man of many talents. Living at the foot of the South Mountains between Briar Creek and Pheasant Creek, he served the mountain community in myriad ways. Mountain folk came from afar to have corn ground, teeth pulled, animals “doctored,” and babies delivered.

Little has changed since my childhood on the creek in the early 1940s. As the fog shifts on a cold rainy morning, varied mountaintops come into view. During autumn months, the setting is as colorful as a patchwork quilt, and many fine frigid mornings catch us off guard with a fresh blanket of snow—when it is unheard of in other parts of the county.

I remember the smell of my grandmother’s homemade biscuits baking, the sound of country ham frying on her wood cookstove. I can still see the sun filtering through the trees ricocheting off the creek rocks, and I can hear the frogs in early spring.

Collette Deviney, Moriah, Rutherford EMC

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