The Mail Box - May, 1983

Issue: May, 1983

Dear Readers,

Due to the large volume of mail we received this month, we have not been able to answer each one of you personally but we do want you to know that we read each letter you send and appreciate it from the bottom of our hearts. If the people who write us letters represent the people who read the Mountain Laurel, they are the nicest people in the whole world!

Thank you for writing and please keep sending letters to us. We do our best to answer as many as possible.

Susan Thigpen, Editor

Dear Editor,

Thank you very much for your complimentary copy of the Mountain Laurel. My husband and I thoroughly enjoyed the articles and the manner which they were written. It really took me back to my roots and a way of life I’ve been away from but have not forgotten. We are both natives of Carroll County but my mother grew up in Floyd and Patrick County. She knew just about everyone interviewed or mentioned. Her father James Burnette was a Primitive Baptist preacher, Delmon Nester. Some of the tales they tell about growing up in the depression are really amusing and heart breaking, so my parents can really relate to your paper. Enclosed is my subscription fee for a year and also for my parents. Thank you for such a novel idea in a newspaper. Keep up the good work.

Sincerely,

N.N. Reynolds
Winston-Salem, NC

Dear Editor,

Thank you for sending us a copy of the Mountain Laurel. Reading the paper brought back memories of times spent in Meadows of Dan. I could almost smell the apples that had fell off the old trees and started souring, or taste a peach off the old trees, or seen one of those breathtaking scenes in the fall. Everywhere you look is a living picture of life.

I’d give almost anything to take a walk along the Dam on a cool summer day.

We’ve spent many leisure hours at the Bent. We have never lived there so we never associate any day to day life’s worries with there.

The people there are like no other. They are friendly and helpful and most of all loving and caring. They become family. Now with the paper we will be able to take a mini trip back to peaceful times.

Thank you for including us.

C.B. Foster
Mendenhall, Ms.

Dear Editor,

We would like to thank you for offering such an interesting paper. We really enjoy reading about Virginia mountains and all the Goad’s in the area.

Our family has a summer home in Indian Valley and we are up there quite often. The books “A Man Who Moved A mountain” and the “Hillsville Courthouse Tragedy” are very fascinating to us. By spending so much time in the mountains, we can sympathize with the hardships of the mountain people.

Keep up the good work!

Sincerely,

Mr. and Mrs. D.R. Goad
Greensboro, NC

Dear Mr. and Mrs. Goad

If you enjoyed reading those two books, you might be interested to know there are several other books that have been written about this area. The Mayberry Trading Post has one of the best selections of these publications we are aware of. “Miss Addie” Wood is one of our advertisers and for more information about Mayberry Trading Post, please see her ad in this issue.

Good luck and good reading.

Susan Thigpen, Editor

Dear Editor,

Thank you for our complimentary copy of “The Mountain Laurel.” I am so excited about it that I went to share it with friends and relatives.

We have a place at Fancy Gap, Va. and I worked for two summers at Mabry Mill, where I learned to love the mountain people and have developed a real appreciation for them and their way of life. I truly hope they consider me one of them, because wherever I may go, a part of me is always in the Blue Ridge. We hope to retire there before too many years.

Best of luck to you on the staff of the Mountain Laurel. There is no doubt in my mind that your paper will be a success.

Sincerely,

Mrs. I. Harrison
Thomasville, NC

Dear Folks,

Soon I will be coming home to Patrick County again. One more year, we retire. We have a cabin in your beautiful Blue Ridge Mountains. After 37 years up in New York City - Bronx, we can’t wait to come back down south and live peacefully.

P.S. Mr. L. Burton was our lawyer years ago and we wish him well.

E. Pedrero
Bronx, NY

Dear Mountain Laurel,

I have not yet seen a copy of your paper, but have had glowing reports. As a genealogist, I am looking forward to the information I will get from it. As a native of Meadows of Dan, I am looking forward to the entertainment and enlightenment it will afford.

Sincerely,

V.R. Siegler
Fairfax, Va.

Dear Mt. Laurel,

Enclosed you’ll find a check for our first year’s subscription to your wonderful paper. Everyone who picks it up is fascinated. That wouldn’t be hard to believe except that we live in Orlando, Florida. It has such charm and interest. In reading your paper I find the attorney, Mr. Burton, who handled our land transaction there is an accomplished poet. Through your paper we have located through long distance, a well driller to put in our well and septic tank.

Thanking you in advance for many delightful hours we can expect in many issues.

Sincerely,

E.O. Gregg
Orlando, FL

Dear Editor,

Thanks for the free copy of the Mountain Laurel. We have read it over and over. I really like the column on wild flowers. We have a small place near Fancy Gap, Va. and I’m interested in all the wildflowers. The column on BACKROADS caught my eye too. That is one of our hobbies, to get on a different road and see where it leads us.

Thanks again for this opportunity to subscribe to the Mountain Laurel. Enclosed is my subscription.

Sincerely,

H.F. Warden
Yadkinville, NC