File #4271: "Transcription"
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Transcription
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Hubert Barb
Oral History of Bird Haven
Interviewed by Camille Weber
March 20, 2017
Location: Hubert Barb’s home
Edinburg, VA
Project: Bird Haven and the Shenandoah Community Workers Oral History
The Truban Archives Shenandoah County Library
WEBER: Cool, so we’re gonna go ahead and get started. I guess just start with your
name, birthday, where you’re from – basic information.
BARB: My name is Hubert Barb. I was born at Bird Haven. I’m 76 years old.
WEBER: So you’ve lived here your whole life?
BARB: Well, I worked up in Washington D.C. a while. I was in Vietnam. Then I worked
construction -- Highway and bridge construction.
Wife: In Charlottesville.
BARB: Out of Charlottesville until I retired.
WEBER: So you grew up living at Bird Haven
BARB: Bird Haven and Jerome.
WEBER: I guess just to start, can you just tell me what it was like living at Bird Haven?
BARB: Well, it was pretty…pretty tough. That was during the Depression; the end of the
Depression to the Second World War. I enjoyed it. My father owned the farm there below
the bird haven factory. And, um, that was nice. We lived right there on the creek and
we… He farmed and worked at Bird Haven. My mother worked at Bird Haven after the
hotel burned – or part of it burned. And, um, it was nice. I had to walk all the way out to
the road to catch the school bus. And one time I missed it. Likely froze to death.
WEBER: Oops, I’m sure you didn’t miss it again after that.
BARB: There was a creek crossing. You could drive a team of horses across, but you
couldn’t – there was no bridge or anything. There was a log laying across the creek that
we walked cross. And it was – I picked up the Montgomery catalog at the Post Office at
Bird haven and was walking home across the log and it had ice on it and I slipped off it
and into the water. But I didn’t get the catalog wet because Mum wouldn’t been terribly
upset if I got that catalog wet. We didn’t have much to do. The one place that I remember
real well was the old Dodge place.
WEBER: What was it?
BARB: It was a house. The Dodge family owned it, but I guess they all died out. There
was no one there. It was a part of Bird Haven and they stored all of the old toys and
puzzles in there. We got in there and threw that stuff all over the place. And they… we
probably wasted a fortune in homemade toys and puzzles. The other thing I remember
real well is that Bernie Clark had a Great Dane dog. Of course, we were small. That dog
was taller. I could walk underneath it. I was scared to death of that dog. But it never
bothered anyone. Then Richard’s family moved up there. They lived down there in the
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Frye place. I guess it was around ’48 somewhere around there. There wasn’t much to do,
except, work and play. We did a lot of playing and a lot of fishing. I remember the flood.
I believe it was ‘48. They had a flood that come up underneath the house. Richard and I
was out there on the back porch when the water come up under the porch. – trying to fish.
It was, of course, Mum was scared to death. She was the only one. Dad was off working
somewhere. He couldn’t get home. When he got home of course the flood was over with
then: everything that washed away or was going to wash away.
BARB: The other thing I remember real well is – we had a chicken house near the creek
and it froze over in the wintertime. We would go ice-skating on it. Of course we didn’t
have ice skates, we’d go in our shoes. And the ice broke and I fell in. Richard helped drag
me out.
WEBER: How old were you then?
REPEAT WEBER: How old were you?
BARH: I was probably 8 years old… 8 or 9.
WEBER: So how long did you live at Bird Haven?
BARB: Uh, I believe we left there in ’51, which would’ve made me 11 years old. I think
that’s close to the time.
WEBER: And you were born in the Peppermint House? Is that right?
BARB: I was born in the house down at the creek and below…. You know where the
lake is? You ever been down there?
WEBER: No
BARB: There’s a flood lake in below Bird Haven. Our house was right there, of course it
wasn’t built then. The dam was built after we left there years ago. It was… I was born in
that house in 1940. There was no doctor or anyone. One of my uncles went up to 717 and
got a midwife to come down and help deliver me.
WEBER: Did you learn about this from your parents?
BARB: Beg your pardon?
WEBER: Did you learn about this from your parents? They told you about this?
BARB: Yeah. Yeah.
WEBER: So, how did the Great Depression impact Bird Haven?
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BARB: Well, we didn’t even know there was a Depression because we didn’t have
anything to start with. We raised all of our food.
WEBER: Did you ever feel secluded from the nation because you were a close-knit
community?
BARB: I guess we did because it was a close-knit community. It was about all Barbs who
worked there at the toy factory. Most of it was packed and wrapped and shipped right
there from Bird Haven. There was a post office there. They wrapped it up and shipped it
off to the big cities like Washington, New York, Boston, and it went all over the eastern
United States.
WEBER: And did they ship toys, bowls, everything under the moon?
BARB: Yeah.
WEBER: Did you play a lot in the toy factory? What did you kinda do?
BARB: I was there, around the toy factory a lot. We didn’t play inside.
WEBER: Did you get to play with the toys and test them out?
BARB: No, we just played around there. But, we played at the Dodger place mostly
because we could get those toys and throw them away.
WEBER: And were those toys made in the factory?
BARB: Yeah. They made them in the factory and later on they got away from making
puzzles and toys to making little knick-knack type furniture.
WEBER: Why’d they change? Why do you think they changed?
BARB: I imagine it had a lot to do with Bernie Clark. He owned everything around there.
And he was a governor of Connecticut who moved down here at the insistence of his wife
who was, she was a daughter of a judge up at Harrisonburg. And she had one son, which
wasn’t Bernie’s, which was a judge’s – John Paul. She was the one that had the money. It
was a real thriving business while Bernie lived, but after Bernie passed way it kind of
went down hill because no one was managing it like it needed to be managed.
WEBER: Had your family moved away already, when Bernie passed?
BARB: Yes.
WEBER: So, it was after ’51.
BARB: Yeah.
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WEBER: So, your mom worked at the hotel. What was that? What was the hotel: The
Alum Springs hotel?
BARB: That hotel is no longer there, but it was up until, it must’ve been 20 years ago
obviously destroyed the rest of it. It was a thriving hotel at one time.
WEBER: Did a lot of tourists come?
BARB: A lot of what?
WEBER: Tourists: People from out of town?
BARB: Yeah.
WEBER: Why did they visit? For the mountains?
BARB: The water.
WEBER: The mineral water?
BARB: Yeah, it had arsenic in it, which wasn’t good. Although they claim it was
medicinal type water, but I doubt that. It had a lot of water with iron, sulfur, manganese.
WEBER: Did you ever help at the hotel?
BARB: No, I was just a kid.
WEBER: What did your Dad do?
BARB: My Dad was a carpenter and cabinetmaker.
WEBER: At Bird Haven?
BARB: Yeah, at Bird Haven, but then he went into business for himself and it failed too.
After that we moved to Jerome. And he went in to cutting timber, but if I understand
right, that toy factory, Bird Haven factory, started in 1927 I think the date was. It
probably closed down about 1960 or ’61 somewhere in there.
WEBER: Do you know how it started?
BARB: Not exactly. I know it started as a community type thing. It was not built to make
a profit. It was just built to form what I understand was to promote forestry and forest
industry. You know, people drawed a salary and it was supposed to be a nonprofit.
WEBER: It helped keep the community going?
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BARB: Yeah, pretty tough times during the Depression.
WEBER: Did your parents help form Bird Haven?
BARB: They were involved, but not in any big way. They were just part of it, but it was
mostly Barbs. A lot of Barbs worked there. You know from Basye and Bird Haven. There
was only a couple families who lived on and in Bird Haven. It’s funny that we would’ve
had a post office, but what kept the post office going was the industry that Bird Haven
produced. I can remember one, I seen it on the Internet: a stamp that had Hitler on it
during the Second World War. Richard’s mother, Sarah, worked in the paint shop and she
did the painting. That’s probably what killed her. She had cancer. Those sprays that they
used to paint the furniture wasn’t very good for you. Whether they chose facemasks, if
they wanted to, but most of them even used the facemask and Richard’s father, he
worked there in the post office, where dad sorted in the post office too wrapping things to
ship out. But he also worked on the lot making furniture. He was really good at making
things.
WEBER: And your Dad too?
BARB: Yeah, my dad too.
WEBER: Did you learn from your Dad how to make things?
BARB: No, I never learned anything.
WEBER: Did you not want to?
BARB: I can’t remember what I really was interested in – mostly playing because I was
just a kid. We never got into the craft part of it, which I regret but it’s part of life.
WEBER: What was a typical day like? What did you guys play?
BARB: Well, in the summer we played there around the toy factory over at the old house
that they put all these old toys in. We played a lot there.
WEBER: Were there a lot of kids?
BARB: No, Richard and me.
WEBER: Anyone else?
BARB: I had another cousin, Hope Miller. He lived down here in Jerome but he spent a
lot of time with us and that was about the only three people we played with.
WEBER: You and Richard were really close?
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BARB: We were, then, very close.
WEBER: What was it like going to school so far away from where you lived? Did you
like it?
BARB: Yeah, I think I did. I had a schoolteacher at Mount Hermons where I first went to
school. She was the pastor’s wife. We were Lutherans and she taught school at Mount
Hermon. A circle was the teacher’s name; Miss Circle.
WEBER: What was your favorite subject in school?
BARB: Math. Math and science.
WEBER: Did you continue on with math and science?
BARB: Well, sort of. I never finished college. I went to George Washington University at
night. I was working for the FBI and went to school at night for a couple of years but I
never finished.
WEBER: How did you end up working for the FBI?
BARB: Recruitment. They recruited. They were asking for employees when I graduated.
I put in my application and after months they accepted me. I was planning on going to
VT and had been accepted, but we didn’t have any money and scholarship was unheard
of. So, I left to go work for the FBI and go to school at night because that was a big thing
for J Edgar Hoover to get young people to get a degree in accounting or law and become
an agent. He promoted that a lot, but for me it was hard trying to go to school and work 8
hours a day. I gave that up and decided to go in the army. I figured I was gonna be
drafted anyway.
WEBER: What year was that?
BARB: 1962, I believe when I went in the service.
WEBER: What did you do in the service?
BARB: I was in the Special Forces. I was a medic. That was my primary MOS. (Military
occupational specialty)
WEBER: And you served in Vietnam?
BARB: Yeah.
WEBER: For how long?
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BARB: It was 2 terms. I think it was 13 months when I got out. I decided I didn’t want to
go back.
WEBER: What was that like, serving in Vietnam? Were you prepared?
BARB: It was an experience.
WEBER: Did any values from Bird Haven help you? Anything you learned at Bird
Haven?
BARB: I was a survivor. I could live off the land. Of course just about anyone who come
out of the Depression in the rural areas learned how to survive because there wasn’t any
work other than Bird Haven.
WEBER: What at Bird Haven taught you how to live off the land? Did you hunt or fish?
BARB: Oh, yes. Hunting and fishing, fishing mainly. I love to fish. I don’t fish anymore,
but I loved it when I was young – trout fishing for brook trout. That stream up there used
to have many brook trout in it, but it doesn’t anymore. It’s not hardly a stream anymore.
The water table has dropped so much it doesn’t have much water in it, but it did then.
WEBER: Did you just fish with other kids?
BARB: Richard was about the only one. I fished with Hope some. He was only the
cousin. We kindly picked him up to spend the summer with us and we farmed. I didn’t do
much. One of the things that happened to me when I was small was I put a pea in my ear
and it sprouted. They sent me to Harrisonburg to have it removed. That was interesting.
WEBER: Why did you put a pea in your ear?
BARB: I don’t know, it’s what kids do.
WEBER: Did you ever go to Harrisonburg a lot when you were younger or stay in Bird
Haven mostly?
BARB: We stayed in Bird Haven. We go to Mount Jackson once a week. Moomaw had a
flatbed truck that he would haul everyone on that flat bed truck into Mount Jackson to see
a movie and we’d come back at night and that’s about it.
WEBER: Was that a special trip?
BARB: To me, it was. It was something to go to the movies. It cost 15 cents.
WEBER: These days movies are $12, no popcorn included.
(Laughs)
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WEBER: Popcorn is like $15.
BARB: Yeah, we went to see the movie Hacksaw Ridge. I got a bowl of popcorn and I
believe it was $25.
Wife: It was expensive.
BARB: I love popcorn. I don’t each much of it anymore, but I used to.
WEBER: So that was special?
BARB: Yeah.
WEBER: And you went in Harrisonburg? Where did you go see it?
BARB: Winchester.
Wife: Maybe 2 months ago.
BARB: When Hacksaw Ridge first come out; that was quite a movie.
WEBER: I saw it.
BARB: Did you see it?
WEBER: It’s a local story, well Lynchburg… so a Virginia story.
BARB: He’s from Nelson County.
WEBER: Had you heard that story before?
BARB: I heard the story, but I never paid much attention to it. I heard about him.
WEBER: Does WWII interest you? Do you like to study it? Read about it?
BARB: I read some about it, but I read about Vietnam more than anything.
WEBER: Because you served?
BARB: Yeah, it was a part of my life.
WEBER: Do you still keep in touch with people you went to Vietnam with?
BARB: No, I kindly tried to get away from it. I did communicate with a boy that I was
with. He’s retired. We both got out of the service at the same time, but he went back
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again and became an officer. He was a Major. He teaches at Appalachian State teachers
college in Asheville, NC. We did communicate a while there, but he wanted to talk about
things that I didn’t really want to talk about that much. And then there was one other guy
that was older than us who got out of the service at the same time. And, he signed up
with CIA and wanted me to go along, but I wasn’t interested going back in that area of
the world. I communicated with him for a while and then I don’t know what happened.
He probably got killed because he was in Laos as an undercover agent with “Usum”
team, which was supposed to furnish food and help items for the Laotian people, but they
had a lot of CIA agents mixed in with them. I imagine he probably got killed because I
lost communications with him and the last letter I wrote him came back, so there was no
return address.
WEBER: When you lived at Bird Haven, did you write any letters to people? Or were
most friends from the community?
BARB: Most friends were community. We were very local.
WEBER: Did you like that?
BARB: Yeah, it was nice. Nice and rural. It was kind of a carefree place. We didn’t have
anything and we didn’t know what it was to have a lot. It never really bothered us as kids.
I enjoyed it. When Dad lost the farm, which really bothered me a lot. He had mortgaged
the farm because he and another guy had a business and the other guy stole all of the
assets and left dad sticking with it so he lost the farm. $1500, which is nothing today, but
it was a lot of money back then when land only brought a couple dollars an acre in this
area.
WEBER: What did you do on the farm? Did you guys have animals?
BARB: We had chickens, hogs, a few cattle, raised corn and barley, wheat. But there
wasn’t much of a market for it, so we had to feed it to the animals there at the farm. We
sold very little of it because there wasn’t any market to amount to anything. Just about
every one was farming if they lived in a rural area.
WEBER: So you couldn’t sell it to the community because everyone was farming?
BARB: Traded. There wasn’t any money. We traded hams and eggs for things that we
needed like sugar. I can remember during the war, the ration stamps. Sugar rations, gas,
everything was rationed that was contributing to the Second World War and I tore up a
bunch of sugar stamps and that was very enlightening to me. I got a good wailing for it.
They didn’t mean that much to me, but they did to mom.
WEBER: Did Bird Haven contribute to the war effort like the Home front effort at all?
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BARB: I would say they did. The fact that you know they made things that weren’t sued
for the war but they were used to feed people like bowls and things like that. I don’t
know that they would’ve contributed much in any other way to the war effort.
WEBER: How did you get your news about what was going on? Did newspapers come
through the post office?
BARB: Mostly the radio.
WEBER: So, you had a radio?
BARB: Mhm. We didn’t have electricity, but we had our battery radio. Big one that set
up about that high. (Raises arm to hip height)
WEBER: Was it community radio?
BARB: No, it was ours.
WEBER: Did a lot of people come over to listen?
BARB: No, there weren’t a lot of people who lived around there. The Clarks and
Richard’s parents and mine was the only families that lived in Bird Haven. It was very
isolated and still is for that matter. There isn’t much there. The factory is still there, but
everything has been scrouged and people took away the old lays and things like that.
They’re all gone now. I’m hoping that eventually they’ll make that whole area into a
museum.
WEBER: To keep the story alive?
BARB: Yeah. The hotel is gone, so that history is gonna die other than what’s written and
recorded.
WEBER: Is your wife from the area?
BARB: She’s from Hudson Crossroads.
WEBER: How’d you meet?
BARB: At a dance.
Wife: Well, tell her the truth.
BARB: (Laughs)
Wife: Can I tell her? (Proceeds to talk) On the school bus, my hair was always real long
and naturally curly. He and his friends would wait until I was ready to sit down and then
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they’d pull it. You talk about being hurt, I turn around one time and smacked them both
upside the head and the school bus driver said, “Do it again. Get them,” because he knew
us all. The bus driver did. Remember that?
BARB: No.
Wife: I do.
WEBER: How old were you?
BARB: That would’ve been in high school.
WEBER: So you were long gone from Bird Haven?
BARB: Yeah.
WEBER: And then you started dating?
BARB: Not a whole lot. I didn’t date until I got out of high school. That wasn’t been on
my mind. I had to get up at 4:30 AM and milk cows, feed chickens and hogs before I got
ready for the school bus. There was a school bus down here but in Bird Haven there
wasn’t. You had to walk I guess about a mile or further to catch a school bus.
WEBER: So you got your exercise?
BARB: Oh, yeah. Plenty of that.
WEBER: Running through the woods?
BARB: Yeah, yeah.
WEBER: How long have you been married?
BARB: 53 years?
Wife: No. How many more?
BARB: 54?
Wife: Yeah, we’ll be 55 in…(Pause)
BARB: August.
WEBER: So you got married before you went to Vietnam?
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BARB: Just before I went to Vietnam. I got married in August and left for Vietnam in
October.
WEBER: Where did you get married?
BARB: Over at St. James Lutheran Church in Hudson Crossroads.
WEBER: Was there a church at Bird Haven?
BARB: No. Powder Springs. (Points at picture above head.) There’s the church I got
married in.
WEBER: It’s beautiful.
BARB: The nearest church to Bird Haven would’ve been Powder Springs and that was a
union Church. Three denominations went there: Lutherans, Reform, and I believe Church
of Christ, wasn’t it?
Wife: I think it was.
WEBER: Did you walk there?
BARB: Yeah. We didn’t have a car.
WEBER: No car?
BARB: Yeah, no car. Dad didn’t want us to use the wagon either with the horses. Some
people went to Church you know they take their horses in town to the hitchin’ rail. We
never did. We just walked.
WEBER: How has the area changed over the years? Has it changed much?
BARB: No. Bryce Mountain, which was part of our home place – that’s the biggest thing.
A lot of people live on Bryce Mountain, which wouldn’t have been there when I was
growin’ up. It’s more of a retirement area now. Pete Bryce bought the land and started
Bryce Mountain, which is not Bryce Mountain. It’s Cedar Ridge, but the name has
changed to Bryce Mountain. If you look on the USGS maps it’s still Cedar Ridge. It’s a
ski resort without snow. We don’t get much snow anymore. But back when I was
growing up we really got snow. I can still remember the snow drifting up in front of the
house up there it was 6 or 8 feet deep. We’d cave into it and build igloos in it. That was a
lot of fun. We didn’t have anything else to do in the middle of winter except go to school.
WEBER: Did that affect the factory at all? The snow? People could walk?
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BARB: Yeah, they walked. But, they considered that everyone around there was kindly
local. Back then to be a mile or two away from where you worked wasn’t that big of a
thing. You got up early in the morning and walked to work.
WEBER: So a lot of the people who worked in Bird Haven didn’t live at Bird Haven?
BARB: No.
WEBER: They walked?
BARB: They walked. And later on, some of them had cars, but a majority didn’t have
cars.
WEBER: When did your family get a car?
BARB: It must’ve been in the 50s. We had horses.
WEBER: Did you ever feel like you needed the car?
BARB: Not really. I did when I was in high school, but the first car I ever drove was a
Studebaker; a 1954 Studebaker.
WEBER: What was that like?
BARB: It was nice. I drove without a license. It wasn’t a big thing back then. There
wasn’t that much traffic.
WEBER: How’d you learn to drive?
BARB: The hard way – just driving. I never had no driver’s Ed or anything like that. But
driver Ed in school is a great thing I think. To get trained to drive.
WEBER: So, what’s this dance where you met your wife?
BARB: That was at Stony Creek dance hall down by the furnace.
WEBER: Was it part of the high school? Was it a high school event?
BARB: No. It didn’t have anything to do with the high school. It was just a place to
square dance or any other type of dancing. That was before rock n’ roll.
WEBER: And you asked her to dance? To square dance? Is that how you met?
BARB: I don’t remember.
Wife: Yes, it was.
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WEBER: Did you listen to music at Bird Haven?
BARB: Bluegrass. Of course it wasn’t called Bluegrass then.
WEBER: What was it called?
BARB: Music. (Laughs)
Wife: That’s what it was. They called it music.
BARB: We had that radio and it was battery operated and there were about 6 stations that
you could pull in on it. One was up in New York, one in West Virginia, and another in
Bristol, VA. I don’t remember the others but they were the big stations then. They played
what I call, it wasn’t country, it was more of a… (Pause)
Wife: Remember, Dad called it hillbilly music.
BARB: Yeah, I guess that’s what it’s called then. I love bluegrass. That’s my favorite
music. And rock n’ roll is alright.
WEBER: Did you ever play an instrument?
BARB: No, but I sure wish I would’ve learned, but I never did. I sang to the cows when I
was milking them by hand.
WEBER: Do you remember what you would sing?
BARB: I made up most of my songs. It was kindly rural, just whatever come to mind.
WEBER: Did they make instruments at Bird Haven? Guitars?
BARB: Not that I know of. I don’t’ remember any instruments that they made, but they
should have because although that area wasn’t near as musically inclined as on the Blue
Ridge Front, like Elkton and through that area, that’s where your real mountain music
comes from.
WEBER: Were there social events at Bird Haven?
BARB: I don’t remember any social events.
WEBER: Because it was mainly family?
(Nods yes)
WEBER: Did they have to work on weekends?
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BARB: I don’t remember them working on weekends, but I’m sure some of the guys like
Stuart and my Dad would mess around in there making things on their own.
WEBER: Did they sell things on their own?
BARB: No, no. It was all shipped out most of it. But later on after Bernie died, the boy
would take things up to New Market to sell them. He never shipped them out like he was
supposed to. That’s what the downfall was. He kept the money. It was on a downhill
trend.
WEBER: Had you already been gone after that?
BARB: Yeah. We left, probably ’51 I guess.
WEBER: But you kept in touch with people?
BARB: Oh yes, Richard, Stuart and the family. We go up there.
WEBER: Do you still keep in touch today?
BARB: Yeah, some. Richard was down here yesterday for 5 hours.
WEBER: Do you enjoy that?
BARB: Oh, yes. He’s a character.
WEBER: Did you enjoy growing up with him at Bird Haven?
BARB: Sure, yes. That was nice.
WEBER: Do you have a favorite memory with him?
BARB: I guess my most favorite memory was fishin’ off the porch with him during the
flood, we didn’t catch any because it was a flood and then the Dodge place – playing in
the Dodge place and destroying those toys.
WEBER: What’d it look like, the Dodge place?
BARB: It was a big frame house. The rural houses are. The Dodge family apparently was
a well to do family at one time that had a lot to do with Basye. I don’t know what
happened to them, they all died or didn’t have any males in the family because you don’t
hear of them anymore.
WEBER: Do you still have any of the toys from Bird Haven?
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BARB: Don’t have any toys, but I do have a couple of things I’d like to show you.
BARB: (Pulls out black and white print of Bird Haven Display House and Post Office)
BARB: That’s where they sold the stuff out of and this is the post office.
WEBER: Where did you live in relation to here?
BARB: About a half a mile down stream from there. There’s twenty of them made and
my family’s got seven of them.
WEBER: How come your family got 7?
BARB: We bought them. This is a box that the toys came in. That was the puzzle box.
The puzzle isn’t in it. This is one of the later pieces. I think that was a thimble box,
maybe.
WEBER: Was this a cheese board?
BARB: Yeah, probably.
WEBER: Plate.
BARB: The plate was my mother’s. That’s a burn on (Points at “Bird Haven” logo on
backside of plate). It’s an old one. If you look on the back it’s burnt – the stamp.
WEBER: What kind of stamp is that? (Points at plate with plastic stamp)
BARB: That’s got a plastic thing on it.
WEBER: So you never helped make the toys, though?
BARB: This I believe is what you laid your forks and stuff on.
WEBER: Do you still use these today?
BARB: No, I don’t use them.
WEBER: These are cool.
BARB: This is a knick-knack shelf and it’s burnt on in place.
WEBER: Wow, that’s somethin’.
BARB: Here are some of the toys.
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WEBER: So how did you get all of these?
BARB: We bought them. (Opens plastic bag of wooden toys: elephant and camel)
WEBER: How did you destroy these?
BARB: Throwing them around. Throwing them at each other.
WEBER: And they would just break?
BARB: Mhm. This was my grandmother’s. (Shows off bowl)
WEBER: Why did they switch from a burn on stamp to a stick stamp?
BARB: I don’t know why.
WEBER: Was it after you already left?
BARB: Yeah. This is a burnt stamp here.
WEBER: Do you know the wood?
BARB: Maple. The only three woods that I know that they used was maple, cherry, and
maybe some yellow pine was the only woods that they used. This was given to me by a
family down there – the McWilliams family. I gave them to my daughter. I’m not gonna
try to collect.
WEBER: Do you like to look at this stuff?
BARB: Oh yeah, I love to look at it. This is a nice piece. It’s not marked, but it’s Bird
Haven. We call it roundabouts. This is a nice piece, too. It’s not marked, but it’s Bird
Haven.
WEBER: You can tell because of the wood; so soft.
BARB: That’s in really good condition.
WEBER: Does this bring back good memories?
BARB: Oh yes, yeah.
WEBER: Do you look at this stuff a lot?
BARB: Yeah, once in a while. This here is one of my favorite items because I used to
throw them away. (Shows off puzzle box) The puzzle was in there made out of wood.
18
WEBER: Did you ever put the puzzles together?
BARB: Some, yeah but we threw them away then. These are the originals.
WEBER: This tells you what was in the water (Arsenic), but people still came?
BARB: Yeah, they didn’t know any better. And believe it or not, a case of water, half
gallons, with twelve in a case was $4, which is a lot of money I think.
WEBER: But today?
BARB: I imagine that water would be condemned now. It had arsenic in it. As near as I
can tell, they made gunpowder there during the civil war. You know where that’s at,
don’t you? If you come down Alum Springs Road this way on the left hand side is the old
furnace.
WEBER: We saw it. It’s beautiful, falling over. I like the stone.
BARB: If you go up the road a little bit, you go into Bird Haven.
WEBER: Toda, the gate is open. We’re going to try and go to see, but you have to stop at
the office.
BARB: I don’t even where the office is, but he’s restored most of those buildings. I’m
hoping he’ll make a museum out of it. These were tore down and replaced. (Points to
stairs on print) See, that one is signed and this one is signed here. I think this one is the
original. They called them artist proofs. This guy lives in Timberville.
WEBER: So did you ever spend time in there? (Bird Haven Display Home)
BARB: When I was a kid, but I haven’t been in it in years and years.
WEBER: Did you ever do any work at the post office?
BARB: I was in it, but that’s about it. They wouldn’t have let me do anything.
Wife: We moved from here for 48 years, remember we was in Charlottesville for 48
years and just home on weekends. That makes a difference when you’re here on
weekends only and not during the week because then you’re trying to do things with a
family. In Charlottesville for 48 years, so I think it’s hard to do stuff then because we
started to do ore things with family.
BARB: But, I remember the hotel was still standing or at least the 2. There were 3 parts
of the hotel, and one part burned down and that’s when they laid momma off. That hotel
stood there for years, I don’t know when it was tore down, but it may have been turned
into a chicken house for a while. It’s a shame it’s not still standing.
19
WEBER: Maybe they’ll rebuild a replica.
BARB: It’ll have to be Mr. Carr to do that.
WEBER: Who is that?
BARB: He’s the one that owns it: Alum Springs. He owns the factory
WEBER: How old is he?
BARB: You know, I don’t know I’ve never met him. He called me to tell me some
people up at JMU was gonna give me a call for an interview and I thought it was great.
Then I drove in there and I see he’s restored all of the buildings there at the factory. I
didn’t know if he’s got a road built down to the old house or not where we lived, but I
understand he’s restoring that house too. It was a log house; part of it was a log it wasn’t
all log. But interesting story about that was Dad had helped make some moonshine and
he had a half galloon jug of it and Mo Barb came down and helped Dad drink it and dad
put it away in one of the cabinets and the next day the Revenue Officer came in and
arrested him and took the whiskey and everything. And Mo who had helped him drink it
had turned him in to get the money because that was a big thing. You got money from the
government for turning people in who made moonshine. Of course dad hadn’t made it he
just helped make it. Bill Moomaw was the guy that was making it. He was quite a fella.
He had a thrashing machine to thrash grain and hew as a big farmer. He had a lot of
equipment to farm with and thrash. It was putting shocks then to thrash it out. Also, he
made pictures. The old camera that had the big, I don’t know if you’ve ever seen them,
they were about this long. He made pictures. Thrashed stuff. He was probably the only
thrashing machine in the country then. Maybe they had one over in McConicsville, I
don’t know.
WEBER: Was this while you were still at Bird Haven?
BARB: Yeah and after. He come down here and went all around Jerome and Bird Haven
to thrash the grain. He’d thrash it for shares of the gain to sell. And I had an Uncle
Gilbert Barb that lived on that road going down tot Bryce Mountain. As a matter of fact,
the middle of the gold course is on the property that he owned. Pete Bryce bought it for
the Bryce Mountain golf course.
WEBER: There was a lot of community involved?
BARB: Oh yeah everything was community.
WEBER: Any final thoughts to share on Bird Haven? Advice?
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BARB: The only thing, I just hope that it does get restored and they turn it into a museum
and start putting pieces of furniture that were made there in it. I think that would be
wonderful.
WEBER: I think so too.
BARB: Yeah, maybe that’s what he’s going to do. I don’t know what his intention is. His
wife is tied up with the Alum Springs hotel some how or other. I don’t know if his wife
worked there, but probably her mother worked there. My mother worked there and she
was 94 years old when she passed away about 2 years ago. If you go on the internet and
dial up Alum Springs hotel, Bird Haven, VA her obituary is in there because it mentions
the fact that she had worked there at the hotel. There isn’t a lot of history on the internet
about Alum Springs hotel or Bird Haven for that matter.
WEBER: That’s what we’re here for.
BARB: We don’t have any pictures of the old Bird Haven went it was in operation.
Picture was a precious thing back when I was a kid growing up. Bill Moomaw made
picture, but I don’t have nay of them. My brother might have some I’m not sure.
WEBER: But you have the artist proofs.
BARB: Yeah.
WEBER: Well, thank you for sharing your story I enjoyed listening.
BARB: I enjoyed talking about it.
End of interview
21
Oral History of Bird Haven
Interviewed by Camille Weber
March 20, 2017
Location: Hubert Barb’s home
Edinburg, VA
Project: Bird Haven and the Shenandoah Community Workers Oral History
The Truban Archives Shenandoah County Library
WEBER: Cool, so we’re gonna go ahead and get started. I guess just start with your
name, birthday, where you’re from – basic information.
BARB: My name is Hubert Barb. I was born at Bird Haven. I’m 76 years old.
WEBER: So you’ve lived here your whole life?
BARB: Well, I worked up in Washington D.C. a while. I was in Vietnam. Then I worked
construction -- Highway and bridge construction.
Wife: In Charlottesville.
BARB: Out of Charlottesville until I retired.
WEBER: So you grew up living at Bird Haven
BARB: Bird Haven and Jerome.
WEBER: I guess just to start, can you just tell me what it was like living at Bird Haven?
BARB: Well, it was pretty…pretty tough. That was during the Depression; the end of the
Depression to the Second World War. I enjoyed it. My father owned the farm there below
the bird haven factory. And, um, that was nice. We lived right there on the creek and
we… He farmed and worked at Bird Haven. My mother worked at Bird Haven after the
hotel burned – or part of it burned. And, um, it was nice. I had to walk all the way out to
the road to catch the school bus. And one time I missed it. Likely froze to death.
WEBER: Oops, I’m sure you didn’t miss it again after that.
BARB: There was a creek crossing. You could drive a team of horses across, but you
couldn’t – there was no bridge or anything. There was a log laying across the creek that
we walked cross. And it was – I picked up the Montgomery catalog at the Post Office at
Bird haven and was walking home across the log and it had ice on it and I slipped off it
and into the water. But I didn’t get the catalog wet because Mum wouldn’t been terribly
upset if I got that catalog wet. We didn’t have much to do. The one place that I remember
real well was the old Dodge place.
WEBER: What was it?
BARB: It was a house. The Dodge family owned it, but I guess they all died out. There
was no one there. It was a part of Bird Haven and they stored all of the old toys and
puzzles in there. We got in there and threw that stuff all over the place. And they… we
probably wasted a fortune in homemade toys and puzzles. The other thing I remember
real well is that Bernie Clark had a Great Dane dog. Of course, we were small. That dog
was taller. I could walk underneath it. I was scared to death of that dog. But it never
bothered anyone. Then Richard’s family moved up there. They lived down there in the
2
Frye place. I guess it was around ’48 somewhere around there. There wasn’t much to do,
except, work and play. We did a lot of playing and a lot of fishing. I remember the flood.
I believe it was ‘48. They had a flood that come up underneath the house. Richard and I
was out there on the back porch when the water come up under the porch. – trying to fish.
It was, of course, Mum was scared to death. She was the only one. Dad was off working
somewhere. He couldn’t get home. When he got home of course the flood was over with
then: everything that washed away or was going to wash away.
BARB: The other thing I remember real well is – we had a chicken house near the creek
and it froze over in the wintertime. We would go ice-skating on it. Of course we didn’t
have ice skates, we’d go in our shoes. And the ice broke and I fell in. Richard helped drag
me out.
WEBER: How old were you then?
REPEAT WEBER: How old were you?
BARH: I was probably 8 years old… 8 or 9.
WEBER: So how long did you live at Bird Haven?
BARB: Uh, I believe we left there in ’51, which would’ve made me 11 years old. I think
that’s close to the time.
WEBER: And you were born in the Peppermint House? Is that right?
BARB: I was born in the house down at the creek and below…. You know where the
lake is? You ever been down there?
WEBER: No
BARB: There’s a flood lake in below Bird Haven. Our house was right there, of course it
wasn’t built then. The dam was built after we left there years ago. It was… I was born in
that house in 1940. There was no doctor or anyone. One of my uncles went up to 717 and
got a midwife to come down and help deliver me.
WEBER: Did you learn about this from your parents?
BARB: Beg your pardon?
WEBER: Did you learn about this from your parents? They told you about this?
BARB: Yeah. Yeah.
WEBER: So, how did the Great Depression impact Bird Haven?
3
BARB: Well, we didn’t even know there was a Depression because we didn’t have
anything to start with. We raised all of our food.
WEBER: Did you ever feel secluded from the nation because you were a close-knit
community?
BARB: I guess we did because it was a close-knit community. It was about all Barbs who
worked there at the toy factory. Most of it was packed and wrapped and shipped right
there from Bird Haven. There was a post office there. They wrapped it up and shipped it
off to the big cities like Washington, New York, Boston, and it went all over the eastern
United States.
WEBER: And did they ship toys, bowls, everything under the moon?
BARB: Yeah.
WEBER: Did you play a lot in the toy factory? What did you kinda do?
BARB: I was there, around the toy factory a lot. We didn’t play inside.
WEBER: Did you get to play with the toys and test them out?
BARB: No, we just played around there. But, we played at the Dodger place mostly
because we could get those toys and throw them away.
WEBER: And were those toys made in the factory?
BARB: Yeah. They made them in the factory and later on they got away from making
puzzles and toys to making little knick-knack type furniture.
WEBER: Why’d they change? Why do you think they changed?
BARB: I imagine it had a lot to do with Bernie Clark. He owned everything around there.
And he was a governor of Connecticut who moved down here at the insistence of his wife
who was, she was a daughter of a judge up at Harrisonburg. And she had one son, which
wasn’t Bernie’s, which was a judge’s – John Paul. She was the one that had the money. It
was a real thriving business while Bernie lived, but after Bernie passed way it kind of
went down hill because no one was managing it like it needed to be managed.
WEBER: Had your family moved away already, when Bernie passed?
BARB: Yes.
WEBER: So, it was after ’51.
BARB: Yeah.
4
WEBER: So, your mom worked at the hotel. What was that? What was the hotel: The
Alum Springs hotel?
BARB: That hotel is no longer there, but it was up until, it must’ve been 20 years ago
obviously destroyed the rest of it. It was a thriving hotel at one time.
WEBER: Did a lot of tourists come?
BARB: A lot of what?
WEBER: Tourists: People from out of town?
BARB: Yeah.
WEBER: Why did they visit? For the mountains?
BARB: The water.
WEBER: The mineral water?
BARB: Yeah, it had arsenic in it, which wasn’t good. Although they claim it was
medicinal type water, but I doubt that. It had a lot of water with iron, sulfur, manganese.
WEBER: Did you ever help at the hotel?
BARB: No, I was just a kid.
WEBER: What did your Dad do?
BARB: My Dad was a carpenter and cabinetmaker.
WEBER: At Bird Haven?
BARB: Yeah, at Bird Haven, but then he went into business for himself and it failed too.
After that we moved to Jerome. And he went in to cutting timber, but if I understand
right, that toy factory, Bird Haven factory, started in 1927 I think the date was. It
probably closed down about 1960 or ’61 somewhere in there.
WEBER: Do you know how it started?
BARB: Not exactly. I know it started as a community type thing. It was not built to make
a profit. It was just built to form what I understand was to promote forestry and forest
industry. You know, people drawed a salary and it was supposed to be a nonprofit.
WEBER: It helped keep the community going?
5
BARB: Yeah, pretty tough times during the Depression.
WEBER: Did your parents help form Bird Haven?
BARB: They were involved, but not in any big way. They were just part of it, but it was
mostly Barbs. A lot of Barbs worked there. You know from Basye and Bird Haven. There
was only a couple families who lived on and in Bird Haven. It’s funny that we would’ve
had a post office, but what kept the post office going was the industry that Bird Haven
produced. I can remember one, I seen it on the Internet: a stamp that had Hitler on it
during the Second World War. Richard’s mother, Sarah, worked in the paint shop and she
did the painting. That’s probably what killed her. She had cancer. Those sprays that they
used to paint the furniture wasn’t very good for you. Whether they chose facemasks, if
they wanted to, but most of them even used the facemask and Richard’s father, he
worked there in the post office, where dad sorted in the post office too wrapping things to
ship out. But he also worked on the lot making furniture. He was really good at making
things.
WEBER: And your Dad too?
BARB: Yeah, my dad too.
WEBER: Did you learn from your Dad how to make things?
BARB: No, I never learned anything.
WEBER: Did you not want to?
BARB: I can’t remember what I really was interested in – mostly playing because I was
just a kid. We never got into the craft part of it, which I regret but it’s part of life.
WEBER: What was a typical day like? What did you guys play?
BARB: Well, in the summer we played there around the toy factory over at the old house
that they put all these old toys in. We played a lot there.
WEBER: Were there a lot of kids?
BARB: No, Richard and me.
WEBER: Anyone else?
BARB: I had another cousin, Hope Miller. He lived down here in Jerome but he spent a
lot of time with us and that was about the only three people we played with.
WEBER: You and Richard were really close?
6
BARB: We were, then, very close.
WEBER: What was it like going to school so far away from where you lived? Did you
like it?
BARB: Yeah, I think I did. I had a schoolteacher at Mount Hermons where I first went to
school. She was the pastor’s wife. We were Lutherans and she taught school at Mount
Hermon. A circle was the teacher’s name; Miss Circle.
WEBER: What was your favorite subject in school?
BARB: Math. Math and science.
WEBER: Did you continue on with math and science?
BARB: Well, sort of. I never finished college. I went to George Washington University at
night. I was working for the FBI and went to school at night for a couple of years but I
never finished.
WEBER: How did you end up working for the FBI?
BARB: Recruitment. They recruited. They were asking for employees when I graduated.
I put in my application and after months they accepted me. I was planning on going to
VT and had been accepted, but we didn’t have any money and scholarship was unheard
of. So, I left to go work for the FBI and go to school at night because that was a big thing
for J Edgar Hoover to get young people to get a degree in accounting or law and become
an agent. He promoted that a lot, but for me it was hard trying to go to school and work 8
hours a day. I gave that up and decided to go in the army. I figured I was gonna be
drafted anyway.
WEBER: What year was that?
BARB: 1962, I believe when I went in the service.
WEBER: What did you do in the service?
BARB: I was in the Special Forces. I was a medic. That was my primary MOS. (Military
occupational specialty)
WEBER: And you served in Vietnam?
BARB: Yeah.
WEBER: For how long?
7
BARB: It was 2 terms. I think it was 13 months when I got out. I decided I didn’t want to
go back.
WEBER: What was that like, serving in Vietnam? Were you prepared?
BARB: It was an experience.
WEBER: Did any values from Bird Haven help you? Anything you learned at Bird
Haven?
BARB: I was a survivor. I could live off the land. Of course just about anyone who come
out of the Depression in the rural areas learned how to survive because there wasn’t any
work other than Bird Haven.
WEBER: What at Bird Haven taught you how to live off the land? Did you hunt or fish?
BARB: Oh, yes. Hunting and fishing, fishing mainly. I love to fish. I don’t fish anymore,
but I loved it when I was young – trout fishing for brook trout. That stream up there used
to have many brook trout in it, but it doesn’t anymore. It’s not hardly a stream anymore.
The water table has dropped so much it doesn’t have much water in it, but it did then.
WEBER: Did you just fish with other kids?
BARB: Richard was about the only one. I fished with Hope some. He was only the
cousin. We kindly picked him up to spend the summer with us and we farmed. I didn’t do
much. One of the things that happened to me when I was small was I put a pea in my ear
and it sprouted. They sent me to Harrisonburg to have it removed. That was interesting.
WEBER: Why did you put a pea in your ear?
BARB: I don’t know, it’s what kids do.
WEBER: Did you ever go to Harrisonburg a lot when you were younger or stay in Bird
Haven mostly?
BARB: We stayed in Bird Haven. We go to Mount Jackson once a week. Moomaw had a
flatbed truck that he would haul everyone on that flat bed truck into Mount Jackson to see
a movie and we’d come back at night and that’s about it.
WEBER: Was that a special trip?
BARB: To me, it was. It was something to go to the movies. It cost 15 cents.
WEBER: These days movies are $12, no popcorn included.
(Laughs)
8
WEBER: Popcorn is like $15.
BARB: Yeah, we went to see the movie Hacksaw Ridge. I got a bowl of popcorn and I
believe it was $25.
Wife: It was expensive.
BARB: I love popcorn. I don’t each much of it anymore, but I used to.
WEBER: So that was special?
BARB: Yeah.
WEBER: And you went in Harrisonburg? Where did you go see it?
BARB: Winchester.
Wife: Maybe 2 months ago.
BARB: When Hacksaw Ridge first come out; that was quite a movie.
WEBER: I saw it.
BARB: Did you see it?
WEBER: It’s a local story, well Lynchburg… so a Virginia story.
BARB: He’s from Nelson County.
WEBER: Had you heard that story before?
BARB: I heard the story, but I never paid much attention to it. I heard about him.
WEBER: Does WWII interest you? Do you like to study it? Read about it?
BARB: I read some about it, but I read about Vietnam more than anything.
WEBER: Because you served?
BARB: Yeah, it was a part of my life.
WEBER: Do you still keep in touch with people you went to Vietnam with?
BARB: No, I kindly tried to get away from it. I did communicate with a boy that I was
with. He’s retired. We both got out of the service at the same time, but he went back
9
again and became an officer. He was a Major. He teaches at Appalachian State teachers
college in Asheville, NC. We did communicate a while there, but he wanted to talk about
things that I didn’t really want to talk about that much. And then there was one other guy
that was older than us who got out of the service at the same time. And, he signed up
with CIA and wanted me to go along, but I wasn’t interested going back in that area of
the world. I communicated with him for a while and then I don’t know what happened.
He probably got killed because he was in Laos as an undercover agent with “Usum”
team, which was supposed to furnish food and help items for the Laotian people, but they
had a lot of CIA agents mixed in with them. I imagine he probably got killed because I
lost communications with him and the last letter I wrote him came back, so there was no
return address.
WEBER: When you lived at Bird Haven, did you write any letters to people? Or were
most friends from the community?
BARB: Most friends were community. We were very local.
WEBER: Did you like that?
BARB: Yeah, it was nice. Nice and rural. It was kind of a carefree place. We didn’t have
anything and we didn’t know what it was to have a lot. It never really bothered us as kids.
I enjoyed it. When Dad lost the farm, which really bothered me a lot. He had mortgaged
the farm because he and another guy had a business and the other guy stole all of the
assets and left dad sticking with it so he lost the farm. $1500, which is nothing today, but
it was a lot of money back then when land only brought a couple dollars an acre in this
area.
WEBER: What did you do on the farm? Did you guys have animals?
BARB: We had chickens, hogs, a few cattle, raised corn and barley, wheat. But there
wasn’t much of a market for it, so we had to feed it to the animals there at the farm. We
sold very little of it because there wasn’t any market to amount to anything. Just about
every one was farming if they lived in a rural area.
WEBER: So you couldn’t sell it to the community because everyone was farming?
BARB: Traded. There wasn’t any money. We traded hams and eggs for things that we
needed like sugar. I can remember during the war, the ration stamps. Sugar rations, gas,
everything was rationed that was contributing to the Second World War and I tore up a
bunch of sugar stamps and that was very enlightening to me. I got a good wailing for it.
They didn’t mean that much to me, but they did to mom.
WEBER: Did Bird Haven contribute to the war effort like the Home front effort at all?
10
BARB: I would say they did. The fact that you know they made things that weren’t sued
for the war but they were used to feed people like bowls and things like that. I don’t
know that they would’ve contributed much in any other way to the war effort.
WEBER: How did you get your news about what was going on? Did newspapers come
through the post office?
BARB: Mostly the radio.
WEBER: So, you had a radio?
BARB: Mhm. We didn’t have electricity, but we had our battery radio. Big one that set
up about that high. (Raises arm to hip height)
WEBER: Was it community radio?
BARB: No, it was ours.
WEBER: Did a lot of people come over to listen?
BARB: No, there weren’t a lot of people who lived around there. The Clarks and
Richard’s parents and mine was the only families that lived in Bird Haven. It was very
isolated and still is for that matter. There isn’t much there. The factory is still there, but
everything has been scrouged and people took away the old lays and things like that.
They’re all gone now. I’m hoping that eventually they’ll make that whole area into a
museum.
WEBER: To keep the story alive?
BARB: Yeah. The hotel is gone, so that history is gonna die other than what’s written and
recorded.
WEBER: Is your wife from the area?
BARB: She’s from Hudson Crossroads.
WEBER: How’d you meet?
BARB: At a dance.
Wife: Well, tell her the truth.
BARB: (Laughs)
Wife: Can I tell her? (Proceeds to talk) On the school bus, my hair was always real long
and naturally curly. He and his friends would wait until I was ready to sit down and then
11
they’d pull it. You talk about being hurt, I turn around one time and smacked them both
upside the head and the school bus driver said, “Do it again. Get them,” because he knew
us all. The bus driver did. Remember that?
BARB: No.
Wife: I do.
WEBER: How old were you?
BARB: That would’ve been in high school.
WEBER: So you were long gone from Bird Haven?
BARB: Yeah.
WEBER: And then you started dating?
BARB: Not a whole lot. I didn’t date until I got out of high school. That wasn’t been on
my mind. I had to get up at 4:30 AM and milk cows, feed chickens and hogs before I got
ready for the school bus. There was a school bus down here but in Bird Haven there
wasn’t. You had to walk I guess about a mile or further to catch a school bus.
WEBER: So you got your exercise?
BARB: Oh, yeah. Plenty of that.
WEBER: Running through the woods?
BARB: Yeah, yeah.
WEBER: How long have you been married?
BARB: 53 years?
Wife: No. How many more?
BARB: 54?
Wife: Yeah, we’ll be 55 in…(Pause)
BARB: August.
WEBER: So you got married before you went to Vietnam?
12
BARB: Just before I went to Vietnam. I got married in August and left for Vietnam in
October.
WEBER: Where did you get married?
BARB: Over at St. James Lutheran Church in Hudson Crossroads.
WEBER: Was there a church at Bird Haven?
BARB: No. Powder Springs. (Points at picture above head.) There’s the church I got
married in.
WEBER: It’s beautiful.
BARB: The nearest church to Bird Haven would’ve been Powder Springs and that was a
union Church. Three denominations went there: Lutherans, Reform, and I believe Church
of Christ, wasn’t it?
Wife: I think it was.
WEBER: Did you walk there?
BARB: Yeah. We didn’t have a car.
WEBER: No car?
BARB: Yeah, no car. Dad didn’t want us to use the wagon either with the horses. Some
people went to Church you know they take their horses in town to the hitchin’ rail. We
never did. We just walked.
WEBER: How has the area changed over the years? Has it changed much?
BARB: No. Bryce Mountain, which was part of our home place – that’s the biggest thing.
A lot of people live on Bryce Mountain, which wouldn’t have been there when I was
growin’ up. It’s more of a retirement area now. Pete Bryce bought the land and started
Bryce Mountain, which is not Bryce Mountain. It’s Cedar Ridge, but the name has
changed to Bryce Mountain. If you look on the USGS maps it’s still Cedar Ridge. It’s a
ski resort without snow. We don’t get much snow anymore. But back when I was
growing up we really got snow. I can still remember the snow drifting up in front of the
house up there it was 6 or 8 feet deep. We’d cave into it and build igloos in it. That was a
lot of fun. We didn’t have anything else to do in the middle of winter except go to school.
WEBER: Did that affect the factory at all? The snow? People could walk?
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BARB: Yeah, they walked. But, they considered that everyone around there was kindly
local. Back then to be a mile or two away from where you worked wasn’t that big of a
thing. You got up early in the morning and walked to work.
WEBER: So a lot of the people who worked in Bird Haven didn’t live at Bird Haven?
BARB: No.
WEBER: They walked?
BARB: They walked. And later on, some of them had cars, but a majority didn’t have
cars.
WEBER: When did your family get a car?
BARB: It must’ve been in the 50s. We had horses.
WEBER: Did you ever feel like you needed the car?
BARB: Not really. I did when I was in high school, but the first car I ever drove was a
Studebaker; a 1954 Studebaker.
WEBER: What was that like?
BARB: It was nice. I drove without a license. It wasn’t a big thing back then. There
wasn’t that much traffic.
WEBER: How’d you learn to drive?
BARB: The hard way – just driving. I never had no driver’s Ed or anything like that. But
driver Ed in school is a great thing I think. To get trained to drive.
WEBER: So, what’s this dance where you met your wife?
BARB: That was at Stony Creek dance hall down by the furnace.
WEBER: Was it part of the high school? Was it a high school event?
BARB: No. It didn’t have anything to do with the high school. It was just a place to
square dance or any other type of dancing. That was before rock n’ roll.
WEBER: And you asked her to dance? To square dance? Is that how you met?
BARB: I don’t remember.
Wife: Yes, it was.
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WEBER: Did you listen to music at Bird Haven?
BARB: Bluegrass. Of course it wasn’t called Bluegrass then.
WEBER: What was it called?
BARB: Music. (Laughs)
Wife: That’s what it was. They called it music.
BARB: We had that radio and it was battery operated and there were about 6 stations that
you could pull in on it. One was up in New York, one in West Virginia, and another in
Bristol, VA. I don’t remember the others but they were the big stations then. They played
what I call, it wasn’t country, it was more of a… (Pause)
Wife: Remember, Dad called it hillbilly music.
BARB: Yeah, I guess that’s what it’s called then. I love bluegrass. That’s my favorite
music. And rock n’ roll is alright.
WEBER: Did you ever play an instrument?
BARB: No, but I sure wish I would’ve learned, but I never did. I sang to the cows when I
was milking them by hand.
WEBER: Do you remember what you would sing?
BARB: I made up most of my songs. It was kindly rural, just whatever come to mind.
WEBER: Did they make instruments at Bird Haven? Guitars?
BARB: Not that I know of. I don’t’ remember any instruments that they made, but they
should have because although that area wasn’t near as musically inclined as on the Blue
Ridge Front, like Elkton and through that area, that’s where your real mountain music
comes from.
WEBER: Were there social events at Bird Haven?
BARB: I don’t remember any social events.
WEBER: Because it was mainly family?
(Nods yes)
WEBER: Did they have to work on weekends?
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BARB: I don’t remember them working on weekends, but I’m sure some of the guys like
Stuart and my Dad would mess around in there making things on their own.
WEBER: Did they sell things on their own?
BARB: No, no. It was all shipped out most of it. But later on after Bernie died, the boy
would take things up to New Market to sell them. He never shipped them out like he was
supposed to. That’s what the downfall was. He kept the money. It was on a downhill
trend.
WEBER: Had you already been gone after that?
BARB: Yeah. We left, probably ’51 I guess.
WEBER: But you kept in touch with people?
BARB: Oh yes, Richard, Stuart and the family. We go up there.
WEBER: Do you still keep in touch today?
BARB: Yeah, some. Richard was down here yesterday for 5 hours.
WEBER: Do you enjoy that?
BARB: Oh, yes. He’s a character.
WEBER: Did you enjoy growing up with him at Bird Haven?
BARB: Sure, yes. That was nice.
WEBER: Do you have a favorite memory with him?
BARB: I guess my most favorite memory was fishin’ off the porch with him during the
flood, we didn’t catch any because it was a flood and then the Dodge place – playing in
the Dodge place and destroying those toys.
WEBER: What’d it look like, the Dodge place?
BARB: It was a big frame house. The rural houses are. The Dodge family apparently was
a well to do family at one time that had a lot to do with Basye. I don’t know what
happened to them, they all died or didn’t have any males in the family because you don’t
hear of them anymore.
WEBER: Do you still have any of the toys from Bird Haven?
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BARB: Don’t have any toys, but I do have a couple of things I’d like to show you.
BARB: (Pulls out black and white print of Bird Haven Display House and Post Office)
BARB: That’s where they sold the stuff out of and this is the post office.
WEBER: Where did you live in relation to here?
BARB: About a half a mile down stream from there. There’s twenty of them made and
my family’s got seven of them.
WEBER: How come your family got 7?
BARB: We bought them. This is a box that the toys came in. That was the puzzle box.
The puzzle isn’t in it. This is one of the later pieces. I think that was a thimble box,
maybe.
WEBER: Was this a cheese board?
BARB: Yeah, probably.
WEBER: Plate.
BARB: The plate was my mother’s. That’s a burn on (Points at “Bird Haven” logo on
backside of plate). It’s an old one. If you look on the back it’s burnt – the stamp.
WEBER: What kind of stamp is that? (Points at plate with plastic stamp)
BARB: That’s got a plastic thing on it.
WEBER: So you never helped make the toys, though?
BARB: This I believe is what you laid your forks and stuff on.
WEBER: Do you still use these today?
BARB: No, I don’t use them.
WEBER: These are cool.
BARB: This is a knick-knack shelf and it’s burnt on in place.
WEBER: Wow, that’s somethin’.
BARB: Here are some of the toys.
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WEBER: So how did you get all of these?
BARB: We bought them. (Opens plastic bag of wooden toys: elephant and camel)
WEBER: How did you destroy these?
BARB: Throwing them around. Throwing them at each other.
WEBER: And they would just break?
BARB: Mhm. This was my grandmother’s. (Shows off bowl)
WEBER: Why did they switch from a burn on stamp to a stick stamp?
BARB: I don’t know why.
WEBER: Was it after you already left?
BARB: Yeah. This is a burnt stamp here.
WEBER: Do you know the wood?
BARB: Maple. The only three woods that I know that they used was maple, cherry, and
maybe some yellow pine was the only woods that they used. This was given to me by a
family down there – the McWilliams family. I gave them to my daughter. I’m not gonna
try to collect.
WEBER: Do you like to look at this stuff?
BARB: Oh yeah, I love to look at it. This is a nice piece. It’s not marked, but it’s Bird
Haven. We call it roundabouts. This is a nice piece, too. It’s not marked, but it’s Bird
Haven.
WEBER: You can tell because of the wood; so soft.
BARB: That’s in really good condition.
WEBER: Does this bring back good memories?
BARB: Oh yes, yeah.
WEBER: Do you look at this stuff a lot?
BARB: Yeah, once in a while. This here is one of my favorite items because I used to
throw them away. (Shows off puzzle box) The puzzle was in there made out of wood.
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WEBER: Did you ever put the puzzles together?
BARB: Some, yeah but we threw them away then. These are the originals.
WEBER: This tells you what was in the water (Arsenic), but people still came?
BARB: Yeah, they didn’t know any better. And believe it or not, a case of water, half
gallons, with twelve in a case was $4, which is a lot of money I think.
WEBER: But today?
BARB: I imagine that water would be condemned now. It had arsenic in it. As near as I
can tell, they made gunpowder there during the civil war. You know where that’s at,
don’t you? If you come down Alum Springs Road this way on the left hand side is the old
furnace.
WEBER: We saw it. It’s beautiful, falling over. I like the stone.
BARB: If you go up the road a little bit, you go into Bird Haven.
WEBER: Toda, the gate is open. We’re going to try and go to see, but you have to stop at
the office.
BARB: I don’t even where the office is, but he’s restored most of those buildings. I’m
hoping he’ll make a museum out of it. These were tore down and replaced. (Points to
stairs on print) See, that one is signed and this one is signed here. I think this one is the
original. They called them artist proofs. This guy lives in Timberville.
WEBER: So did you ever spend time in there? (Bird Haven Display Home)
BARB: When I was a kid, but I haven’t been in it in years and years.
WEBER: Did you ever do any work at the post office?
BARB: I was in it, but that’s about it. They wouldn’t have let me do anything.
Wife: We moved from here for 48 years, remember we was in Charlottesville for 48
years and just home on weekends. That makes a difference when you’re here on
weekends only and not during the week because then you’re trying to do things with a
family. In Charlottesville for 48 years, so I think it’s hard to do stuff then because we
started to do ore things with family.
BARB: But, I remember the hotel was still standing or at least the 2. There were 3 parts
of the hotel, and one part burned down and that’s when they laid momma off. That hotel
stood there for years, I don’t know when it was tore down, but it may have been turned
into a chicken house for a while. It’s a shame it’s not still standing.
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WEBER: Maybe they’ll rebuild a replica.
BARB: It’ll have to be Mr. Carr to do that.
WEBER: Who is that?
BARB: He’s the one that owns it: Alum Springs. He owns the factory
WEBER: How old is he?
BARB: You know, I don’t know I’ve never met him. He called me to tell me some
people up at JMU was gonna give me a call for an interview and I thought it was great.
Then I drove in there and I see he’s restored all of the buildings there at the factory. I
didn’t know if he’s got a road built down to the old house or not where we lived, but I
understand he’s restoring that house too. It was a log house; part of it was a log it wasn’t
all log. But interesting story about that was Dad had helped make some moonshine and
he had a half galloon jug of it and Mo Barb came down and helped Dad drink it and dad
put it away in one of the cabinets and the next day the Revenue Officer came in and
arrested him and took the whiskey and everything. And Mo who had helped him drink it
had turned him in to get the money because that was a big thing. You got money from the
government for turning people in who made moonshine. Of course dad hadn’t made it he
just helped make it. Bill Moomaw was the guy that was making it. He was quite a fella.
He had a thrashing machine to thrash grain and hew as a big farmer. He had a lot of
equipment to farm with and thrash. It was putting shocks then to thrash it out. Also, he
made pictures. The old camera that had the big, I don’t know if you’ve ever seen them,
they were about this long. He made pictures. Thrashed stuff. He was probably the only
thrashing machine in the country then. Maybe they had one over in McConicsville, I
don’t know.
WEBER: Was this while you were still at Bird Haven?
BARB: Yeah and after. He come down here and went all around Jerome and Bird Haven
to thrash the grain. He’d thrash it for shares of the gain to sell. And I had an Uncle
Gilbert Barb that lived on that road going down tot Bryce Mountain. As a matter of fact,
the middle of the gold course is on the property that he owned. Pete Bryce bought it for
the Bryce Mountain golf course.
WEBER: There was a lot of community involved?
BARB: Oh yeah everything was community.
WEBER: Any final thoughts to share on Bird Haven? Advice?
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BARB: The only thing, I just hope that it does get restored and they turn it into a museum
and start putting pieces of furniture that were made there in it. I think that would be
wonderful.
WEBER: I think so too.
BARB: Yeah, maybe that’s what he’s going to do. I don’t know what his intention is. His
wife is tied up with the Alum Springs hotel some how or other. I don’t know if his wife
worked there, but probably her mother worked there. My mother worked there and she
was 94 years old when she passed away about 2 years ago. If you go on the internet and
dial up Alum Springs hotel, Bird Haven, VA her obituary is in there because it mentions
the fact that she had worked there at the hotel. There isn’t a lot of history on the internet
about Alum Springs hotel or Bird Haven for that matter.
WEBER: That’s what we’re here for.
BARB: We don’t have any pictures of the old Bird Haven went it was in operation.
Picture was a precious thing back when I was a kid growing up. Bill Moomaw made
picture, but I don’t have nay of them. My brother might have some I’m not sure.
WEBER: But you have the artist proofs.
BARB: Yeah.
WEBER: Well, thank you for sharing your story I enjoyed listening.
BARB: I enjoyed talking about it.
End of interview
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