Music and Fish Camps

Some of my fondest memories as a small girl were of my grandpa, Prior Jolley, taking me to the long, old and crooked Iron Bridge over the Broad River in Cleveland County below Boiling Springs. I was afraid of it, but felt safe with grandpa.

He would tell me stories of the flood that washed it away and the animals, buildings, trees, etc. that they watched floating down it. He lived in the nearest house up the hill from it. He and grandma had 11 living children. I loved hearing all the stories he would tell about them, especially about my dad, Lewis Jolley. His job everyday was having to check and care for the fish traps first before going to the fields to work. When the catch was good or he had saved up enough in his holding place, they sold the fish to a man who had a building that was not enclosed beside the river near the bridge.

They would have a fish fry and dance in the warm months on Saturday nights — the beginning of the fish camps we North Carolina people enjoy so much.

Horace and Earl Scruggs as teenagers, and my uncles, who lived in the first house near the river on the next country road over, would take their guitar and banjo and play.

Rosita Jolley Jones, Dallas, A member of Rutherford EMC