inFauquier Fall 2021

FALL 2021

Time isn’t the main thing.

It’s the only thing.

INSIDE

• Master craftsman Oleg Sulimov always has his eye on the clock • Trace White Sulphur Springs history • CFFC: Keeping the country in the county • It’s the perfect time for fall planted herbs

Still your bank.

On April 1, 2021, The Fauquier Bank merged with Virginia National Bank. The combined bank covers the counties of Fauquier, Prince William, Frederick, and Albemarle, and the cities of Richmond and Charlottesville. Bringing together over 140 years of combined banking experience to our community.

As we continue to grow, we will never lose sight of the critical ingredients to our continued success. Exceptional service begins and ends with people. That’s why we say, “It’s all about people . . . and always will be.”

We are dedicated to continue to provide exceptional customer service and offer premier financial services. www.VNB.com

28 PHOTO BY BETSY BURKE PARKER

17 19 23 26 28

Meet Fauquier’s own social media darlings - Blu and Boo (and their growing clan) Nurse Linda Godfrey says it’s never too late to change careers Oleg Sulimov has all the time in the world Discover the curious history of White Sulphur Springs Farmer Wilbur Burton: Age is just a number Marta von Dettingen sparkles

FILE PHOTO

PHOTO BY RANDY LITZINGER

FACES & PLACES 13

51

37 LIFE & STYLE 33 37 39

Citizens For Fauquier County are stewards of the region Learn the fascinating history of hearing recorded music and more They’ve got a ghost of a chance (really) of seeing some super-spooky stuff.

Find out how, and where, they feel the force.

FARE & FLAIR 43 46 48 50 51 52

Pick your own pumpkin Get in the garden this season.

Even though it’s fall, there’s lots to do.

Wild or domestic?

Find your favorite turkey for the holidays.

Seasonal beers abound It’s wine time The Last Word

CONTRIBUTORS

Morning person, or night owl?

Contributors’ query: What’s your favorite time of day, favorite time of year?

Mara Seaforest’s “favorite time of day is all night.” That’s when she says she “reads, writes and fantasizes, staring into a fire crackling in the fireplace with fluffy black cat Magia at my side.”

Reporter and features writer Karen Hopper Usher self-identifies as a night owl, whose favorite season is summer “because it’s still light outside when I’m motivated to do things.” She gives a secondary nod to autumn for the break in heat and changing leaves.

Beer writer John Daum says he’s always enjoyed the proverbial “It’s Miller Time!” cry at the end of the work day. Granted, these days it’s not a Miller he seeks, “but any of the delicious local craft beers made right here in Fauquier County.”

Managing editor Betsy Burke Parker has “always been a morning person,” from getting up at 4 a.m. to help with chores before school on her family farm near Nashville, to today, waking up at her Flint Hill farm to the crowing of

her (or the neighbors’) roosters before dawn. Like them, she says she likes to rise, and set, with the sun.

Warrenton teacher-writer Vineeta Ribeiro says she used to be a night-owl, “loving the solitude of night to think and write.” But since she began teaching, Vineeta morphed into an early bird.

Freelance photographer Randy Litzinger says he’s always been a night owl. His favorite time of the year is fall, filled with high school, college and professional sports.

Wine industry expert and author Mary Ann Dancisin, ever the wine connoisseur, prefers evenings on the back porch swing, sipping, swirling and seeing the sun slowly sink into the west.

Through much of his life, as a rule, musician David Charvonia never liked the early morning. “But older now - and somewhat wiser, I love to be an early riser.”

Author-writer-editor Steve Price cites spring as his favorite time of year, more specifically, he says, a spring morning. “The more congenial weather, lengthening daylight hours and the rebirth of flora and fauna. A

bright spring morning perks up the world after the winter doldrums.”

Writer Alissa Jones “probably became a morning person when most people do – after the birth of my first child. That was 39 years ago, and once I got used to it, early morning, with coffee and quiet, is the most perfect time of her day.”

Fauquier Times reporter Coy Ferrell says he’s never been a morning person, though he does immensely enjoy watching nature begin its day when he is out hunting or camping, “especially the minutes leading up to sunrise when the sky is a deep blue-gray and an owl might be flying back to its roost after spending the night looking for prey, turkeys are gliding down from their nests and the mist still hugs ponds and streams.”

Graphic designer and writer Sawyer Guinn, too, “finds magic in watching and listening to the natural world wake up. First the barred owls, then whippoorwills, and, in the spring just before the orange orb of a sun breaks the horizon, tom turkey gobbles delight all those within earshot.”

Danica Low says, increasingly,

Table of Contents

times flies as she and her husband raise their two teenagers. In addition to writing, Danica works as a teacher.

Fauquier Times managing editor Robin Earl says, when she was a kid, “summer was hands-down my favorite season – swim team at the local pool, beaches and of course, no school. “Now I find that a spring morning is the most exciting. When I open the curtains in the early morning hours on a clear May day, there is promise in the air.”

Fauquier Times Associate Editor John Toler gets a little philosophical when he says his favorite time of year is the fall, “as that’s where my life is now. More specifically, October is my favorite month, crisp days and clear skies at night.”

An unsurprising nod to naturalistic beauty, Master Gardener Sally Semple says her “favorite time of day is anytime when I’m in a garden or walking a trail when there’s enough light to see.”

Designer Vincent Sales prefers the evening and has in fact worked on this magazine during the late hours. He claims the silence helps him think.

Fall 2021

3

Time is what we want the most, but what we use the worst It began, as these things do, with a passing comment.

Someone was humble-bragging about how they’d figured out how many minutes there are in an average working day. The math was seriously simple – eight hours times 60 minutes equal 480 minutes.

I wasn’t overly impressed, imagining that this person spent a lot of time staring at the timeclock.

But it got me to thinking – how easy is it to translate that simple math formula into something really startling, to enumerate something a bit more serious than a 9 to 5 workday broken into minutes.

How about a lifetime, broken down to seconds?

I realized seconds might be too hard to wrap your head around – it would be a meaninglessly large number, so I settled instead on measuring an average lifetime in days.

The key is in not spending time, but in investing it.

– STEPHEN R. COVEY

Published quarterly by Piedmont Media LLC. Address 41 Culpeper Street Warrenton, VA 20186 Phone: 540-347-4222 www.fauquier.com Publisher: Catherine M. Nelson cnelson@fauquier.com Editor: Betsy Burke Parker betsyburkeparker@gmail.com 4

Fall 2021 Welcome

calculable I grabbed a pencil and paper and got to work.

(There’s a reason I settled on a writing career, and a grasp of advanced mathematics wasn’t it. But this was simple arithmetic.)

The average life span of a human being is approximately 70 years, but, for my formula, I corrected for being female (we live a little longer, on average), living in America (longer lifespan, generally) and graded on the curve for living in Virginia, more specifically Fauquier, and more specifically, the Piedmont countryside.

Living in an open, rural area with local produce and proteins, lots of fresh air and dark skies at night surely has to add a little to our imaginary lifespan.

I chose 78.

So, 365 days in a year times 78 – my made-up person lives 28,470 days.

That’s a lot of days, but it’s still a number you can wrap your head around.

Counting in minutes makes it a little less accessible – 24 hours times 60 minutes equal 1,440 minutes in a day, times 365 days: 78 gets you 40,996,800 minutes to be alive.

Go to seconds, and it gets a little silly – there are nearly 2.5 billion seconds in 78 years.

But here’s the point to the exercise with all that time coming to us, why do we never seem to have enough of it? Here in this super-active, super-accessible area, we’ve got our vocations to take our attention part of the time, and so many leisure (and not-so-leisure) activities to fill the rest of the time. So much to do, and, honestly, so little time to do it.

Time, as a general theme for this issue of the magazine, seems like a natural here in Fauquier, given that plenty of people think it’s a place where time stands still. Depending on who you talk to, that’s a good thing or a great thing, but, either way, we think it is a thing, so we arrived at the central theme of “time” for the fall issue of inFauquier.

Once time was targeted, the inFauquier writing and photo team ran with the idea, from Randy Litzinger’s powerful images of the Airlie sundial to Mara Seaforest’s timely visit with a Warrenton watch expert.

John Toler combed history to unearth the timeline of the White Sulphur Springs resort, and musician David Charnovia took counting time down to its basics by connecting it directly to music-making.

Then there’s the usual assortment of seasonal fare – you can always count on beer writer John Daum to come up with something new and flavorful in the local craft brew circuit, while wine writer Mary Ann Dancisin made the double-play, researching the wine timeline to show just how vintage is vintage, a critical math formula important to Fauquier’s viticulture.

Follow along and find out why we’re once again falling for fall and setting our clocks - literally and figuratively, back for a more leisurely time of year.

Managing editor: Robin Earl rearl@fauquier.com

Carla Bailey cbailey@fauquier.com

Consultants: Anthony Haugan ahaugan@fauquier.com

Designers: Vincent Sales vsales@fauquier.com

Jeanne Cobert jcobert@fauquier.com

Cindy Goff cgoff@fauquier.com

Nancy Keyser nkeyser@fauquier.com

For advertising inquiries, contact: Anthony Haugan, ahaugan@fauquier.com

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inFAUQUIER COUNTY TIDBITS

Cedar Run Garden Club turns 70 The Cedar Run Garden Club celebrates its 70th year in 2021, with the local club’s current membership accepting a special certificate from the Virginia Federation of Garden Clubs.

Record books and photos go all the way back to the beginning, with items from the group’s founding in 1951 being archived by former club president Mary Ann May. The club has taken care of the Fauquier Library garden in Warrenton since 1981.

They also planted a garden with Fauquier High horticulture students in the courtyard at Grace Miller Elementary in Bealeton.

Cedar Run members meet the third Wednesday of each month at the American Legion hall in Warrenton. gardenclub.org

PHOTO COURTESY OF CEDAR RUN GARDEN CLUB

The Cedar Run Garden Club, 70 years old this year, cares for the small garden beds at the Fauquier Library in Warrenton.

A river runs through it (and now you can go) A new public access point to the Rappahannock River in Fauquier County opened late this summer. A kayak-canoe launch was built on the former Rector property in Remington.

In 2019, the American Battlefield Trust, a national land preservation non-profit, purchased the Rector property and donated it to the county for public use.

It was a cooperative effort: Friends of the Rappahannock, a regional conservation group, paid for an archaeological study of the property from a PATH grant. The Piedmont Environmental Council funded construction via a grant from the Virginia Environmental Endowment. Virginia Division of Wildlife Resources was part of the planning process. Fauquier’s Board of Supervisors had long targeted river access

as integral to Fauquier’s strategic plans, providing funding for the design. The Marshall Soil and Conservation district helped identify the location for river-trail concept.

In 2019, landowner Charles McDonald donated 196 acres further upstream on the Rappahannock near Orlean. This June, a kayak and canoe launch opened at Riverside Preserve.

Riverside is almost the highest point at which the Rappahannock is navigable by canoe or kayak. The new Remington launch is the closest public take-out to Riverside, almost 20 miles downstream. Another public take-out is 4.6 miles further downriver, near the Inn at Kelly’s Ford, site of a major Civil War engagement. fauquiercounty.gov

Going bats With popular literature driving it, bats get a bad rap. Dracula and Robert Pattinson aside, bats are actually something to embrace – figuratively, as lovely, living symbols of the twilight and excellent little garden companions that like nothing more than to sup on the flying pests that, ironically, are actually the ones who’d like to sip your blood.

The small flying mammals are active at twilight and through the night, dining on mosquitoes, beetles, midges, flying ants, moths, mayflies and more.

Virginia documents 17 different bat species. There are three types of vampire bats in Central and South America; the only vampire bats in the U.S. are in extreme southwest Texas.

Richard Reynolds, wildlife biologist at the Virginia Department of Wildlife says bats are classified as either tree bats or cave bats based on differences in behavior, and some by physical characteristics. Not surprisingly, he says, “if they hibernate in caves we call them a cave bat, and if they hibernate in trees or under logs, we call them a tree bat.

Myths swirl about bats, but Reynolds is glad to dispel them. “Bats will not (intentionally) fly into your hair.

This myth may have come from the fact that they forage low. And bats are not blind – they have small eyes but see perfectly well.

“It is a myth that all bats have rabies. The fact is while bats can contract rabies, they are no more likely to test positive than any other rabies vector species.” dwr.virginia.gov

Walking with the spirits New ‘Little’ library on Warrenton Ghost Tours in Marshall

The Fauquier History Museum at the Old Jail in Old Town Warrenton hosts their annual Warrenton Ghost Walk tours Oct. 23 to 30. Docents will lead a journey through Warrenton’s history of terrifying occurrences, unexplainable happenings and scary paranormal sightings.

Tours leave every 15 minutes beginning at 7 p.m. Guests are guided from the Old Jail throughout the town, where interpreters will tell chilling true tales of the spirits who haunt the buildings and byways.

6

Fall 2021

e v e n t b r i t e . c o m /e / w a r r e n ton-ghost-walk-tours-tickets-169348147869?aff=erelpanelorg County Tidbits

The newest installation of the crazy popular Little Free Library sharing station opened a month ago at the historic Schoolhouse 18 in Marshall.

The small lending library – about the size of a trashcan, is a tiny replica of the actual schoolhouse. It was built by the local Masters Gardeners group and painted by local artist Alison Jackson, a member of the Orlean Artist Collective.

There are the normal modern fiction and non-fiction books available at the Free Library as well as a lot of gardening books and children’s books. The unique model allows residents to take a book whenever they want to, returning it when they’re done, and allows people to donate or exchange books of their own.

inFAUQUIER COUNTY TIDBITS

St. James Baptist headed added to National Register The Virginia Department of Historic Resources has added the St. James Baptist Church in Bealeton to the National Register of Historic Places.

Led by a former slave, James Fox, the original congregation was known as Foxville Baptist Church; the name was changed to St. James in the early 1800s. Its congregation first worshiped in a bush arbor on the current property, and then an 1800s handhewn log building. This was followed by a 1907 frame building. When the wooden

structure burned, it was replaced with the current stucco building in 1922.

There is also an 1800s and 1900s cemetery, and a Masonic Lodge built next to the church in 1922 that was used for social events.

The church and lodge reflect the architecture of the time and the cultural development of the small African American community of Foxville. Many descendants of the founding members of both buildings still live in the area.

It’s a literal meat market (find out how) A study conducted by the Piedmont Environmental Council and American Farmland Trust helped create a new meat-cutter training program at the Rappahannock Center for Education starting this fall.

The study was launched in response to the effects of the pandemic on the local food supply system.

“When the pandemic shut down many national meat processors, smaller Piedmont-area processors found themselves in such demand that they were operating (well over) capacity,” says PEC adviser John McCarthy.

“Storage limitations and lack of sufficient skilled laborers in the field made it impossible to keep up. As a result, local cattle farmers faced 12 to 18-month waits to get their product processed and to market.”

One problem with small processors is that the facility must be USDA certified in order to sell animal products to the public.

“All of us in the industry are

watching really closely an act called the Prime Act,” said Todd Sansom of Rapidan Valley Farm.

“What it would do is open up for more local butcher shops or processing … this is designed to make it easier on the local small farmer and small processor, so you could have more farm-totable in your community without some of the current restrictions of USDA. That would be a game-changer for our industry.”

“The pandemic revealed many vulnerabilities in the national food supply chain—vulnerabilities that are unacceptable in a region with some of the most productive agricultural soils in the country,” McCarthy says. “Part of PEC’s mission for the last 50 years has been to protect and promote the Piedmont’s agricultural economy.

This breakdown in our local food supply presented an opportunity and a responsibility to scope out the problem and provide some viable solutions.” pecva.org

School program benefits from NOAA grant Friends of the Rappahannock has assigned $140,000 of grant money toward funding an environmental education program at Fauquier and Culpeper county schools.

The grant, provided by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association, will fund the program for three years.

Meaningful Watershed Educational Experience combines classroom and hands-on learning to educate K-12 students about local watersheds and environmental issues.

Local environmental nonprofits Goose Creek Association and the Clifton Institute are also involved in the program’s development.

The St. James Baptist Church in Bealeton has been placed on the National Register, along with Vint Hill Station.

Research proves that dogs are excellent judges of character New research has shed light on how an understanding of human emotions by dogs can help them predict our behaviors and informs their decision making.

Researchers at the University of São Paulo, Brazil and the University of Lincoln in England observed behaviors of thousands of dogs to figure out how they relate human emotional displays to subsequent actions – critical thinking abilities previously thought unique to humans.

The study involved presenting the dogs with a social interaction between two unfamiliar people, which could be positive (happy), negative (angry) or neutral (did not display a particular emotion).

After witnessing the two people engaging silently with each other, the dogs were given the opportunity to approach food that varied in how easy it was to access. It was either freely available or the dogs needed the humans’ help to get the food.

At the time of the food choice, only neutral expressions were displayed by the human participants, so the dogs had to use their knowledge about what they’d just seen to decide what to do.

Dr. Natalia Albuquerque, an animal behaviour and cognition scientist from São Paulo, found that dogs almost always chose the human that showed a positive expression and typically avoided the hu-

County Tidbits

man that had shown a negative one.

“Moreover,” the study said, “the available emotional information was more important when the dogs could not reach the food by themselves and had to get help from the humans, meaning that they were taking into consideration the emotions displayed by each person.

“This suggests that dogs can acquire information from emotional expressions, infer the emotional state of the nearby human and use this when making decisions. This is complex as they need to … store the memory and use it in a new context.”

Sao Paulo professor Briseida Resende said future studies exploring dogs’ sex, breed, age and length of time living with the owners is next, “as well as assessing other species,” she wrote, to build on their findings and allow deeper understanding of the underlying mechanisms of emotion recognition and inference in animals. springer.com.

Fall 2021

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Once upon a time in Fauquier …

260 million years ago North America was part of what’s now recognized as the Pangea supercontinent.

200 million years ago North America starts a slow drift west.

What would eventually become Fauquier County lies pretty much dead-center of the land-mass that took up about a quarter of the globe (the rest was ocean.)

“I knew there was a reason a lot of people think Fauquier County is the center of the universe,” cracks Fauquier History Museum director Sean Redmiles. “It actually was the center of the world at one point.”

75 million years ago Much of North America, including Virginia, was under water when a shallow sea covered about half the landmass.

15,000 BCE The oceans had receded to their current level, allowing humans to live in what eventually became Virginia, at least 17,000 years before European contact.

Fauquier population

Pangea was a landmass that included all the continents some 260 million years ago.

Fauquier County’s approximate placement is marked by a red dot. ginia was suffering from a thousand-year drought when English colonists arrived.

The resulting scarcity of food contributed to disease and conflict, both of which ended the venture at Roanoke and threatened the survival of Jamestown in 1607.

1608 The area we now know as Fauquier County is listed as part of the Northern Neck of the Colony of Virginia by Captain John Smith. Smith Sean Redmiles is execureported that the Whonkentive director of the Fauquitia, part of the Sioux-speak1300-1750 er History Museum at the ing Manahoac, inhabited the The Little Ice Age cools Old Jail in Warrenton. area. The Manahoac were worldwide temperatures forced out around 1670 by slightly, leading to extreme weather that affected colonizing ventures the Senecas – part of the Iroquois Nation, of Europeans in America. Early residents something that abetted English expansion. discovered that the New World was both 1670 hotter and colder than they’d expected.

Redmiles, who has a master’s degree in The Little Ice Age was marked by wet applied history from George Mason, grew springs that led to flooding, hot summers up in Manassas. He’s long been fascinated that led to long droughts and frigid cold by the history of the native population in winters.

Virginia, he says. Of particular interest -- the The region that became east-central Vir- Susquehannock hired guides for German explorer John Lederer on three expeditions to discover what was beyond the Blue Ridge starting in early 1669. Lederer fully expected from the summit he’d look west and see the Indian Ocean and the California coast.

On his third expedition in the summer of 1670, Lederer and John Catlett, assisted by five native guides, followed the Rappahannock River from the fall line at modern day Fredericksburg, upriver through what’s now Fauquier County, to a point at the top of the Blue Ridge. It is not certain if he followed the Rappahannock to Chester Gap, or branched off on Thumb Run. There is a stone marker on U.S. Route 55 near Linden giving Lederer credit for “discovering” the Blue Ridge.

1718 German explorer John Lederer is credited Germantown becomes Fauquier’s first as the first European to see the Shenandoah major, permanent settlement, established

by Germans brought to the RappahanValley from a viewpoint near Linden.

10

Fall 2021

Timeline

Census

Pop.

%±

1790

17,892

–

1800

21,329

19.2%

1810

22,689

6.4%

1820

23,103

1.8%

1830

26,086

12.9%

1840

21,897

-16.1%

1850

20,868

-4.7

1860

21,706

4.0

1870

19,690

-9.3

1880

22,993

16.8%

1890

22,590

-1.8%

1900

23,374

3.5%

1910

22,526

-3.6%

1920

21,869

-2.9%

1930

21,071

-3.6%

1940

21,039

-0.2%

1950

21,248

1.0%

1960

24,066

13.3%

1970

26,375

9.6%

1980

35,889

36.1%

1990

48,741

35.8%

2000

55,139

13.1%

2010

65,203

18.3%

2019

71,222

9.2%

U.S. Decennial Census 1790-1960, 1900-1990, 1990-2000 nock River valley by then Lt. Gov. Alexander Spotswood to excavate iron ore on his property. Many of the family names, such as Fishback, Rector, Kemper and Hitt, are still here.

1722 The Six Nations (the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, Seneca, and Tuscarora Indian tribes) cede the entire region, including modern Fauquier, to the Virginia Colony at the Treaty of Albany. The native population moves west of the Blue Ridge.

See TIMELINE, page 11

TIMELINE, from page 10

1759 Fauquier County – today, 651 square miles, is carved from a portion of Prince William County. The name Fauquier was chosen in honor of Francis Fauquier, Governor of Virginia 1758-1768.

The surname Fauquier is believed to derive from the Old French word “fauche,” which means scythe.

St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church played a key role during the Civil War.

1862, 1863 American Civil War battles in Fauquier include, in order, the first Battle of Rappahannock Station, the Battle of Thoroughfare Gap, the Battle of Kelly’s Ford, the Battle of Aldie, the Battle of Middleburg, the Battle of Upperville, the First and Second Battle of Auburn, the Battle of Buckland Mills and the second Battle of Rappahannock Station.

1909 On Jan. 13, President Teddy Roosevelt rode horseback from the White House to the Warren Green Hotel in downtown Warrenton to prove a point: He’d proposed new requirements for U.S. Cavalry soldiers, and to show that a mounted soldier could “easily ride 100 miles in one day,” Redmiles says, Roosevelt saddled up and galloped some 50 miles west on what’s now U.S. Route 29, tied up his horse and had lunch at the hotel, then rode home. He slept in his own bed that night, making his point.

The original Warrenton Supply Co. building was erected on Ashby Street on the site of structures lost in the 1909 fire. Franklyn Hilbert and O.B. Callahan operated the Warrenton Carriage Works there before getting into automobiles.

1909 On the evening of Nov. 22, a fire started in the hayloft of a stable in downtown Warrenton, rapidly spreading and destroying every building on the north side of Main Street.

1962, 1978, 1979 Different parts of I-66 in Fauquier County open as the long-planned interstate link-

ing the Shenandoah Valley to the nation’s capital is completed in stages. From the west, the road enters Fauquier before Markham around mile marker 17, exiting at Thoroughfare Gap east of The Plains exit, around mile marker 36.

2009 Fauquier celebrates 250 years of history.

Advertise in the Fauquier Times Please contact the sales department at 540.347.4222 to learn how we can put the Fauquier Times audience to work for your business. From print advertising to our digital properties, the Fauquier Times has a solution for all your advertising needs.

The holiday season is right around the corner. Don’t miss out on our upcoming unique special sections.

Tony Haugan

Multimedia Advertising Sales Manager

ahaugan@fauquier.com

41 Culpeper Street Warrenton, VA 20186

fauquier.com

Timeline

Nancy Keyser

Multimedia Advertising Executive

nkeyser@fauquier.com

Fall 2021

11

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Faces & Places

Find out how a 6-inch songbird turned Warrenton’s own Sharon Wiggins into a social media star Story by Betsy Burke Parker Photos by Sharon Wiggins and Betsy Burke Parker

INSIDE THIS SECTION

• Nurse Linda Godfrey knows ‘it’s never too late’ • A real love affair: Wilbur Burton and his 1960s Farmall tractor • The timing was right for Marta Irmen to save a historic Old Town building

WHO WE ARE AND WHERE WE GO

The cure if you’re feeling blue: Take flight

PHOTO BY SHARON WIGGINS

This photo of ‘Boo,’ a female bluebird, feeding her young son, named Blu Jr. by one of their many internet fans, won a local contest for amateur photographer and avid birder Sharon Wiggins.

Local photographer Sharon Wiggins filled her Facebook feed documenting the ups and downs of a backyard bluebird. And it went viral.

When it comes to raising a family, time flies.

Life follows a natural rhythm: One day, the parents are hard at work raising their babies, and it seems like the next the kids have learned to take care of themselves.

Then they fly the coop.

No one understands this more than Sharon Wiggins, but in her case, flying the coop is literal.

The longtime paralegal became something of a social media star this summer, posting photos on a local Facebook page to tell the story of a backyard bluebird family in her Warrenton neighborhood and becoming an online sensation in the process.

Wiggins’ posts on the Photos of Fauquier County Facebook page trended viral as friends and friends of friends shared her photos of a handsome male bluebird she called Blu, his doting mate and mother to at least two fledges.

The unassuming Warrenton resident-turned-internet sensation rose to a 14

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sort of stardom not quite to the Kardashian level, but with thousands of views and hundreds of “likes,” Wiggins says she could really feel the reach of the worldwide-web.

It started so simply.

“One day this spring, I just saw a blue flash across my backyard,” says Wiggins.

She lives in the Old Gold Cup neighborhood north of Old Town Warrenton, on a quiet street with lots of mature trees and plenty of lawn. It’s heaven for birds.

She’d seen a rust-breasted, blue-feathered male bluebird diving for insects and flitting from the stockade fence at the edge of her property and atop an outbuilding at a neighbor’s.

“I figured he was just passing through,” Wiggins recalls thinking it was a one-time viewing. She didn’t really know much about bluebirds, but when she saw the same bird the next day, and the next, she grabbed her camera and did some research.

Turns out the handsome male was scouting for a home of his own in WigFaces & Places

Breaking news Just before inFauquier went to press, Explore Fauquier awarded Sharon Wiggins the “Celebrate Local” prize for her photo of a bluebird feeding its young. gins’ neighborhood. She’d moved to Old Gold Cup 12 years ago and began creating a haven for all sorts of critters.

The one-story brick bungalow has a level, grassy backyard – a fenced area for her two small dogs, and an open side area for rabbits and other small creatures.

There are a few overgrown trees in the side-yard to attract songbirds, thick bushes in the front to harbor flocks of small migrating birds. A tall stockade fence in the back is a perch for everything from the bluebirds to the red-tailed hawk that terrorizes the neighborhood to the squirrels Wiggins calls “silly” with their acrobatic antics.

See BLUEBIRD, page 15

Bluebirds – Migratory but some stick around Most Eastern bluebirds spend the winters in the southeast U.S. or in eastern Mexico, migrating from the Piedmont in September.

Eastern bluebirds spend the breeding season as far north as Manitoba, Canada, migrating up to 2,000 miles in the early fall.

A few bluebirds will overwinter here, so bird watchers are encouraged to offer a variety of seeds, suet and foods to suit the different species found in the region after berries, seeds and insects are gone.

Source: Audubon Field Guide BLUEBIRD, from page 14 The house is barely a block from Bear Wallow Road farmland; Wiggins reports that red foxes march through on their daily rounds.

“As close to town we are,” she says, “we’re pretty rural.” She sees possums, raccoons and “rabbits galore.” She sees the same box turtle year after year.

Wiggins installed an elevated birdbath, and she fills trays of seed and suet, in winter and in spring to support birds raising their young.

“The next time I saw him, I was ready,” Wiggins says of her next bluebird sighting, having grabbed her Canon SLR and a telephoto lens. She snapped shots as the male she began referring to as “Blu” appeared to pose and preen, enjoying the audience.

Wiggins put juicy mealworms on a raised platform – favored bluebird fare.

The new menu worked.

Blu officially moved in to a bluebird house next door, and he and his mate began showing up in Wiggins’ yard around the clock. Wiggins took photos, cropped and color-corrected them, and popped them on Photos of Fauquier County on Facebook.

The birds were an instant hit.

Locals following the developing story started helping Wiggins feed the bluebirds.

“Premium gourmet mealworms delivered from Joanna O’Rourke,” Wiggins wrote in a Facebook note of a surprise delivery “The bluebirds and I thank you.”

Blu’s bride began appearing as the nesting pair took turns sitting on their eggs, and Wiggins put it to her Facebook followers for a name. Candace Skinker came up with a winner. “She’s his boo,” Skinker wrote of the loving couple.

Like that, the nut-brown female became Boo.

A few weeks later, Blu and Boo’s love-child fledged and he also started showing up on the stockade fence and hopping around the yard. Facebook follower Danette Jennings named him Blu. Jr., Wiggins says.

When a second chick hatched later in the summer, that one was named Bluboo.

“It’s wild,” Wiggins says.

“You can’t believe these little birds have created such a connection.”

As abruptly as they appeared, the birds seemed to depart in early September.

Wiggins says her research shows that most bluebirds fly south for the winter, though some stay year-round.

She secretly hoped Blu and Boo would stick around.

Mid-September, Wiggins posted a photo, lots of emojis and a short report: “They’re back!

“Is it Blu? I’m not sure.”

Tracing Wiggins’ Facebook rise Born and raised in Arlington.

Wiggins just turned 69. She’s not certain where her passion for photography started – her father was a welder, her mother a homemaker. When a student at Jeb Stuart High School in Falls Church, she does distinctly remember feeling “super hot” when she’d whip out her SX70 Polariod to take instant photos “of every plant and flower, a friend recently reminded me.”

The immediate gratification of a color print in your hand seconds after snapping a photo was powerful, something Wiggins believes drives her digital interest today.

She worked for 30 years as a paralegal for attorney Paul Morrison of Morrison, Ross and Whelen. Morrison died late last year, and it shook Wiggins.

“Paul had always encouraged me to pursue my photography,” she says. She took

PHOTO BY BETSY BURKE PARKER

Sharon Wiggins loves the ‘wall of joy’ in her Warrenton home. She’s decorated it with photos of her pets, past and present, along with some of the wildlife she’s encountered in her backyard. the appearance of Blu and crew as a sign from heaven. “It has to be Paul up there.”

“The positive input from the Facebook page was incredible,” Wiggins says, the timing important. “I’d had a real double-whammy. We lost Paul in November, and I lost my stepfather in January. My mother had died earlier. It was a lot of loss.

Taking the photos got my mind off of things.

“Paul was one of my biggest fans,” Wiggins says wistfully, remembering three decades closely working with Morrison. “He used to say ‘Sharon, you ask too many damn questions, but I’m glad you do.’ And he was always encouraging my photography.”

Wiggins uses a Canon r5 with a 100-500mm f4 zoom lens plus a 1.4 extender that she was able to buy because of a memorial gift from Morrison. “That gives me pleasure.”

Wiggins shares her home

Faces & Places

with a pair of small dogs and a trio of parrots. A “wall of joy” decorates her living room – dozens of prints of her pets and animals from her yard.

This summer, she had to make room for shots of Blu and crew.

“In the evenings, it’s a joy to sit on the sofa with a glass of chardonnay and enjoy looking at all the pictures. It brings back memories.”

As the bluebird saga has continued into a third, and fourth, unexpected chapter, Wiggins has begun captioning the photos, making up conversations between the birds.

She’s found that photos with captions trend even more popular than the ones without.

“I try to make it fun for people to read.

“And, okay, I don’t want to sound conceited,” Wiggins adds.

“But I’m pretty witty sometimes.”

You can imagine the smilewink emoji when she says it.

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Age is just a number At 70, Linda Godfrey shows no sign of slowing down

By Vineeta Ribeiro Registered nurse Linda Godfrey has no trouble keeping up with her patients at Warrenton’s Fauquier Hospital.

At 70, you’d think she’d be least slowing down, taking it easy like most her age, five or 10 years into retirement.

Think again.

Godfrey stresses that while nursing is a “very physically demanding job,” she puts in 12-hour shifts and has no trouble keeping up with nurses less than half her age.

The hospital recently recognized Godfrey as a DAISY award winner, the second nurse to receive the honor this year. The DAISY Foundation recognizes nurses providing extraordinary and compassionate care through healthcare facilities worldwide. DAISY – Diseases Attacking the Immune System – Foundation was established in 1999 by the family of J. Patrick Barnes, who died at the age of 33 of an auto-immune disease.

His family wanted to acknowledge the profound impact that nurses had made in all of their lives during the course of Barnes’ illness.

Godfrey’s nomination for the award was put in by an 86-year-old retired Air Force lieutenant colonel who said his attending nurse “made my stay so much better … because of her superior responsiveness and caring service.”

He went on to say that “it takes some doing to be able to make the person who is in bed feel better simply because of your presence and actions. Nurse Godfrey demonstrated this ability in spades.”

Fauquier Hospital also celebrated Godfrey’s contributions in 20 years of service as a nurse working with orthopedic patients in the medical-surgical department.

PHOTO BY RANDY LITZINGER

DAISY award winner for ‘compassionate care,’ Linda Godfrey earned her nursing degree at age 50.

When she was just 9, while visiting grandparents in Ohio, Godfrey learned that her father, a Navy man, had broken his ankle back home in Virginia. She immediately dispatched a letter with detailed instructions to her older and younger sisters on how to care for their father’s foot.

The natural-born desire to tend to the ailing never wavered, but as a young woman, she set it on the backburner, marrying right out of high school in 1969 and raising three children with her husband. She cared for her own mother and worked part time at a bank and later at a preschool.

Godfrey’s life was consumed with caring for others, but it wasn’t until age 50 that she earned the title of nurse.

She entered the licensed practical nurse program at Lord Fairfax Community College, but Maggie O’Sullivan, then assistant professor of nursing, “pushed and pushed”

How it happened Godfrey knew when she was very young that she wanted to be a nurse. “I like being able to walk into that room and give [patients] what they need,” she says.

She likes to care for people and ease their anxieties.

As a child, she had noticed that her dolls and stuffed animals always seemed to be “sick.” Naturally, the young girl knew how to attend to them.

But Godfrey’s early association with the healing arts extended beyond the toybox.

her to continue for two additional years, Godfrey recalls, for the full four-year degree to become a registered nurse.

Godfrey recalls being plenty nervous about moving to a full four-year school – Shenandoah University – with students less than half her age. But she found the experience both challenging and exhilarating, and the professors at Shenandoah, just like the ones at LFCC, took a “whole lot of interest in us,” she says.

Godfrey started at Fauquier Hospital on August 19, 2001, a few weeks before the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. She recalls working that morning and seeing live news coverage on a patient’s television. Initially, she remembers thinking it must be the patient watching an on-demand science fiction or horror movie.

Godfrey graduated from Osbourn High School in Manassas in 1969, Linda and her high school sweetheart Buddy married in 1969 and this year celebrated 52 years of marriage. Five years her elder, Buddy had just returned from a tour of duty in Vietnam when they married. Buddy Godfrey is now retired from his career working for the United States government in Vint Hill Farms. They have four grandchildren.

For their 50th anniversary, the couple spent three weeks in Germany where Buddy Godfrey was once stationed. They retraced the steps of his father who had fought there in World War II. Her father was in the Navy during the war.

Godfrey says that staying grateful keeps her youthful. Upon discharge from the hospital, invariably her patients are happy and hopeful, she says. “They say ‘thank you’ … to all those who had a hand in helping – the care team, the dietary staff, the custodial staff.”

And then, “we say thank you,” because, as Godfrey says, the need for skilled and compassionate care remains the same.

“No one can take that away from you or change that.”

The team at Fauquier Hospital was thrilled when longtime employee Linda Godfrey was honored with special recognition for her service to others.

Faces & Places

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Faces & Places

The language of time Warrenton craftsman speaks it fluently

By Mara Seaforest Watches add structure to life that often seems random.

There is comfort in that for some, anxiety for others. But there is no denying that the act of winding a watch, or fitting it with a fresh battery, provides a sense of control over the passage of time, however delusional that might be.

A watch can be a thing of mysterious beauty. Made of tiny gears, weights and balances, a watch almost shouldn’t work.

That it does is a rare delight.

When a watch is running poorly or, heaven forfend, ceases to work, we either replace it with a new one or we have it repaired.

And, as experts say and watch owners know, good watches are worth repairing.

Anywhere in the world, you will find watch repair specialists bent over the tiny parts that make up a timepiece to tease out its secrets and make it function as designed. The language of time knows no boundaries, and there’s been a migration of watchmakers from one place to another due to political, religious and economic pressures.

There might never have been a Swiss-made watch – worldwide standard of watchmaking excellence – if the Huguenots of France had not emigrated in the early 1500s to escape religious persecution. In a happy confluence of cultures, they settled in Switzerland with their watchmaking skills intact.

This positive émigré tradition echoes today in a small shop in a historic building next to the Warrenton library.

An eight-year crossing In the thriving city of Kharkiv, not far from the Russian border in northeastern Ukraine, the 21st century was just under way and young Oleg Sulimov was looking for

PHOTO BY RANDY LITZINGER

Timepiece expert Oleg Sulimov emigrated from the Ukraine to build his watch repair business in Warrenton. a new life with a change in professional scenery.

Kharkiv is a huge metropolitan region of almost three million inhabitants. It is known for its impressive arts, educational and scientific communities, with architecture spanning back to the middle of the 17th century. In this rich environment, it was easy for Sulimov to be influenced by the romance of timepieces inherited from his father, who worked with watches.

Sulimov had his own collection of watches and had already started gathering the expensive tools unique to the craft of watchmaking and repair. He added to his handson knowledge by studying every book on watches that he could find, often poring over them late into the night, until he reached a level of self-schooled skill that readied him for work with a true master. He found it with fellow Ukrainian Denis Cernetskij and then other specialists

in the trade, each devoted to a different type of watch.

“Watch repair is a big culture,” Sulimov says. As his ability grew, he realized he could practice as an expert in this field almost anywhere in the world. He began the process of emigrating to the United States.

During the eight years it took to wrangle his way through overwhelming bureaucracy, he had moral support from his mother, Svitlana Luschenat, who had married a U.S. citizen of Lithuanian ancestry several years earlier and settled in Chantilly in Fairfax County. Sulimov knew from her reports of life here that it would be worth the exhaustive effort.

His experience bore this out; by 2014 he was in America at last.

He zeroed in on Warrenton as the perfect place to begin a new life as a watch repairman with his wife, Victoria, who now works at the hospital, and their two children.

Once here, he found doors See CLOCK, page 20

Faces & Places

A briefer history of time Marking time has been a sign of civilization from Stonehenge to today’s ubiquitous town clock towers.

Controlling time is another matter. It is fluid, but, unlike water, nothing can contain it.

But music is a way of taming it in a small way. Tempo means time, after all. The beating of sticks against hollowed-out logs is a primitive form of trying to tell time who’s boss.

At first, clocks were huge, cumbersome things so inaccurate that they had to be adjusted periodically to match the nearest sundial, keeping humans still dependent upon the observed effects of the sun and moon rather than the scientific precision of mechanical devices.

Enter Galileo Galilei. His late-16th century observations of a swaying altar lamp high above the apse in the Duomo of Pisa is the basis for today’s accurate timekeeping.

Still, for hundreds more years, there was no standard for time throughout an expanding world. Noon in one jurisdiction might be hours different in another, even in the same country. Such developments as Greenwich Mean Time worked on a limited scale but it took a gathering of scientists in Paris during October of 1967 to standardize the global measurement of time.

It is mystifying, considering this was six years after the first manned space flight.

Over centuries, timepieces morphed through many variations from communal architecture into, first, small orbs for a few wealthy dabblers to hang from their necks, all the way to the pancake-shaped pocket watches secured to clothing by means of a decorative chain, to the more convenient thin watch on a strap to wear around the wrist. Thanks to mass production of watches, what was once available only to the excessively privileged rapidly became everyday tools.

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CLOCK, from page 19 and arms opening wide. In 2016, space for his business became available right nextdoor to the library and close to the courthouse with its graceful clock tower. Before long, people from near and far were delivering watches to Timekeepers Watch Repair at 19 Winchester Street, where Sulimov delights in giving them new lives.

There’s a time for every purpose under heaven Every culture on earth has a history of sundials. Early sundials displayed their crafters’ growing mathematical sophistication and reflected their priorities, some of them religious. Designs in the Islamic world accurately indicated times for obligatory daily prayers. Christian communities marked times for canonical hours. Others were hardly more than holes in the ground where a stick could be inserted to cast a shadow over lines redrawn in the dirt as needed, each one understood by local readers to indicate specific times for activities meaningful to them. Divisions of time were measured in whatever system the culture used.

The western world inherited the 24-hour day from the Egyptians.

In Fauquier County, there are several public sundials. One in Warrenton’s Rady Park was erected in memory of local artist Virginia Lynch by her friends and family.

At Airlie, just northeast of Warrenton, there is a sundial in a formal garden; a larger one near Airlie House is on the inFauquier cover. It was created in 1900 by Airlie’s founder, Harry Connelly Groome. It was encircled by Latin phrases of which only two words remain completely legible: tempus (time) and umbra (shadow).

You can hear a watch tick “I like Warrenton. It is small, not like my big city in Ukraine,” says Sulimov. He enjoys the hourly striking of the town bell, but more, “It’s nice.

People are friendly. It’s quiet.”

So quiet, he agrees, you can hear a watch tick.

Six days a week, Sulimov works on everything from a collector’s prized antique, a father’s hand-me-down or just something that struck a client’s fancy in a store one day.

“People have emotional attachment to their watches,” Sulimov says in a soft voice. “A watch should be used. I enjoy

making that possible.”

Time after time, Sulimov talks up his experience in Warrenton as purely positive.

He was deeply touched that the town provided him and other business owners with funds during the worst of the pandemic to help them survive. Customers made a point of continuing to patronize him. “I am very grateful.”

Sulimov’s neatly organized worktables contain scores of tools that he uses to pick apart and adjust the most delicate watch parts and reassemble them perfectly.

He’s gathered hundreds of timepieces and tools over many years. Some are from his father’s shop in Ukraine and others are acquisitions from sellers who may not have even known what they were made to do. Many are vintage German models with a distinctive green textured finish that operate with satisfying balance and smoothness.

“Every watch should be a working watch” See CLOCK, page 21

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Faces & Places

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CLOCK, from page 20 Sulimov is especially fond of Hamilton pocket watches and displays one in his shop, along with books documenting the most desirable personal timepieces on earth. “Works of art,” he calls them, and they are.

Breguet, Piaget, and Patek Philippe roll off his tongue with reverence. If you ask him about Rolex, he gives a little shrug and smiles, reluctant to express an opinion. Not all jaw-dropping price tags represent the greatest quality, but what Sulimov feels makes a watch most valuable is the sentiment behind them.

“A grandfather’s watch, a retirement gift, some special occasion, from father to son, these are special. I like them.”

Like many watch repair professionals, Sulimov practiced on Timex watches at first. “It’s not so terrible if you make a mistake.” He nods approvingly to the vast market for lower-cost watches that work well and provide their users with years of service.

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He lifts the cuff of his shirtsleeve to reveal his own everyday watch, a handsome Oris.

“It’s good. I like it.” Just at that moment, the nearby Warrenton courthouse bell chimes 11 a.m.

He glances at the watch still extended toward his visitor.

“Keeps pretty good time.”

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For two sessions, 1898-99 and 1899-1900, Bethel Military Academy leased Fauquier White Sulphur Springs for the school before moving back to its original location at Bethel. The cadets are shown in formation at the front of the hotel, which burned in 1901.

Historic Fauquier White Sulphur Springs

By John Toler The history of Fauquier White Sulphur Springs is as deep as it is wide, beginning with native Americans of the Manahoac Confederacy who lived nearby at Tanxsnitania on the Rappahannock River. Later English colonists discovered the value of the “healing mineral waters” found there.

Aware of the medicinal waters at the Springs, in 1791 Capt. Hancock Lee of “Greenview,” near Opal, acquired the property along with adjacent farmland.

Around 1800 he built a small, primitive facility there for local residents to use.

The popularity of mineral waters was growing elsewhere in the East, and in the mid-1830s Hancock Lee Jr., in partnership with Thomas Green, acquired the Springs property and other nearby acreage.

Establishing a new corporation, Lee and Green raised $170,000 through the sale of stock and built the original spa at Fauquier White Sulphur Springs. The large, four-story hotel, called the Pavilion, was 188 feet long and had a grand portico.

Sixteen brick buildings – eight on each side – formed a semi-circle in front of the hotel, with three-story Norfolk and Williamsburg houses at each end. North of

the hotel facing the main road was the Warrenton House, and to the south was the “Rowdy House,” which had 70 rooms for bachelor guests.

All of the buildings were of whitewashed brick with slate roofs.

Over the mineral spring was an octagonal canopy 40 feet in diameter supported

by Doric columns. Nearby was a 14-room bath house that resembled a Grecian temple and offered hot and cold sulphur water. A one-mile racetrack was built on the flat land across the Rappahannock River, where medieval tournaments and horse races were held.

Back then, the price was right: staying for the entire season – including a comfortable room, all your meals and many amusements – would cost a visitor only $75.

The workforce at the Springs According to research done by Karen Hughes-White of the Afro-American Historical Association of Fauquier County, from 1820 to 1860, the population of Fauquier was about 50% black.

In 1860, at least 37 free black men, women and children lived and worked at the Springs – hotel waiters, weavers, seamstresses, quarriers and stone fencFaces & Places

ers. Others were employed as laundresses, chamber maids and farm workers.

Fauquier White Sulphur Springs also relied on enslaved laborers, including blacks hired out by local landowners.

“The hiring and selling of the enslaved was a common practice,” wrote White.

“Sales and hire contracts were often negotiated and commenced New Year’s Day to Christmas. Springs contracts commenced to cover peak business seasons.”

Examples of these arrangements included “George,” a dining room servant owned by Frank Dickerson, who in 1843 was hired at the rate of $18 per month, and Mr. Graham’s “Lucy,” employed as a pastry cook for $20 per month.

Records show that by the end of the 1860 season, the company paid out nearly $17,000 for “slave servant hire.”

Descendants of African Americans with deep connections to the Springs still live in Fauquier. “The Pinn, Hudnall, Malvin Carter, Grayson and Brown families transcend through Fauquier today, with early origins from the communities of Routt’s Hill, Jeffersonton, Turnbull and the Springs,” White wrote.

See SPRINGS, page 24 Fall 2021

23

The new hotel at Fauquier White Sulphur Springs was a huge, well-built brick structure with a wide verandah, multiple dormers and large windows.

SPRINGS, from page 23

The General Assembly at the Springs Thomas Green served on the board of the corporation, as well as the lessee–operator of the facility. Green was the son-in-law of Thomas Ritchie, editor of the Richmond Times, and later the Washington Globe, and as a result was well-connected with business and political leaders of the day.

It was through these relationships that in 1849, Green was able to secure what should have been a profitable and prestigious summer for the Fauquier White Sulphur Springs Company.

There had been cholera epidemics in Virginia in 1832, and there would be another in 1866. An epidemic in 1849 started in Norfolk and was headed to Richmond, so it was decided to move the House of Delegates and Senate for the two-month legislative session.

On the recommendation of the House sergeant-at-arms (who happened to represent the district where it was locat24

Fall 2021

ed and served on the company’s board of directors), Fauquier White Sulphur Springs was selected, and on June 11, legislators and their wives began arriving. Room and board was set at the cost of $7 per person per week.

The House gathered in the ballroom, while the Senate held their meetings in the smaller Rowdy Hall.

There was important work to be done – including the first rewrite of the criminal and civil codes of Virginia, and of course the issue of slavery. However, much time was also spent relaxing and enjoying the facilities of the spa. Dances were held in the grand ballroom, and guests enjoyed billiards and yard games and watched horse races.

Still, the reason for leaving Richmond was never far from the legislators’ minds. Senate Doorkeeper Thomas Nelson came down with symptoms of cholera in early July and died a few days later. He was buried near the Springs.

The General Assembly adjourned Aug. 17, 1849.

Who burned the hotels?

The 1850s were financial gold at the Springs. Facilities were expanded, and guests from Alabama, North Carolina, Maryland and other parts of Virginia filled the rooms and cottages.

The annual race meet in September in a meadow on the bank of the Rappahannock River was popular, and the medicinal waters continued to be a strong draw for those seeking relief from dyspepsia.

It came to an abrupt end in 1861. On April 24, 1861, the Warrenton Rifles militia camped at the Springs, trained and equipped before taking part in the unsuccessful defense of Alexandria.

The resort continued to operate until Union forces entered the region in early 1862. Strategically located on the road between Warrenton and Culpeper and near a bridge over the Rappahannock River, the Springs was periodically occupied by Union troops in the area. Rowdy Hall was used as a hospital, and other buildings used as barracks and headquarters.

On Aug. 25, 1862, the 9th

Faces & Places

New York Cavalry was ordered from Warrenton to remove the Confederates and occupy the Springs. A company was sent forward to reconnoiter, and as they advanced, was fired upon

by Confederate artillery on the Culpeper side of the Rappahannock. Reporting the situation, the Union commander was ordered to shell the resort.

Observing Confederate troops departing the resort over the burning bridge on the Rappahannock, he ordered a cease fire and sent a squadron of cavalry to the resort. They found the Springs deserted, and about that time the Confederate battery on the other side of the river opened fire.

Since they had heavier caliber guns, the Union withdrew a short distance to return fire.

The shelling continued, and at some point the main hotel was hit and caught fire. Gen. William H. F. Payne, commander of Warrenton’s Black Horse Cavalry, was on the Confederate line and witnessed the explosion of the shell that hit the roof of the hotel. Another shell demolished the Norfolk House.

See SPRINGS, page 25

SPRINGS, from page 24

Rebirth, repurpose The destroyed hotel and other buildings at the Springs stood empty until the war was over, and the property was briefly owned and rented-out

by Robert Hudgin until August 1867, when it was sold to William H. Watson and George I. Rogers, trustees for Mrs. Fannie R. Boyel.

Work was done to bring some of the surviving structures back into use, but litigation to settle the true ownership dragged on for years. In 1877 a new corporation with an old name, “Fauquier White Sulphur Springs Co.,” was organized to complete the restoration and reopen the resort to the public.

Stock was successfully sold, and work began on a new five-story hotel. Designed by architect John Hoffman and built of brick in the Scots Baronial style by Fitzhugh Lee and H. R. Garden, it had 120 rooms and a water closet on each floor offering “baths hot and cold.”

Other rooms included a large salon, dining room, elegant parlors, a spacious ballroom and billiard room. The building was heated by radiators, illuminated with gaslights. There was a bowling alley, steam laundry and mechanical ice machine.

But times were changing as popularity of mineral springs resorts waned. Improved transportation via the railroad system, more people went to mountain resorts or the seashore. Advances in medical treatments supplanted “miracle waters,” and soon Fauquier White Sulphur Springs faced financial difficulties.

The hotel was destroyed in a fire in 1901, and no effort was made to return to the resort business. During the first part of the 20th century, the property was owned by Henry L. Smith, a nearby landowner, whose heirs sold it to Robert C. Winmill (1884-1957).

A Warrenton native who made good in the New York stock market, Bobby Winmill stayed connected to his home county, where he opened an investment office. During the

1920s and 1930s, he acquired several distressed properties in and around Warrenton, including what remained of the Springs. In December 1934, he gave the Springs property to his daughter, Virginia Winmill Radsch.

In July 1943, Virginia Radsch sold the Springs property to Walter Chrysler Jr., owner of the nearby North Wales, for $25,000. Chrysler repaired the houses on the property and rented them to servicemen and their families stationed at Vint Hill during World War II. He opened a restaurant in the Warrenton House, and renovated the stables and carriage house into a clubhouse for the Springs Field Club, which operated until 1953, when the property was sold to William D. Doeller of Orlean and Washington, D.C. At the time, the Springs consisted of 228 acres and ten buildings. It was Doeller’s intention to establish a country club, and he was assisted in the design of the grounds by landscape architect Meade Palmer.

A nine-hole golf course was laid out, and a swimming pool built.

The Springs was sold again in 1965, this time to E. Brook Vickery and the newly formed Fauquier Springs Country Club corporation. During his ownership, the golf course was expanded, the clubhouse remodeled and tennis courts added.

In 1971, the Sulphur Springs Investment Corporation leased the country club facilities to the existing membership and managed it, in 1987 reclaiming control as managing guardians and owner.

Another fire torched the stable and clubhouse in 1990.

The current Springs clubhouse was built in 1991. The landmark 19th century gazebo over the mineral springs was destroyed in a storm in 2009; a new one was built on the hilltop in front of the clubhouse in 2010.

Surviving 19th century structures include the Warrenton House and the Monroe Cottage, the 1855 Bell Cottage, the 1830 Tyler-Bishop Cottage and the 1875 Doeller House.

Long Branch

Long Branch Historic House and Farm is located on 400 acres in Boyce, Virginia, about one hour and a half from Washington, D.C. Our purpose is to preserve and utilize the assets of the Long Branch estate for the benefit of our local and regional communities. The circa 1811 historic house, horse retirement farm and scenic open spaces allow us to promote education and environmental preservation and to host community and private events. And our scenic Sheila McQueen Gardens are the perfect location for weddings and private events. Please feel free to visit the house, enjoy a picnic on our beautiful grounds and hike or walk our pristine property at the base of the Blue Ridge Mountains.

Faces & Places

https://www.visitlongbranch.org 830 Long Branch Lane, Millwood, VA 22646 540-837-1856 • info@visitlongbranch.org

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Wilbur Burton’s Farmall is a front row seat to Fauquier’s past (and present)

By Coy Ferrell Wilbur Burton can tell you a thing or two about the history of Fauquier County — because he was there. Born near Richmond, the soft-spoken former county supervisor has farmed dairy cows in the flatlands near Catlett since the 1930s, when his father moved the family to a farm that then included about 100 acres.

He’s 92, but you certainly wouldn’t know it from his workday. Burton still plants most of the corn on the family farm, which has grown over the years to about 800 acres.

He does it from atop the same Farmall tractor that has been with him since the 1960s.

Burton is unmistakably restless in both mind and body, despite his soft-spoken demeanor. He occasionally gets tired, he admits, but not when he’s doing the thing he most loves.

“I can get on a tractor and stay all day and not feel a bit tired, I don’t know what it is.”

His sons and grandsons now take the lead running the dairy operation, which has expanded over the years to about 160 cows.

“I’m just the cheap labor who helps when they need it,” he says with a subtle grin outside his modest brick home on the farm.

From his shaded front yard, he can see the “homeplace” — the property’s original farmhouse where he spent most of his childhood — from his front door across an expanse of soy and corn he’s planted each year for decades.

On a clear day, he can even see the communications towers on Viewtree Mountain in the distance. The government intelligence facility on that mountain, the Warrenton Training Center, was built in the 1950s after the Second World War, when the Cold War heated up. Besides the presence of a couple of isolated government intelligence bases, though — Vint Hill Farms Station being the other — the landscape of county didn’t change too much after the war.

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PHOTO BY SARAH COSTELLA/SARAH COSTELLA PHOTOGRAPHY

Wilbur Burton has used the same Farmall 706 diesel tractor to plant crops on the family farm since the 1960s.

Back in Catlett, Burton has lived a quintessentially Fauquier farm life. He bought his first car, a 1948 Plymouth, in Calverton at Spicer Motor Company for $2,100. He was a frequent seller at the old livestock exchange in Marshall, and his sons are regulars at the “new” exchange a few miles down the road at Brooks Corner.

He only briefly left the farm. “I went one year [to Virginia Tech],” he recalls. “Then I got marriage in my head.” He and his now-late wife, Margaret Ann Burton, were married when he was 20; she was 18. “I was married to my high school sweetheart for 60 years,” he recounts fondly. She loved to dance, and she would often accompany him to Lion’s Club dances headlined by the Free State Ramblers.

Eventually, he took his love of Fauquier to the county government, spending more than a decade on the board of supervisors representing the Cedar Run District; he retired in 2000. But sitting outside his home on a recent morning, he was much more interested in talking about the joy he finds in the little details of rural life.

“I kind of feel like I’m out of it now,” he says of county politics.

“I don’t want to bother them.”

Today, he at last has the time to sit back and watch the antics of the wild birds around the farm. He loves all of them, but especially bluebirds and barn swallows. Burton builds birdhouses to keep them around.

He observes them, noting their behavior each season. “You won’t see a mosquito around” if there are enough swallows in the area, he muses.

He takes the birdhouses down each year to clean them, then keeps watch for the scouts the bluebirds send out to find nesting places in spring.

“When I see them circling around one of those poles, that’s when I know [the boxes] need to go back up.

“You have to work with them. You have to put them up at the right time.”

That statement says a lot about Burton. Prodded to give a firm opinion on vexing county issues – he was, after all, one of the five key decision-makers in the county for 12 years – he plays politician.

Burton points out there are some good arguments on both

Faces & Places

A timeline of Fauquier farm life • 1929: Burton is born near Richmond • 1930s: Burton’s father moves the family to a farm near Catlett • Late-1940s: Burton buys his first car, at Spicer Motor Company in Calverton • 1949: Burton marries Margaret Ann Taylor, who had recently graduated from Calverton High School • 1960s: Burton buys a Farmall 706 diesel tractor • 1988: Burton is elected to the Fauquier County Board of Supervisors • 2000: Burton decides not to seek re-election • 2010: Margaret Ann Burton dies at age 78 sides and there is probably a way to work with people.

Like Cedar Run District representatives before and after him, for example, Burton advocated as supervisor to build a sewer system for Catlett and Calverton; septic systems in that area have been failing for decades because of the topography. But he got pushback, accused of promoting population growth in a county that protects its rural character with vigor.

Would a sewer system promote growth? “I reckon – I guess that’s true in a way,” he says. But, he mused, why wouldn’t you try to make things better for the people who live there? (The sewer system finally got funding and began construction last year, with a hefty fee levied on any newly constructed houses connected to the system.)

That attitude got him into trouble with some conservationists in the 1990s, he admits, but Burton is far from an advocate for widespread growth. He just wants people to be able to enjoy Fauquier County the way he has.

See BURTON, page 27

BURTON, from page 26 Burton loves airplanes. The P-51, a World War II-era fighter, “always fascinated me,” he says. He took flying lessons as a young man – $10 an hour. “I was almost ready to go solo but my money ran out.” A man once offered him a ride in his P-51 when Burton was attending the Culpeper Airshow. Burton jumped at the chance but remembers how he quickly asked the pilot turn around when the plane’s engine started sputtering.

During his tenure on the board, the Warrenton-Fauquier Airport in Midland got state and federal funding to expand, making it a “reliever airport” for the Manassas airport. “The government gave us money … and it really grew up,” Burton says.

“But if you’re trying to control growth, I guess it’s a bad thing.”

While the airport never spurred the sprawl some feared it would, he lamented what Bealeton – a few miles down Route 28 – has become. “I would have never thought Bealeton would have grown to the extent it has. To me, in the future, it’s

going to be regular sprawl.”

He’s quick to emphasize that preserving Fauquier’s rural way of life comes at a cost. He says of federal milk subsidies, “I guess that’s the only thing, actually, that has kept the boys in business;” the market price hasn’t kept up with inflation the past couple of decades.

The family farm is in a purchase-of-developmental-rights conservation easement, a county-funded program that pays farmers to give up development rights on their land.

He’s encouraged by conservation programs like these that have slowed the loss of farmland in Fauquier and elsewhere in the region. “Doing farming is a confining life.

In other words, you can’t just go when you want to go,” he says. But to him, it’s a way of life worth working to save.

“I hope it don’t change that much, but I know it’s going to change and get more population.

More people will move out here because it’s a good place to live.

“All I can say is: people have a good thing here. They better try to preserve it.”

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Faces & Places

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A century of history Marta von Dettingen owner Marta Irmen: Creating her Warrenton jewelry store was a long process, but ‘it’s been worth it’ Story and photos

by Betsy Burke Parker When Marta Irmen opened her shop, Marta von Dettingen on Main Street, Warrenton store in 2003, she developed what many believe to be the perfect retail combination: Jewelry and chocolate.

From a crumbling historic building in Old Town, Irmen and her husband, John, renovated the structure, creating a remodeled showplace selling luxury items from 14-carat gold to platinum, diamonds to rubies, and from delicate, hand-crafted, artisanal Belgian chocolates to plump, packaged French-made chocolate oranges.

The downtown jewelry store offers a delicious mix.

“It started with an open space that did not look like anything like this,” Marta Irmen says, recounting the seven long years it took to painstakingly rework, rebuild and renew the handsome structure.

They felt downtown Warrenton was a perfect place for her start-up business, more specifically, that the busy corner of Main Street and Fifth Street, across from the historic post office, would put them front-and-center in the thriving downtown shopping district.

As it turns out, Marta Irmen was correct.

“We chose Warrenton because of the friendly people, old town architecture and charm,” Irmen says. “We’ve developed close relationships within the community and (with) our customers.”

New restaurants are opening all the time downtown, she explains, with an eclectic collection of businesses making the vibrant county seat a winner for lots of retailers.

“This is just the best location,” Irmen says. She realized her jewelry store would be joining other established jewelers 28

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in town and around the county, but Irmen was always confident hers would stand out.

“My assortment sets me apart,” she says, today selling items from $2 for a pillow of Belgian chocolate to $15 for small stud earrings to $10,000 for a diamond-studded gold bracelet. She sells about half new and half vintage, with lots of interesting, one-of-a-kind handmade pieces. That, plus having the unexpected case of confections in the corner, she says, makes von Dettingen a unique business model.

How it happened (back to the beginning) The name of the store derives from Marta Irmen’s hometown in Germany. Dettingen is in a river valley 45 miles from Stuttgart, she says.

The German word, “von,” meaning “from,” so the shop’s name translates – Marta from Dettingen. When she tells her story, it makes sense.

She decided to move to America at age 7.

Irmen was born in 1940, one of seven children in her family born into a nation at war.

She was very young, but she remembers seeing the fires burning in the distance after Stuttgart was bombed March 13, 1944 as part of an RAF raid.

It may have set the course for her life that brought her eventually - to Warrenton.

“I remember hearing something on the radio a few years later, when I was 7 years old,” Irmen says. “It said ‘if you put something in your mind, you need to do it.’

“I decided at that very moment, what I needed to do was go to the United States.

“And I did.”

Irmen had an uncle living in Michigan, and he sponsored her to come to America after high school. She moved to Ohio and got a job as a “domestic,” like an au pair, working for a family. She learned

Warrenton jewelry store owner Marta Imgen shows rings to a new customer at her Marta von Dettingen in Old Town.

English, she says, by reading and watching American television. She met John Irmen and they married in 1966.

The couple moved to Pennsylvania where John Irmen worked as a civil engineer, then moved to Virginia in 1982. They bought property near Amissville and started a cut-your-own Christmas tree business. Marta Irmen had a thriving side business, selling produce – raspberries, strawberries and asparagus, to the Inn at Little Washington.

The business of doing business gave her a taste for growing her options, Irmen says, though she took it in a different direction – jewelry. First she sold out of the Fox Den Antique Mall on the Warrenton bypass, but when they wanted their own storefront, the Irmens looked to Old Town. “I knew we wanted to own (our own building) because I’ve seen businesses come and go because of the high rent,” Irmen says. “We wanted to own, and we wanted to own in Old Town.”

In 1995, they purchased the distressed property at 58 Main

Faces & Places

that was “about to be condemned by the town,” Irmen says, and they qualified for a state grant to help refurbish the historic building.

It was a long process.

The building had most recently been home to a carpet sales shop, but when it was built in 1800, Irmen says, she understands it was originally used as a confectionery.

The story is that the building was constructed by Chief Justice John Marshall for his oldest son, Thomas.

Warrenton had grown up around the junction of the Falmouth-Winchester and Alexandria-Culpeper roads, where a trading post known as the Red Store was established by the early 1700s. In 1790, the first courthouse was built, a jail erected and an academy named for General Joseph Warren, a Revolutionary War hero, was founded.

It was in this busy little village, just a few doors down from the courthouse, that Marshall knew was prime for a commercial building.

See MARTA, page 29

MARTA, from page 28 By the time the Irmens bought it almost 26 years ago, this prime space was crumbling, she says, original hand-made bricks beginning to give way near the foundation, paint peeling, window wells rotting and the support beams sagging.

“We thought it would take us six months to renovate,” Irmen says with a chuckle. “It took six years.”

A master mason, one by one, replaced every compromised brick and rebuilt the foundation. Inside, they rethought the floor space, eliminating a central staircase and replacing it with a cased opening into an office nook, so Irmen can work at her desk but keep an eye on the front door and the sales floor, and on activity on Main Street.

As long as it took, the Irmens were thrilled with the final product.

How it happened (growing the business) When Irmen was at last ready to open in 2003, certified jeweler Melissa Findley helped her stock her display cases and jewelry appraiser Martin Fuller was “instrumental in educating and engaging the many customers that visited us those first few days” when von Dettingen opened, Irmen says.

Her business model has evolved to include estate and vintage jewelry, cus-

Marta von Dettingen is in a refurbished, renovated 1800 building in Old Town Warrenton, across from the post office. It went from crumbling structure (right) to inviting storefront (left.) tom design and repair, hand engraving, unique works of art, antiques and rare finds. Marta von Dettingen also accepts consignment sales of fine jewelry and art, and they buy gold.

She says she’s learned to “read” her customers. Some are regulars, others are just browsing as they stroll Main Street.

Others, Irmen says, are serious.

“Do you like it? Does it look nice?” Arcadio Sierra is asking – as much asking himself as he’s asking Irmen as he tries on ring after ring she’s offering him out of a display case.

He’s traveled from Gainesville. He clearly wants something, but he’s not sure what.

“I love the peridot,” Irmen is saying as he eyes a yellow-green stone set in 14-carat gold.

Sierra seems mesmerized when the light from the picture window catches the natural variegation in the small stone.

“Do you like it?” He slips on the ring, turning his hand this way and that to admire the stone and the clean, simple setting.

Irmen pulls out a set of sizing bands to verify his size. He’ll buy it. She knows it.

He loves it.

Sierra picks back up the ring. “I’ll take it.”

Marta von Dettingen is open Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays. martavondettingen.com and on Facebook

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Life & Style

Fauquier County: Where time (almost) stands still, thanks in part to this ardent group that loves the land Story by Kevin Ramundo

INSIDE THIS SECTION

• Meet the real local ghost-busters.

They think the supernatural is, well, super.

• On the record: Thomas Edison’s music connection

THE WAY WE LIVE IN FAUQUIER

Protecting Fauquier’s future Trace this Citizens for Fauquier County timeline to grasp the important work they’ve been doing for decades (Just take a look around to see how they’ve succeeded) For more than 50 years, Citizens for Fauquier County has been a force in preserving the natural, historical and agricultural resources and the county’s unique quality of life.

While other parts of Northern Virginia have been overtaken by suburban sprawl, Fauquier remains a place where expansive vistas, productive farms and a rich history prevail.

CFFC has been focused on this mission longer than any other non-profit and actively supports the county’s comprehensive plan. The organization and its volunteer board believe in managed growth that preserves Fauquier and protects its future.

1968 CFFC began as the Mid-Fauquier Association, which was formed to oppose a residential development of 3,500 homes on the 4,200-acre North Wales estate near Warrenton. This ultimately successful effort took five years and prevented what would have been the start of suburban sprawl in Fauquier.

1970s A proposed Interstate 66 interchange at the historic Thoroughfare Gap would have created more traffic and development at this gateway to the county. MFA educated the public through petitions and speeches at public hearings and helped convince the board of supervisors to deny the interchange.

1980s Mid-Fauquier Association’s scope and impact increased in response to growing development challenges and the name was changed to Citizens for Fauquier County. The organization supported less development in agricultural areas across the county and paid close attention to rapid growth in adjacent Prince William County that could 34

Fall 2021

lead to more development in Fauquier.

Hope Porter, who helped start the organization, was named “Citizen of the Decade” by the Fauquier Times, which wrote “No one has exerted more influence or swayed the course of history in the county over the last quarter of a century.”

1990s Through the efforts of CFFC and founding member Sue Scheer, plans to build a dam on Cedar Run at Auburn were defeated. This project would have led to excessive development and would have destroyed thousands of acres of wildlife habitat and numerous historic villages and Civil War battlefields. After almost 10 years of wrangling between development and conservation interests, the construction permit for

the dam officially expired.

Another threat that was defeated was Disney History Park in Haymarket. CFFC joined with other conservation organizations that led the way.

2000s CFFC became increasingly proactive in educating citizens and working more closely with county officials about important issues associated with preserving Fauquier’s natural, historic and agricultural resources.

CFFC helped the county gather extensive information on 42 villages and settlements for the purpose of rewriting portions of the comprehensive plan. Twenty-one of these villages were placed on the Virginia and National Registers of Historic Places.

The 22,000-acre John Marshall Leeds Manor Rural His-

Life & Style

toric District was established with CFFC playing a major role. The organization raised money and contributed its own funds for research that led to the successful National Register nomination.

CFFC sponsored educational programs and forums for the public including the Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program workshop. CREP was designed to fight erosion, protect the watershed, improve transportation and advance incentives for open-space protection.

In coordination with the county, CFFC sponsored an education effort about the importance of Civil War battlefields, which contributed to the adoption of battlefield preservation provisions in the county’s comprehensive plan.

See CFC, page 35

Hope Porter and Les Cheek are two of the most vocal supporters of protecting the open, rural nature of Fauquier County through the conservation group, Citizens for Fauquier County.

CFC, from page 34

2011 to 2021 As the number of wineries in the county increased, so did residents’ concerns about lighting, noise and traffic in rural areas were increasing.

In 2011, a CFFC task force was formed to address unclear zoning regulations. After much research and collaboration with the county, the board of supervisors passed a farm winery ordinance in 2013 containing many of CFFC’s recommendations.

A CFFC task force produced a 28-page strategy document, “Planning Horizons,” to assist newly elected county officials better understand preservation challenges and how to best address them.

Other CFFC task forces were established to study traffic access involving Dumfries Road, Vint Hill Road and Broadview Avenue. The organization also hired an historian to document the history of the U.S. Army’s former base at Vint Hill, an important step in the construction of housing in the base’s historic barracks.

CFFC established the Kitty Smith Conservation Award in 2015 to honor and remember the force of nature that was Kitty Smith, an activist resident who worked tirelessly to ensure the county retained its rural character. This annual award is given to those who have made major contributions to protecting and preserving the natural, historic and agricultural resources of the county.

CFFC and Kevin Ramundo (who became CFFC’s president in 2020), played a leadership role opposing commercial development at the Blackthorne Inn near Upperville and the Barrel Oak Winery near Marshall on land zoned rural-agricultural.

The group embarked on a major effort in 2020 to educate the public about Warrenton’s draft comprehensive plan. CFFC believed the plan would lead to a large increase in population without fully understanding the associated costs of expanded roads, sewer and water systems, and other services. Despite considerable public opposition to the plan, the Warrenton Town Council approved the plan in early 2021.

Residents and CFFC officials fear excess development will undermine Warrenton’s special small-town character.

CFFC board names Les Cheek president emeritus in 2020. Cheek served in leadership positions at CFFC for 11 years, including five as president until 2020. He currently serves on the group’s board of directors.

In 2021, CFFC embarked on new programs, including placing St. James Baptist Church in Bealeton on the National Historic Register and reviving an earlier plan to establish Springs Valley as a Rural Historic District. The church is the oldest African American congregation in Fauquier.

The organization joined Virginia’s Adopt-A-Road Program by committing to pick

up litter on King Hill Road and Cemetery Road in the southern part of the county, and is in the midst of completing nominations of Midland Road and Freemans Ford Road as Southern Fauquier Scenic Byways.

CFFC began studying the

Life & Style

effects of utility-scale solar power generation on agricultural land. Officials thre recognize that green energy is important, but have concerns over the loss of prime agricultural land. citizensforfauquier.org

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Fall 2021

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(540) 347-5277 Licensed in Virginia

Timeless Thomas How Edison gave mortal musicians immortality

By David Charvonia Time eventually takes its toll on all of us, but it is a particularly cruel master of musicians. For most of human history, there was simply no way to preserve a musical performance for posterity to enjoy. Once popular performers retired or died, their unique sounds and styles perished with them.

Enter that extraordinary genius of invention, Thomas A. Edison (1847-1931).

The latter 19th century was littered with attempts to record sound. Edison was the first to record and reproduce it with success. His pioneering invention appeared in 1877. It looked something like a sideways tin can impaled by a long screw with a handle on one end.

A long way from high-fidelity, it nevertheless marked a watershed moment in human history.

A human voice, a violin solo, a choir singing a spiritual and more could all be saved and enjoyed over and over. Edison was quick to patent his invention. He judged that the market for his machine would not be for musical entertainment but as an office dictation machine to help secretaries and their bosses with the transcription of letters. The phonograph was thus originally named the “talking machine.”

Gold rush Edison was a brilliant businessman as well as inventor. He and his ever-increasing coterie of competitors soon realized that reproduction of music in the average consumer’s parlor was both a commercial and artistic goldmine – emphasis on the former.

Most of his competitors, like Eldridge Johnson of the Victor company, rejected Edison’s cylinder-shaped records (his improved version of the sideways tin can) in favor of the more familiar flat disc.

Edison, however, continued the commercial manufacture of cylinders and machines that could play them, convinced of that format’s superiority. Even his earliest home phonographs boasted unique features which ensured that superiority.

Feedscrew-driven tonearms greatly reduced distortion and wear by freeing the stylus from the task of pulling the tonearm across the record. Permanent sapphire and diamond needles didn’t have to be swapped out after each play, as did the

PHOTOS BY RANDY LITZINGER

Orlean-based musician David Charvonia has an eclectic collection of Edison’s early machines designed to record sound. soft steel needles used well into the 1930s by his disc-record competition. Edison machines in private collections still feature their original jeweled needles, which are in perfect playing condition after more than 100 years.

Cue the tenor In its early years, the “talking machine” was still regarded as little more than a novelty. Record catalogs were filled with mostly lowbrow selections like popular dance tunes, folk songs, banjo solos, minstrel shows and comedy monologues. Then, in 1902, the company that would soon become the famous Victor (later RCA Victor) recorded a series of opera arias with the great Italian tenor Enrico Caruso. These records immediately and convincingly showed the awesome artistic and cultural value of the new technology. Even though all recording before 1925 was done acoustically, without electricity or microphones, the unique quality of Caruso’s voice came through with remarkable strength and presence. In response, Edison and others dispatched agents around the world, eager to sign major classical and popular artists to their labels.

Obsessed with technical progress and superiority, Edison came to accept the potential advantages of flat discs, but only after incorporating his unique improvements over existing products. In 1910, he introduced his “Diamond Disc” records and phonographs. Cylinder records and machines continued with advancements and production, their relative affordability keeping them immensely popular with a growing mass market, but the Diamond Disc brought the quality of recorded music to a level not attained by the competition until decades later.

Life & Style

Flat market Borrowing from his earlier innovations, Edison again adapted the feedscrew drive to reduce distortion and record wear. His use of a vertically modulated groove, where the needle moves up and down instead of side-to-side, permitted a much higher volume level in playback. To demonstrate this achievement, dealers arranged public performances in local concert venues where the Diamond Disc and the actual recorded artist would perform the same number behind a screen. The audience would then be challenged to determine which was live and which was the reproduction, usually without success. Surviving Diamond Discs of vocal selections that would have been used in these events still produce this realism when played back on a high-end “Laboratory” Edison machine today. The quality is amazing.

Rounding out the picture, these new records, instead of being made of a bizarre and noisy mixture of shellac, ground rocks, and various chemicals, took advantage of the recent invention of phenolic resin, a far superior material not too different from the vinyl that wouldn’t become standard until the late 1940s.

Diamond Discs are also easily identifiable by their quarter-inch thickness and commensurate weight. This made them much harder to break or warp than conventional records. Of course it helped the company’s bottom line that you needed an Edison machine to play them properly.

Jazzed out Unfortunately, the Edison Corporation’s great phonograph division began to decline in the 1920s for a variety of reasons.

See EDISON, page 38 Fall 2021

37

The writer has a collection of music covering hundreds of years of styles and types.

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While a technical wizard, Edison was handicapped by the gradual loss of his hearing, by his fatally reactionary taste in music, and by his inattention to good artist relations, called “A&R” in modern lingo. Compounding the problems was his insistence on almost total control of the division, refusing to give in to advice on how to remain competitive. By the 1920s the American public was becoming obsessed with jazz while Edison was still churning out record after record of watered-down popular ditties and dance-hall music that would have been considered stale decades earlier. Columbia and Vic-

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Fall 2021

tor were thrilling classical and jazz fans with A-list soloists and orchestras while those few big names Edison originally signed defected for the greater artistic freedom and financial rewards offered by his competitors.

The final blows came quickly. The invention of the microphone and electrical recording in 1925 revolutionized how largescale music could be recorded, while the cranky old Mr. Edison remained convinced of the superiority of his acoustic technology. By the time he was finally persuaded to “go electric,” it was too late. The stock market crash of 1929 was the coup-de-grâce.

The Edison Phonograph Company shut down forever.

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Unmasking the ghosts of Fauquier County They’re there, say believers, and even doubters can’t explain some stuff

Haunted houses: Just plain scary Haunted Hollow Warrenton Haunted Trail Culpeper Darkwood Manor Luray Haunted Laurianne Woods Gainesville

By Alissa Jones Virginia’s 233-year history is peppered with ghost tales stretching across the Old Dominion, from the old Paxton Manor in Leesburg to the Western State Lunatic Asylum in Staunton, from the Lorton Reformatory in Fairfax to the Barton Mansion in Richmond.

For chills and well-documented unexplainable creepy things happening, the old Fauquier County jail ranks right up there.

Built in Warrenton in 1808, the jail was turned into a museum in 1966. The Fauquier Historical Society owns and operates the handsome stone building next to the courthouse, a popular attraction for local visitors as well as those drawn from afar by the stories of ghost visits to even “normal” people.

Some guests are just looking for a thrill, say members of the paranormal team that lead tours at the facility, others are looking to unmask the truth, still others are white-knuckling it into the otherworld, hoping to have an encounter with past residents.

Culpeper Paranormal Investigations team members Kim Lillard, Paul Warmack, Amy Warmack and Janey Ramirez are dedicated to facilitating these close encounters of the spooky kind.

Paul Warmack thinks he once heard a ghost answer a direct question, his most vivid visitation from the jail’s heyday. Leading a tour of the downstairs women’s cell, Paul Warmack asked into the empty room, “How many years did you serve here? Was it 20?”

Later, the team listened to unearthly sounds captured on an electronic voice phenomena machine, clearly, he says, a voice responding, “No, 15.”

upstairs, maximum security jail seems to occur when there are no male visitors in the cell.”

Paul and Amy Warmack have worked on the Paranormal team for six years, a real-life team for 19.

“A positive to being married to a person on the same team is … the connecton we have when it’s late at night and we’re getting tired. We laugh about silly things,” Amy Warmack says.

The couple that plays together, stays together, as proven by local paranormal investigators Amy and Paul Warmack.

Warmack remains uncertain, but believes the voice was from the past, the ghost of a prisoner correcting the record about her incarceration.

Ramirez recalls asking a question with the EVP recording in the background: “Are you British?” Complete with an accent, the trite response – “I’m English.”

Warmack says he and the paranormal team focus on the visitor experiences, not their own, but they’re ghostbusters, after all, and it’s hard for them not to look for their own shadowy figures in the narrow halls and small rooms of the old building.

Once, Warmack recalls, he was startled by the pressure of a hand pushing down on his right shoulder. Always ruling out the obvious before accepting something as a paranormal encounter, Warmack spun around to see who – in reality – might have grabbed him.

But the only other real person

in the room was way down the stairs already, too far to have touched him.

Not suprisingly, Warmack is a believer.

In separate visitations to the jail, Amy Warmack and Lillard both experienced unexplainable, intense nausea that immediately passed once they exited.

Paul Warmack talks about trigger objects, items relative to the time and history of the jail that his team uses in investigations. High-value items from the 1800s – cigarettes, whiskey, playing cards – are often brought along when they seek to conjure a ghost.

“Would you like a cigarette?” is a typical question, he says, that they ask into the air.

“We’ve had our devices light up in direct response with the question that was asked,” reports Warmack. He says the ghosts are a little bit sexist, too, befitting of the time period. “Most of the activity (in the)

Life & Style

Tall tales, or certain sightings?

• The Fauquier Female Institute, now known as the Lee Street Mansion, operated from 1857 to 1925 as a girls’ boarding house. The building later operated as an assisted living facility and was then divided into apartments, which it remains today. Tenants regularly say they hear footsteps in the hall, and are aware of doors opening and closing in the vacant apartments.

• Residents who live above the old Latham and Green Merchandise, the building that sits at the corner of Main and Culpeper Streets, report hearing footsteps and banging noises, and, more specifically, the presence of a young girl playing with her dolls.

• Elizabeth Hutton was born in 1891 and lived 99 years in the house her parents built on Falmouth Street in 1889.

Several supernatural occurrences have been reported by the people who purchased the house in See GHOST, page 40 Fall 2021

39

GHOST, from page 39

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1993, three years after Hutton died. They describe a strange presence they felt when they were in her room, and once, a coffee cup on the mantle crashed to the floor for no reason.

Hutton’s clear image appears in a mirror in the background of a portrait of the family. One of Old Town’s most famous residents, Hutton has become known as the Ghost of Falmouth Street.

• The Grey Horse Inn in the Plains no longer functions as a bed and breakfast, but during its operation a decade ago, reports abounded about the spirit a Confederate soldier haunting the property.

• The Warrenton Post Office, built in the early 20th century, was originally an Army recruiters office. Locals report seeing a young man dressed in a green jacket and pants, an old military uniform. He stands, clear

Books on Virginia ghosts • Haunted Virginia: ghosts and strange phenomena of the Old Dominion by L.B. Taylor, Jr. • The Gray Ghost of the Confederacy: The Life and Legacy of John Mosby, by Jefferey Mitchell and Charles River • Great Ghost: The Memoirs of Colonel John S Mosby, by John S Mosby • Ghosts of the Old Jail, by Frances A.R. Allshouse and Virginia Ghosts, by Marguerite du Pont Lee as day, outside the building, perhaps awaiting orders from the recruiter, or, others suggest, delivering encouraging letters of loved ones to weary and lonely soldiers far afield in battle.

• The nearby Manassas battlefield abounds with stories of visitors smelled cigars and pipes – while they are notably alone. Sometimes they see smoke from the burning tobacco, other times hearing cannonfire in the distance.

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Fall 2021

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Fall 2021

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We sure can pick ‘em!

Find out where, and when, you can find your best Halloween decorations Photo by Anna Maas Story by Karen Hopper Usher

INSIDE THIS SECTION • Thank goodness, it’s gobbler season • Trace the wine timeline, from grape to bottle to the glass in your hand • Fall gardening - all in the timing this time of year

LIVING WELL INSIDE AND OUTSIDE

Fall 2021

43

They’re perfect for fall Pumpkins and other autumn treats are available all season at local farms, markets A great jack-o-lantern starts with a great pumpkin.

When you make a day out of selecting your very own special holiday centerpiece with friends and family, the memories will be twice as sweet.

Pumpkin producers in Fauquier County tell us their youpick patches bloomed – and boomed – last year as one of the few sanctioned public activities. By their very design, pick-your-own venues are 100% outdoors.

They expect the same this year, so plan ahead.

Here are some Fauquier options to select your own very-local for this most iconic cultivar of winter squash.

Messick’s Farm Market Bealeton Messick’s Farm Market’s Fall Festival costs $12 per person, with kids ages 3 free and seniors $6. The fall festival admissions fee gets you hay rides, live bands, a corn maze and more.

Pick pumpkins during the week

at cost without the festival fee.

The fall festival’s popularity exploded last year, say Messick’s owners, with attendance jumping from 2,000 in 2019 to 10,000 in 2020.

They’re expecting 12,000 or more this year. messicksfarmmarket.com

Hollin Farms Delaplane Pumpkins were ready for harvesting by late summer. In addition to pumpkins, Hollin has apples, greens and peanuts. Owner Tom Davenport takes pride in the international clientele and describes a you-pick operation as a kind of citizenship workshop. There’s no entrance fee. Rates are by the pound or by the bag. hollinfarms.com Valley View Farm Delaplane Pumpkins will be for sale on the patio of this educational and agri-tourism destina-

tion farm. Valley View Farm has its Locovore Market and hosts farm tours and honey-tasting events for $10 a person on Saturdays in September and October. valleyviewva.com

Others in the area include Warrenton’s Buena Vista Agriculture, Buckland Farm Market in New Baltimore, CowsN-Corn in Midland, Hartland Farm and Stribling Orchard in Markham.

From squash to the silver screen Tom Davenport on farming and film

By Karen Hopper Usher Tom Davenport’s life and career have taken him around the world, with a stint in China, a career in New York, and, for the past several decades, home on his Fauquier County farm.

Davenport’s family runs Hollin Farms – a popular pick-your-own pumpkin (and other produce) near Delaplane, but Davenport and his wife Mimi are also filmmakers who focus on films about folk life.

The Davenports’work, along with other folk documentaries are available on a website Tom runs – folkstreams.net.

People became interested in a romanticized vision of folk cultures in the Vietnam era, says Davenport, 82. In hindsight, Davenport says filmmakers like him ended up documenting cultures that were fading away after World War II. 44

Fall 2021

PHOTO COURTESY OF NATIONAL ENDOWMENT OF THE ARTS

Local farmer and filmmaker Tom Davenport has created online storage for folk films to be viewed and studied.

“We made films about, you know, storytellers and banjo players, cowboys and Indians, and African American blues men Fare & Flair

and all that kind of stuff,” he explains.

One of his films is about Melvin Poe, the famed huntsman that formerly carried the horn at the Fauquier-based Old Dominion Hounds and Orange County Hounds as well as the Bath County Hounds in central Virginia.

Davenport says the need for folkstreams.net became apparent at the end of the 20th century, with only three major broadcast networks and PBS, since cable wasn’t as well-developed as it is today. For filmmakers documenting folk cultures, if their films didn’t get placed on the big network channels—which was already challenging—their films and the cultures they documented were at risk of being forgotten.

Davenport recognized a way to prevent losing hundreds of thousands of hours of work was to invite other filmmakers to stream their projects for free on Folkstreams. folkstreams.net

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Guide

Time in the garden is never wasted

Even though by fall most crops are tired, there’s plenty you can do to get a jump start on spring

PHOTOS BY BETSY BURKE PARKER

Even though it doesn’t feel like ‘growing season,’ the fall is a perfect time for lots of things, including harvesting as well as planting some hardy herbs and a few vegetables that happily over-winter in this region.

For Fauquier’s zone – 6b or 7, depending on your location and elevation, there’s plenty to do in the garden this fall.

• Last harvest of: Beans, pumpkins • Continue to harvest until late November: Fall beets, broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, lettuce • Continue to harvest until they stop producing: Collards and spinach • Start to harvest: Brussels sprouts • Give up on and rip out: Melons, okra, potatoes, squash, corn, sweet potatoes. Tip: don’t leave vines and plants in the garden over winter – insects and disease will build up.

• A good fall planting project in this area is garlic.

Place the bulbs, pointyside up, in a sunny garden location, though garlic will tolerate light shade.

Plant a few inches apart in well-drained soil and water regularly.

• Make a chart of varieties that performed well – or not, in your garden this past summer. Keep a list and seed catalogs so you can get ahead on planning later this winter.

• Carefully store seeds if you save them for next year, making sure to dry thoroughly and store in a cool, dark place in marked containers.

• Make a map of where vegetables were planted in the See GARDEN, page 47

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Fall 2021

Fare & Flair

GARDEN, from page 46 2021 garden; don’t plant the same vegetable in the same place next season, since disease and pests can over-winter and cause crop failure next year.

• New(er) horticulture advice: Fall cleanup – Be strong, but not aggressive. An overly aggressive approach to cleaning up in autumn can damage your garden patch, but there are steps to take that will ensure success next spring.

Previously, gardeners were advised to do a full garden cleanup – removing every fallen leaf considered the gold standard for a tidy homeplace. But, we now know that taking away protective cover is bad for vegetation, beneficial insects and the ground itself.

Spent vegetable beds certainly need to be cleared to prevent pest and disease pressures, but in most cases, less is more for fall.

– By Sally Semple

Trusted for More Than 50 Years Prime time for hardy herbs Fall is the perfect time for planting hardy perennial herbs, and some of them actually grow to the producing stage before really cold weather sets in around the Piedmont.

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Cilantro and parsley, for instance, can make nice companions for fall-planted pansies (which are also edible, by the way.)

Cool-weather herbs are best planted this time of year as well-started young plants.

They include: • Parsley (flat Italian or curled) • Sage • Rosemary • Thyme • Chives • Cilantro • Mint

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Talking Turkey

The Heritage Bronze turkey, this one at Ayrshire in Upperville, takes longer to mature and therefore has more flavor.

Wild vs. heritage vs. commercial: It’s a matter of taste Story and photos

by Sawyer Guinn When you’re talking turkey, start by defining if you’re talking domestic or wild, heritage or commercial.

In habitat, habits, intelligence and flavor, there’s a world of difference between the wild turkey that nearly became the symbol of the nation and the plump-breasted domestic birds that are synonymous with American holiday fare. Domestic turkeys are much bigger, though many outdoorsmen (and women) and hunters and home chefs will argue strenuously that the smaller wild turkeys are infinitely more flavorful.

All the meat from a wild turkey is naturally darker since the diet is far more varied than a domestic turkey raised in a warehouse on GMO corn and soy meal. The wild turkey muscle is more developed from walking and flying and roost48

Fall 2021

ing at night, so the meat has a different mouth-feel than the softer, more velvety domestic turkey; some would argue wild turkey is a little chewy, but proponents love it.

They pan the domestic variety and embrace the wild, but, either way, this time of year, everybody’s talking turkey, and they’re referring to the same critter.

There are six subspecies of wild turkey native to Central and North America. The Eastern turkey – which you find here in Fauquier County, and the most prolific of all the subspecies, lives in 38 states.

The Mountain turkey ranges from the Midwest through much of the Rocky Mountains.

Also called Merriam’s, they’re known for their white-tipped tail feathers.

The Rio Grande turkey thrives in the arid Southwest of the U.S. Gould’s is another variety of mountain turkey,

also found in the southwest and Mexico.

The Osceola turkey is a long-legged, long-spurred version of the Eastern turkey, but they only live in Florida. The Ocellated turkey lives in southern Mexico, Belize and Guatemala.

Turkey domestication traces back 2,000 years to Guatemala. Evidence was unearthed at a Mayan site discovered by explorers.

Spanish explorers to the North American continent and central America took domestic turkeys back to Spain, and it was descendants of these American birds that, ironically, were returned to America to feed the early settlers once colonialism was in full swing.

The curious origins of the turkey trot Living in the 21st century, it’s easy to take the transportation system for granted. But consider

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Turkey trots this season • Nov. 13 – Twilight Trail Series Whitney State Forest, Warrenton 10K, 5K trail runs • Nov. 20 Gobble, Gobble, Run or Wobble Warrenton 5K run, kids run how tricky it would have been to move thousands of turkeys from, say, a hatchery in Vermont to, for instance, a market in Washington D.C. before the advent of railroad and highways.

Originally, a turkey trot was just that – where dozens of drovers, or turkey shepherds, would literally walk with hundreds and thousands of turkeys, from their birthplace to market. From the birth of the nation to the See TURKEY, page 49

TURKEY, from page 48 early 1900s were the days before refrigeration, livestock trucks and a highway system that crisscrossed the country. The only way to get turkeys to market for the holidays was to walk.

And with no way to preserve meat, turkeys, like other proteins, had to arrive to the processing facility alive.

These long journeys were called turkey drives – it morphed to turkey trot more recently, similar to the cattle drives out west romanticized in film and literature.

Today, transportation and storage make the turkey walk unnecessary, and modern commercial breeds of domestic turkey would be incapable of such a journey anyway, because they’re now bred for an enormous breast which renders them barely able to walk at all.

Today we commemorate the nation’s early turkey drives with the modern turkey trot – foot races held on or around Thanksgiving. Few know of the earlier literal use of the term.

A real American success story The North American wild turkey population had dropped precipitously low in the late 19th and early 20th centuries due to a number of environmental factors-- some not related to humans.

The National Wild Turkey Federation suggests only 200,000 wild turkeys were left in the U.S. in the mid-1920s.

One hundred years later, and after countless hours of dedicated conservation work – including massive habitat, relocation, protection and reintroduction projects – wild turkey numbers exceed 6 million, a true American success story.

Pate-infused stuffing Pate 1 turkey liver 2 cloves garlic 1 shallot or half an onion 2 tablespoons butter ¼ cup of olive oil Thyme, salt, pepper to taste Rough slice the shallot.

Brown the butter in a saute pan.

In the meantime, coarsely chop the garlic and liver. Once

The wild turkey is a handsome, and wary, resident of the Piedmont region, with strong numbers reported in recent years due to concerted conservation efforts.

the shallot or onions are golden brown, add them to the pan and cook until the liver is done.

Put everything in a food processor and pulse, slowly adding the olive oil until you get the preferred consistency.

Stuffing 2 carrots 3 celery sticks ½ red onion 2 cloves garlic ¼ pound bacon

1 ½ teaspoon coriander 1 tablespoon rosemary 1 tablespoon thyme 1 teaspoon nutmeg 2 cups stale ciabatta crumbs Dice the vegetables and mix all ingredients.

Combine with the pate and stuff your holiday turkey or spread in a pan to cook separate, about 30 minutes at 350 if cooking separate.

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Subtle hints of fruit flavor fall beer offerings Story and photo

by John Daum With fall visiting in full, there’s still time to enjoy the fruits of summer in many of the interesting local brews on offer this season.

The region’s peach season was truly outstanding this year and, lucky for seasonal sippers, we can still sample the summer’s magic by visiting Tin Cannon Brewery in Gainesville and downing a pint of its flavorful Kurt’s Peach Tripel.

For whatever reason, Belgian Tripels are not as popular as lagers and IPAs. Local tasters are urged to take advantage of this highly refreshing and distinctive beer whenever you see one on the menu at a craft brewery.

In Kurt’s, you’ll pick up spicy notes from the yeast that has been hard at work turning this into a 10% ABV slice of heaven with a delightful peach aftertaste.

Local seasonal craft beers abound in autumn.

If you want something with more power behind it, check out their renowned Black Widow Russian Imperial Stout 2021. The return of this beer is eagerly anticipated every autumn and makes for a perfect fall afternoon sampler as the sun goes down early and the

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temperatures drop.

If you find yourself falling madly in love with Belgian-style beers, take a short trip down the road to The Farm Brewery at Broad Run. With expanded outdoor seating, tons of kid-friendly spaces and its very own axe throwing barn, there is lots to do in addition to sampling local brewed, locally sourced beers on a fall afternoon. Leashed dogs are also welcome.

Take a taste of their farmsparked Pitchfork. This Belgian Tripel is a more classic offering of the style and has hints of cloves and coriander in the finish. It is delicately balanced and a great sipper for a fall afternoon, easy to drink and soft on the palate.

For a more conventional pint, give Mosaic Dreams a try. This hazy IPA is finished with light fruit accents that help to balance the bitterness up front. It is a more grown-up beer meant for lingering, not for gulping.

Cedar Run Brewery in Nokesville was recently awarded a gold medal at the Virginia Craft Brewers Guild Competition for its barrel-aged Stout, Gus with Coconut. This 11% ABV pastry stout is conditioned on toasted coconut and aged in Jamaican Rum barrels for a complex, pleasing flavor.

On the slightly lighter side at Cedar Run, Things We Don’t Say is a hazy pale ale rich with

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notes of lemon, lime and thyme.

With very low bitterness, it is a perfect beer for someone who wants a refreshing beverage – like after mowing the lawn in July -- but does not want to be overwhelmed with a typical hop bomb, like gentlemen’s club.

Death Ridge Brewery at Higher Ground Farm in Jeffersonton has developed a complex tap list, including a wide variety of tastes. For sour lovers, there’s Rattling Sabers Sour, which is actually a wheat beer fermented with fruit. It is a great introduction to the world of sour ales for anyone who has heard of the style but never tried it.

For a traditional wheat beer without the sour notes, check out Warhorse Wheat, which has creamy notes of orange on the finish.

For the IPA lovers, the Great Wagon Road Hazy IPA is worthy of your attention. A masterful blend of hops, pine, citrus and coconut make this one you might want to linger with as you enjoy the views from the Death Ridge patio.

Cooling Pond Brewery near Lake Anna offers outdoor space and an events stage that hosts regular concerts on the weekends. For Saison fans, try its Farmhouse Saison. Tomato and Basil is a subtle blend of flavors that you can’t imagine would work in a beer, but it does. It is a highly original pairing and perfect for a sunny October afternoon.

Also worth seeking out at Cooling Pond is its nicely balanced Alt which is a traditional German Alt beer. Boswell’s Tavern Very Special is a purely Virginia Piedmont version of the classic English pub ale that you would find on any corner in London.

Rounding out the tap list is Swim Advisory, a double dry hopped juicy IPA with a wave of tropical fruit flavors on the back end that deliver a highly satisfying finish to the beer. thefarmbreweryatbroadrun.com cedarrunbrewery.com deathridgebrewery.com coolingpondbrewery.com

Want vintage? You’re just going to have to wait.

Winemaking is a slow go

By Mary Ann Dancisin Going from grapevine root-stock to glass of wine takes time, sometimes a full three years to get from the initial planting of a brand-new vine through the first harvest, and the first vintage might not be bottled for another two years after that.

But when viticulture and viniculture skill combine, the finished product is worth the wait.

Follow an imaginary timeline for a Virginia vintage.

2013 Start your research into what type of grape you want to grow. As with any plant, certain types of grapes grow better in different areas and offer up different flavors and appearances. Virginia’s steamy hot summers and sometimes bitter cold winters can be hard on grapes, so select carefully.

2014 Prior to planting, a budding winemaker will need to locate an appropriate location site for a vineyard. Assess the soil and the climate to determine which grapes will flourish with the help of a viticulturalist.

If weather data is not readily available, you may need to monitor the site for a

few years to make sure your dream vineyard will flourish.

• Although it may seem counterintuitive, grapevines do not like soil that is too nutrient-rich. Avoid heavily fertilized soil when possible, and follow recommendations from a soil test result or an experienced local grower.

• Grapevines thrive in sloped areas that offer good drainage and sunlight.

• Several factors determine how long it will take for your newly planted grape vine to produce fruit: plant age and size at planting time, climate, sun, soil and other environmental conditions and proper pruning and other care practices.

2015 Grapevines are typically planted in the spring, but it’s unlikely that they will bear grapes by harvest time that first autumn.

In fact, during the first year, the grapevine should not be allowed to produce any fully matured fruits as these can damage the

Grapes are tricky in Virginia.

Chardonnay wine grapes are some of the most popular and easiest to grow, around the world and including here in Virginia’s Piedmont region.

Chardonnay grapes are originally from Burgundy, France, but are now grown around the world, from Virginia to California, South Africa to Australia.

Chardonnay grapes produce full-bodied dry wines with lemon, fruit and nut overtones. young vine with their weight.

In the second year, you’ll see a lot of growth and some grapes, but that first crop of fruit usually consists of small, sour berries that aren’t suitable for making wine. By the third year, you can expect to get a reasonable harvest.

2018 Finally – harvest your plump grapes.

Test for ripeness by picking a few grapes from different areas and tasting them.

If the grapes are sweet, start picking as they ready for harvesting.

2021 Store bottled wines in a dark, cool cellar for a year for whites, two or three years – at least – for reds.

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Houseplant 101, courtesy of the plant whisperer You teach your kids how to ride a bike, how to write in cursive, how ROBIN to use the toaster without EARL electrocuting themselves. THE LAST Important lessons.

WORD But then they grow up and turn the tables on you.

My daughter MacKenzie is 24 years old and has returned to our Bealeton home to ride out COVID. She is a pleasure to have around and I silently thank the pandemic for bringing her home after college, for a little while at least.

When MacKenzie was young, she wanted to save the world. Her efforts to clean up an environment gone wrong went from banning straws to shunning anything that came encased in plastic.

Her influence was pervasive even when she was 8. Our household recycled everything. MacKenzie’s father learned to compost and bought an electric lawn mower instead of a gas-powered one.

But saving the world is exhausting, and

A cutting from certain plants can be placed in water; they’ll create a whole new plant.

Plants beget more plants The joy of a thriving houseplant in your home has a funny effect -- you tend to want more of them! Luckily, many houseplants can be divided or propagated to multiply your collection. Plants that have numerous nodes -- such as pothos plants -- can be snipped just below the node and placed in a jar of water. With some bright light and patience, roots will form from the node and create a brand-new plant.

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after achieving a degree in environmental studies, she needed a break from speaking in front of Congress and organizing Earth Day marches.

She has focused since on saving a smaller corner of the world. She makes things grow, specifically,

houseplants.

MacKenzie has one room in our house devoted entirely to plants of all sizes and shapes. She pots and repots, propagates and probes for spider mites (a houseplant pest).

She squeals at new growth I can only squint at. She coos at plants that are growing the way she wants. She scolds the slackers.

She’ll sit for hours on the floor of her plant room, surrounded by dirt, determined to root out root rot.

The room has monstera delisiosa, broad-leaved plants that look like someone has taken a scissor to them. These are prized and only grow leaves with these “cut-outs” after years of care.

Spider plants have long, thin leaves that bow gracefully over the edges of their containers; snake plants’ sturdy leaves grow straight up.

Plants with variegated leaves break the monotony; they have texture and color – although the color is still mostly green.

Some look like they have had white paint spilled on them. And a tiny coveted “pink princess” shows splashes of pale pink.

A thrift-store glass cabinet in the corner of the plant room holds the most precious vegetation. These are the delicate plants that need high humidity. They are carefully monitored and frequently sprayed with water.

MacKenzie is potty about pots and searches for weeks to find just the right one for a new acquisition. Did you know that some plants grow better in ceramic

Choose the right light Eastern-facing windows will receive bright gentle light in the morning. Northern windows will receive very little bright light during the day. If a coffee table is six feet away from the window – it will receive less light than a spot right against a window. If you have a spot right on a southern-facing windowsill – you will need to choose a plant that can tolerate high amounts of light (such as cacti or ficus).

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PHOTOS BY MACKENZIE EARL

Small plants need smaller pots.

Choose the right pot Over-potting is a common problem with new houseplant enthusiasts. Simply put: the larger your pot, the more soil it contains; the more soil there is in a pot, the longer it takes to dry out. It is incredibly important to choose your pot based on the size of your root system. If your plant has a lot of foliage but its root system is only a few inches long, it is not ready to be moved into a larger pot.

If your root system is disproportionately small in comparison to its pot, the roots can be overwhelmed with saturated soil – and prone to rotting. I recommend choosing a pot that offers no more than 2 inches of additional room between your root ball and the sides of your pot. This gives your plant ample space to grow without dramatically increasing the time it takes for your soil to dry. and some prefer terra cotta? And that pots should always have a hole in the bottom for drainage?

MacKenzie has memorized all her plants’ Latin names and is a member of dozens of online houseplant networks.

She watches plant-forward YouTube videos and attends plant-swaps with other like-minded enthusiasts.

She convinced me to drive to Maryland with her to pick up a rare plant she found offered on Facebook Marketplace.

(She bribed me with ice cream, like I used to do to her when she was 7.)

Just as she convinced me to use reusable wrapping paper at Christmas all those years ago, she is dragging me into this more recent obsession.

See PLANTS, page 53

PLANTS, from page 52 Every few weeks, I notice a new houseplant in my bedroom. She is insidiously trying to get me to like them. When I object to the intruder, she smiles beatifically and says, “Oh Mom, I knew you’d love it.”

How to handle pesky pests Houseplant pests such as aphids, scale, spider mites or thrips can be a nuisance.

Most of these pests can cause damage to your plant by sucking out the sap in your plants’ leaves.

Here are a few pieces of advice for keeping pests out of your houseplant collection: 1) Always quarantine the new plants you bring home. Keep them separated from the rest of your plants for at least two weeks so that you can monitor for any pests.

2) Inspect your leaves every time you water. It is so much easier to treat a pest issue right when it starts rather than stand off against an infestation.

3) Treat your plants with a pest preventative. You can do this by spraying your plants weekly or bi-weekly with insecticidal soap or similar pest preventative – or mixing systemic granules into your soil.

I am not cut out to nurture houseplants. I fret if a leaf turns brown and immediately plead with her to “fix it.”

MacKenzie will rip off the offending leaf and say, “Mom, sometimes that happens.

It’s OK.” She’ll explain that sometimes plants’ leaves will get crispy when they have too much sun or too little water; and sometimes they’ll react that way when they are overwatered.

What? Is there no logic to this at all?

I was at my wit’s end about a Calathea plant she had given me. I noticed that at night it would shrivel up. I’d immediately move it to a “better” spot in the room. In the morning it would look glorious and I’d sigh in relief.

But then 12 hours later it would collapse into itself again.

The plant whisperer laughed out loud when I told her what was happening. “It’s called a prayer plant because it spreads out and reaches toward the sun during the day, then pulls in on itself at night.

That’s what it’s supposed to do.”

Stupid plant.

I’m not cut out for all this drama.

But if you are, MacKenzie has generously provided some tips here to keep your houseplants alive and happy. If you do it right, she might give you ice cream.

Beware of toxic plants Many plants are toxic if ingested by children or pets. If you have a mobile child at home – consider whether they can access your plants. Some cats and dogs also nip at fluttering leaves – and can benefit from non-toxic plants in the home. Calatheas, pileas, peperomias and echeverias are all non-toxic options that make wonderful houseplants.

Here’s a website to check if a plant is toxic: aspca.org/pet-care/animal-poison-control/toxic-and-non-toxic-plants

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