Pat Beaver1
Dr. Pat Beaver spent the first ten years of her life living at the Enka Village. Her father worked for the American Enka Corporation and wanted to move the family closer. Dr. Beaver eventually went to Duke University where she completed her Bachelor’s and began a Ph.D. Once she completed that program, she moved Boone to be a professor within the Anthropology Department at Appalachian State University where she taught for 40 years. This is a full, verbatim transcript of the author’s interview with Dr. Pat Beaver. You can listen to the audio above and/or read the transcript listed below. Additional information in brackets provided by Dr. Beaver post-interview.
Transcript:
0:20 Lauren: Well, let’s go ahead and get started here. What’s your first and last name?
Pat Beaver: I’m Patricia Beaver.
Lauren: If you’re comfortable, could you give the year you were born?
Pat: 1948, September 1948.
Lauren: Okay, thank you. And could you just give me a short biography, about growing up, anything that you want to say really.
0:47 Pat: Okay, so I was born in 1948. My family was living on Mace Avenue in Asheville. And then they moved to Enka the next year in 1949. And we lived there for about 10 years, and then we moved into West Asheville to Malvern Hills. And I went to school then at Hall Fletcher and Lee Edwards High School, graduated from high school in ‘66, and then went to Duke University and was there for four years, got my BA in 1970, and then started on the PhD program there as well. I finished my coursework after two years and was working on a dissertation and needed work, needed a job, so my first teaching job was at North Carolina State. And then I got a GA [graduate assistant] position at Duke and taught there for the next year, and then went on the job market.
So there was a position open at Appalachian State University. I got that position and we moved to Boone in 1974. And I finished my dissertation in ‘76 and so then was on a 10 year line. I taught at Appalachian for 40 years, was in the anthropology department and then I was chair of the department off and on. I then was a founding director of the Center for Appalachian Studies there about ‘78/‘79, and then went to China in ‘83/‘84, because ASU had opened this China program and I went “ahhh!!” [Pat then became involved in the Appalachian Land Ownership Study, the founding of the Appalachian Studies Association, and an MA in the Appalachian Studies program.] You know, I’d never been anywhere [internationally] and I meant to because I had really originally trained as a West Africanist. I mean, it doesn’t have anything to do with China, but you know I was excited to go someplace far up and exotic on the other side of the world.
Meanwhile I got married in ‘73 to Bob White, also known as Quail, a musician, and so we moved to Boone together, and then our first child, Kate was born in 1980. So we went to China in ‘83/’84 with our little daughter who turned 4 in China. Came back and I kind of directed Asian Studies, ‘till about 1990/’91. [She became Chair of the Anthropology Department.] And we went back to China, because my husband had gotten very involved in Chinese studies and had gone back to school and did graduate work at Duke in Chinese history. And so we went back to China in 19 90/’91.
Two daughters, our daughter Susannah was born in ‘85, and then came back to Boone, and I started thinking about looking at Appalachia in a different way. I had done my dissertation research on Appalachia. I started thinking about diversity and class and collaborative research and participatory research and so started doing new work and particularly in Asheville on the African American and the Jewish communities in Asheville. And then later got involved in work locally [around Boone] and collaborative work, and kind of spent the next decade working on North Fork of the New River/Headwaters areas and kind of finished my career doing so [Her last project was a film with filmmaker Tom Hansell called After Coal, looking at coal decline in Wales and Appalachia and globally]. I retired a few years ago and I’m trying to think when but anyway [at the end of 2014].
Since I retired, I’ve been doing some writing. I did a book/memoir project on a woman in Tanzania, actually. So I did get to Africa but I got East Africa, instead of West and that was a fascinating project and it sort of involved Greece and England and in the turn of the century, 19th century feminism and stuff like that. So that’s been kind of the latest project and I’m working on my own family stories now. And gardening. And putting up apples.
Lauren: Well that sounds fun.
Pat: Yeah. And we also have three grandchildren now.
Lauren: So you said you were born in 1948. And so, you weren’t born over at Enka, but your family later moved there. Just tell me a little bit about that…moving there.
Pat: Should I talk about my father’s work there?
Lauren: Yes!
6:13 Pat: Alright, so my father was from Asheville, graduated from high school, from what was Asheville High or Lee Edwards, in 1930, and he immediately upon graduation went to work for Enka. And he was hired in the chemistry lab as a lab assistant by his high school teacher, who had taught chemistry, and then gone to Enka.
So he was hired inward, so that was kind of interesting. So he started right out of high school. But he had kind of grown up in the First Baptist Church, and his Sunday school teacher was George Pennell who was a judge in Asheville and Judge Pennell helped him to get a $50 tuition scholarship to go to Wake Forest, and I’ve got my notes here throughout. And so he went to Wake Forest at 32/33 [correction: Pat’s father attended Wake Forest in 1932/1933]. And then he didn’t have any more money so he went back to Enka. He had gotten a leave of absence from Mr. Vanderhoover, who was the Secretary at Enka to go off to college and come back. So he went back to Enka. And then, World War II started/broke out. He got his draft notice, he said “notice number 504” (I interviewed him about this at one point). And so he was sworn in, he was eager of course, to go to war, and he was sworn in on April 13, 1941. So he went off to war [while stationed at Fort Benning, Georgia met] and married my mother [from Macon]. They had a child [Pat’s sister Scott, in 1943, before he was shipped out to France and Germany].
He came back to Enka after the war. And he said, then from January to September, I guess it would have been 1940. No, I’m sorry, ‘46. He said he agonized about college, and he finally decided to go back to Wake Forest, and went on the GI Bill. So they went to Wake Forest and he earned in a two year period a B.S. in Chemistry and in 1948 went back to Enka. And I think he always wanted to do that. He was [then] Technical Supervisor and Assistant Superintendent in rayon finishing, and later in rayon chemical and spinning. So that’s why we all moved to Enka. He wanted to work at Enka. They had bought a house and he wanted to live in the Village. And somebody said it was $25 a month except after they moved it went up to $35. Anyway, that’s what took us there, he wanted to be in the village.
Lauren: So your dad moved there, right before you were born..? Or year after?
Pat; Year after, yeah, so 1949.
Lauren: So you were pretty young when they moved. So, you live there for 10 years. What was your life like growing up there? I mean that’s, you know, most of your childhood. So I guess what did you do, what was it like?
10:19 Pat: Oh, it was wonderful. We had what I see now was probably a little house. Two bedrooms and a dining room [in addition, a kitchen, bath, and basement where the furnace was located and Pat’s mother did the ironing]. I shared a bedroom with my older sister Scott is five years older. And, you know, she had a very different cultural world because there’s a big gap [in ages between us] and then she was double promoted one year and then somehow ended up graduating from high school at 16. So there’s a big gap between us.
But the house had a sidewalk that went down beside it. And then, I mean it was, it was up above the road, . . .9 Crescent Street was the address. And it was a small square brick house, and then behind it was an enormous yard with a flower bed and then it went to the edge [back] of the yard where there was a big Mimosa tree. And I remember having a circus in that tree at one point and everybody and all the kids in the neighborhood, my sister had orchestrated that… she’s a great organizer. And, you know, everybody had costumes and they were in the tree and there were was a monkey bar there so there were all kinds of circus acts. Later my father, who had a lot of allergies, decided that Mimosa had to go, so we cut the tree down, very sad, but we still had a swing set in the backyard [at the back].
But then it went down, there was a kind of a gully that went down, it was a great place for digging holes, I remember great big holes. And then you go back up and it was all woods, woods went all the way. And I was thinking it was part of the Pisgah National Forest. But now I look at the maps and it’s [a] subdivision so I’m not sure how that all works. But it was all woods [then]. And then, the houses going up the [her family’s side of Crescent] street all had backyards that adjoined each other. You go to all the houses by going on the street in the front and going up the sidewalk and going around, or you could go up through the backyards [Pat’s house had a walkway that ran beside and behind it].
I remember getting a tricycle when I was really young, and then my sister and I both remember this, I got on the tricycle and rolled down the sidewalk, down the basement stairs. So that was my first crash and I had a scooter, which was kind of a wonderful thing. And I remember running into the garbage cans there with roller skates. If you would go up Crescent Street, it forked at the top. And there was, I think, Oak [Street], went to the right and Pine went to the left. And in the middle was a big flat spot. And that was a fantastic place for going up, and riding your bicycle round and round and round in circles, or at night, all the children would gather and play dodgeball [or kick the can] and I remember doing that, under the street lights at night until my sister would make me go home. That was time, it was dark. You could go on up, and I think it was Oak, which was the right fork (kind of a flat space for a while), and then a [big] hill. So I learned you could go up there and roller skate cross wise, you know, down, across, the very brave would come flying down, straight down. But we did criss-cross, and then I also learned to ride my bicycle. We’d go on the sidewalk and then you ge down the street, up there.
I have a friend who lived in a house up there so I would go to her house and see her sometimes and she would come down to mine. And we would play dolls and talk about books and things we read and she made me terrified of black widow spiders. She told stories about black widow spiders and I suspect it was probably her mother’s cautionary tale to keep her out of the basement or something, I don’t know. But anyway, so I learned about terror from her. And then there was also a friend who lived down the street and across [Crescent Street] who I went and played with a lot. She was my age. And her little sister had had polio, which, we were the first generation coming out, getting the first vaccines and stuff. But then she [the little sister] had a leg brace and would kind of race down the hill, [skip skip step, skip skip step] didn’t slow her down one bit. So, we had tricycles, bicycles, skates… we played hide and seek, there were just always lots of children around.
Lauren: I can imagine, living there. This isn’t really much of a question but I guess, living in a neighborhood full of other people that are working there, you’re going to be surrounded by all these other kids, you know the kids of the families that worked there. So I can see how that would make sense.
16:25 Pat: Yeah. And I was thinking, to the right of us or right above us was a two story house. And there was a family that lived there, the Mauneys, and he was a minister, I assume at the Baptist Church at the foot of the hill. [Mrs. Mauney used the word “Mizres” for Mrs. that Pat thought was very funny]. So if you go down to the Sand Hill Road, I think there were garages where our fathers and mothers parked their cars. And then, oh no, and then there was the Baptist Church there, at the bottom. And so I think he was probably minister there and then they moved away to… somewhere, and I visited. They had a daughter, Rachel, who was a year older than me, and I would go down and visit them-sort of south of Charlotte somewhere. And then another family came and moved in, the Rotans, and their daughter was close to my sister. And then of course right across the street was another two story house, and that’s where the Whisnants live. [Below us was a small house where the Keelons lived. Their son Jimmy was my sister’s age and Tommy was my age. Mrs. Keelon would stand on her back stoop and holler, “Jimmmeeee, Tommmeeee!” her voice rising in the eee. After we moved away, Tommy died of leukemia and Daddy took me to Sand Hills Baptist Church for his funeral (my mother and sister were out of town), the only time I remember being in that church.]
Lauren: Oh, right.
17:45 Pat: Yes. Yeah, so, Johnny was my sister’s age. And then, David, Richard, and Norman, [were the] older brothers and they didn’t have anything to do with us [little kids]. [Below them were the Huntsingers, children Bunny and Sissy, who lived in a small house like Pat’s, but they had a dirt front yard, she believes.] And then at the bottom of that hill, Crescent Street, if you’re facing it on the left, was a park. And I don’t remember going there a lot. But I know there were swings, and I remember being there and maybe building a snowman and something like that.
Lauren: So I know they had Enka Lake. Did you go there much?
Pat: Oh yeah! We lived there in the summer. Yeah. It was the Lake Club.
Lauren: Uh huh.
18:36 Pat: But my mother would pack a picnic and we would just kind of go for the day and stay. And there would be other families, other mothers and children. She didn’t do any public work, what I call “public work”, until I was really in junior high school or high school. She was a full time homemaker and a big time volunteer and organizer and house painter and decorator. She did everything. But we would go to Enka Lake Club and just kind of stay all day. I learned to swim there. You know, it was a great achievement when you could go beyond the rope and, you know, get out to the end. There was a long wooden deck that went out, that ran out. There was kind of a lawn and big trees and then a sandy place, and maybe some little [white wooden] bathhouses and I don’t know who those were for because we always changed underneath the clubhouse. There was a big room, changing room, showers, bathroom, all that kind of stuff. And so, we used that but then you would go out on the dock. And then further out was some kind of a raft or float. So we spent a lot of time there in the summer, as I recall.
Lauren: So the Enka Lake Club, the structure that’s there now I know belongs to Biltmore, but was that like just a clubhouse? Or, I don’t know if you know much about that lake house or anything.
20:22 Pat: Well, I think I went to either a kindergarten or a pre K, I mean, pre first grade, some kind of a program there in that building. I remember going in and I was thinking it was on the ground floor on the left. I wish that I had asked my mother about that one but I assumed it was sponsored by Enka. They had a kindergarten type program. And then upstairs, and I don’t recall going in there [upstairs to the main floor] until I was much older. Because my mother, light years later when I was in junior high school and high school and then on, organized some wedding receptions for friends [friends’ daughters]. I mean it was a nice facility, and it must have been, I think, like a big, open room. And then a [wide] patio out back. I don’t remember it from my early years, but it was there, you know the building was there. There was big lawns all around. And when I was in probably high school, I took painting classes at the YWCA from a woman named Pearl Sheldrick. And we went out there [for] plein air painting. So I remember the clubhouse being there and right there being, you know, beautiful lawns and it’s kind of part of that memory that’s vague that comes up in dreams [every now and then] every day. It was a pretty wonderful place.
Pat: What about other services?
Lauren: Yeah, if you could talk about that. I mean, you said that you rented your house so how did that work? What other things did they provide? I mean obviously they had the lake, you know, but what other things?
23:04 Pat: Well, I think with the house, I was trying to figure this out. You know, being 10 years old when we moved up I didn’t know. But I assume, there was probably garbage pickup. I’m assuming there was water, power, or electricity, sewage and we had an oil furnace. And so I don’t know who bought the oil, if they just filled everybody’s oil tanks. I don’t know exactly how that worked. The other services that the company provided was a gym or some kind of a big facility where there were dances, or square dances, and I remember going down there on the weekend, and being in a great big circle dance and really learned how to square dance down here, and they would have a caller and you know, lots of people and the steps. And David [Whisnant] remembers more about that if you’re talking to him. But there was also a health clinic of some sort. I remember getting stitches there, you know once or twice. And my sister remembers going and getting a typhoid shot every year before we could go swimming.
Lauren: Interesting…
Pat: I know! And she said, “oh yeah, we would get to this health clinic”! So I went to probably kindergarten, you were asking… do you want me to keep going?
Lauren: Yeah, no, that’s fine. Well, whatever you want to say about that.
25:08 Pat: Oh another thing. There was a fire department, and I don’t know if it was a plant fire department or for the community, but I remember the fire bell or whistle, whatever it was, going off. And people would run out, you know, pop in their cars and [or] run down the street. I was thinking that Mr. Whisnant was one of those people who responded to fires but it may not. I feel like somebody did in that neighborhood, and it could be it was a volunteer fire department or I just don’t have any idea. It’s just fire service.
Lauren: You know, you mentioned that you went to school. So was that run by Enka, where was the school, or how was it run?
26:11 Pat: Yeah, it was just part of the public school system for the county. But my mother on the other hand, was very particular and my sister, who again is five years older, really bore the brunt of her deciding, oh, you will go here for the first grade because there’s this really great teacher. So she went to Catholic School for first grade, and then went on to Sand Hills. And by the time I came along, she put me in Vance [City] School for the first grade. And then Sand Hills for second through fourth and by that time we moved in the fourth grade. There was a county [school] bus that, I guess was a county bus, but we would get the bus to and from Sand Hill School, and it would pick us up at the top [of Crescent Street], that V, at the top of the street. You know, at the top of Crescent. I don’t have many recollections of actually that trip. I have a vivid memory of being on the bus one time when it was going up Oak [correction: Orchard Street; ran parallel to Crescent Street], and two dogs were playing on the side and rolled under the bus. And I just thought, and you know, it was just one of those things that happened when I was in like second or third grade. I never forgot it. So I remember the bus route because it went up Orchard, and then across and down Pine [Street]. And then it would stop there and then let everybody off and then probably had back on that street. Okay, so we had the public, you know, the county bus. But I also vividly remember running for the bus [after school] one day, falling. I think I was in the third grade, really, you know, messing up my knee and it was all torn and, you know, ‘cause if you fall on cinders, and everybody all had dresses, girls didn’t wear pants for years.
And I’m hobbling back into the classroom. And my teacher helping me call my mother to come get me, and I think that’s where I went to the clinic and got stitches probably. Again. But then when my mother put us in public school, she just orchestrated ways that we would walk, pick up the bus so I went to Vance Elementary School. And then would walk down a path, a dirt road through the woods, and onto Sand Hill Road, and the public bus would come by there and pick us up, carry us out and it went on all the way down to the foot of [Crescent Street] the hill at Enka. I hated that and I only did it a few times. I don’t know how I got out of it but…
Lauren: So, I guess you probably would know, did most of the students that were children of people working at Enka, did most of them go to that school or…?
Pat: Yeah, there’d be a whole crowd that would get on and whole crowd that would get off.
Lauren: So while it wasn’t a company school, a lot of the students went there.
Pat: It [the county schools] served all of the village area. And then the school that would follow would’ve been Enka High.
Lauren: So, you mentioned the baptist church. So I guess churches were also run separately then, they weren’t necessarily part of Enka?
Pat: I guess, but I don’t know why the minister lived in the village. I don’t know how that worked. I just assumed…everybody else worked at Enka. There must have been some kind of affiliation or something.
Lauren: Interesting.
31:10 Pat: Right. And my father grew up at First Baptist, which is you know, way across town. I guess when I was born, my mother started going to West Asheville Baptist because it was easy to get to and got very involved in that church. And then she would take the bus from Enka to the church, or they would take the bus. I don’t know, she was talking about taking the bus. She did a lot of volunteer work and taught Sunday School and stuff and then finally, at some point they decided to rejoin First Baptist. So, the rest of their lives were spent at First Baptist and that’s where I grew up, I mean, that’s what I remember growing up at.
Lauren: Right.
Pat: And they were both very active in the church and they both taught Sunday School and my father was a deacon and then he was a life deacon and then my mother became a deacon when they started letting women. You know, when they had the flip of the Southern Baptist Convention. First Baptist became part of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship and started ordaining women and so she was a life deacon as well.
Lauren: So they were pretty involved in all of that.
Pat: Yeah. At my mother’s memorial service, I said, you know, she made curtains everywhere she went, you know she made curtains for West Asheville Baptist, for First Baptist, for all our friends, for her family, all of my curtains. So she was very actively involved in that. She made everything we wore.
Lauren: What was a typical workday like if you know anything about that?
33:30 Pat: I know that my father left early. And I don’t know if he walked to work or just walked to the car and drove to work, but he left early and then he came home for supper. And that’s what I know about the work day. So you know, and then he came back. Monday through Friday and then we had holidays. So I don’t know much. Although, when I was probably in second or third grade we had a field trip [to Enka]. And he was our guide. So he gave us a tour of the, I guess it was the nylon plant. They showed us how they made nylon and we all had these little samples and I had, you know, a little bit of a sense of what he did. Then, later, in, let’s see, I think it was 1963 [moved] from being in, you know, in the rayon lab to labor relations. So from then on, till his retirement in ‘76 he was in labor relations and so there was more times of higher stress. I know he had a lot of new stuff to learn and then he ended up teaching part time as well at AB Tech. He was taking classes and then also was teaching some. And during times of labor negotiations, there was a lot more stress and a lot more time that he spent involved with all the discussions. I think other times of high points for me in the early years, were when there would be floods. Because Hominy Creek would flood and then everybody was on high alert and they would go in and try to get pumps going and worry about the creek flooding the plant. That was very exciting to drive [to see] in the floodwaters. As we all do still.
Lauren: So I read yesterday that Enka was taken over by the War Department in 1945. Apparently the workers went on strike for 11 days and then they ignored requests, according to the newspaper articles I read, they ignored requests to go back to work. So President Roosevelt signed an approval or, you know, approved, the Secretary of War to take Enka over since they were producing stuff for the war effort.
Pat: Yeah, they were considered an essential industry. Yeah, no, I didn’t know that. Well, that was before his time.
Lauren: Right. I thought I would let you know that.
Pat: Okay, so here are my scissors.
Lauren: Oh wow.
37:19 Pat: I grew up, having lots and lots and lots of [these little scissors], I mean had these were sort of all with us, all the time. They’re really nice scissors, and they were used in the spinning room. Most of the women were working there and they would clip threads and clip ends and that kind of stuff. My husband was explaining, you’d have one in this pocket and you’d have one in these pockets, you’d always have these little scissors. So we had lots of those. And I just assumed everybody had these great little scissors. And what a surprise, they don’t. And then when my mother died, there were 10 pairs still left and I was so excited so my children all have these great little scissors.
So, I also grew up with these great big balls [of nylon thread] that were on a spindle of nylon thread, that would be, you know, this big around [gestures about 8″]. They were pretty substantial, and they were always there. And those were nylon thread. Daddy would bring one home and then we would have it, You know, it’d last two years, but everything was tied. You know, every toy, every package, anytime you needed string, it was there. And so it was a real shock to me to [leave] have my own house and realize, oh you have to buy string! Oh my God! And it’s also string that doesn’t slide because you know you’d have to be really, really careful with nylon string. Another thing that we had as part of the household, always, were these blue tubes and I think they were, I don’t know what they were, but they were long, blue, knit, you know, nylon tubes of whether that was the beginning of something or the end of something, I never knew to ask. But you know, a small child could slide into one of these things, wiggle, wriggle into, and be a snake. And then, you know, later, as we got a little bit bigger, you’d have one person on one and and one of the other is a sort of an elegant evening dress. So we had these blue tubes that we grew up [playing dress up] with, and I don’t know what happened to them but that was part of the mistake of the childhood.
Lauren: I guess that kind of moves me into one of my last questions, how do you feel like your upbringing there affected your life? You got kind of both experiences in a way, living in a mill village but then also moving out of it so what was that like and how has that affected you?
40:28 Pat: Well, we had a very close family. But I would say, growing up there, there was a great deal of freedom for a kid. You would just go out the door and play here and then you go into the woods and come back and then you go up the street and there were children to play with.
My sister remembers that there was the neighborhood that we lived in, but then you go through the woods to another street, and I was looking to try to find the name of that. And we had friends that lived up there, but it was about halfway between where we were in the Village and it was higher uphill and it had bigger houses. All of them were two story houses. And we had friends who lived up there. I remember walking up there with a girlfriend my age and I had to be probably, third grade, by myself after school. And just, kind of walk them through the woods, on this path through the woods, the road through the woods. And… sorry, got a phone ringing. Let me make it go away. You can’t hear that right? Let me turn this off. But my sister remembers going up there and there being a place in the words where they built forts. And she said they called it a Magic Castle. You know, you built a fortress in the woods. I think all over the place, more freedom for children in my generation, to kind of come and go and make a mess somewhere and dig a hole, dig holes and make arts. So I would say that I had freedom to stretch and grow and I also had a similar kind of freedom in the neighborhood we moved into.
But anyway, I thought it was quite good. There were several things about that other neighborhood. I was sort of aware of class, or, you know, bigger houses. We had friends who lived up there and they got the first tv. So they wanted us to come up and watch tv and we didn’t get tv until much later. But we were avid radio fans. And my sister was allowed to stay up late and listen to the Firestone Theater, which had introductions to opera and that kind of stuff and she could do that because she was studying piano. So, let me see if there are other little things. I was just thinking about, I have started creating a map of all the people, the places, people who lived where and what they did. But one other thing is that freedom… I got my first bicycle when I was probably in the first grade for Christmas, one year. I went up to the top of the street and rode along and crashed. And by, you know, probably eight o’clock, I was back home with a badly sprained ankles soaking it in Epsom salts, which is kind of what they did. And then that brought up chicken pox, which was coming on, but mother always thought that you know soaking it in the nice warm Epsom salts [brought on the Chicken Pox]. Anyway, another vivid [Christmas] memory. And my parents would have a big Christmas party on Christmas evening. We’d have Christmas in the morning and we’d clean all up for it and then she’d have a big Christmas party. I think she started doing that when we were at Enka. We’ve got pictures of families who came out. And she did this for years… a baked spaghetti casserole she could make ahead, big old salad and then, and then people would fix ice cream sundaes. So she would have this party on Christmas night, and that was always great fun.
Lauren: That actually brings me to one of my other questions. So, I know, Enka was settled, or was created by a Dutch company and you know workers came over to teach people here.
Did you feel the presence of the Dutch workers, like you know that Dutch, that side, I guess, side of things or I don’t know how to say it.
46:03 Pat: I know what you’re saying, and no, the answer is actually no. There were a few names that I heard, like Van Scherpenzeel. There was the person who signed off on my father’s [draft notice], Vanderhoover. I knew those names and I would hear them occasionally, but my awareness of it [the Dutch people] is going to Enka Lake Club and across the road, overlooking the lake were all these big houses. Big houses of the Dutch people. I felt like they were probably very much to themselves. I remember, on occasion, being at the lake club, packing up to leave, getting all our stuff together and our bathing suits and our wet towels and all the trash and picking up as we’re leaving at five, there would be Dutch people coming across the street to go swimming, you know, after the riff raff were gone. That was all I knew, I mean, that might have been kind of a made up story, I don’t know. I had no sense I knew it was Dutch and that’s about it.
Lauren: Sorry, this is slightly going back to something else you said. So you had mentioned the gym earlier and I know that there were sports teams and things like that. Was that gym for some of those sports teams or was that more of just like a recreational place for people to come and hang out or I guess, play.
Lauren: Sorry, this is slightly going back to something else you said. So you had mentioned the gym earlier and I know that there were sports teams and things like that. Was that gym for some of those sports teams or was that more of just like a recreational place for people to come and hang out or I guess, play?
Pat: I have no idea. You know, my youthful memorie is of a real big, standard gym that probably had basketball goals. And then what I’ve read is about other sports teams but I didn’t personally experience that. Yeah. I just remember dodgeball, and then in the road/street.
Lauren: Okay then.
Pat: Yeah, right. Dramatic moments.
Lauren: Any other stories, or anything else that you want to add? I mean, I think I’ve asked everything that I want to know about, but if there’s anything else that you want to talk about…
48:54 Pat: Well, so the Enka Village, you know the two streets [Crescent and Orchard] went up. And at the bottom of the [Crescent] street on down a little bit, there was a Baptist Church and there was a parking garage. And then on beyond that was the Post Office, and next to it was a drug store and the drugstore had the best ice cream in the world. And they had the best vanilla ice cream, and I don’t know what it was, it was unbelievable. And I remember the Post Office, because I was in the car one time with my parent, I don’t know, my mother or my father, and that parent hopped out, went in the Post Office, I hopped out, went in behind, I think it was my mother. I thought she knew I was behind her, she didn’t, she let the door slam and it hit me in the face and cracked my tooth. And so I had a little notch out on my front tooth for awhile [years]. So that’s kind of my vivid memory of the Post Office.
But the drugstore was a great thing. And I think there was maybe a bus stop there that might have had a little brick cover that was at the foot of the hill, and you could walk up that hill [path through the woods], it would take you to that second layer [of houses] that I was trying to remember the street name of. But my father had friendships that had really come from Wake Forest when he was a freshman, I think Ted Patton was there, the Pattons lived in that other [higher] neighborhood. He came to work at Enka. And then they moved to the Morristown Plant. And I would go visit them. They had a daughter, Marilyn who was about my age, a little younger and I would take I think, the train to Morristown and get off and stay with them for a week at whatever the plant was over there. And then there was another family that he was very close to… The Moores, and Ernest Moore had been also at Wake Forest with Daddy, and then he came back, lived in a boarding house, and they would carpool before my father was married, I guess. They would carpool to Enka and then later they moved into the village. And then we moved into the village right after them. And my mother and Mrs. Melba Moore were best friends forever and they had a son Bruce who’s nine days younger than me.
Lauren: Oh wow.
Pat: Yeah, and so we were very close to them. And that friendship extended to the church. And then they moved to West Asheville eventually, I mean, to Malvern Hills and then we moved into the same neighborhood. And so there were these kind of long term friendships anyway, that’s a few things. There was also a family, the Robinsons, who lived kind of up the street, and I think to the left. And there was Bob, Vernita and their children. And their youngest son was kind of a devilish person. He was a little younger than me, but he’s the one who came down and sort of attacked my rockinghorse. Well, killed it. And I remember riding down the road down Sand Hill Road in the backseat of their car, probably standing up, and their son, opened the door and fell out on the road and that was in the days before we had seat belts. But he was okay. And I thought about a lot of times, you know, I have a lot of memories of being in the car in the middle, standing up, with no seat belt. They ended up moving away, because he [Bob] went in with a brother in Maryland in construction, and they then built some kind of big subdivision up there and made lots and lots and lots of money and so they kind of moved into a different world that way. So really kind of interesting. And I guess you’ve look at David’s work, David Whisnant. He’ll have kind of a different perspective.
Lauren: Yeah, no, definitely. But your perspective has been very helpful. I knew you wouldn’t know everything because you were a kid then but all of this has been very helpful.
Pat: Yeah and it’s been helpful to me to look and find these things.
Lauren: I’m sure… and relive those memories.
Pat: Yeah, and it’s always an honor to have somebody ask me about my childhood.
Lauren: Well yeah, it’s, it’s always fun to talk about that right?
Pat: Yeah. Well, if you think of something else, shoot me a line.
Lauren: Oh, absolutely. Yeah, I appreciate it.
Pat: And I’m excited for this project. And I’d love to see your web work when you get done, website, you’re doing a website or…?
Lauren: Yeah, so it’s not a traditional paper, I mean it’s going to have some of those elements and aspects, but I’m going to have some photos and maps and things like that so it’ll be a whole bunch of different elements, and then the text as well. So, yeah, but I will definitely send you a link once it’s done. My first draft is due next week but the final draft will be done in November. So, only a couple weeks away.
Pat: Good luck!
[A few things to add: After my father went into labor relations, we attended labor day picnics, huge affairs with lots of food and activities. I didn’t really enjoy them as I didn’t know anybody since we hadn’t lived in the Village for several years and I attended city schools. When he retired, my father was given a Labor Bible, with a labor index, “A listing of Occupations, Crafts, and Professions” with scripture references. My father was Charles E. Beaver, Jr. His papers are archived in the W.L Eury Collection Archives at Appalachian State University Belk library, including the Labor Bible and copies of Enka Voice in which he appears.]
