The Mountain Laurel
The Journal of Mountain Life

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from the
Heart of the Blue Ridge


Growing Up On Tuggles Creek - Grandmother Meets A Yankee

By YKW © 1986

Issue: January, 1986

(Editor's Note: Tuggles Creek is located in the Heart of the Blue Ridge Mountains, near the tiny mountain community of Meadows of Dan, Virginia. Meadows of Dan is a crossroads community where US Highway 58 Business and the Blue Ridge Parkway cross. Mabry Mill is north about 1.6 miles and Mayberry Trading Post is about 2.8 miles south on the Blue Ridge Parkway.)

There was sort of a legend in our family which I never actually heard from Grandma's lips and which I seem to have heard somewhere about someone else, but, true or false, it was a beautiful story because it sort of made a heroine out of our grandmother.

It seems that my grandfather Pendleton was at home on furlough from the Confederate Army when a small detachment of Yankee soldiers came through, probably as scavengers.

Grandma hid Grandpa in a closet and propped her straight chair against the door. When two of the Yankees came in, she sat there knitting away while the Yankee officer questioned her.

We liked to think he knew there was someone in that closet but was too polite to ask Grandma to move. Or maybe my grandma reminded him a little of his wife back home. At any rate, the Yankees said goodbye and were never seen again.